Enhancing sustainable change through critical learning communities and leadership competences Anke v

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Enhancing sustainable change through critical
learning communities and leadership competences

Anke van Keulen Ana del Barrio
SaizISSA Conference October 2009


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Initial questions
How to create space for dialogue within
teams? How to create a critical learning
community at all levels in ECE institutions? How
to support professionals in leadership
competences?

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• The early- childhood professional in a critical
  learning community towards sustainable change
• MUTANTs 2- year project (2007 - 2008)
• Action-research training project
• In 4 early- childhood institutions
• Cooperation with 4 teams of qualified
  educators
• Cooperation with middle and higher management
  and pedagogical staff

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• The early- childhood professional in a critical
  learning community towards sustainable change
• MUTANTs 2 years project (2007 - 2008)
• Vision and theoretical framework
• Space for dialogue through
• 8 learning instruments
• Challenges and conditions for
• sustainable change

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• Vision
• Everybody is competent to reflect can
  participate
• Everybody is responsible for the learning
  process
• Everybody is apprentice teacher
• Key elements
• Reflection individual in teams
• Critical reflection
• Learning process at all (3) institution
  levels

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• Critical reflection what we need is to create a
  culture of valuing questions and to embrace
  change in the system as a whole.
• Dialogue dialogue across differences is
  possible.
• (Urban, 07)
• Truth knowledge what we need to do is perceive
  our own ignorance and give up the idea that we
  are the exclusive owners of truth and knowledge.
  
• (Whalley, 01 Foucault in Mac Naughton, 05)

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• Theoretical framework
• Core reflection
• Learning from within(focus on core qualities),
  fine-tuning professional and personal goals, flow
• (F. Korthagen B. Lagerwerf 01)
• Critical Learning community
• Collaborative, inquired oriented and dialogical,
  critical knowledge building, change oriented
• (Mac Naughton 05, Urban 06, Whalley 01)

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• How to create space for dialogue?
• How to create a critical learning community?
• How to support leadership competences?

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• Valuing (reflecting on)
• the professional and his / her
• core qualities
• Fine-tuning personal
• and professional goals
• Reflecting on thinking  
• feeling, willing

Eight learning-instruments
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• Encouraging and supporting
• contextual thinking
• cooperation with
• a critical professional partner
• the development of a
• learning community
• contract

Eight learning-instruments
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• Valuing critical reflection
• asking critical questions ?!?!?!?!?!?!
• Documentation
• learning journal

Eight learning-instruments
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?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Which qualities do I value in colleagues? Which
qualities do we value in parents? Do we work with
parents who do not meet our ideal profile? What
do I know about my colleagues? What do we know
about these parents? With which parents have we
worked in recent weeks? Are we alert to the
wishes of (all) parents? How do we translate
these wishes into action? Which parents see us
(professionals) as an equal partner in the
communication? Which parents dont?
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• more energy, enthusiasm safety in ECEC
• recognision that everybody is competent
• recognision that there is interdependency
  between all EC organisation levels!
• increasing commitment of EC professionals
• start of critical reflexion
• more context awareness valuing diversity
• more cooperation with a critical profesional
  partner
• team learning and collaborative relationships

Results
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•  
• Our research shows that
• The reflective capacity and context resources of
  professionals and institutions are
  underestimated.
• A supportive and structured team approach
  stimulates critical questions and a sustainable
  learning process.

Results
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•  

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Critical reflection is also action (P.
Freire) but it is not seen as such!!! Lack of
time To improve quality in early- childhood
institutions without specific time for it, is
not possible (Whalley, 2001) ... but lack of
time is the reality at ECE institutions!
Challenges The status of reflection
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Conditions for sustainable change

• Structural differentiation between regular staff
  meetings and meetings to learn through reflection
  
• Coordination of roles and expectations between
  practitioners, team management and staff at
  central level
• Teamcoaching in order that practitioners and
  staff become reflective change agents

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Competences for sustainable change

• To promote Social change- oriented competences
  
• Critical thinking in critical learning
  communities
• Commitment to act with children and the adults
• in their lives to create progressive social
  change
• and to extend democracy
• Passion to advocate policies based on social
• justice
• (Mac Naughton, 2005)

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• Awareness of changes in ECE
• We are no longer leading children into a future
  that is by and large already known by adults we
  all must learn to read new maps (Urban, 06)
• To work on managing uncertainty (to learn to
  handle in complex siuations)
• To give parents a real voice without feeling
  that this directly threatens staffs professional
  identity and expertise (Mac Naughton, 2005)

Competences for sustainable change
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MUTANTs action-research project is
currently in the phase of dissemination of the
results into child care policy in The
Netherlands. A publication for students and
professionals will appear in 2009
2009
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Do you recognise the challenges mentioned
in this research? Which conditions for a
sustainable change can be realised in ECE in your
context?
?!?!?!?!?!
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www.mutant.nl
Thank you!