Edited by Keith Redman

BUMPER CHRISTMAS EDITION

Topics covered in this edition include:

• In Memoriam: Theodore (Ted) Sizer
• A report from one session at ANSN’s 4th National Forum, held in November
• John Hogan’s journal from the USA: the Coalition and more
• Interested in a Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) study tour in 2010?
• ANSN’s 2009 Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) Hub completes its program
• Register NOW for the 2010 Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) Hub (Victoria)
• Dimensions of Learning (DoL) Hub for 2010
• 2010 Setting the Stage for Learning Hub – professional learning opportunities
• Report from the Mooloolaba Advanced DoL Hub’s final (showcase) day
• 1:1 Laptop Learning Hub in 2010
• Cognitive Coaching – Research Circle
• Report on an external event: Annual Oration to Australian Psychological Society (APS), delivered by Professor Barry McGaw
• Brief report on Hanan Harrison’s 2009 work with the national project: Integrating ICT pedagogy in School Community
• Some interesting reading
• Some interesting listening

In Memoriam: Theodore (Ted) Sizer

We were deeply saddened to hear that Theodore (Ted) Sizer, founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools in the USA, passed away on October 21, 2009.

Ted Sizer was a major influence on the Australian National Schools Network and Big Picture Education. He launched the ANSN and continued to work closely with us over the years. An excerpt from the Coalition of Essential Schools’ tribute reads as follows.

‘A New England native, Ted Sizer is widely recognized as a giant in the modern educational reform movement in the United States. His life and work has greatly influenced the instructional practices of schools, districts, states, and educators across the country and abroad for decades. His eloquent and fervent championing of progressive educational ideals has had a profound effect on hundreds of thousands of educators and students.’

To read more about the life and work of Ted Sizer, go to http://www.essentialschools.org/pub/ces_docs/about/org/execboard/ted_page.html.

To see a sample of a speech he gave to the ANSN go to our website here:

http://www.ansn.edu.au/in_memoriam_theodore_ryland_sizer

A report from one session at ANSN’s 4th National Forum, held in November

ANSN’s fourth national forum was held on Tuesday 17 November, at the Old Parliament House in Canberra. Participants reflected on the first two years of the Federal Government’s Education Revolution, discussing its impact and implications for school education. There was also consideration of some of the work that ANSN has undertaken with schools in the same period. One related session was presented by Andrea Federico (below, left), Victorian-based networker for ANSN’s Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) hubs and Assistant Principal at St Albans South Primary School.

Andrea outlined the work of the ANSN hubs, describing techniques and protocols used in delivering the program (above, centre and right), and identified some of the outcomes that have emerged, both for the 400+ participants in schools and the program designers/presenters. Reflecting on the process and what has been learnt along the way, at one stage in her paper she said:

The success of these projects was not to overwhelm teachers and try to give them too much too soon. We learnt that if we broke down the program to manageable sections of ICT skills, supported by readings and the bigger picture of how IWBs could be used in classrooms and where they fitted into that big picture, then teachers felt supported and their practice changed to varying degrees. So, it has been a pretty exciting thing to do. Grow an idea and watch what teachers can do with it.

She also reflected on the impact of the Education Revolution in the last two years at her own school, where she is Assistant Principal. The full text of Andrea’s paper will be available in the new year. Watch ANSN E-News for details of its publication, as well as reports from other areas covered during the Forum.

John Hogan’s journal from the USA: the Coalition and more

John Hogan, from WA, has just returned from the USA, where he attended the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) Fall Forum and visited a number of CES and Big Picture schools across the States. (See, as examples, below left and centre, the Met School in Providence, RI (the original Big Picture School) and, below right, the Monte del Sol Charter School in Santa Fe.

You can find out more about these schools at
http://www.themetschool.org/Metcenter/home.html and
http://www.montedelsol.org/pages/624.html

Some readers of ANSN E-News will have received at least parts of John’s journal, emailed periodically during his November trip. Apart from reporting and reflecting on the Forum sessions that he attended – including topics such as: US federal policy in education; the work of Met School Advisors; educating for sustainability; the launch of a book on small schools/big ideas; and the role of play in learning – John wrote informally about meeting with leading educators. One of these, Dennis Littky, introduced the session on the Small Schools book and made a couple of comments that resonated with John for ANSN.

“… the theory is drawn from the practice. We need to keep doing this.”

and, about the importance of networks like CES (and ANSN):

“… when I was Principal and alone, and needed support, I felt I had more strength to cope because of the CES. I could count on help from the network.”

Once over his jet lag, John plans to make available materials/resources that he gathered along the way, including details of a remarkable mentoring program in Santa Fe and ideas from a 3-day National Community Education Conference that he attended on the west coast. The latter included successful use of the World Café process, which is designed to help a large group persist and deal with hard questions (see www.theworldcafe.com/hosting.htm).

