Teachers, Transition & Time: Learning for Educational Change

Alan S. MackenzieAcademic Director

Backward design?

A Simple Equation

Development =+ Change

Time

Positive

A complex, changing profession

• Language• Society• Curriculum• Methodologies: Interactive, CLIL• Tools: ICT, flipped classroom• Learner autonomy• Global citizenship• 21st Century Skills

The next new thing…

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Our Changing Profession

OLD• Transmission• Repetition• Grammar• Receptive skills• Language as a

subject

NEW• Facilitation• Use• Communicative

competence• Productive skills• Content/ Language

Integration

New teaching profession skill set:

• Classroom management• Information management• Learning management• Extensive, appropriate use of ICT in

and out of class• Dynamic teaching• Working with students in real time and

reacting to their communication needs• Curriculum redesign• Materials development• Subject teachers need language skills

Why 90% of educational changes fail

• Lack of full understanding of theory behind practice• Misrepresentation of practice• Minimal teacher buy-in• A few committed professionals working against huge

apathy• Watering down of the original aims• Lack of administrative support• Need of most teachers to ‘get by’ in a stressful

working environment

Human response to changeWilliams (1999). Futures 31/6

It All Takes Time

• Understanding what changes are• Agreeing with them• Learning how to go about implementing them• Planning a course of action• Developing the skills to be able to put the action plan

into practice• Experimenting with those skills (trial, error, success)• Implementing the action plan• Evaluating your success• Reformulating your action plan

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Change Management

• Must be – Clearly communicated– Understood by all involved– Structured carefully– Supported– Monitored

• Takes time

Transition: Key success factors

• Explicitly define processes of learning, as well as teacher and learner roles and relationships within those processes

• Provide reflection and learning opportunities for teachers as well as learners

• Improve the materials used for teacher learning

• Introduce monitoring tools, or adapt existing tools to scaffold teacher learning and make the transition process smoother

Why do people resist change?

1. negative towards all that is new or different

2. not interested in the idea because of other goals/ don’t see need

3. don’t understand the message and/or the consequences of the change

4. don’t trust the person who communicates the change

5. Fear: more work, lack of skills, failure

Do we have a choice?

Life

LearningChange

isEmbrace

Expect

Celebrate Live

Model

Lifelong

Resistance is futile!

• Takes more energy to resist than to change• Negative social behaviour• You’re going to have to do it eventually anyway, why

not do a good job of it?

Managing continuous change

• Changing educational culture through:

– School leadership

– Collaborating on development projects

– Monitoring teaching and learning standards

– Providing appropriate in-service development opportunities

– Investing in IT

Promote continuous development

– Teachers are learners too (or should be!)– Everyone can change what they do (BUT they

need to be supported and it can take time)– Making small changes in teaching practise can

have large effects on learning– Question assumptions about teaching practise and

beliefs about learning

Build trust to decrease fear

• Empathise with your teachers• Compare their situation to your own learning• Admit your own failures• Share your fears with them• Ask for help• Encourage sharing

Engage teachers in development

• Create opportunities for discussion• Involve teachers in planning• Have them set their own development agendas and

timelines• Agree a development plan with them• Listen to their concerns and react

Avoid resistance

• Explain clearly and give time for discussion and questions

• Listen!• Answer all questions openly and honestly• Admit when you don’t know something, but• Commit to finding solutions• Find the solution and use it or share it

Create opportunities for reflection

• Learning journals• Idea sharing in and out of the staffroom

– Regular meetings to share good teaching ideas– Sharing action research– Encouraging conference presentations– Promoting publishing

Encourage regular observations

• Look at what the learners are doing• Have non-judgmental discussion about plans and observations• Enquiry-based: How can we…

– make activities more interactive?– help students to learn more effectively?– adapt activities to make them more enjoyable?– cut teacher talking time?

Mind your language!

Judgemental• Good, bad, fine, ok• You didn’t…• You should…• If I were you, I’d…

Non-judgemental• Interesting, according

to/different from the lesson plan• Why did you…?• If you were to do it again, what

would you change?• When X happened, did the

learners do what you expected? Why?

• Have you ever tried…?

Monitoring Development

• How do you know change is happening?

• What system do you have in place to monitor change?

• What tools can you use to enable you to see change happening?

• Build your evaluation system before the change happens

• Ensure it is practical and meaningful

Change Process Result

Support System

Monitor and evaluate

Useful tools for monitoring change

• Observations• Self-reports• Focus groups• Structured interviews• Surveys/ Checklists

Portfolios: Recording development

• Quality is more important than size• Evidence of learning is more important than

certificates. SAMPLES of:– lesson plans– materials– student work– learning journal

• Text is more important than pictures

Rewarding Development

• Be positive and constructive in feedback• Share information about good ideas• Identify talent• Promote good teaching and teachers• Reward development with…more development

Human response to changeWilliams (1999). Futures 31/6

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