Learning about Learning

I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend Clackmannanshire Council’s Curriculum for Excellence conference in Stirling yesterday.   Guest speaker was Philip Cam from University of New South Wales.  He talked about philosophical inquiry as a basis for developing communities of inquiry in schools(from a very young age). 

One of the workshops I attended was from Jeremy Morris of Monifieth High School.  He was talking about how they, as a school, had begun to get to grips with CfE.  In short, they had organised their S1 programme around different ‘themes’ which ran for a few weeks at a time.  The ‘core’ was individual, local, national, and global Citizenship and each of the themes related to some aspect of the core(eg Africa, Languages fortnight, health promotion, “Eurofieth”-see website, etc).   Departments working together to deliver agreed outcomes over the course of the school session.

What struck me most was not the ‘what’, the content, but how they had gone about the process.  They had a very large ‘year planner’ prominently displayed in the staffroom (a focal point for much discussion by all accounts!), which could be modified and added to, to reflect changing or shifting priorities, as well as taking all principal teachers out of school for a planning session, to look at the experiences and outcomes and discuss how together they could create a coherent programme.

What came through above all else was that they had engaged staff across the school in professional discussion, dialogue and negotiation which had gone a long way to breaking the subject barriers that can be all too evident in secondary schools.  They had also taken a managable ‘chunk’ of the school timetable to innovate with and will learn from this for future years as CfE develops in the school.  I thought it a very interesting example of a school beginning to experiment with possible models of CfE within its own context, but also in such a manner as to make the ’risks’ managable. 

inspirED is a collection of news and stories to inspire anyone interested in innovative approaches to teaching and learning.  There are some great articles, links and ideas.  Well worth a look.

Stephen Heppell’s visit to the school was a great opportunity for me to see some of the incredible animation and film work being created by the youngsters at Preston Lodge High School.  If animation and film-making are your thing it would be worth getting in touch with our Art department, PT Jim Cramb and the other members of staff are helping to create our film-makers of tomorrow. The link above is to an immensely powerful film about the Holocaust used in school for Holocaust memorial week and created by Preston Lodge students.

I then had an opportunity to discuss the ALPs programme with Stephen,  Ewan MacIntosh and David Gilmour and share experiences and views on working with youngsters who are in need of significant support in the mainstream setting. 

Having these opportunities helps convince me further that the type of work we are doing with our ALPs youngsters has the potential to spread much further than just the ‘NEET’ group.  I hope that we will have the opportunity to explore avenues for such development in the coming years as A Curriculum for Excellence broadens out our ideas of the curriculum.

I took a good deal from what May Sweeney had to say in her presentation to the conference on Friday.  To summarise, the message I got (feel free to correct me if you were there and I’m wrong!) was that the curriculum is opening up to allow activities previously viewed as extra curricular becoming an integral part.  For example, clubs and interest groups, tying in with the ideas of personalisation and choice.

Literacy, Numeracy and aspects of the Health curriculum are very clearly the responsibility of all teachers, not just subject specialists.

In new ACE ‘levels’ 1 to 4, breadth is the key element, organised through curricular areas: Health and wellbeing, languages, mathematics, sciences, social studies, expressive arts, technologies and Religious and moral education.  Specialisation comes after levels 1 to 4. (There is debate as to whether the word ‘level’ will be used because of the connections to 5-14)  There is to be consultation over the structure of Standard grade and Higher still this summer.

Pupil voice = co-creation of the curriculum :  Leading to more personalisation and choice.

Building resilience in to the ‘pupil’s toolkit’ is seen as essential.  The ability to meet novel situations with confidence and stick at any given task.  Quick to say but perhaps on of the biggest challenges.

Assessment is for Learning techniques should be more than ‘using traffic lights’ in classrooms.  Deeper consideration of AiFL is needed.

A study of interdisciplinary learning (by Siskin?) has suggested that interdisciplinary learning is vital in helping young people to connect to more specialised, discrete learning.  I think that we are organised in almost the opposite manner in secondary schools at the moment.

