TML Wk 32: A key change in my professional practice.

My post this week relates to reflective practice. In response to this I will consider as a school leader the impact that this course has had on my professional practice as a leader using aspects of the Hack Education themes. I will discuss this considering what happened using Rolfe’s (2001) reflective model to unpack it. This takes the form of three simple questions, “what”, “so what” and “now what”.

What?

The Mindlab's 2016 portal of Hack Education in which the trigger statements “In the future education will be…”, “In the future education will not have…” and “I wish education…” were answered and subsequently analysed into 13 themes/concepts as shown in the picture below and from the research of Parsons et. al (2017, p61) this allows me to reflect on the areas of my practice related to collaborative, technological, future focused, digital and 21st Century Skills Based as a leader of a primary school.

I have also felt a huge responsibility as an educational leader to promote within our staff a Learning-focused culture as required within Our Code, Our Standards for the teaching profession where this is described as:

• Learning-focused culture - Develop a culture that is focused on learning, and is characterised by respect, inclusion, empathy, collaboration and safety (p. 20).

So What?

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As a school leader, I am wanting our teaching team to collaborate together and provide the best learning opportunities for our students in order to be future focused.  I have reflected on the use of digital technologies for both staff work streams and student learning.  Seeing the value of participating in this course and encouraging as many staff members as possible to participate, I have had to have a positive mindset and show ways of working that the workload for this course, as well as teaching and family commitments can be achieved.  It has been important to encourage others on the course to speak positively rather than negatively about the workload (this has been the biggest challenge, and one that hasn't fully been achieved).  Although I can see positive changes in daily practice for each of the staff members involved in the course, it is hard for them to see beyond the workload capacity that this new learning has brought to encourage others to participate.

In promoting a learning-focused culture I have developed digital systems in order for staff to collaborate and reflect using teaching as inquiry with a collaborative inquiry lens.  This process has been iterated several times in order to explore adaptive leadership and being agile in order to meet the needs of the staff (this has been my biggest reflective area and change in practice).  Recognising through feedback that the digital system created wasn't working for staff and providing coaching and changes to get what is required for effective teaching as inquiry and learning-focused culture it was important to refine and revise our digital system for staff reflection on the changes in their practices.  I need to relate these changes also to the professional standard so that staff can see explicitly the link to the learning-focused culture standard.

Now What?

I need to continue promoting effective digital work flow and consider the parameters of professional learning for all staff to feel comfortable working and teaching in a digital world.  As a staff next term we will complete the digital passport created by MindLab and several staff have also committed to becoming Google Certified Educators Level 1 - being a Google for Education NZ Leader, I will be running a study group each week to support our staff.

In order to reflect on digital innovations at our school, I need to work with a team of educators that looks closely at our Tinker Time innovation to create a rubric that identifies a progression of learning.  This document would support staff to understand how our learners participating in the Tinker Time innovation are meeting the achievement objectives and process outcomes of the digital technologies curriculum.  I envisage that this will link to 21st Century skills and attributes and link back to our newly created GEMS foundation of learning curriculum at Sunnyhills School.

I will continue to lead by example in digital leadership within my school context and wider professional networks that I am involved with.  I will encourage our staff on this Post Grad Certificate in Applied Practice my support to successfully complete their professional learning by continuing to dedicate time in our meeting schedule for them to focus on their professional improvement.  I will also encourage the graduates that form our Sunnyhills Community of Practice to continue to be innovative and feel comfortable to explore the digital possibilities for our learners and to share this practice with all our team, so that all classes at our school can benefit from our new learning.

Word Count: 803 words

References:

Ministry of Education (2017). Our code, our standards. Retrieved from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/our-code-our-standards

Parsons, D., Lynch, J., Han, B., & Thorn, R. (2017). Hack education: Crowdsourcing the future of education in New Zealand. In S. Nash and L.L.M. Patston (Eds.), Spaces and Pedagogies: New Zealand Tertiary Learning and Teaching Conference 2017 Proceedings (pp. 57–66). Auckland, New Zealand: ePress, Unitec Institute of Technology. 

Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., Jasper, M. (2001) Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a user’s guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Image credit: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1379760

TML Week 17: Reflective Practice

Reflective practice is one of those terms that is touted as current best practice for being responsive to the needs of our learners and dare I add in my leadership role, responsive to our staff and community needs.  It has become an integral part of the cycle of teaching as inquiry for effective pedagogy, a practice that is now widespread as a means for educational improvement and improved teacher quality. However after reading through the article by Finlay (2008), I would postulate that it is not done with the depth of understanding to truly be reflective.  The important element of critical analysis required for reflection-on-action as Schön (1983, cited in Finlay, 2008) describes as ‘after-the-event-thinking’ is often missing. In this post, I attempt to use a three step model by Jay and Johnson (2002) to critically reflect on my own reflective practice.

Jay and Johnson (2002) Reflective Model

Stage 1: Descriptive

In my own practice, as an educational leader, I do not believe I reflect to the best of my ability, despite good intentions.  In a time poor environment where I am driven to juggle many tasks and manage events on a situational basis, I feel I need to be more selective and spend time to reflect and draw clarity to the events around me for future learning and leadership. I am often caught up with situations that arise unscheduled, where I have to be agile and this requires me to take a reflection-in-action (thinking while doing) approach.  I often find that I then personally reflect on my own after a situation or event on my actions, my feelings and what I would do differently in the future based on my own gut feeling and hindsight.

Stage 2: Comparative

When given the opportunity to meet with a colleague, my leadership team, or in a professional learning group, I have the time to digest an event and reflect more deeply on my actions, the situation and contemplate how to adapt if this event or similar was to occur again.  When reflecting with others, if this is verbal or completing a PMI chart of an event, I am drawn to the many perspectives that I would not have had while in an isolated internal thought structure. This interaction allows me to consider multiple perspectives, feelings and therefore new information for me to add to my personal professional knowledge and mental model.  I also find when I reflect with my professional learning group, we are often reflecting against our own practice and a current topical reading. For example, currently my professional learning group is reading Dylan Wiliam (2016), Leadership for teacher learning. I find relating relevant readings when reflecting on a situation or event can be helpful to uncover what the wider educational community have found through research.  However, I must include in this part of the reflective process that through being a connected educator and leader, I will often seek perspectives from social media. I tend to post on a closed Facebook group for New Zealand Principals, or on Twitter to seek advice.

Stage 3: Critical reflection

After connecting with others through online forums or in person (partner, team or group), and considering relevant readings (or research) I find I am able to draw conclusions and considerations to add to my personal professional knowledge.  Through these connections I know that when confronted with a new situation or event, I am often more poised to respond in-the-moment (reflection-in-action) by appropriately drawing on hindsight of previous experience, collective wisdom gained through discussion and readings, and ready to seek further feedback from my colleagues.

Word Count: 599

References

Finlay, L. (2008). Reflecting on reflective practice. Practice-based Professional Learning Centre, Open University. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/sites/www.open.ac.uk.opencetl/files/files/ecms/web-content/Finlay-(2008)-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf

Jay, J.K. and Johnson, K.L. (2002). Capturing complexity: a typology of reflective practice for teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 73-85.

Schön, D.A. (1983). The reflective practitioner. New York: Basic Books