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Instigating sprints to support transformational change and innovation in schools

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Change is the new black

Educational change is inevitable and it’s all the rage (although some may argue with the second half of that sentence). A rapidly evolving and turbulent world, our growing understanding of the nature of learning and, in New Zealand, the need to change how our education system performs so that Māori students enjoy and achieve education success as Māori (Ka Hikitia – Accelerating Success 2013–2017); all mean that educational evolution is here to stay.

The challenge with educational change these days seems to be the amount and sometimes exponential pace of it. This volume and speed creates a need to look past previous iterative approaches to improving teaching and learning, and instead, become transformational as we strive to evolve our own practice in both a rapid, and meaningful way.

However, effectively managing transformational change is a change in itself. Transformation calls for innovation, risk-taking and creativity; and engaging in mahi where the outcomes may be unknown. Without resources, time and support, this form of change can feel overwhelming, laborious and like it’s ‘on top of’ an already saturated workload.

In a previous post I co-authored with my colleague, Rachel Westaway, we suggested that school leaders explore Agile values and principles to support transformation and innovation in schools.
In this post, I will delve deeper into an agile tool called ‘sprints’ that supports teams to work through transformational change; hopefully experience some creative freedom; and provides a framework and process that promotes embracing uncertainty while minimising risk. This way, managing change and innovation should not be overwhelming and may actually be enjoyable.

What are sprints?

The concept of sprints originated in the IT/project management world where they are one of the key components of the scrum framework, supporting people to work collaboratively to address complex problems and unpredictability. Scrum is founded on agile principles, with an emphasis on creating value, and making progress through regular reflection, adaptation and teamwork.

Sprints enable teams to work collaboratively to tackle large problems or significant change by breaking down the work into small, time-boxed, increments (a.k.a sprints) and focusing on what is most important.

In the education world, the sprint approach can be used to manage, improve and innovate on practice to support our learners’ needs, allowing educators to be more adaptable, creative and flexible in working through significant change. Sprints can be anywhere from one to three weeks long (as a guide only). Put simply:

Using a sprint approach can break down and simplify what can seem to be an overwhelming, long-term challenge, into smaller manageable parts.

Agile Schools has developed Learning Sprints; a programme that provides tools, resources and professional learning. They recommend 3 key phases in a ‘learning sprint’:

1. Prepare

a. Define: What student learning outcome do we want to focus our practice improvement on? For which students? What evidence justifies this decision?
b. Design: What small, specific actions can we take in our classrooms to improve student learning?
c. Assess: What evidence of student learning will we collect?

2. Sprint

a. Teach: In what ways are we deliberately improving our teaching practices?
b. Monitor: How are we collecting evidence of student learning? What is it telling us?
c. Support: How are we harnessing peer and expert feedback?

3. Review

a. Analyse: What progress did students make and how did our actions contribute to this?
b. Transfer: How can we transfer what we’ve learned into future practice and ways of working together?
c. Reset: What professional learning could we engage in next, in order to help us maximise our impact on student learning?

Implementing sprints in a teaching inquiry

The sprint process is strongly underpinned by evidence-based practice and therefore aligns closely with the Spiral of inquiry. Used as an approach within a longer-term inquiry, sprints can provide an opportunity to evaluate the impact of our actions over many cycles within the wider inquiry space. Not only does this allow new learning to become embedded in the way we work but the speed (velocity in ‘scrum speak’) at which the team can move and adapt is accelerated.

However, before contemplating the use of sprints within an inquiry, it is important to discover and define what is going on with our learners. The scanning and focusing phases of a teaching inquiry will support us to create collective learner statements about targeted students in a particular educational community. We can then explore how these challenges relate to the nature of learning (OECD 7 principles of learning) and the Key Competencies in the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC). The NZCER Remixing the Key Competencies: A curriculum design deck is useful for this. In developing a hunch we look at our own practices attached to any challenge/s.

This work might look something like this:

stthomastlif_june27recap

Diagram: Fionna Wright – CORE Education, (CC BY-NC 4.0)

When working collectively through the inquiry phases we should discover overarching themes, for example:

“Our learners are engaged in learning activities outside of school and are far more engaged at school when learning is personally meaningful to them.”

The challenge for us therefore is to design learning activities that are more meaningful for students with a diverse range of cultural backgrounds, interests and learning needs. (The creation of User stories to support this thinking is another useful agile approach but this will need to wait for another blog).

So, what do we need to learn and how will we take action, and check that we are making enough of a difference for our students?

Using sprints to manage, improve and innovate on practice in a collaborative, structured, iterative way; whilst collecting relevant evidence to measure the impact of our ideas and actions, helps us figure out what to learn and the necessary actions to take in an adaptive way. It helps us therefore to develop adaptive expertise–the ability to apply new knowledge ideas and skills flexibly and creatively. (Dumont, Istance and Benavides 2010, 3).

