English for a new millennium : leading change

Book overview: This book came about as a result of The Australian Government Summer School for Teachers program that was announced as part of the 2007-08 Budget Package: Realising Our Potential. The Summer School brought together over 200 academics, teachers and education department officials for a smorgasbord of keynote presentations, workshops and social events that is unlikely to be repeated in this country. English for a New Millennium gives every English teacher an opportunity to share in the richness of that experience. It includes contributions from Catherine Beavis, Ray Misson, Elizabeth Webby, Gabriel Matters and Clare Bradford.

Cultivating teachers' knowledge and skills for leading change in schools

Australian policy initiatives and state curriculum reform efforts affirm a commitment to address student disengagement through the development of inclusive school environments, curriculum, and pedagogy. This paper, drawing on critical social theory, describes three Australian projects that support the cultivation of teachers’ beliefs, knowledge and skills for critical reflection and leading change in schools. The first project reports on the valued ethics that emerged in pre-service teacher reflections about a Service-learning Program at a university in Queensland. The second project reports on a school-based collaborative inquiry approach to professional development with a focus on literacy practices. The final project reports on an initiative in another university in Victoria, to operationalise pedagogical change and curriculum renewal in Victoria, through the Principles of Learning and Teaching (PoLT). These case studies illustrate how critical reflection and development of beliefs, knowledge and skills can be acquired to better meet the needs of schools.

Developing leaders of change in the teaching of large university chemistry classes

Final report of the the Active Learning in University Science (ALIUS) project.

This project aims to establish a new direction in first year chemistry teaching – away from didactic teaching methods in large lecture style teaching to more active, student centred learning experiences. Initially six universities have been involved in practice-based innovation: Charles Sturt University (NSW), The University of Sydney (NSW), Curtin University of Technology (WA), The University of Adelaide (SA), Deakin University (Vic), University of Tasmania (Tas).

Three domains have been identified as the architecture upon which sustainable L&T innovation will be built. These domains include Learning and Teaching innovation in project leaders’ and colleagues’ classrooms, development of project leaders as Science Learning Leaders, and creation of a Science Learning Hub to serve as a locus and catalyst for the development of a science teaching community of practice.

Progress against specified outcomes and deliverables

Learning and Teaching Innovation

The purpose of this domain is to improve student learning, engagement, retention and performance in large chemistry classes through increased use of student-centred teaching practice.
• The Project is named: ALIUS (Active Learning in University Science) - Leading Change in Australian Science Teaching
• All six ALIUS universities have now implemented Teaching Innovation into ALIUS team member classrooms
• Chemistry colleagues at three ALIUS universities have now implemented Teaching Innovation into their classrooms
• The ALIUS member in physics has implemented Teaching Innovations into his classrooms
• Chemistry colleagues at three ALIUS institutions have tried some Teaching Innovations in their classrooms
• Non-chemistry colleagues at four ALIUS institutions have tried, or expressed an interest in trying, Teaching Innovations in their classrooms
• The POGIL method has proved to be a useful model for Teaching Innovation in the classroom
• Many classroom resources have been developed and used at several ALIUS institutions; some of these have been submitted to the ALIUS database for public access. The remainder will continue to submitted
• Two seminars about Teaching Innovation have been developed, critiqued, revised, and presented at five ALIUS universities and three non-ALIUS universities
• Particular issues associated with implementing Teaching Innovations in Australian classrooms have been identified and possible solutions developed
• ALIUS members have worked with Learning and Teaching Centres at their universities to share methods.

Developing Science Learning Leaders

The purpose of this domain is to develop leadership capacity in the project leaders to equip them with skills to lead change first at their institutions, followed by developing leaders and leading change at other local institutions
• ALIUS members participated in Leadership Professional Development sessions with Craig McInnis and Colin Mason; both these sessions were found to be valuable and provide context and direction for the members and the ALIUS team
• The passion of an ‘early adopter’ was found to be a significant element in each node of the distributed framework
• Members developed an awareness of the necessity to build both the ‘sense of urgency’ and the ‘guiding coalition’ at each node
• ALIUS found the success of the distributed framework is strongly influenced by the relational aspects of the team.

Create a Science Learning Hub

The online Hub serves as a local and national clearinghouse for development of institutional Learning Leaders and dissemination of L&T innovation.
• The ALIUS website is now active and being populated with resources
• The sharing resource database structure is finalised and being populated with contributed materials.

Lessons Learnt

In order to bring about change in teaching practice it is necessary to:
• demonstrate a convincing benefit to student learning
• show that beyond an initial input of effort classroom innovations will not take more time than what is now done
• maintain a prominent exposure among colleagues - repeatedly give seminars, workshops, and everyday conversations; talk about teaching innovation; talk about easy tools to use; invite people to your classroom; engage colleagues in regular peer review of classroom practice
• have support from people already present in leadership roles to lead change in teaching practice
• have a project leader, someone for whom the project is paramount and will push it forward
• find a project manager, even with money budgeted
• meet face-to-face.

