4.3. TEN IDEAS FOR TEACHER COLLABORATION

IDEAS FOR TEACHER COLLABORATION

In this activity, in groups, we had to search for ideas for teacher collaboration within the school community.

My group came up with this seven ideas:

• Every week, two meetings (early in the morning, break time, lunch time...) and discussion in groups for student feedback.
• Teachers participating in projects and extra-curricular activities with their skills.
• Workshops led by teachers sharing their experiences
• A board showing the projects that are being carried out and progress (transdisciplinary themes/global contexts...)
• Assigned buddies
• A theme week every term
• Planning together every term at the end of the previous one

I found this picture with more ideas that I really think could be useful for teacher collaboration:

4.2. FIVE ESSENTIALS FOR SCHOOL SUCCESS

INITIAL 3-2-1 SCHOOL SUCCESS
3 THOUGHTS	2        QUESTIONS	1 ANALOGY
- Collaboration among all the members/stakeholders - Clear goals designed in parallel to real possibilities and resource available - Being prepared for change and preparing others for it - adaptation	- How can you give information to all the stakeholders about each of the decisions that are to be made? - Is it possible to make everyone aware of the changes made in school and to prepare them for change?	School success is as a puzzle, all the pieces must be together in order to achieve it.

NEW 3-2-1 SCHOOL SUCCESS
3 THOUGHTS	2 QUESTIONS	1        ANALOGY
- Collaboration among all the members of the community is essential - Learning and teaching goals and elements well planned and designed - Analysing situations and preparing for change	- How do you plan and design the elements of the curriculum effectively if change is a constant? - How do you give information to all the stakeholders about each of the decisions?	Effective leadership is to school success as learners are to education.

4.1. LEADERS OR MANAGERS

LEADING AND MANAGING

What elements correspond to leadership and which to managing? Where is the emphasis? 

In the document from the IB there are some elements that correspond to managing and some others that are more related to leadership. Nevertheless, they are related and some make reference to both.

The elements that correspond to leadership are:

• Strengthening communication between and among all the stakeholders so that everyone is better informed about the programme.
• Effective use of frequent feedback (as it is the use, it normally involves turning theory into practice)
• Empowering teachers to make decisions regarding the development and implementation of the programme
• Providing a climate that empowers students and teachers to become autonomous learners
• Providing differentiated development for teachers and all members of the leadership team to support and enrich the programme.
• Leadership that promotes an understanding that learning in authentic, real-life situations is transdisciplinary.
• Providing the students with cohesive and coherent learning experiences.

The elements that correspond to managing

• Developing an effective recruitment process to address the needs of the programme (this would be developing policies and procedures)
• Recognising the need for scheduled opportunities to effective collaboration school wide (developing a policy to establish schedules doesn’t necessarily implicate collaboration in practice)
• Defining specific, achievable, time-framed goals for each teacher and each member of the leadership team related to the implementation of the programme.
• Understanding that assessment of student work and performance to improve learning needs to be embedded in, and a direct extension of, the programme.

The elements that correspond to both are

• A model of shared leadership that requires collaboration within the leadership team.
• Supporting long-term continual reflection and change in the school community.
• Broadening opportunities for ongoing professional development.

The emphasis when leading is on practice while the emphasis when managing is more on theory, on policies and written documents. Nevertheless, the IB recognises that both are important because they are interdependent.  All these aspects mentioned, even if they can be classified as leadership or managing elements, have to be developed simultaneously in IB school by all the members of the community and specially by the leadership team (collaboratively).

Managing would never be effective without leadership and vice-versa. They want to integrate both in order to be effective in school communities.

UNIT 3 - QUALITY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF LEADERSHIP PREPARATION

