Leading Learning: Our Principle Purpose

A part of my work this year has been working with the principals and assistant principals of 14 schools. These schools have been working together as "learning community" for a number of years. This year they have wanted to up the ante around learning, including their own learning.

The groups thinking has been informed by the work of Vivianne Robinson on leadership that has an impact on student outcomes and Helen Timperley on professional learning that improves student learning (teacher inquiry and knowledge building).

This learning meeting followed on from a successful staff development day for all the schools in the Learning Community. The principals and assistant principals brought along their thinking as to the goals for the year and key strategies the intended to use.

The meeting aimed to support these leaders in clarifying their goals, think about what their theory of action is to bring about the desired change and identify their learning needs as leaders.

My own reflections and learnings from the meeting are that:

1. Developing precision around vision and expressing this as a couple of goals that are clear and unambiguous is hard work;
2. Monitoring the effectiveness requires deep thinking in the planning stage; and
3. engaging in open to learning conversations requires new skills and a shift away from monitoring, compliance and accountability mindsets.

Below is a copy of the powerpoint used in movie format:

Image from: psalter.edublogs.org/ task-1-part-1/

Learning Communities, Transforming Learning

Recently I attended a "learning community" meeting.

I believe in the power of learning communities, but they are difficult to develop. There is a prevalence of them in schools and education systems, with schools often describing themselves as a "learning community."

The meeting I attended caused me to think about learning communities and their potential.

A question came to mind: "What is it that the participants are learning about?"

Reinforcing professional identities isn't learning

During my Churchill Fellowship I met with Tom Bentley (then Director of DEMOS, now Executive Director for Policy and Cabinet in Victoria’s Department of Premier, Director of the Australian and New Zealand School of Government and adviser to Julia Gillard, Australian Federal Education Minister). In discussions with Tom he highlighted that the "learning communities" meetings often get reduced to sharing professional activities and reinforcing how things are done. Such sharing reinforces professional identities and ways of doing things, rather than opening up more radical pedagogical possibilities and different ways of organising ourselves.

Transforming learning

What captured my imagination was the desire of the group to transform learning. Transforming learning raises further questions. Transforming implies change. What is it that is to be changed? What is it that needs to be learnt to bring about the transformation? What radical pedagogical possibilities can be developed? What new ways of exercising leadership need to be developed? What capabilities exist within the learning community to transform learning?

Theory of action

This led me to think further about how the "learning community" was going to bring about the transformation of learning. What is the theory of action of the learning community to transform learning?

It will be interesting to see what learning occurs in the learning community to transform learning. And what theory of action brings about the transformation. There is much to be learnt.