Assessment in Finland: Steering, Seeing, and Selection

Posted on June 9, 2014 by | 3 comments

In Finland, the notable lack of tests for accountability purposes receives considerable attention. In fact, when we talk to teachers, administrators, and policymakers here, the question “how do you know how well things are going in your …. (classroom, school, municipality…)?” elicits quizzical stares. It’s a question that doesn’t make much sense when the initial assumption is that things are going well. However, our discussions here over the last three weeks have highlighted a few other interesting aspects of the uses of assessment here.

Assessment for steering not accounting

The word “accountability” has been traced back to ancient “account-giving” and record-keeping practices, tracking how funds have been spent and ensuring those funds have been spent as intended. Correspondingly, in places like the US, tests have been used to hold teachers, school leaders, and schools “accountable” for their actions and to see if they have done what they are supposed to do. But rather than using assessments to look back to see what was done, in many ways, educators and system leaders in Finland use assessment to look forward and to see if people, classes and schools are headed in the right direction. Such an approach doesn’t require data on every single aspect of student, teacher, or school performance, but it does require paying attention to ensure that no one gets too far off course. It means a focus on looking for outliers and listening for signs of trouble, not checking on each individual or making sure everything is done a certain way or in a certain timeline. But such an approach also requires mechanisms (like the curriculum renewal process as we will argue in a later post) to support shared understanding of the goals and expected outcomes of the whole system and a wide range of supports to make sure that everyone can get where they are going. Of course, it also helps if the whole system seems to be moving in the right direction already.

Assessment by walking around

Given the focus on this kind of “steering” approach, questions about the data used to make decisions from an American seem odd. While we have only spoken to a small group of teachers and school leaders here, invariably, those we’ve met have explained that learning whether a class or a school is on the right path can be accomplished by regularly “walking around” (while our Finnish colleagues did not refer to it directly, a similar concept—management by wandering around—has been part of the literature in business for some time). That means getting around the classroom and the school; talking to students, teachers, staff, and parents; listening to needs for support; and being alert to any signs of trouble. Concerns that arise about particular classes, schools, programs, or practices (especially when they come from more than one source) can then trigger “a talk” with those involved and some further investigation. (Even at the national level, a policymaker we talked to said that they don’t need a lot of data to tell them that many Finnish teachers are not using the assessment criteria that are in the core curriculum because regular meetings with teachers make that clear all the time…)

Despite the benefits, however, such a personal approach leaves unspecified the basis for many important decisions. In fact, when we asked teachers how school leaders know what they are doing or how well they are doing, many weren’t sure. Similarly, school leaders often couldn’t tell us how their supervisors (municipal administrators) could determine whether or not they were effective leaders. This lack of clarity may become more problematic as at least some municipalities in Finland have begun piloting some ways of using bonuses and salary increments to reward some teachers. While it is not widely discussed, those we talked to in at least two different groups of schools reported that their school leaders could decide to give them small bonuses if the leader felt that they did a particularly good job with their students or were particularly engaged in professional activities like research or professional development. While teachers could make their own case and often came to mutual agreements, leaders and municipal administrators, not teachers, have the last word.

Assessment for screening, sampling and selection

Even with a focus on assessment “by walking around,” however, educators in Finland do make use of a variety of tests and assessments. In contrast to Norway (where students do not get any written marks and there is comparatively limited testing until 8th grade), teachers in Finnish primary schools regularly use assessments of their own design as well as tests and quizzes from the textbooks; students get a report card at the end of the year; and in some cases, high scoring students may be singled out for recognition and rewards (something that the Norwegians would find shocking). Finnish teachers use an array of diagnostic and screening tests extensively in the early grades in Finland to make sure that no students are falling behind, particularly in reading. For example in one municipality, primary school special education teachers administer a screening test in reading comprehension to all students at the end of 2nd and 4th grade across all schools (and many administer it at the end of every year). That information, however, is not used at the school or municipal level to “check” on who is and isn’t performing well, rather, it’s used to identify those students who will need extra help moving forward.

