Building Reflexive Learning Organisations

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Building Reflexive Learning Organisations

• IVEA
• 4th October, 2007
• Prof. Tom Collins

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Assumption of Trust

• Centre or Periphery
• Hierarchy as opposed to Distributed
  Responsibility
• Assumptions re Honesty, Integrity, Openness and
  Shared View of Quality
• Personal and Civic Morality

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Peers
Taxpayer
Accountability
Students
Parents
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Transparency
Feedback Systems
Autonomy
Staff Development
Public Reporting
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Levels of reflectiveness

• Level One Everyday reflection- fleeting
• Level Two Deliberate reflection - committed
• Level Three Deliberate and systematic
  reflection - programmatic
• http//lsn.curtin.edu.au/tlf/tlf1997/hall1.html

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Deweys Contribution

• Involves active, persistent, and careful
  consideration of any belief or practice in light
  of the reasons that support it and the further
  consequences to which it leads.
• Integral attitudes are openmindedness,
  responsibility and wholeheartedness

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Schons Contribution

• Reflection before action (planning)
• Reflection in action (on the spot)
• Reflection on action (thinking back)

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• The critical part of reflective practice is that
  it requires a commitment to learning from
  experience and from evidence, rather than to
  learning certain recipes for action. Even if
  you start with recipes, they need to be explored
  and analysed for their underlying assumptions and
  effects as you gain in confidence. This process
  of critical enquiry should be reflexive, that is
  responsive to your own needs and the context in
  which you work, but also critical of the existing
  educational provision and ideology (including
  your own). The analysis involves not just your
  own practice, but also the social, moral and
  political context for that practice.
• (Ashcroft Foreman-Peck, 1994, p. 3)

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http//www.rtweb.info/diagrams/fig1-5.html
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Self-evaluation

• Thus the activity was frequently constructed in
  individualistic terms.. Moreover, it was assumed
  that data gathering is a largely private process
  of introspection rather than a matter of
  observing ones conduct, or eliciting the
  observations of others.
• Elliott, 1994

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Hunting the Assumptions

• Causal Assumptions about how different parts of
  the world works and how it can be changed.
• Prescriptive Assumptions how teachers and
  students should behave, what good educational
  processes look like.
• Paradigmatic Assumptions the way in which we
  order the world into categories.
• Brookfield, S. (1995) Becoming a critically
  reflective teacher.

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Reflection on Action

• Single loop is habitualised action
• Need to go beyond ones own frame of reference for
  understanding and/or solutions
• Causes a paradigm shift

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White Paper 1995

• As with other professions, and because of
  changing social and economic circumstances,
  initial teacher education cannot be regarded as
  the final preparation for a life-time of
  teaching. The Report on the National Education
  Convention recorded wide support for the view of
  "the teaching career as a continuum involving
  initial teacher education, induction processes
  and in-career development opportunities,
  available periodically throughout a teacher's
  career"

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Education Act 1998

•  6   (f) to promote best practice in teaching
  methods with regard to the diverse needs of
  students and the development of the skills and
  competences of teachers
• 23 (c) be responsible for the creation, together
  with the board, parents of students and the
  teachers, of a school environment which is
  supportive of learning among the students and
  which promotes the professional development of
  the teachers,

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School Development Planning

• is an ongoing process that helps schools as
  complex communities to meet the
• dual challenge of enhancing quality and managing
  change.
• The School Plan
• is the product of that process. It serves as a
  reference document that guides
• the activities of the school and facilitates
  monitoring and self-evaluation.
• The Desired Outcome
• of process and product is the provision of an
  enhanced education service,
• relevant to pupils needs, through the promotion
  of high quality teaching and
• learning, the professional empowerment of
  teachers, and the effective
• management of innovation and change.
• http//www.sdpi.ie/blue_book/SDPI_Book.pdf

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SDP Staff Development

• School Development Planning enhances the
  professional role of teachers and promotes their
  professional development. It helps to ensure that
  teachers
• Are empowered to contribute decisively to the
  development of the school
• Are enabled to exercise a greater degree of
  ownership over the central issues that influence
  their work, thereby enhancing their sense of
  being in control of events
• Are offered opportunities to engage in
  collaborative policy-making, planning and
  teamwork and to participate in the leadership and
  management of development work

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SDP Staff Development (2)

• Are involved in the identification of their own
  professional development
• needs and the specification of provision to meet
  those needs
• Are enabled to extend their professional skills
• Are encouraged to reflect on and learn from
  their professional experiences
• Are affirmed and supported in their work through
  the creation of an ethos of collegiality and
  co-operation

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Teachers

• For better or worse, teachers determine the
  quality of education
• teacher as person
• teacher as curriculum planner
• teacher as instructor
• teacher as researcher of his/her own teaching
• Ref Clarke, C. Thoughtful Teaching

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MacBeath (1999)

• The nature and complexity of teaching means that
  teachers are involved, on a day to day basis, in
  evaluating activities, reviewing their work and
  the work of their pupils and modifying their
  practice accordingly.

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Action Research

• Coined by Lewin (1947)
• Described as spiral of steps undertaken to
  improve or effect a change in the practice of
  work.
• Formation of group that work together to develop
  improvement strategies.

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Action Research / Reflective Practice

• Consideration of the myriad of factors involved
  in classroom teaching, both within and outside of
  the classroom.
• Underlying causes including social influences

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Factors inhibiting a reflective culture

• Teachers role
• Attachment to routine
• Standards of appropriate behaviour
• Isolation
• Inadequacies of in-service
• Conservative expectations
• Education reformers vs teachers who implement
• Artificial barriers (disciplines and teachers)
• Piecemeal reform efforts (Eisner, 1998)

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Support or Discouragement

• Initiation factors
• Linked to high profile need
• Clear model
• Strong advocate
• Active initiation
• (Fullan, 1993)

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Constraints and Opportunities (a)

• Teachers remain isolated in classrooms within
  schools, which does not enhance the diffusion of
  new ideas within the profession.
• (House, 1974)

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Constraints and Opportunities (b)

• Greater understanding
• Mutual learning
• Lessening of departmental idea
• Change in relationships
• Teacher education courses
• Environment

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...professional reading, time for professional
dialogue, the formation of teacher support
groups and the use of autobiographies and life
histories for reflection and sharing. Fullan and
Hargreaves (1992)