Education For The Future – Quality Markers Of Effective Further Education. How Participants Can Be Supported In Implementing School Improvement Processes?

Author(s):

Enikö Zala-Mezö(presenting / submitting)Frank Brückel(presenting)Rachel Guerra Bert van Veldhuizen Martin Retzl

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

01. Continuing Professional Development: Learning for Individuals, Leaders, and Organisations

Format:

Paper

Session Information

01 SES 03 A, Impact of Professional Development

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-02

17:15-18:45

Room:

B032 Anfiteatro

Chair:

Stefan Zehetmeier

Contribution

One strategy to bring about change in schools is to offer further education programmes for school staff. However there is very little empirical evidence to date that deals with the ways in which further education programmes need to be structured in order to make a significant impact on everyday school life (Lipowsky, 2010, p. 51; Hattie, 2013, p. 144ff). Evidence from the Swiss Canton of Zurich shows that school staff doesn`t consider long-lasting programmes to be attractive (BASS, 2012) even though long-term courses promise more sustainable learning (see below).

According to Lipowsky (2010) there is a threefold challenge for the conception of new professional improvement programmes. Of central importance is the thematic aspect of the programmes. Topics must appeal to the participants and connect to their daily work life (Heine, 2007). Second: Providers are also challenged to orientate their programmes towards the current state of research and to sufficiently take into account aspects of didactic methodology. Finally, it is necessary to investigate further education programmes systematically in terms of their efficacy, by carrying out research during and after the programme.

During the last few years, a team of education professionals from Zurich, Amsterdam and the Principality of Lichtenstein rose to these challenges and developed a further education programme named “Education for the future - International Programme for Education Professionals”.

The main thrust of the programme is twofold: First, the participants and lecturers from the three countries discuss societal trends (OECD, 2010; Hurrelmann, 2009) in order to deduce possible consequences for education and for their own school. Second, in order for participants to be able to initiate, carry out and evaluate change processes (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2006; Scharmer, 2009) at their own schools, themes that focus on school improvement are dealt with. During the programme, the participants are required to launch concrete projects at their schools, or to continue projects that are already running.

The aim of this programme was to support school principals and teachers to meet the challenges of everyday working life and to prepare them for school improvement projects (Brückel & Schildknecht 2011).

The concept of the programme introduced attempts to fulfil this aim by combining modules on theory and praxis. It is based on a framework (Lipowsky, 2010;) containing the following elements which are reconfirmed by Hattie (2013, p. 144ff):

Active integration of participants: Teachers should not be seen primarily as receptors of further education, but as active designers of the learning process.
Dissonance: Learning content effects change particularly when there exists a dissonance between expectations and convictions on the one hand and actual classroom practice on the other.
Equal value of theory and practice: A balance between theory and practice is crucial. This can be achieved by connecting the various theoretical inputs directly to the teaching practice.
Focus on practice: Learning is, on the one hand, an individual process. On the other, participants are members of a professional community and can thus ideally act as multipliers and disseminators.
Duration: to achieve sustainable learning, further education programmes should be planned for the long term. The themes in further education need to be connected to school practice and participants should be given enough time to implement what they have learnt.

The entire design of the programme seeks to support the participants in moving from theoretical understanding to practical application. In doing so, the content and setting of the programme are coordinated in a way that fosters school improvement projects. The setting foresees that reflection (Gardner, 2009; Hickson, 2011) and knowledge transfer (Jäger, 2004) will be permanently stimulated within the programme.

Method

From the concepts outlined above, these central questions can be deduced: How do participants view the learning setting during the programme? How relevant do they perceive the content? How can knowledge gained be linked to their everyday work life and reflected upon systematically? If and how do they transfer the new knowledge into their schools? “Follow-up” interviews (one year after the end of the programme are scheduled with the participants to answer the question: How sustainable are the effects of the programme? The programme is organised to progress over a span of fifteen months. During this time, participants meet at seven key points for between two and six days. Corresponding to this schedule, the themes are organised into seven different modules. On the basis of the above-mentioned questions, an open-ended questionnaire was designed and handed out retrospectively after the completion of each module. At the end of the programme, a nearly complete data set emerged. All seven modules were assessed with a total of 74 completed questionnaires from eleven participants. By using the qualitative content analysis method the answers were allocated to categories according to their content (Mayring, 2010). MAXQDA software was used to enable a clear documentation of the coding process. 1015 statements were coded and assigned to three main categories: 1. Statements about the learning setting (didactic method); 2. Statements about the relevance of themes covered in the programme; 3. Statements concerning the theory -praxis transfer.