Deliberately mixing age groups is encouraged for some activities, with a view to challenging negative peer group influences and encourage leadership roles amongst students.

Opportunities for reflection, both personal and collective, are built in to the teaching and learning experience.

There are still many questions to be answered in all of the areas mentioned above, not least how achievement is recorded and progression is ensured within the more flexible learning structure. 

It was clear that in East Lothian there is certainly action taking place.   In my experience, initiatives like Extreme Learning, cross-curricular projects like those happening at Preston Lodge High School (more about our most recent, The Rhythm of Life, coming soon) and new curricular structures are beginning to be tested and are presenting an early picture of how ACE is developing.

I found out about VIG only today in discussion with a colleague and we have decided to look at look at possibly using it with the ALPs programme.  What is the VIG you ask?

Video Interaction Guidance “is a technique which aims to improve communications and relationships for participants.  Participants are involved in discussing very short recordings of their interactions of their successful interactions with a Video Interaction Guider.”   The important word for me in this blurb is “successful”, focussing on where things have gone right and re-inforcing and exploring that strategy/choice/behaviour.

We already use digital video with the group, but this is much more focussed and will be delivered by a trained Video Interaction Guider.   This person will initially be another professional not directly involved with the ALPs programme, but it may be something we look to having as an integral part of the programme in future.

I’ve blogged quite a bit about thinking skills and creativity, it’s something I have a real interest in.  I am keenly aware my own personal development has been positively affected by becoming more emotionally literate and thinking about my thinking, perceptions, mental models whatever you want to call it, and subsequently accessing my own creative thinking in ways I probably didn’t realise I could.  Over the course of my posts about thinking skills I’ve had a number of people respond favourably to my raising the topic and also being interested in finding out more.

It has occurred to me tonight that perhaps this is something that we, as an authority, should be looking at in more detail and perhaps in a more structured way.  It is probably happening already, but if not is there scope for a group of interested individuals coming together to look at current research and educational practice in this area and perhaps recommend a way forward in terms of developing our practice? 

There seems to be no doubt that the development of thinking skills and creativity is high on the agenda in A Curriculum for Excellence.  I’m also keenly aware that I have little or no knowledge of what is happening in primary schools and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only secondary teacher in this position. 

Enterprise education  focusses extremely well on creativity from a mainly, but not exclusively, economic perspective and the link provides an overview of much of the excellent work currently taking place in East Lothian.  I have not however heard or seen much in the way of teaching the skills in a more holistic way, purely from a personal development and understanding perspective.  I’m prepared to be shot down on that one because I’m obviously only talking from my own experience in schools and I may well be wrong.

There is also the idea of development and progression of thinking skills, linked in some way, I would venture, to emotional intelligence.  I’m sure there are many ‘emotionally intelligent classrooms’ around the region and the country who are also employing thinking skills techniques both by chance and by design.  However, I’m not sure if there is much in the way of a real exploration of what works and is appropriate at what stage for youngsters(and adults). 

I think there may be a real opportunity for East Lothian to be a leader in this field, because from what I saw at the ‘Thinking about Thinking’ conference, everyone is pretty much at the same stage of development; ie using techniques such as brainstorming, mindmapping etc but there did not seem to be a huge amount beyond that, especially in the area of emotional intelligence.  Scottish Borders has dabbled with Feuerstein’s methodology but again there has not been an enormous amount of data generated as to its efficacy or usefulness in schools, although it does look very interesting.  Maybe I’m just looking at something which does already exist from a different perspective, I’m not sure.

Anyway, this has really been a bit of and idea in my head without too much basis in fact for it!  I’d be interested in hearing others views on this one. 

Professor Brian Boyd’s keynote speech focused on the place of thinking skills within a Curriculum for Excellence.  The main themes from the speech as I understood them were as follows :

Making the connections

Are we on the edge of a ‘New Enlightenment’ with the freedom being given to educators through a Curriculum for Excellence?

Thinking skills are equally important for the highest achieveing students as for those finding difficulty.  He suggested that youngsters are so well ‘trained’ for Highers that it ends up being more about reproduction than creativity and inquiry, the skills increasingly necessary to succeed in today’s society.  