Dissemination
• Seminars presented 19 times including over 400 individuals and more than 24 Australian universities
• Workshops presented 25 times, over 80 participants at 11 Australian and two New Zealand Universities
• Two articles published in Chemistry in Australia, the Australian Chemistry Industry Journal of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute
• One refereed paper published in the Journal of Learning Design.

Primary science specialist learning program – report of delivery

The Primary Science Specialist (PrimSS) Professional Learning Program consisted of a fifteen day program, of which Deakin delivered 5 days of pedagogy and content in science education, followed by 3 days of leading change in schools and developing other teachers' capacities. Delivered in several phases, it was possible to provide teachers with ideas and models for them to trial within their schools and to report back to the group, during the program.

Improving middle years mathematics and science

The overall aim of the Improving Middle Years Mathematics and Science (IMYMS) project was to explore the explore the nature and significance of subject cultures in framing teacher and school practice in mathematics and science and to develop a middle years school improvement model that takes account of these subject cultures in influencing school and teacher change. The project also investigated ways in which effective pedagogies in mathematics and science can be monitored; and ways in which higher order learning outcomes in mathematics and science can be reliably assessed.

The project has worked with more than 30 schools in four clusters to support them in planning for and implementing change. A framework describing effective mathematics and science pedagogies was developed, and used as the basis for auditing procedures that track classroom practice. Instruments were developed and used to probe: teacher classroom practice; student perceptions of classroom practice and learning preferences; knowledge outcomes; reasoning in science and mathematics; understanding of the nature of science and mathematics; and performance skills in mathematics and science investigations. Data sources have also included questionnaire data, interviews, school reports and field notes. Video data was also collected and used for stimulated recall interviews concerning teacher beliefs and practices.

In order to support teachers and schools to improve their practice, the project team worked with cluster educators in each of the clusters, and with school coordinators, through a number of network meetings including an initial ‘leading change’ workshop, through cluster visits, and the provision of auditing and planning instruments supported by data analysis support. The nature of the subject cultures of, and effective pedagogies in, mathematics and science, was explored using interview data with effective teachers, literature exploration, interviews with project teachers to map characteristics of their practice, the team’s experience of the construction and analysis of achievement tests, a video and interview study of teachers of mathematics and science, and student perceptions data.

Primary Science Specialist Learning Program – Report of Delivery

The purpose of this report is to describe the 8 day Deakin professional learning program and to examine the outcomes of the program based on feedback from participants, using a variety of data sources within the program. This evaluation of the Deakin professional learning program for primary science specialists is conducted for formative purposes, using mainly teachers' perceptions of the 5 day Professional development with science content and pedagogy focus (day 2-4, day 6-7) and the 3 day leading change focus (day 11-13). Feedback was acted on over the period of the professional development program.

Knowledge enhancement in the change process : social marketing and attitude change leading to improved environmental behaviour

The complexity of relationships between social change and natural resource management has generated interest in the identification of indicators that might provide more streamlined means of monitoring and planning control programmes. This case study highlights the marketing paradigms of benchmarking and social marketing in a not-for-profit governmental environment. Publicly funded programs that require individual and community participation need to be marketed with a view to optimising involvement and commitment of the various stakeholders. A mail survey with a representative sample of 608 respondents was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a social marketing program. This study highlights the use of social marketing in a program to overcome an environmental issue by a governmental agency. Changing attitudes and beliefs takes time and often the target audience may not even know they have a problem that needs fixing. This process influences the focus of the social marketing effort which might be organised into three phases: • Raise awareness and knowledge.   •Change attitudes.  • Encourage action. The research conducted in this study illustrates how the various stages in the social marketing process were achieved through knowledge enhancement in an environmental management case study.

Leading a process of educational change in an Indonesian school

The thesis presents an autobiographical case study of a principal, with a focus on the various theoretical and experiential influences on the development of her understanding and practice of educational leadership in Australia and overseas. A close analysis is made of her current practice of educational leadership in Indonesia.

Leading the evaluation of institutional online learning environments for quality enhancement in times of change

This paper reports on findings from a nationally funded project which aims to design and implement a quality management framework for online learning environments (OLEs). Evaluation is a key component of any quality management system and it is this aspect of the framework that is the focus of this paper. In developing the framework initial focus groups were conducted at the five participating institutions. These revealed that, although regarded as important, there did not appear to be a shared understanding of the nature and purpose of evaluation. A second series of focus groups revealed there were multiple perspectives arising from those with a vested interest in online learning. These perspectives will be outlined. Overall, how evaluation was undertaken was highly variable within and across the five institutions reflecting where they were at in relation to the development of their OLE.