As many have reported, the National Board of Education in Finland also regularly gives tests to samples of students and schools that are used to look at national and regional performance in key subjects like Finnish and mathematics. While the National Board does not use that information for ranking (and can’t because all students and schools are not assessed), they do share school level information with the schools that participate and municipal level data with the municipalities involved. In addition, the National Board makes these sample assessments widely available for free so that any teacher, school, or municipality that wants to administer these tests can do so. As a consequence, even without national testing, Finnish schools and municipalities have government-paid for tools that are linked directly to the core curriculum that they can use to benchmark their performance against regional and national samples.

Despite this diagnostic emphasis, tests and assessments in Finland do have important consequences, however, even if they are not used to hold teachers and schools accountable directly. In particular, despite the emphasis on equity, in some municipalities, students can express a preference to attend a particular school and a students’ final exams and final grades at the end of basic education (9th grade) can have an influence on whether or not they get into their top choice upper secondary school. Thus, in some of the largest municipalities in particular, students with the highest grade point averages are likely to get into their first choice schools, while students with lower grade point averages may have to opt for less selective schools.

Furthermore, at the end of upper secondary school, students have to pass matriculation exams in several subjects, and their scores on those exams (in combination with the Universities’ own entrance exams) determine whether students can go on to university and which institutions and programs they can get into. In fact, the results of the matriculation exams are made public; and newspapers report on the highest performing students and rank the schools according to their students’ average scores (see “Lukiovertailu – Etelä-Tapiolan lukio Espoosta kärjessä” roughly: “Comparison of High Schools – South Tapiola in Espoo at the forefront of high schools”). In addition, even more information on the performance of vocational schools is made publicly available—including the numbers of graduates and the average time to completion—and that information is used by the government in decisions about funding.

As a consequence of the school choice options available and the selection practices of students, Sonja Kosunen and colleagues have argued that there is a kind of implicit tracking within the Finnish system that may have an impact on the equitable distribution of learning opportunities. (Nonetheless, as Jennifer Von Reis Saari has pointed out, in contrast to most countries like the US and Sweden the Finnish system is highly “permeable,” so that even students who choose a vocational track in high school can still end up studying advanced subjects and can still gain entrance to University programs.)

In the end, what we’ve learned makes it clear that teachers, school leaders, and policymakers in Finland have access to a robust set of assessments that are supported by a long tradition of work on assessment at institutions like the Centre for Educational Assessment at the University of Helsinki, the Centre of Learning Research at the University of Turku, and the Niilo Mäki institute, associated with the University of Jyvaskyla. Furthermore, those assessments are used for a variety of purposes that can have important consequences for students and schools. But at the same time, many teachers, school leaders and policymakers start with the assumptions that things are going (at least relatively) well, that they will know if things start to go off course, and that, if necessary, everyone will work together to get things back on track.

–Thomas Hatch

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Professional Autonomy (and Interdependence?) Among Finnish Teachers

Posted on June 2, 2014 by | 2 comments

International observers often identify treating teachers as professionals as another hallmark of Finland’s education system. Indicative of that treatment, teachers in Finland have the autonomy and discretion to make a variety of decisions left to administrators in many other countries (such as those around meetings and professional development that we mentioned in our last post). Given the relative consistency of Finnish students’ performance on the PISA tests across groups and schools, the extent of this autonomy seems particularly surprising. Our school visits and conversations with colleagues here highlights both the variety of kinds of decisions that Finnish teachers can make as well as some interesting ways in which the need for teachers to coordinate work with others might constrain that autonomy.