Looking at the continuity of learning and transfer of skills eg p6/7 to S1

Learning to Learn - Metacognition

Thinking skills theories and programmes.

Understanding is key.  “Demonstrated understanding in new situations is the cognitive challenge that underpins thinking skills”

Co-operative learning.

Curriculum Architecture

ACfE as a focus for learning and an enabling curriculum.

No longer an accountability(as consequence) culture.

Fundamental principles that link thinking, creativity, enterprise, not just the delivery of discrete initiatives.

A love of learning.

What happens next?

Collegiality and collaboration will help both teachers and students.

Can we put the curriculum architecture in place?

Can we focus on achievement and ‘close the gap’ between highest and lower achievers?

Can we help teachers and learners co-create the curriculum?

I’m a fan of Brian Boyd and again, for me, he didn’t disappoint with this speech.  There was agreat deal more to it than my short summary, but I think I’ve covered the main thrust.  It was very interesting to hear someone who had a great stake in developing ACfE speak so passionately about his vision for it.   He also spoke of the practical implications of shifting the focus of what we do towards the skills of inquiry and creation and away from the constraints of exam results.  We are nowhere near that kindof curriculum at the moment and there will be much debate and discussion amongst us all as we move forward wth ACfE, but I for one am really excited about the prospects.  I heard a number of people who had been teaching for more than twenty years saying the same thing; they are more excited by ACfE than they have been about anything in their whole teaching career, surely that is proof, were it needed, of how significant the next few years could be. 

It has been a hectic few weeks as I think I’ve mentioned ad infinitum recently with the launch of ALPs, SQH Unit 3 and other ‘enjoyable’ pressures.   However, I think I was beginning to feel a bit empty in the fuel tank, the red light was certainly on.  I knew that the brain was threatening to become full of broken biscuits because I hadn’t done any reading for three or four days, a sure fire sign.  I also hadn’t done any drumming for two weeks prior to tonight so it was great to go bash them to bits and switch fully on to another ‘mode’ of brain activity. I’m feeling re-invigorated now and ready for the next few hectic days.  It really is amazing what a completely different challenge and focus does to help order the rest of the brain!

I’m going to the ’Thinking about Thinking’ inter-authority conference at Murrayfield tomorrow.  I’m excited about attending because I believe that teaching thinking skills explicitly is an idea that will be developed further in the coming years in Scotland.  I’m convinced it has huge potential for the development of self awareness and emotional literacy in young people and adults.  There is a keynote speech from Brian Boyd who was one of my tutors at teaching college and someone for whom I have great respect.

I’ll no doubt report back on that tomorrow.

I’ve mentioned in previous blogs about reading Peter Senge’s Fifth Discipline.  Over the last few nights I’ve been reading about the concept of mental models.  The idea is not new to me, nor I suspect to many others who have read the book.  The interesting thing about Senge’s description in my opinion is what we do with our mental models.  We are able to test them by speaking openly to other people rather than making assumptions about what they may or may not be thinking.  This gives us accurate ‘data’ to use in daily interactions and decision making.  

In removing assumptions and challenging our mental models which can be harmful and limiting, we are able to interact in a much more effective and efficient way.  By extrapolating what this means to the organisational scale, if people are open to testing the validity of their assumptions about others then the kind of communication which will take place between people will, I would think, inevitably be more honest, open and fruitful. 

If we could teach this in such a way that young people understood the ideas and ‘took control’ of their thinking and decision-making in this way it could be incredbly powerful in helping them develop relationships with others and resolve difficulties.  More thinking skills means more options. 

I suspect that effective communicators probably challenge their own mental models inherently to a great extent, but the powerful ‘bit’ for me is making this kind of thinking explicit in your every day dealings with people.  It must surely make you more aware of your own prejudices and promote a more open minded outlook and way of communicating.  I’ve been trying to be more aware over the last couple of days and I’ve been fascinated at having ‘caught’ myself a couple of times reverting to a stereotypical view or reaction very easily.  Powerul stuff.

