Northcote High SchoolA Case Study

Good to Great… or Great to Excellent (Hopkins)The Cultural Effects of

Architectural and Social Change

Improvement is a developmental process

not an event…Richard Elmore

N.H.S. Temperature Check• A ‘good’ neighborhood school – 1,500 students• Community Support - enrolment demand• Gentrification - Rapid demographic change• SFO decreasing ~ 0.38• VCE results ‘good’ but static (2006 stellar year…)• NAPLAN – cohort matched – tracking north• Est. 1926 History - Golden Years… • Traditional; Faculty focused; Industrially sensitive,• Teachers – ‘Experts’ BUT changing profile

Committed, Loyal, ‘Institutionalised’ - ‘We ‘just’ want to teach…’

• Continuous Improvement focus

N.H.S. Temperature Check• Leadership Momentum - Past and Present – TEAM NHS• Ambitious change agenda• Compelling story – Why we must do ‘things’ differently• Our ‘GARAGE’ challenge Cadillac VW• Evidence / research• Aligning opportunities – DEECD + NMR• Community = Teachers, Students and Families• Personal and Collective Responsibility:

– Achievement (High expectations)– Relationships Community– Supporting Teachers– Systems and processes

Six Secrets of Change Fullan 2008

• Secret One: Love your Employees

• Secret Two: Connect Peers with Purpose

• Secret Three: Capacity Building Prevails

• Secret Four: Learning Is the Work

• Secret Five: Transparency Rules

• Secret Six: Systems Learn

Fullan, 2008a

NHS Improvement Case StudyWHAT HOW?

Diagnosis of current state Naval gazing – evidence – our data

Outward looking focus What’s working in other schools?Scanned Systems, Schools, F2F Research, Reading, Rigorous dialogue

Communicating and Consulting with or Community

Presented findings to communityConsultation process – Future casting

Acknowledging History whilstBuilding a Case for Change

Celebrating successes whilst articulating a compelling change story

Selective, Explicit Core Focus and Work

What will make the difference?e.g. Marzano – greatest effect sizeNote Taking +Similarities & Differences

Systematic Change ProcessA Series of Actions to Inform our Direction and Future Work

e.g. Instructional Rounds – findings:- Quality of Task- Time on task- Quality of questioning- Volunteerism – contract- Who is doing the work? Teachers

Our Challenge Constructing a New Learning

and Teaching Culture or

Evolving a Learning & Teaching Culture How? Consistent messages:

“Unique Year Level Experiences”, “Good to Great”, “Task Predicts Performance”, “Time on Task”, “Learning is not voluntary”, “What goes home in the schoolbag is our best publicity”, “We want to guarantee the learning experience…” ‘No – we are not taking the personality out of the practice…*!@!’ NHS mantras ….

• Explicit objectives each year - reflection• Refined annually - expectations are raised and/accountability increases• “Turning the Screw….” on change - no surprises

– Clear and transparent messages about and around the change agenda

– Built around a shared understanding and language

– Clearly articulated What’s negotiable and What’s not negotiable…

IMPROVEMENT FOCUS @ NHS

Social “Engineering”Architecture of Change

Social Network Theory

The informal conversations and interconnections between people are as important as the formal and structural

• Structures (architecture) initially determine the social and cultural environment

BELIEFS&

BEHAVIOR

EXPERIENCE&

INTERACTION

NHS “Suite” of Initiatives

Instruction and Delivery Focus on Teacher practiceInstructional Coaching

Support and Extend Every child makes at least one year’s progress each year

Knowing Students Rich, available, useful evidence

The Unique Year Level Experience In the classroom and beyond

Toolbox Generic skills and attributes for all students and teachers

Compacts – what is a successful teacher, student, family doing @ NHS….

Clear and consistent expectationsTeachers, students and families

The NHS Good Lesson What are we learning today?

Academic Vocabulary Specific instruction in academic vocabulary

P and D = Performance Appraisal and Professional DevelopmentGoals – School, Faculty, Personal

Ultranete5NHS Compact PL Toolbox

Micro-Change Example:Literacy Across the Curriculum:

NHS Academic Vocabulary• The Evidence

The same student placing at the 50th percentile in reading comprehension, with no direct vocabulary instruction, placed at the 83rd percentile when provided specific instruction in academic vocabulary (Marzano and Pickering, 2005).