Many outsiders focus particularly on the extent to which Finnish teachers make decisions about curriculum—what and how to teach—in their own classrooms, but as parents with children in a Finnish school for two weeks, we found the teachers’ control over their schedules even more surprising. While something undoubtedly gets lost in translation, we have found it almost impossible to figure out when the school day begins and ends for our 9 and 13 year-old daughters at the 1st – 9th grade comprehensive school they are attending. In part, that confusion reflects the facts that students may start or end the day at different times on different days of the week; that some students in one class may start or end the day at different times (depending on whether or not they attend language classes or religion classes, or the teacher has decided to divide the class into smaller groups); and that teachers can decide to end a little early or adjust the schedule for a field trip or other event. Furthermore, our children’s homeroom teachers may begin or end the day a period or two before or after their students who may start the day with another teacher in a language class or gym.

Until we had the chance to talk with teachers here in Finland, we really had not fully understood that they have the primary responsibility for deciding when they will teach which subject. They may begin with a largely blank schedule that has a few givens plugged in (like when their students will eat lunch and go to the gym) and then they do much of the rest. Teachers can even decide to share responsibilities for students or “swap” classes for different subjects. For example, some teachers at a grade level may choose to combine their classes (as happens at the Koulumestari School we visited), while others choose to work independently; some may decide they will “loop” with their students—our 9 year-old’s teacher for example has been with her current class since her third graders entered in first grade and our older daughter’s teachers started with a class of sixth graders last year when they were in 5th grade—but others may choose not to. These teachers, both with Masters in music education and both pursuing their PhD’s, also teach music classes for their own students as well as those of several of their grade level colleagues. In return, their grade level colleagues teach their students in subjects like art, science or religion. Teachers in the later grades may find fewer open slots in their schedule as more specific subjects like biology and physics have to be slotted in and, ultimately, school leaders have to review the schedules and ensure that the entire organization ‘works,’ but the teachers develop the plan and drive the discussion. And, as teachers and school leaders frequently tell us, whatever the decision, there always seems to be “flexibility.”

Viewing this decision-making power simply as “autonomy”, however, may fail to capture the extent to which this flexibility rests on the ability to negotiate and coordinate with others. Despite the impressions, Finnish teachers cannot do whatever they want. They need to be able to coordinate their schedules to some extent with other teachers at their grade level and to negotiate if other teachers want to do something else (interestingly, several of the school leaders we talked to suggested that their key responsibilities include facilitating interactions amongst teachers, and, if necessary, helping to resolve disputes among them). Thus, the flexibility in the system and teachers’ “autonomy” depends on the ability to take into account the interests of others and on the commitment of all in the system to common goals reflected in the core curriculum. Furthermore, the need for teachers to coordinate their own work, classes and schedules with others, as well as key activities like meetings at the school, municipal and national level to discuss and “renew” the curriculum currently underway (more on this in a later post as well) may help to foster the relationships and common understandings that can help to bring coherence to the system.

Tom Hatch & Karen Hammerness

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Individual and Collective Professional Development in Finland

Posted on May 30, 2014 by | 1 comment

We had a fascinating visit recently to the Koulumestari School in Espoo (a small city just outside of Helsinki), a school of almost 350 students from first through 6th grade (ages 5-12). The school is designed specifically to support students with special needs (20% of the students have that designation) and also focuses on the integration of new technology into learning. The visit gave us a better understanding of several aspects of the Finnish education system, particularly around professional development and the sharing of knowledge among teachers.

While there is considerable emphasis on teacher education in many of the reports on the Finnish education system, professional development for teachers often gets less attention. In part, that lack of attention may stem from the fact that, reflecting the autonomy that Finnish teachers have, decisions about what kind of professional development to pursue are generally left up to teachers to decide. Many choose to participate in courses or workshops offered by Universities, the National Board of Education, or perhaps their municipality.   Furthermore, for the most part teachers in Finland develop their own class and work schedules, and when they finish teaching their classes they can go home for the day (more on teacher autonomy and scheduling in a later post). While there may be a mandatory meeting of a whole-school faculty once a month, in many schools, teachers can also decide when and to what extent to meet with their colleagues in grade level teams or for other purposes. In other words, from a US point of view (and the perspective of many other countries), collective and collaborative professional development seems to be relatively limited.