For further details, email John.Hogan@ansn.edu.au

Interested in a Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) study tour in 2010?

John Hogan has also drawn attention to a study tour offered by CES in early 2010. The tour locations and dates are

Albuquerque, New Mexico, 25-26 February, 2010
New York, New York, 1-2 March, 2010

The summary provided says the following: “CES is offering a school study tour of several exemplary CES small schools located in both Albuquerque, New Mexico, and New York City. The tours are open to educators, parents, students, and anyone interested in experiencing Essential Schools in action. You will gain new insight into CES best practices and take back tools and skills to share with your own schools. Take advantage of having an inside look at some of the most powerful innovative educational programs CES schools have to offer.”

The costs quoted for the tour are as follows (in US dollars)
CES Affiliate Fee: $375.00     Non Affiliate Fee: $425.00     Youth fee: $250

For further details, email John.Hogan@ansn.edu.au

ANSN’s 2009 Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) Hub completes its program

The three IWB Hubs that started in Victoria in Term 1, 2009, held their final sessions in mid to late November and there has been very positive feedback For further details, contact andrea.federico@ansn.edu.au Keith Redman, E-News Editor, is currently working with some of the participants to develop ANSN Snapshots based on their experience with the Hub and the outcomes for their classroom practice. Watch E-News early in the New Year for details.

Register NOW for the 2010 Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) Hub (Victoria)

Now, before the end of the year, is the time to book a place for yourself or a school team in the Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) Hub that will start in March 2010. Demand for places is high, so act quickly. Don’t wait till schools return after the holidays.

The aim of the hub is to enable teachers to use IWBs in designing engaging and implementing rigorous learning experiences for their students. The hub deliberately caters for teachers in primary, secondary and special settings. Membership of an IWB Hub provides five days of intensive training (spread over the year) in the classroom uses of IWBs. The program includes opportunities for collaborative design and development of programs and materials, for sharing of ideas, for classroom trials and evaluation, and for peer-based exhibitions of work completed during the year. It also gives schools the opportunity to purchase packages, including the Promethean ACTIVboard (below, left), at reduced prices negotiated by the ANSN.

Dates already finalised for the IWB Hub in 2010 are Friday 12 March, Friday 19 March, Friday 23 April, Friday 23 July and Friday 3 September. Sessions for this Hub will all be held at St Albans South PS, Lister Street, St Albans.

For further details or to register, click here.

Dimensions of Learning (DoL) Hub for 2010

In recent years ANSN has provided professional learning opportunities in the ‘Dimensions of Learning’, based on research by the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) organisation and related practical experience. In 2010, teachers and school leaders – as individuals and teams – will again be able to join an ANSN DoL Hub, where they will explore instructional design models related to the five types of thinking (DoL) that are essential to successful learning.

Work in the Hub is based on the premise that all learning takes place against the backdrop of learners’ attitudes and perceptions (Dimension 1) and their use (or lack of use) of productive habits of mind (Dimension 5). Dimensions 2, 3 and 4 examine ways of viewing instructional strategies and assessment as types of thinking that allow students to take accountability for their own learning. There is an emphasis on collaborative work in DoL programs (below left), which are led by ANSN national networkers Hanan Harrison (below centre) and Tina Doe (below right).

For further details on the Dimensions of Learning and the five days of Hub activities, click here. 

In addition to the introductory Hub work, ANSN also offers three-day Advanced Workshops in Dimension of Learning. These are designed for educators who currently use DoL as their learning design framework, to help them enhance their classroom practice further, through an alignment of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment For details, click here.

Proposed locations for the introductory Hub and also for the Advanced Workshops in 2010, include Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Canberra, Darwin, Lismore, Melbourne, Perth, Sunshine Coast, Sydney and Tasmania.

To express your interest in joining an introductory Hub at one of these locations click here. 

To express your interest in joining an Advanced Workshop at one of these locations click here. 

You can follow the same links if you wish to explore the possibility of organising sessions in an alternative location. Alternatively, you can contact Tina Doe at tina.doe@ansn.edu.au or by mobile at 0421 440 725.