This is the approach that Agile Schools has taken with a range of activities in their Learning Sprints toolkit. Amongst these in their Define phase is Boulder, Pebble, Sand. This activity allows us to break down our learner challenge into bite-sized chunks of practice that we can then review, transfer and adapt new learning and ideas before going into another sprint.

It is important to note that, whilst I believe the outline of this activity is useful, I would lean more towards ‘doing with’ students and possibly whānau in identifying and developing learning outcomes. That is to say, if our challenge is to design learning activities that are more meaningful for students with a diverse range of cultural backgrounds, interests and learning needs, it would seem to be reasonable to co-design learning outcomes and activities with the students rather than for them. I also wonder if we should change the language from ‘learning outcome’ to ‘student-valued outcome’. This places more emphasis on designing a response to challenges or opportunities around the nature of learning and the key competencies in the NZC. It also supports the design and implementation of learning experiences that are more human-centred. The Guide to Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is useful for this.

Reviewing a sprint

The review of a sprint can look a little bit like a SCRUM meeting in which teams review the evidence collected during the last sprint. Using the Learning Sprints Check-in Tool teams ask questions like:

  1. What learner progress did we see?
  2. What did we learn?
  3. What worked well?
  4. What didn’t work well?
  5. Where to next?

Recording individual ideas on post-it notes to move around and look for patterns, positives, needs and gaps is helpful when answering questions. For example:

fionna-sprints

Images: Fionna Wright – CORE Education, (CC BY-NC 4.0)

This process leads to a collective, in-depth examination of practice that supports the transfer of new learning and consideration of next steps.

So, if the concept of breaking down large, often long-term challenges into a small, structured, incremental steps appeals to you, then sprints might be a process that is worth considering. I’m in my early days of exploring this approach but I believe that, in education, sprints can:

  • support collaboration and innovation
  • provide a clear, simple process that is easy to manage
  • promote rich discussion and deeper learning
  • allow for flexibility, adaptability and innovation
  • encourage evidence-based practice and provide accountability
  • provide structure to more effectively measure the impact of actions
  • inform future practice.

As an aside, a useful consequence of implementing an ongoing sprint process is the development of a growing portfolio of robust evidence that reflects the Code of Professional Responsibility and Standards for the Teaching Profession (NZ Teaching Council).

If a sprint approach to managing challenging change can help us to continuously measure, adapt and improve our practice, it would be great to consider how it could also be used with our students.

Featured image by Will H McMahan on Unsplash

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Why UDL is valuable

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“Without a systematic way to interrupt current practice in the classroom the impact of these barriers is repeatedly faced by each generation without significant forward motion to break the cycle once & for all.”

Bae, S., Ofiesh, N. S., Blackorby, J. (2018)

UDL quote

@chrissiebutler CORE Education CC BY NC 4.0

Enables equity in education

“Providing high quality education is a matter of social justice” (Ministry of Education, 2019). As teachers and leaders our bottom line is that no-one will be left out or discriminated against. As everyone learns differently, finding ways to create flexible, barrier-free learning environments is of critical importance if all students are to thrive (ibid.)

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) can help us in this work. It gives us a framework to design learning environments that are “flexible, and where barriers to learning can be identified and removed at the outset (Ministry of Education, 2019). It can help us towards equitable access and participation in education.

A culturally inclusive framework

Although UDL was conceived in US, it has value for us here in Aotearoa because it takes “a people-first approach to planning learning” (Ministry of Education, 2019). UDL invites us to think about “WHO we will teach and what those learners bring with them BEFORE we think about WHAT we will teach” (ibid.)

“UDL is focused on ensuring all learners get a chance to learn in ways that work for them. It is about removing barriers and opening doors to learning. It is driven not only by the findings from neuroscience and educational research but by a vision for equity” (Ministry of Education, 2019).

universal-design-for-learning-udl-in-aotearoa

@chrissiebutler CORE Education CC BY NC 4.0

Everyone benefits

When UDL is implemented intentionally across a community it can bring coherence to teaching practices that are inclusive of all learners. This approach benefits everyone.

Students can be confident they will have:

  • equitable access to learning opportunities
  • the tools and supports they need to demonstrate their learning in ways that work for them across all classes
  • responsive teachers who welcome their self-advocacy and seek feedback on their teaching
  • knowledgeable teachers who value and have an understanding of learner variability.

Whānau can trust that:

  • their ideas and questions will be welcomed
  • the uniqueness of their child will be valued and seen as a source of strength for the community
  • their child will be taught in a way that works for them and their learning needs will be met
  • their child will not be singled out or separated from their peers.