The Koulumestari School, however, offers an example of the effort that some in Finland are pursuing to develop more collective professional development. In another indicator of the respect for the autonomy of teachers and schools, these efforts often focus on a networking strategy: creating opportunities for teachers and schools to come together to share information, resources and expertise. For example, the staff of the school has decided to have what they call a “pedagogical café” four times a year, during their regular monthly staff meetings. At these times, the teachers share with one another what they are doing with their students, particularly pilot experiments using different technologies. Participation in a variety of other meetings, including meetings among grade-level teams as well as theme-based teams (such as one focused on assessment and evaluation) also facilitate networking and collaboration. “Benchmark” days—in which the teachers can choose to visit the classroom of another teacher or grade level—and “headmaster’s hours”—in which school administrators and teaching assistants take over the regular classes of a group of teachers so they can meet together—create more time for common work. One outcome of these opportunities has been the development of “combined classes” in several grades in which two teachers with classes of about 20 students and one teacher with a class of about 10 special education students all work together to share the teaching for all of the roughly 45-50 students. These combined classes grew out of an initial experiment when several teachers at one grade level decided to try combining their classes; as other teachers learned how it was working, it spread to other levels and groups of teachers. (Interestingly, for the purposes of coordination, the school leader needs to know when teachers are planning to be out of the classroom for professional development, but the teachers themselves are responsible for getting substitutes.)

Illustrating a network approach at a municipal level, Koulumestari opened in 2007 after the City of Espoo put out a call for applications for new schools that could serve as “learning centers” with particular themes (something akin to “demonstration” schools). These learning centers were designed to focus on issues like special education and the integration of technology (in the case of Koulumestari) and to share what they were doing and learning with other schools in the area. As is often the case for new US schools in places like New York City, the application process included a formal proposal with a design for their school that was submitted by the current leaders and selected from a number of applicants. In addition to participating in meetings and visits with members of other schools in the network, teachers at Koulumestari have now started to offer professional development classes for other teachers in the municipality as part of the regular roster of professional development courses that Espoo offers every year. The school is also pursuing the same networking approach at the national level, as the school applied for and was awarded funding to serve as national learning center for technology and innovation. Through that network, the Koulumestari school is working with 65 partner schools throughout Finland, sharing practices, participating in joint professional development, and working together to develop a model for innovative schools. They also started piloting a global innovation network this past spring

While these networking efforts illustrate one approach to professional development in Finland, it is also important to point out that these efforts share many features with networking initiatives in other countries but they run against the grain in some ways of the same professional autonomy that is often cited as a key strength of the Finnish system. While teachers can choose to work together and share ideas, they also can choose to work on their own. There is a fundamental tension between autonomy and the kind of interdependence and collaboration that many would argue is needed to enable workers and organizations of any kind, including teachers and schools, to be more effective.

—Tom Hatch and Karen Hammerness

 

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Teacher selection, turnover, and curriculum reform in Finland

Posted on May 22, 2014 by | Leave a comment

This week in Helsinki we met with Auli Toom and Kirsi Pyhältö (members of the Faculty of Behavioral Sciences at the University of Helsinki), and several PhD students from their research group including Lauri Heikonen, Henrika Häikiö, Ulla Karvonen, Emmi Saariaho, and Sanna-Mari Salonen. They shared some of their research and perspectives on the education system here, and our discussions highlighted several things:

School of Education, University of Helsinki

School of Education, University of Helsinki

First, while we know that teacher candidates in Finland come from the top quartile of students, those who go to University to study to become teachers are also often somewhat older than other University students. In fact, some of the teacher education applicants are just completing their secondary education, but some applicants have already graduated and have taken jobs as substitute teachers or are working in other fields and are career-changers from other professions. Furthermore, the annual selection process to become a primary teacher is so challenging, applicants often fail on their first try, and some have to apply several times. The process includes an interview as well as an entry exam called the VAKAVA. The VAKAVA is offered once a year in the spring and requires applicants to read a set of research articles and then respond to a series of related multiple choice questions.