It leads me on to an interesting experience I had at the end of the day today.  I’d asked staff to complete a very short questionairre about creativity to help me with my SQH comparative study.  Out of about 75 I gave out I had a return of about 20 which I suppose isn’t far from what I expected.  The interesting/strange thing was that two questionairres were returned to my pigeonhole crumpled up and not completed.  I thought maybe it was kids(doing them a disservice I know), but they didn’t know I was conducting the survey, my name wasn’t on it and I’d only announced it at the staff briefing.  So it got me thinking, what are the mental models at play that provoke this kind of reaction?  I’d really like to know because the people who did it could probably provide me with an interesting viewpoint on much of what I was investigating, but unfortunately I suspect I never will. 

I’m putting a health warning at the top here, this is more of my thoughts as opposed to information about anything that’s going on.  It may or may not be of interest, but it is important for my learning.  With that in mind please feel free to bail out or battle on, the decision is yours! 

I’ve been thinking about the idea of vision in education and what it means to me on a personal level and to the various stakeholders within a school community.  We often hear and use phrases such as ’shared vision’ and collegiality within our working lives, but what do they actually mean?  Does shared vision leave room for individual personal development and ambition or are we all duty bound to ‘toe the party line’ in pursuit of the common good?  My answer would be that shared vision can and must encompass ‘core values’ that are shared and agreed by all, in a genuine way, not as a fait accomplis.  Within that vision, personal development and growth can only compliment the development of the organisation if espoused values match up to those acted out. 

Having recently been ‘glued’ to Peter Senge’s Fifth Discipline I am really thinking about espoused values as opposed to those we act out daily.  We are all conversant with the Curriculum for Excellence mantra of creating successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors as well as the notion of unconditional positive regard. But how do we translate it in to action?

I find myself asking what do these things ‘look and feel like’ and this week have had great cause to question my own words and actions as it has been a particularly busy one in dealing with ‘troubled’ youngsters.  The pressure that volatile incidents put on the youngsters and on members of staff can be enormous.  I have found myself deliberately taking a step back, metaphorically, from the emotion to try deal with creating a solution or plan of action to support all concerned.  Trying to be reflective about a situation in ‘real time’.

As I’m sure many teachers, especially Pupil Support and Senior Managers must experience daily, there is a delicate balancing act between de-escalating an emotional situation and ensuring a clear investigation and understanding of the choices that were made in creating it in the first place.  I’m talking about both young people and adults here, a difficult statement to consider because we don’t always act like adults.  We are all fallible after all and making a mistake can be a difficult pill to swallow, but it is inevitable in a profession built upon human interaction. 

I was speaking to a colleague today who was physically exhausted as a result of the emotional input involved in recent interactions with staff and students.  I’m not sure that this is uncommon.  I wondered how much emotional ‘discomfort’ can be combatted by acting out espoused values on a daily basis?  If we are true to our values can we make decisions and judgements based on those values while keeping ’emotional interference’ to a minimum?  Sounds pretty mechanical when I put it like that, and I’m not suggesting that my colleague was not acting based on espoused values, just that the thought occurred to me on a personal level.

I think the key, for me, in working with others in volatile situations is acknowledging that there are emotions involved but attempting to get to the underlying truth about what is causing them to get out of control.  Personal reflection provides a way of doing so for me and blogging helps me enormously.  Not perhaps in the sense that I pour my heart out to the world, but the practice of looking back is one that has become a habit for me and definitely helps me do a better job. 

This brings me back to espoused values again.  The process of reflection helps re-inforce what the correct/best/most appropriate course of action to take is or was in relation to my own espoused values and I feel that I have genuinely changed as a person in the last year. An enormous amount of that change being due to making a habit of personal reflection and getting high quality feedback and learning from others. It’s a feedback loop.  It’s also a real challenge to act out your espoused values all the time.  I’m not there yet, but definitely trying!

This is a post that is very personal and I’m wasn’t too sure about actually posting it but I have found myself writing it tonight and not wanting to write anything else, so I suppose it has had to come out!  For me it’s been a difficult thing to do, but that’s probably why it’s a good thing to do it.