Teachers have a framework to guide decision-making. It supports them to:

  • identify and minimise barriers to learning and wellbeing hidden in their teaching
  • consider how to offer useful options and supports that can be built into the learning environment at the outset
  • problem solve with colleagues, students and whānau using the shared language of UDL.

Leaders have a framework that will:

  • help them support the presence and participation of every learner (child to adult) and ensure their rights as a learners are upheld and protected
  • support consistent, coherent inclusive teaching and learning practices across their school
  • set expectations around “what inclusive can look like”
  • guide the design of more inclusive systems and processes, staff hui, community events and building projects
  • provide a shared language that can be used with all stakeholders, across all contexts.

Find out more:

Register now for our upcoming workshop on Universal Design for Learning:

Extend your practice with Universal Design for Learning – offered online.

Acknowledgements

Bae, S., Ofiesh, N. S., Blackorby, J. (2018) A Commitment to Equity: The Design of the UDL Innovation Studio at the Schwab Learning Center

Marotta, M. (2018) Tips, Tricks and Tools to Build Your Inclusive Classroom Through UDL

Ministry of Education (2019) UDL guide, Inclusive Education website

Illustrations by @chrissiebutler CORE Education CC BY NC 4.0

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Spiral of Inquiry: It’s a new year, should we start again?

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Teaching as Inquiry: where teachers inquire into their practice and use evidence to make decisions about ways to change that practice for the benefit of the learners.

 

A common question that comes from collaborative inquiry teams at this time of year is: Should we start again?

A better question to ask would be: What progress did we make with our collaborative inquiry last year and where to next?

Scenario:

A teaching team worked together last year to scan their learners widely – building up a picture of learners’ social, emotional and cognitive wellbeing, strengths and areas for exploration. They used the evidence to focus on a theme that emerged and to consider their practices attached to that theme. A focused inquiry came to light and the team engaged in learning together and took some initial action in the classroom to change their practices and to make a difference for learners. By December, the team had taken some action but had not yet engaged in learning for long enough to embed new practice. While they checked learner progress and achievement, they hadn’t really checked widely to see if they’d made enough of a difference overall.

The new year:

What progress did we make with our collaborative inquiry?

An influx of new learners in the new year doesn’t have to mean ‘new inquiry’ for the team. Collaborative inquiries morph and change over time based on the evidence you gather about teacher practice and learner progress. One way to confirm that your inquiry is still useful and relevant for your team is to ask yourselves if you’ve gathered enough evidence to show that:

  • Your learners have experienced success and you’ve made enough of a difference for them (what data shows this? Whose voices are represented? What do your Māori learners and whānau think?)
  • Your teaching practice has changed and the new practices are fully implemented and embedded (what observations and other data show this? What were the criteria for success that you used? What research evidence supports the new teacher practices you implemented?)

Other questions teams can use to evaluate the progress of their collaborative inquiry include:

  • What evidence did we seek to know we were making a difference? What research and other knowledge informed this?
  • When did we check and how often? How did we check in a way that allowed for adjustment – right away?

“Checking is about beginning to set the stage for what comes next” (Kaser and Halbert, p. 7, 2016). That means that once a focused inquiry is underway, it never really “ends” – it simply shifts focus over time based on new evidence and clarity over whether or not changed practices have made a difference and have become embedded into our learning environments

But what about our new learners?

Often we think our focused inquiry from the year before won’t be relevant for our new learners this year. However, remember that:

  • Collaborative inquiries are focused on the gaps in our practice as teachers, highlighted by the challenges our learners face.
  • Those gaps remain in our practice until we fully implement and embed change.
  • The Learning phase is not short term or quick fix

“The professional learning research evidence indicates that the integration of substantial new knowledge requires a minimum of a year of focused collaborative effort to make a difference. Two years is much better. With three years of engaged effort, movement towards a transformed learning environment is usually well under way. So space must be created for this to happen” (Timperley, Kaser and Halbert, p. 16, 2014).

Next steps

At the start of the year, when your team is part way through an inquiry from the previous year, consider a “re-scan”. Re-scans can be shorter and more focused. For example, four weeks of Scanning your newly selected learners with a particular focus on your existing team inquiry may be most appropriate.

If your team has changed significantly (staff re-shuffle or turnover), you may wish to do a wider, longer scan while also considering evidence from the previous year’s inquiry.

A re-scan and continuation of your existing inquiry can be your team’s opportunity to:

  • Improve the ways in which you gather whānau and learner voice
  • Better consider the place of culturally responsive practice in your change plans
  • Consider new approaches to identifying clear goals and outcomes for changed practice and ways for checking these

As your team discovers the results of initial scanning in the new year, you can then have a robust team conversation about whether the evidence is telling you to continue with your inquiry, or whether to adapt your Learning and Action to cater for new evidence. This is a “morphing” of your inquiry rather than dismissing all of the previous year’s learning and action.