Second, although teaching is a highly-regarded profession, there is teacher turnover in Finland. Precise figures are hard to come by, but turnover rates for teachers within their first five years could be as high as 20% across the country, and even higher in the area around Helsinki. Those we talked to suggested that reasons for leaving teaching are similar to those in the United States including seeking a higher salary; opting for a career with more possibilities for advancement (the primary advancement opportunity for teachers in Finland is to become a school leader); as well as stress and burnout.

Third, Finland is engaged in a major core curriculum reform, but that effort is perhaps more accurately characterized as “curriculum renewal” as it is part of a regular cycle of revision that takes place every ten years. Furthermore, the reform of the core curriculum represents a collaborative project that engages numerous people and organizations from all parts of the education system including teachers, school leaders, policymakers, educational publishers, parents, students and others. (As we mentioned in our last post, our 9 year-old’s teacher in the practice school is a member of one of the curriculum reform committees and we hope to talk to her next week about her role in the process). Furthermore, the core curriculum provides guidelines and principles that serve as the basis for curricula created at the municipal level by teachers, school leaders, and administrators working together. Schools and teachers then have the autonomy to adapt the curriculum in their classrooms. In other words, whether PISA scores go up or down (or stay the same), everyone knows that the core curriculum will change over time and educators are expected to revise and adapt their curricula to keep them current and forward-looking.

— Tom Hatch & Karen Hammerness

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IEN in Finland: First day at a new school

Posted on May 19, 2014 by | 1 comment

Today, Stella (9) and Clara (13) spent their first day at a practice school in Helsinki. Practice schools are regular public schools, serving students who live in their neighborhood. The school our children are attending is a ‘comprehensive school’ for children in grades 1-9, with an associated kindergarten next door. Practice schools have been developed expressly for the purpose of preparing and supporting the learning of prospective teachers and are staffed with what might be called mentor teachers in the US (or “practice teachers” in Finland). Practice teachers teach regular classes for pupils in the school but then are also responsible for supervising, observing and co-planning with student-teachers. The principal estimated that at any one time, the school has between 30-36 student-teachers placed in various classrooms throughout the grades. Practice schools receive additional government funding to pay for the special work they do.

DipticIn some cases, practice schools have been designed specifically to accommodate and support the new teachers. In fact, our daughters’ school has a suite of rooms for student-teachers including a room with tables for their meetings; their own lockers and bookcases for materials and resources; and a coatroom and lunch space. The meeting room, equipped with the latest technology, underscores the importance that is placed not only upon learning to teach but upon analyzing (and learning from) teaching. In these rooms, student-teachers meet with their practice teachers to debrief plans and lessons and to talk about next steps. This attention to the cycle of planning, action, and reflection / evaluation is initially modeled in the student-teacher’s University classes, and they are expected to engage in similar kinds of analysis and inquiry when they have their own classrooms. These parallel activities underscore the notion that learning in practice does not happen “on its own” but rather requires concurrent opportunities for teachers to analyze their experiences and to make connections between research and practice.

Stella’s day today was led by a substitute as the regular teacher was out of the classroom because she was spending the day at the Finnish National Board of Education working on the national Curriculum (in the coming years, the national curriculum is due to revised and updated). Stella’s Finnish teacher is qualified to teach not only primary teacher education but also music education (having obtained an additional master’s degree) as well as 3rd grade—she leads the choir and also music instruction courses. Clara’s teacher is currently working on his doctoral dissertation after having completed coursework at an institution in the United States; his studies have focused upon religious studies and music. (While the advanced educational experiences of Finnish teachers is particularly notable, Stella’s teacher back in her public school outside New York City is also at work on an additional Master’s degree, currently working on a second master’s degree in writing children’s literature).