"TEACHERS AS LEADERS IN FINLAND" - THE 4Cs STRATEGY

CONNECTIONS	CHALLENGES
From the very first day of my university training in education, I have been hearing that Finish education is one of the leading systems in the world. Before reading this article, I had watched some videos of how classes are organised and how students are given freedom to be creative and imaginative. Nevertheless, I hadn’t thought about the role of teachers as leaders in that country. After my internship in a PYP school in Madrid last month, I have realised that the role of the teacher is similar to what the author of this article is explaining, and it would be called pedagogical leadership. If I had to summarize leadership in this country after reading the text and connecting it to my IB readings I would say that it is a democratic, distributed and collaborative leadership that gives freedom to teachers and lets them be creative, work together and share interests for the well-being of students and with a common goal: meaningful learning. In the assessment subject we’ve spoken a lot about the problem of external exams, inspections and competition. These are commonly key aspects in educational systems (summative assessments in fact) and formative processes should be embraced in order to change education.	It is explained that teacher collaboration is possible because they have a lighter teacher load than in other countries. We have been discussing this in class, the problem of time in leadership teams. Maybe the solution would be this, to leave some time off the schedule for teachers to meet and work together, because this is a very important part of their job and it should be included in their working hours. I have also realised that the most important think is not to be classified as a “leader” but to feel as members of professional learning communities. The name becomes less important when the practice is well stablished. While the teaching career in Spain has become one of the most accessible ones (nearly everyone is accepted, even without motivation to do it), in Finland only the best and the brightest have this career because it is one of the most important ones. The difference is clear in the access and in the results. I really liked the two conditions presented by the author to improve schools and I find them easily achievable in other countries: teachers and students empowered to do their best and an advanced academic education for teachers. Why not try this?
CONCEPTS	CHANGES
The author of this article emphasises the status of teachers by highlighting the need of well-educated teachers. The importance given to this professionals makes everyone aware of the role they have in society to educate future citizens. Other key aspects are collaboration/teamwork (which is linked to distributed and shared leadership), autonomy (which gives confidence to teachers) and responsibility (it has to be shared with all the stakeholders). Dialogue and discussion in teams are key to success of teachers as leaders. The teaching and learning atmosphere is relaxed and relationships among teachers and between teachers and students are rather informal. They love what they do and they are free to express themselves. Leadership is closely tied to teaching (pedagogical leadership). What distinguishes this system from the rest is that the graduate degree is more rigorous, based on research, has the same status as other departments in universities and that students spend a lot of time observing and practicing in institutions.	By reading this article, I reflected a lot about the perception that teachers have of themselves. It is really interesting to see how motivation increases when they feel they have the freedom to make decisions and contribute with their experience to teams (to the community). I have always thought that the teacher training in many countries should change and be reinforced as we are educating the teachers that will educate our future generations, and it is one of the hardest and most important jobs in society. The status of teachers in many countries is the opposite as in Finland, they are not always respected as professionals. Moreover, leaving aside competition and giving more freedom both to teachers and students to do their best and be creative should be one of the essentials in any school.

"TEACHERS MAKE A DIFFERENCE" - THE 4Cs STRATEGY

CONNECTIONS	CHALLENGES
In this article, the author highlights the influence of teachers in students’ outcomes by showing the results of a study. Some excellent teachers were studied with the aim of providing a list of attributes of excellence that make the difference. I had previously read some articles about the impact of teachers in the classroom and I find a clear connection between this idea and the fact that all teachers should be classroom leaders. By learning to lead their classroom, they become a reference for students. I had already thought about the five dimensions he presents but I hadn’t made the connection between all of them and I hadn’t either recognised them as attributes of expert teachers because I had never thought of the difference between experienced and expert. In fact, I think that they are also attributes of great leaders in schools.	Schools usually spend a lot of time and resources on the improvement of structures and buildings. But, as teachers are the most influential factor in students’ outcomes, that effort would be better spent on teacher training, workshops, meetings… The role of the teacher is crucial because they can have really positive effects on learners. Even if experience is one of the greatest sources of learning, I like the fact that the author values novice teachers who are also excellent without much experience. The author claims that other leaders (principal, coordinators) do not have such an impact on students’ outcomes but basing my opinion on other readings and my general impression, I do not agree with this. Teachers may have a larger impact but school leaders are definitely also an influential factor.
CONCEPTS	CHANGES
Research shows that compared to other factors such as the school, home environment, principals or peer effects, the influence of teachers in students’ achievement is very high. The difference between expert and experienced teachers is key in this text as the author presents five dimensions of excellent teachers (experts VS experienced) that we should all have in mind when working as educators, developing sixteen attributes of expertise. Expert teachers have deeper representations of teaching and learning so they are prepared to make connections, anticipations and predictions, seek further information and make better key decisions. They also guide better the learning through class interaction by improving the climate and analysing the context. Expert teachers know how to provide meaningful feedback and monitor students. They pay attention to affective aspects and respect their students. Finally, they are able to engage and challenge learners, involving them in tasks for learning and have a deeper understanding.	I really liked this article because it helped me make connections between aspects I already had in mind. The dimensions and attributes mentioned in this reading represent a better way of teaching, but I still have some doubts so the changes I would propose are: -          As I think that school leaders such as the coordinator or the principal also have a great impact on students’ outcomes, I would propose to mention the attributes that school leaders should have in order to work together with teachers for the same goal (which is improvement of outcomes). -          We have the theory but maybe the author could have proposed some strategies in order to achieve all these objectives. He mentioned the fact that the school context didn’t have the same influence as teachers do but, is it the same to speak about this attributes of teachers in all cultures and contexts?