Featured Image by Sandy Millar on Unsplash

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It’s better to be on the bus than on the road!

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“If you feel overwhelmed and confused by the global predicament, you are on the right track. Global processes have become too complicated for any single person to understand. How then can you know the truth about the world, and avoid falling victim to propaganda and misinformation?”

Yuval Noah Harari, introduction to part IV of 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

on-the-bus

In response to my indecision about how to face a particular challenge in my career, an old friend of mine once suggested, “it’s better to be on the bus than on the road!” I took that to mean that it is better to be a part of the change than simply allow it to ‘run over’ me and be overwhelmed by it all. An unfortunate consequence of the current state of relentless, exponential change, both locally and globally, means many of us feel we’re ‘on the road’ at times, simply watching everything pass us by and feeling helpless in what to do about it.

Being ‘on the bus’ holds much more appeal for me than being on the road – for a start, from the bus you get a different perspective of the challenges you face. You get to see more of the other things going on – from the various sights you’re passing to a view of the horizon. In addition, you do all of this with others – realising that you’re not alone in facing these challenges and that together, you’re in a better place to both appreciate the good and to find solutions.

In times of accelerating change it’s easy to fall victim to a ‘stable state’ mentality, thinking that if we simply wait a while everything may return to a state of ‘normal’ again. In a world where developments in technology, climate change, threats of war and political uncertainty all contribute to feelings of anxiety and indecision, it is more important than ever before that, as educators, and as responsible citizens of the world, we need to understand a return to ‘the stable state’ isn’t a likely scenario. We need to see ourselves as being ‘on the bus’, engaging our collaborative and critical thinking capabilities to help us make sense of it all, and to find solutions to the challenges we face.

Being ‘on the bus’ doesn’t imply a physical place to be – it’s a mindset. It involves resilience, fore-sight and critical thinking. Resilience because we need strategies that will allow us to cope with the feelings of uncertainty and threats to our personal comfort and security. Fore-sight because we need to be able to see beyond the present and be aware of what is on the horizon, and of the actions that are likely to make these things a reality. And critical thinking because we are living in a ‘post truth’ world, where what we are being exposed to through the media and other channels, requires us to be able to exercise the ability to critically examine and evaluate the factual evidence to form views and change our behaviours based on that.

Fundamental to this is ensuring we are well informed, that we have access to the information required, and that we view it from multiple perspectives. It doesn’t require too much searching in the popular media to find that for every opinion claiming a certain ‘truth’ or certainty, there is an equal and opposite point of view. Our view of foresight shouldn’t be based simply on what the latest guru or ‘influencer’ tells us we should believe. Our response requires us to draw on our ability to delve beneath the headlines and their simplistic message. We must take a critical stance that weighs multiple perspectives and tackles issues of complexity with an appropriate response.

There’s another benefit of being ‘on the bus’ – we are with other people. This is critically important, as our journey into the future must increasingly be regarded as a collaborative one, not something we’re left on our own to contend with. The strength of the collaborative group is that we’re able to debate and discern things as a collective – to challenge the status quo and at the same time, be there for each other as the change impacts us differently. Of course, this will work best if our ‘team’ doesn’t consist solely of like-minded individuals forming a sort of ‘echo chamber’ that reflects simply what we want to hear and what we feel comfortable with. Authentic change will require us to learn to work collaboratively in settings where we feel uncomfortable, and where a part of the solution will lie in being able to resolve differences and work through multiple perspectives.

Engaging with resources such as CORE’s Ten Trends provides a useful way of starting this journey. They have been developed with the intention of providing information about some of the things that are currently challenging educators and the contexts they work in, providing some insights into the things that are driving these changes and offering prompts to begin the process of reflection and action at the local level. Importantly, the trends link back to a central core of five key themes that apply across the whole of society, so that these changes and their impact can be seen in a wider context than simply education.

My challenge to readers of this blog is to use the Ten Trends as a way of ‘getting on the bus’, to understand more of the things that are impacting the work we do, and combine with others to critically engage in forming a response that is appropriate in the contexts in which you work, in particular, a response that will ensure you are preparing the learners you are working with for their future, not just as ‘workers’ but as citizens who themselves will be able to influence and shape what happens in this world we all inhabit.

CORE’s Ten Trends 2019 have been released.

Read them online or download the document now!

Derek is presenting a breakfast seminar on the Ten Trends and what being ‘future ready’ means in Dunedin – Find out more

 

Photo by Pau Casals on Unsplash

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