Stella’s day began at 9 AM with a hug from the substitute teacher, and then introductions as the teacher asked each child to stop by Stella’s desk, shake her hand and introduce themselves. The classes included two sessions of math (as well as a math test), an English lesson, two recesses and lunch. We thought originally her day would end at 12:45, when students who are not taking religion headed home. However, she was invited to stay, and ended the day with another recess, and then the religion class when the teacher led the students in a series of games.

Clara’s day started with a meeting with her teacher, who had made plans for her to first tour the school with (and get to know) several English-speaking classmates, before joining the whole group. At 9.45 she joined the students in their homeroom class—her classmates had started their day at 8.00 with two hours of language instruction (either English, German, or Swedish). In addition to the language classes, the day included art class, preparation for the end-of-the-year ceremony (to be held at the end of next week), as well as a music class. Her homeroom teacher led the group to a well-equipped music room and introduced them to an animated computer program to help them all learn to play chords on acoustic guitars.

–Karen Hammerness & Tom Hatch

 

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A class schedule in Finland

Posted on May 18, 2014 by | Leave a comment

While we are in Finland over the next two weeks, our children will be in a ”practice school” in Helsinki. The school is similar to other schools in Finland, but it is associated with the University of Helsinki’s teacher education program and student teachers are placed there.

Our 9 year-old’s teacher shared with us what her schedule will be this week (Mon-Fri):

19.5.-23.5.2014

kello MA TI KE TO PE
8.00-8.45       gym  
9.00-9.45 French  gym class crafts  
9.45-10.30 class French music crafts class
  FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOR FOOD
11.15-12 Englishlesson class class music English
12.00-12.45 class class class class class
13.15-14.00     class    
14-14.45          

 

Most other times of the year, the students would have 23 hours a week of school, but the teacher told us that this week there will be 2 hours less because of “theatre, musical, and movie visits.” On Wednesday, they will also be going fishing!

–Thomas Hatch

 

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IEN in Finland

Posted on May 16, 2014 by | 1 comment

I launched IEN in 2011 to respond to a need I recognized when I returned from a year living in Norway with my wife, Karen Hammerness, and three daughters. Once back in the United States, I found it very difficult to get timely information on policy developments and the latest research on educational improvement outside the United States. Since then, working with Deirdre Faughey and other colleagues, we have searched for and shared links to articles, reports, and other resources that we hope provide a glimpse into what’s new, what’s good, and what’s effective in education around the world.   One of the most powerful aspects of my experience in Norway, however, was the combination of learning about the educational system through my work with educators, researchers, and policymakers (summarized in “Beneath the surface of accountability”) and through my children’s experiences in Norwegian schools (briefly described in “What Norway (not Finland) can tell us about schools”). Through that experience we found how much we could learn from the approach of what some call a “low-performer” (Norway’s PISA scores have been closer to those of the US than to Finland’s over the years) but a system that can also be seen as highly successful in other respects.

Now, through a grant from the Fulbright Scholar Program and the Fulbright Center in Finland, my family and I are fortunate to have a similar (though much shorter) opportunity to learn about education in Finland. Over the next few weeks, my wife and I will be Visiting Scholars at the University of Helsinki. While most people want to know why Finland scores so much higher than the U.S. (even with some decreases in Finland’s latest PISA scores), I’m still interested in figuring out why Finland’s scores are so much higher than Norway’s – two countries that are much more comparable in terms of their social-welfare systems, size, and demographics. Karen will be continuing her studies of teacher education in Finland and several other countries. At the same time, our 9, 13, and 15 year olds will have a chance to spend the last two weeks of the Finnish school year in a school in Helsinki. While there, Karen and I hope to post occasional reflections on what we’re learning from our Finnish colleagues and to share as well what our children are doing. (We’ve already learned that the end-of-the-year in schools in Finland, as in the United States, often involves field trips and special projects)