Dates scheduled at this stage for DoL-related work are as follows:

• Northern Territory, Introductory Hub, 18 and 19 February, 10 and 11 May, 9 August
• Northern Territory, Advanced Workshops, 12 and 13 May, 10 August
• Mooloolaba, Advanced Workshops (#1), 22 and 23 February, 4 May
• Mooloolaba, Advanced Workshops (#2), 19 and 20 July, 19 October
• Mooloolaba, Introductory Hub (#1), 1 and 2 March, 19 and 20 April, 31 May
• Mooloolaba, Introductory Hub (#2), 26 and 27 July, 6 and 7 September, 20 October
• Toowoomba, Introductory Hub, 17 and 18 March, 27 and 28 April, 19 August
• Toowoomba, Advanced Workshops, 29 and 30 April, 20 August
  Gold Coast, Introductory Hub, 24 and 25 May, 23 and 24 August, 11 October
• Gold Coast, Advanced Workshops, 26 and 27 May, 12 October

2010 Setting the Stage for Learning Hub – professional learning opportunities

In 2010, ANSN will continue to offer the program “Setting the Stage for Learning” which has the subtitle “Learning to learn – building positive attitudes and perceptions (DoL Dimension 1), through productive Habits of Mind (Dimension 5)”. This action learning program provides tools that will help schools build the citizenship skills, knowledge, capabilities and values that equip our students as independent thinkers for the 21st century knowledge economy.

Initially, hub participants experience a range of opportunities to introduce or reacquaint them with productive Habits of Mind (Dimension 5) and the establishment of positive Attitudes and Perceptions (Dimension 1) for learning. Progressively, the focus on action learning challenges and supports individual understanding, through professional dialogue and reflection strategies.

Locations and dates for Setting the Stage, already scheduled for 2010, are:

• Mooloolaba, Setting the Stage (#1) 3 and 4 March
• Mooloolaba, Setting the Stage (#2) 21 and 22 July

Participants may choose only to undertake these two days of Setting the Stage or, if they choose to continue and explore the whole DoL framework, they may do so at the same location, on the dates listed in the previous news item.

For further details, to register, or to express interest in participating in the Hub at this or other locations across Australia, click here.  Alternatively,  contact Tina Doe at tina.doe@ansn.edu.au or by mobile at 0421 440 725.

Report from the Mooloolaba Advanced DoL Hub’s final (showcase) day

Readers who are considering participation in a DoL Hub might be interested to hear about the range of projects undertaken by members of the 2009 Hub. In November, the 2009 Mooloolaba Advanced DoL Hub held its final session, where schools showcased and shared what they had been doing.

Team members from Trinity Lutheran College reflected on how they had worked to get staff onside by demonstrating the value of DoL. Key features of their project related to leadership for systemic reform, teacher efficacy and improved student outcomes. See below (left and centre) for images from their presentation.

Kenmore SHS team members (above, right) reported on how they had used DoL to put together a comprehensive planning schema that seeks to add value to the school’s present pedagogical practices. Tina Doe reports that this presentation was a clear example of articulating the DoL framework to bridge the theory/practice divide.

The team from Narangba Valley SHS (below, left) had sought to embed DoL to improve student outcomes. They had developed a five-year plan, using the framework as an explicit learning design. Tina comments that how they used the Habits of Mind (HoM) symbols as a visual cue to embed the HoMs was an impressive and simple strategy.

David Turner (above, centre, with Tina Doe) is Principal of Mooloolaba SS and an ANSN Board member. He reflected on the supports that school leaders can put in place to improve the quality of teaching. He focused on ‘raising capital to improve the school’, what research shows to work best, and the transferability of strategies and practice between school contexts.

The team at Sunshine Coast Grammar School (above, right) had worked to improve learning outcomes through staff engagement with and commitment to the DoL framework. They had modelled a collaborative approach to developing a learning community.

Tina Doe, as program facilitator, expressed her particular thanks to David Turner for hosting a series of hubs at Mooloolaba SS, which is one of ANSN’s partner schools.

1:1 Laptop Learning Hub in 2010

This new ANSN hub is designed to enable groups of teachers from interested schools to design engaging and rigorous learning experiences for their students, whilst supporting one another in the learning.

The hub, which will explore essential questions about 1:1 learning, the integration of laptops and other technologies in the classroom, and the implications for teaching practice, caters for teachers in primary, secondary and special settings.

Other aims for the hub are to:

• build a learning and sharing community, where ideas and good practice can be shared in supportive environment;
• deliver a comprehensive training program, so participants will have confidence teaching where very student has access to a laptop;
• support student learning needs, by exploring the opportunities for innovative teaching and learning using laptops;
• share and develop resources with other teachers to use back at school

The Hub will run over 4 days in Terms 1 and 2 in 2010, at Williamstown Primary School in Melbourne, Victoria. The dates are Tuesday 16 March, Wednesday 5 May, Wednesday 2 June and Wednesday 28 July.

To find out more, including details of activities on each of the days, or to register a team, click here. Alternatively, email joe.wickert@ansn.edu.au
or call Joe on (02) 9590 5341.