2.3. SEVEN STRONG CLAIMS: COLOUR, SYMBOL, IMAGE

"SEVEN STRONG CLAIMS ABOUT SUCCESSFUL SCHOOL LEADERSHIP"

Claims 4 - 7

Claim 4: "School leaders improve teaching and learning indirectly and most powerfully through their infl uence on staff motivation, commitment and working conditions."

Claim 5: "School leadership has a greater infl uence on schools and pupils when it is widely distributed." 

Claim 6: "Some patterns of distribution are more effective than others."

Claim 7: "A small handful of personal traits explains a high proportion of the variation in leadership effectiveness."

Colour, symbol, image

REFLECTION

This thinking routine "Colour, symbol, image" is very useful and I found it really interesting as I am a visual person. It allows us reflect about the readings while we associate the main ideas with a colour (has to do normally with feelings, sensations, emotions...), a symbol (representing the idea/s) and an image (that shows how we understand it). I associated most of it with green (colour) as it inspires positive feelings to me, and as leaders need to be improving and recycling themselves (symbol). The image shows the positive interdependence between leaders and members of the community (distribution) in order to be more effective.

2.2. SEVEN STRONG CLAIMS: WORD, PHRASE, SENTENCE

"SEVEN STRONG CLAIMS ABOUT SUCCESSFUL SCHOOL LEADERSHIP"

Claims 1, 2 and 3

Claim 1: "School leadership is second only to classroom teaching as an infuence on pupil learning."

Claim 2: "Almost all successful leaders draw on the same repertoire of basic leadership practices."

Claim 3: "The ways in which leaders apply these leadership practices – not the practices themselves – demonstrate responsiveness to, rather than dictation by, the contexts in which they work."

Word, phrase, sentence

    Word: 

  I chose INFLUENCE because I think it summarizes what successful school leadership aims to according to claims 1, 2 and 3. This “influence” leaders have in others would result in a set of effective practices that are more useful than others.

Phrase: 

   I wrote DIFFERENT CONTEXTS because in claims 1, 2 and 3 take into account first the necessity of analysing and adapting to different contexts in order to be a successful leader.
  

    Sentence: 

   I wrote: “The influence and effects of leadership depend on the context, and successful leadership can be accomplished by some universal practices." With this sentence, I tried to capture the main message I had got from the three first claims.

       Group part:

For this part, we made a poster with our words, phrases and sentences. Then, we chose the main themes and the implications of our choices:

What the other group wrote:

The other group did the same, they also wrote themes and implications:

REFLECTION

I think using this routine was a great idea as it enabled us to better reflect about the text. Thanks to the collaborative part, we were able to explain to our classmates why we had chosen each of the words, which led to a discussion about the differences between concepts that were similar. The last part, where we chose some themes and their implications, was successful and meaningful because we had to reach agreements and summarize our main ideas. I liked a lot our final product as it made me think a lot about different ways of extracting and processing information from texts.

2.1. IT'S ALL ABOUT EDUCATION: MINDMAP

IT'S ALL ABOUT EDUCATION!

What is education?

The main ideas of the class can be summarized:

• Education is preparation for real life
• Present and future
• Different contexts: school home, society and media
• Contributing positively to society à treating others with respect
• Understanding where we come from, where we are and where we are going
• Connecting the “self” to the “other”, getting other perspectives
• Global citizenship (breaking stereotypes)
• Learning to learn – learning to think – learning to question.
• Skills, communication, life-long learning and manners.

       
    This is the collaborative mindmap we did in class:

Why are we doing our jobs in schools? What is education for? What should schools achieve?

Collaborative mindmap:

What will the future be like for your students? What attributes and skills should students have for the future?

Collaborative mindmap:

MY MINDMAP ABOUT EDUCATION 
(Click on the link above to see the Online Mindmap)

In this mindmap, I have tried to summarize the main aspects and the ones that, in my opinion, are essential to understand education. 

Here's an overview of my Mindmap (in case it doesn't open).