Expected Outcomes

In summary, the following main results can be summed up: According to the participants’ feedback the content of the programme was relevant; no fundamental changes are needed for the next run-through. However, an important consideration emerged: less is often more. Even if the success of the transfer could not be immediately judged, it could be shown that participants gained many new insights. Difficulties arose in the coordination of collaborative assignments, whereby not only organisational differences, but also cultural differences became apparent. A topic that seems more difficult to improve was that participants who did not have a job as a school principal were only successful in their projects if they had considerable support from their school principals or if their projects concerned themselves personally and not the school team. Principals could transfer more new knowledge into their praxis as participants working as teachers. The importance of a supportive surrounding in order to multiply ideas, initiate and carry out change processes has already been shown (Nehring & O’Brien, 2012). From this, a critical question can be posed as to how far a further education participant can even take on a key role in school improvement projects without being school principal. Finally, the question of sustainability still remains open. We hope that the “follow-up” interview study one year after completion of the further education programme will shed some light on it.

References

Brückel, F. & Schildknecht, J. (2011). Education for the future: an International Cooperation Programme for Education Professionals. In Phillippe Masson, Kathrin Otrel-Cass & Vivienne Baumfeld, Miranda Pilo (ed.), (Re)thinking Partnership in Education. Lille: TheBookEdition, S. 19 - 29 Büro für arbeits- und sozialpolitische Studien (BASS) (2012), Strategieentwicklung Weiterbildungsangebote der PH Zürich. Analyse der Nachfrage nach Weiterbildungsangeboten von Lehrpersonen und Schulleitungen im Kanton, Zürich, unveröffentlichter Abschlussbericht. Gardner, F. (2009), “Affirming values: using critical reflection to explore meaning and professional practice,” Reflective Practice Vol.10 No. 2, pp. 179-190. Hargreaves, A. & Fink D. (2006). Sustainable Leadership, San Fransisco, Jossey-Bass. Hattie, J. (2013), Lernen sichtbar machen, Baltmannsweiler, Schneider. Heine, S. (2007), „Erstklassige Lehrer gesucht“, Weiterbildung, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 26-29. Hickson, H. (2011), "Critical reflection: reflecting on learning to be reflective", Reflective Practice Vol. 12 No. 6, pp. 829-839. Hurrelmann, K. (2009), „Die Lebenssituation der jungen Generation“, in GEW Hauptvorstand (Ed), Zukunft in die Schule holen. Lebensplanung, Arbeits- und Berufsorientierung. Tagungsdokumentation, Bielefeld, Bertelsmann, pp. 14-24. Jäger. M. (2004), Transfer in Schulentwicklungsprojekten, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozial-wissenschaften. Lipowsky, F. (2010), „Lernen im Beruf – Empirische Befunde zur Wirksamkeit von Lehrer“, in Müller, E., Eichenberger A., Lüders and Mayr, M., Lehrerinnen und Lehrer lernen. Konzepte und Befunde zur Lehrerfortbildung, Münster, Waxmann, pp. 51-70. Mayring, P. (2010), Techniken qualitativer Inhaltsanalyse. Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse. Grundlagen und Techniken, Weinheim, Beltz, pp. 48-109. Nehring, J. H. & Brien E. J. O (2012), "Strong agents and weak systems: University support for school level improvement", Journal for Educational Change, Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 449–485. Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) (2010), Trends Shaping Education, Paris, OECD Publications. Scharmer C. O. (2009), Theorie U – von der Zukunft her führen, Heidelberg, Carl Auer.

Author Information

Enikö Zala-Mezö (presenting / submitting)

Zurich University of Teacher Education

Research and Development

Zürich

Frank Brückel (presenting)

Zurich University of Teacher Education, Switzerland

Rachel Guerra

Principality of Lichtenstein Department of Education

Bert van Veldhuizen

Hogeschool van Amsterdam School of Eduation

Martin Retzl