Cognitive Coaching – Research Circle

The ANSN Cognitive Coaching Research Circle has operated throughout 2009, helping member schools build reflective communities. The Circle uses action learning and cognitive coaching to support changes in teacher pedagogy and will be continuing in 2010, focusing particularly on its series of workshops in Western Australia. More details are at http://www.ansn.edu.au/projects/cognitive_coaching

To enquire about opportunities for participating in Cognitive Coaching programs, email the Research Circle Co-ordinator: gavin.grift@ansn.edu.au

Report on an external event: Annual Oration to Australian Psychological Society (APS), delivered by Professor Barry McGaw

In November Professor Barry McGaw delivered the annual Australian Psychological Society (APS) oration to APS members in Melbourne. ANSN E-News editor Keith Redman attended. Formerly CEO of ACER, Barry is now Chair of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. Prior to returning to Australia at the end of 2005, he was Director for Education at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in Paris.

Barry’s topic was “Psychology and the National Curriculum”. He set a context for his audience by discussing the nature of psychology and focused in his presentation on psychological measurement (including its development over time from norms to standards) and its role in education:

• for shaping ways in which student performance is represented;
• for building a quantitative basis for policy and practice, in terms of quality and equity; and
• for applying these insights in reporting on school performance in Australia.

He then reflected on the role of research on learning – with particular reference to learning to read and the development of expertise. He made extensive use of data from the OECD’s PISA research to consider the performance of Australian children in reading literacy, comparison with the results from other countries.

A pdf version of Barry’s PowerPoint presentation, with annotations, is accessible on the APS website at http://www.psychology.org.au/news/news_updates/  There is also an option to listen to a recording of the oration. Readers might find interest in slides 15 (trends in Australian reading performance), 19 and 20 (social gradients for reading literacy, in PISA 2000), and 21 (lessons to be learnt). Slides 26-23 relate to reporting on school performance in Australia, including the new ‘My School’ report format, comparisons of NAPLAN results with those of other schools, and the portrayal of a school’s distribution of results.

Brief report on Hanan Harrison’s 2009 work with the national project: Integrating ICT pedagogy in School Community

Throughout 2009, ANSN national networker Hanan Harrison has been working with the DEEWR-funded project Integrating ICT pedagogy in School Community. Among other things, this has involved designing, organising and presenting seminars and workshops (below left and centre) around the country.

The aim of the project has been to explore teaching through the use of ICT, focusing on related enhancement of pedagogy for regional/rural school teachers (primary and secondary and across sectors). There have been 3 phases: Phase 1, on-line self reflection and preparation; Phase 2, a seminar for professional conversation and learning; Phase 3, school-based action learning research projects – each one supported with on-line resources and, for up to three months, by a Learning Mentor – culminating in a shared celebration of learning.

As 2009 ends, the project has reached Phase 3 and will extend in 2010 to the building of networks. Reaction from participants has been very positive. Examples from video interviews at project workshops include the following.

 

It’s been inspiring to think about how the technology can be used in a classroom and for a purpose.

It’s been fantastic. We’re lucky that two of us have been able to come … we’ve had so many ideas from the sessions at the workshop and, because we’re here together, we can talk to each other, bounce ideas, and pin down what we can put into practice when we go back to school.

Our first thoughts are about how we support teachers to use on-line opportunities to collaborate with each other – particularly beyond their own particular school, going across schools, across networks and across the state.

For a more detailed report from Hanan on the 2009 work of the project, click here. 

Some interesting reading

Finally, if you are looking for some light reading over the holiday period, here is a selection of recent education-related items accessible via Australian Policy Online.

Digital quality of life: understanding the personal and social benefits of the information technology revolution Robert D Atkinson & Daniel D Castro, (Information Technology and Innovation Foundation), argue that IT is the key enabler of many, if not most, of today’s key innovations and improvements – including better education.

How arts training improves attention and cognition US Researchers Brenda Patoine and Michael I Posner (Dana Foundation) are finding evidence that education in the arts transfers to seemingly unrelated cognitive abilities.

A market model of education? In an AEU paper, Anthony Ashbolt discusses the push for voucher funding in schools and argues that it would be a disaster for public education, teachers and students.

Informing mathematics pedagogy: TIMSS 07, Australia and the world

Sue Thomson and Sarah Buckley (ACER) analyse a selection of maths items from the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS 2007), illustrating areas of strength and, particularly weaknesses, for Australian students.

Doing better for children This OECD publication explores how much governments are spending on children and whether they are they spending it at the right times. 

Building an international research collaboration in early childhood education and care

Deborah Brennan (Social Policy Research Centre) explores the surge of policy initiatives in early childhood education and care in recent years and reflects on the relative lack of related comparative research.

Some interesting listening

ABC Radio National’s Life Matters, on Tuesday 24 November included author and educational commentator, Chris Bonnor, a former school principal. In his session, Chris questioned the supposedly sustained success of reforms introduced in New York City schools – reforms that are influencing educational policy in Australia. The session is available to listen to or download as a podcast, at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/

Have a great break everybody!

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