OUR CHALLENGE
Professor Graham Donaldson
The Robert Owen Centre
University of Glasgow
August 2014
Summary - Big Messages
•
21st century poses new and fundamental challenges for school
education
•
Need to balance short-term impact with long-term growth – urgent
does not always mean important
•
CfE/TSF/HGIOS provide strong policy and professional context
•
Invitation to have more professional engagement in educational
change
•
Significant implications for teachers, schools, local authorities and
national government
Factors Driving Change
Information on school
quality, including
international
comparisons
Increased
autonomy at local
and school levels
Increased accountability
in public sector and
demands for evidencebased policy making
Demands to use public
resources efficiently
Rising importance of education
• Knowledge and the economy
• International competition
• Growing expectations
Trends and Forces Shaping
Twenty-First Century
Education
“...no education system can remain static. The
world is changing rapidly, Technology is
transforming our lives. The skills needed in
the future will be very different from those
needed today. Education offers each
individual and nation the best chance of
navigating an unknown future – coping with
uncertainty, adapting to evolving conditions
and learning how to learn.”
Lee Hsein Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore
2012 (Oceans of Innovation, IPPR 2012)
How the demand for skills has changed
Economy-wide measures of routine and non-routine task input (US)
65
Mean task input as percentiles of the 1960 task distribution
Routine manual
60
Nonroutine manual
55
Routine cognitive
50
Nonroutine analytic
45
40
1960
Nonroutine interactive
1970
1980
(Levy and Murnane)
1990
2002
Low skill jobs are vanishing
Over the last six years, the UK economy has
shed 400 no-qualification jobs every day
Beyond Leitch (Patel et al., 2009)
Some Implications
New and growing expectations?
Instrumental pressure? Education is for work?
Generational competition for resources?
Growing inequality - deprivation and educational achievement?
Education for democratic participation / citizenship?
Uncertainty and lifelong learning?
New conceptions of knowledge?
Creativity, teamworking, problem-solving?
Better learning or different learning?
Anywhere, anytime learning? Hand-held connectivity?
Social networking
Some Interesting Challenges
Defeating destiny – deprivation/expectation/aspiration
Raising standards – particularly in maths and science and basic
literacy and numeracy skills
Establishing a broader, more secure and enduring base of
education before qualifications
Creating space for engaging teaching and learning
Sustaining high quality and relevant education
21st Century schooling?
Importance of