• NHS Facts– Student Outcomes - VCE results – Exams– ‘Value add’ - NAPLAN / VCE – Critiquing established practice: Sustained Silent Reading Program– Our Problem – ALL Teachers

Our Challenge

Constructing a new Learning and Teaching Culture

or

Evolving our Learning and Teaching Culture

• A Systematic Instructional Approach

• Clear expectations of what should be happening in every classroom – together

• A mechanism for improving literacy - when perceived limited literacy issues at NHS

• What’s Not-negotiable and Negotiable…

Literacy Across the Curriculum: Academic Vocabulary

• Cultural Fit:

For NHS teachers to buy into a vision and action it must be related to what teachers value, their content, the ‘art’ of teaching… Hence, ‘Academic Vocabulary’ rather than ‘Literacy’.

• Operationally supported and owned: – Leadership Team Workshop and Agreement– Whole School Presentation Leaders and Teachers– Feedback / Reflection / Refinement / Action Plan– Toolbox - whole school - PL sessions– Faculty Teams have responsibility and time (34 hrs 2010)

– Support - Instructional Coaching

Academic Vocabulary

• The Intended Curriculum – The key vocabulary (200 words) that will

improve performance (Marzano)

• The Implemented Curriculum – Common approaches to vocabulary learning

specialised to the Faculty

• The Attained Curriculum – Knowledge and understandings actually

learned by the students

What Next?Systematic Continuous Improvement

The Collective Actions of ALL Generate Momentum

Our Actions as Professionals and as a School:Evidence based and proactive – implementing an

agendaCollaborative Community - Working, Growing and

Learning together– Intentional and Explicit - Goals and Focus Teaching Practice

Moving Beyond ‘Solo Practitioners’Finding new ways to Share our ‘Best’ PracticeDeveloping compelling reasons and great structures

easy - making people accountable & responsible...Clouds on the horizon – it’s complex

work

Continuing to feel the Fly Wheel of progress...

Keeping what’s most important most important… – Relationships

– Student Learning and Teaching Excellence

– Creating a Supportive Environment“Schools where all staff work collaboratively to build strong

alignment between school-level planning and individual performance and development are better able to improve student learning outcomes.” Richard Elmore

Creating and meeting our targets…

Working to be more focused…

FLY WHEEL

• Marzano's vision of vocabulary instruction recommends teaching subject-specific terms to enhance academic success.

• He stresses that ‘subject-specific terms are the best target for direct vocabulary instruction’ and provides a list of 7,923 subject-specific terms in the appendix of his book.

Marzano, R. 2004. Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

Northcote High School -AIP-2011

Secret Six: Systems Learn

• Continuous learning depends on developing many leaders in the school in order to enhance continuity. It also depends on schools being confident in the face of complexity, and open to new ideas.

CHANGE INSIGHTS The implementation dip is normal

Behaviors change before beliefs

The size and prettiness of the planning document is inversely related to the quantity of action and student learning (Reeves, 2002)

Shared vision or ownership is more of an outcome of a quality process than it is a precondition

Feelings are more influential than thoughts (Kotter, 2008)

CHANGE SAVVY leadership Careful entry into the new setting

Listening to and learning from those who have been there longer

Engage in fact finding and joint problem solving

Carefully (rather than rashly) diagnosing the situation

Forthrightly addressing people’s concerns

Being enthusiastic, genuine and sincere about the change circumstances

Obtaining buy-in for what needs fixing

Developing a credible plan for making that fix — Herold & Fedor, 2008

What is Collaboration? • A systematic process in which we work

together, interdependently, to analyze and impact professional practice in order to improve our individual and collective results. — Dufour, Dufour, & Eaker, 2002

School Capacity • The collective power of the full staff to improve

student achievement. • School capacity includes and requires:

1.Every teachers knowledge, skills and dispositions

2. Professional community

3. Program coherence

4. Technical resources

5. Shared leadership

— Newmann, King, & Youngs, 2000

Secret Two: Connect Peers with Purpose

• Purposeful peer interaction within the school is crucial. Student learning and achievement increase substantially when teachers work in learning communities supported by school leaders who focus on improvement.

Secret Three: Capacity Building Prevails

• The most effective strategies involve helping teachers and principals develop the instructional and management of change skills necessary for school improvement. The role of assessment for learning is essential in order to link data on learning to instructional practices that achieve student results.

Secret Four: Learning Is the Work

• Professional development (PD) in workshops and courses is only an input to continuous learning and precision in teaching. Successful growth itself is accomplished when the culture of the school supports day-to-day learning of teachers engaged in improving what they do in the classroom and school.

Secret Five: Transparency Rules

• Ongoing data and access to seeing effective practices is necessary for success. It takes up the dilemmas of ‘de-privatizing practice’ in which it becomes normal and desirable for teachers to observe and be observed in teaching facilitated by coaches and mentors.

Secret One: Love your Employees

• Explore the importance of building the school by focusing on both the teachers and staff, and students and the community. The key is enabling staff to learn continuously. Evidence will be provided from successful business companies as well as from education.

• Motivational Work

• Meaningful, accomplishable work

• Enabling development

• Sense of camaraderie

• Being well led

ARCHITECTURE OF CHANGEKey Focus: Enhancing the school experience for ALL students

The ARCHITETURE of Change

STRUCTURAL / OPERATIONAL – • Layered Foci and Purpose

– Interconnected, Coherent, Purposeful, Explicit, Transparent

• Less is more ‘Refined Teacher Focus = Maximising Time on Task

Example

Faculty Team work layered over Ultranet, school, faculty and personal tasks layered over Professional Learning Tool Box work layered over P&D process school faculty and personal goals….. story

• Toolboxes: Regular in-house professional learning – a toolbox of knowledge, skills, understanding and dispositions all teachers need.

• Staff opinion

ARCHITECTURE OF CHANGESOCIAL ARCHITECTURE• Collaborative, collegial opportunities including ‘triads’• Support from and for the system, working together and with other

schools.• Listening – creating opportunities for collaboration, reflection and

feedback but perhaps ‘over-controlling it’.• Transparency – nothing is a surprise…

PREMISE: If we want to change teacher beliefs and behaviors we do this by changing the operational and social architecture

CLASSES I TEACH CLASSES I TEACH

FACULTY TEAM

FACULTY TEAM

P&D TRIAD

(DRAWN FROM FACULTY TEAM)

P&D TRIAD

(DRAWN FROM FACULTY TEAM)

FACULTY OBJECTIVES AND

P&D GOAL

FACULTY OBJECTIVES AND

P&D GOAL

e5 CLASSROOM RESEARCH (PERSONAL

PROFESSIONAL GOAL)

e5 CLASSROOM RESEARCH (PERSONAL

PROFESSIONAL GOAL)

TOOLBOX - SUPPORT AND EXTEND

TOOLBOX - INSTRUCTION AND DELIVERY

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SCHOOL GOAL CHECKLIST

SCHOOL GOAL CHECKLIST

P&D FACILITATOR

OPERATIONAL AND STRUCTURAL ARCHITECTURE:Simplified – Layered – Interconnected

What is Change? New materials

New behaviors/practices

New beliefs/understanding

• Learning to Lead Change

The Pathways Problem

• Change factors

• Vs

• Change Process

Secret One: Love your Employees

Theory X Assumptions Theory Y Assumptions

The average human being has an inherent dislike of work and will avoid it if he or she can.

Because of their dislike for work, most people must be controlled and threatened before they will work hard enough.

The average human prefers to be directed, dislikes responsibility, is unambiguous, and desires security above everything else. — McGregor, 1960

If a job is satisfying, then the result will be commitment to the organization.

The average person learns under proper conditions not only to accept but to seek responsibility.

Imagination, creativity, and ingenuity can be used to solve work problems by a large number of employees. — McGregor, 1960

Social “Engineering”

• Social network theory• In our context we seek to change the beliefs and expectations

that are manifested in the daily interactions between teachers and students and between teachers and other teachers.

• Why?

• Because all the operational and structural changes have been resisted (generally passively) by engrained cultures. (Thinking curriculum, etc etc.)