deeper conceptual understanding

connected and coherent knowledge

authentic knowledge in context

creativity and problem solving

learning in collaboration and to collaborate
Move from what students should be learning towards what they should become? (Priestley and
Biesta 2014)
“..many of today’s schools have not caught up as they continue to
operate as they did in the earlier decades of the 20th Century.
“How can learning within and outside schools be reconfigured in
environments that foster the deeper knowledge and skills so
crucial in our new century?”
“To succeed in this is not only important for a successful economy,
but also for effective cultural and social participation and for
citizens to live fulfilling lives.”
OECD 2008
Storming the classroom
citadel
Package and push?
Direct and demand?
Manage and measure?
Promise and punish?
Hearts and heads?
Network and nourish?
Pervasive tension between immediate impact and
long-term, sustainable growth
Impact of Reform
‘...there
is strong evidence from a variety of sources that two decades of
reform have not led to anticipated levels of educational improvement,
and certainly not commensurate with levels of investment in
education, but have led to widespread teacher and headteacher
dissatisfaction’
Hoyle and Wallace Educational Leadership: Ambiguity,
Professionals and Managerialism 2005, pp. 4-5
What might work? PISA 2012
Schools with more autonomy over curricula and assessments tend to perform better than schools with
less autonomy when they are part of school systems with more accountability arrangements and/or
greater teacher-principal collaboration in school management.
Stratification in school systems, which is the result of policies like grade repetition and selecting students at a
young age for different “tracks” or types of schools, is negatively related to equity; and students in highly
stratified systems tend to be less motivated than those in less-stratified systems.
Beyond a certain level of expenditure per student, excellence in education requires more than money: how
resources are allocated is just as important as the amount of resources available.
Across OECD countries, students who reported that they had attended pre-primary school for more than one
year score 53 points higher in mathematics – the equivalent of more than one year of schooling – than
students who had not attended pre-primary education.
OECD PISA Results in Focus 2014
SUCCESS FACTORS
The past
Student inclusion
The most effective systems
Some students learn at high levels
All students learn at high levels
Curriculum, instruction and assessment
Routine cognitive skills for lifetime jobs
Learning to learn, complex ways of thinking,
ways of working
Teacher quality
Taught to teach established content
High-level professional knowledge workers
Work organisation
‘Tayloristic’, hierarchical
Flat, collegial, differentiated and diverse
careers
Teacher evaluation and accountability
Primarily to authorities
Also to peers and stakeholders
BUT
PISA
Between
Reading 2009 Schools
Within
School
England
29%
71%
Economic and
Social Research
Council
Wales
17%
83%
Education in a Devolved Scotland 2013
NI
51%
49%
Scotland
Reading score of 15 year olds
PISA, 2009
18%
82%
Teachers and change
Cuban and Tyack in Hattie ‘Visible Learning ’ 2009
The Reform ‘Programme’
Broad, twenty-first century education for all (four capacities / outcomesbased general education between 3 and 15/Senior Phase)
Deep learning and higher standards
Literacy and numeracy across the curriculum
Engaging, imaginative and purposeful pedagogy
Assess what we profess – wider achievement
AND
A new paradigm of governance and change
A revitalised teaching profession
Distributive leadership
Constructive accountability
GIRFEC
One aligned agenda
21st century schools need
teachers who
have high-levels of expertise – subject, pedagogy and
theory
have secure values – personal and professional
accountability for the wellbeing of all young people
ask hard questions of themselves and others
take prime responsibility for their own development
see professional learning as an integral part of
educational change
engage in well-planned and well-researched innovation
are outward-looking and seek partnerships
Teaching Scotland’s Future, Donaldson 2010
From CPD to Career-Long Learning
“She’s been on a course”
Cascade – spray and pray
“They should try teaching here”
“When were they last in a classroom”
What Works Best?
Authentic – real issues in context
Extended not one-off
External stimulus and challenge
Engaged in learning
Collegiate – necessary but not sufficient
Supportive leadership
Funding/release time/voluntary or compulsory unrelated to influence on student outcomes
Timperly et al quoted in Hattie ‘Visible Learning’ 2009
Key Elements
Professional culture – collegiate, reinforcing and exploring
Professional commitment
Supporting structures and partnerships
GTCS Standards
PRD
Focus on impact on learning
Scottish Teacher
Education Reform
Clear national priorities
New degrees – practicum reconceptualised
Career-long professional learning – ITE/Induction
New Standards Framework from GTCS
More relevant, collegiate and challenging professional development
Professional review and update
Masters level profession – Scottish Masters Framework
Scottish College of Educational Leadership (SCEL)
Strong partnership approach - University engagement
(Donaldson, Teaching Scotland’s Future 2010)
What about you?
Do not feel imprisoned by the past or the context
Active member of extended professional community
Professional inquiry and exploration
Engage with complexity
Masters level thinking
GTCS Standards and Professional Update
Leadership is not about length of service
Aspiration, reflection and optimism
A revitalised teaching community
Better experiences and outcomes for our young people
KEY MESSAGES
•
The world is changing fast
•
Schools are inherently sceptical about external solutions
•
The answer lies in the school and the wider learning community
•
Nobody can give you that answer but outside support and challenge matters
•
Be clear and honest about your challenges – no conspiracies of ignorance
•
The way forward is more about exploration than implementation
•
Draw strength from colleagues – isolation is the enemy of improvement
•
Break new ground – real action research