Of course, our experiences will provide only a small window into what the educational system and the schools are like in Finland, but we hope it will complement perspectives from Finnish experts like Pasi Sahlberg and Hannu Simola as well as Americans who have had a chance to get inside schools in Finland including Tim Walker (a U.S. teacher teaching this year in a Finnish school) and journalist Amanda Ripley (who followed an American teenager during a year in a Finnish high school). Ideally, in the future, we will have more opportunities at IEN to share these kinds of personal perspectives on educational policy and practice in different countries. Our point, however, is not to suggest that there is any “best” model to follow nor to promote particular practices. Rather, we hope to encourage further reflection on the social, cultural, political, geographic, economic and other factors that shape different educational systems and the efforts to improve them.

–Thomas Hatch

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Education reform in Mexico

Posted on May 15, 2014 by | 1 comment
Dr. Santiago Rincón-Gallardo

Dr. Santiago Rincón-Gallardo

The following post is based on a conversation with Dr. Santiago Rincón-Gallardo. I reached out to Dr. Rincón-Gallardo to learn more about his work in Mexican schools and to better understand how the current political climate in Mexico has influenced the grassroots reform efforts of Redes de Tutoría, a small NGO that catalyzed a movement to transform conventional classrooms in public schools into learning communities where independent learning and tutorial relationships are practiced by students and teachers. An excerpt of our conversation appears below. Click here to read more of the interview.

As we have covered in earlier IEN posts, when President Enrique Peña Nieto was elected in 2012 he introduced education reforms that sought to address issues of educational quality and governability through what Andres Delich called a “mix of centralization and decentralization.” As covered in the Harvard Policy Review, lackluster Pisa scores have called attention to the fact while enrollment and basic skills have improved, repetition rates remain high and resources are distributed inequitably. The country’s system for hiring and paying teachers has been pinpointed as a problematic issue. In Mexico, all teachers join the union (SNTE), and the union assigns teachers to schools; teachers earn lifetime tenure after just six month of service. In an effort strengthen government control, President Peña Nieto bolstered the power of the national evaluation agency (INEE), and established higher professional standards and accountability measures for teachers. Peña Nieto also arrested union President, Esther Gordillo, on charges of embezzlement and money laundering, and teachers have been protesting the reforms everywhere from Mexico City to Guerrero.

In the context of all of this change, we wanted to learn more about how the new policies influence the practice of education and, as Dr. Santiago Rincón-Gallardo explains, the social and political aspects of pedagogical reform.

Deirdre Faughey:

Can you tell us about your work in Mexico, and the ways in which political changes in the country have been influential?

Dr. Santiago Rincón-Gallardo:

Let me tell you a little bit about the Learning Community Project (LCP), which provided the context for my research. In 2004, I was part of a small NGO called Convivencia Educativa, A.C. (now Redes de Tutoría, S.C.) that started working with a few teachers in a small number of schools, providing very intensive classroom-based support for teachers interested in turning their classrooms into Learning Communities. We started working on a very small scale, about eight schools total, working with voluntary teachers in middle schools that were built in marginalized communities with very small populations. We started working with some teachers there, providing coaching and training, but also spending a lot of time in classrooms working with them to turn their conventional classroom into a learning community. We would spend a whole week with each teacher every month in their classrooms, trying to understand what we needed to do and what we could do to turn the classrooms into Learning Communities.

Even though the scale was very small there was a strong impact on the engagement and excitement of the teachers and students who joined the project: students were learning better and they were gaining a lot of confidence to undertake individual study, to engage in research and learn on their own, but also to express their views and their learning in public, both in writing and in oral presentations. Maybe most importantly, they also started to work as tutors to other students who were interested in learning what the students had come to master.

The excitement that we started seeing in this small number of schools started to spread through the outreach of teachers themselves, and some local authorities who started to get excited to see what these young kids were capable of and how excited they were about learning. They started reaching out to other teachers in other schools, other local authorities in other regions, visiting other classrooms to showcase or display the practice, and then having other people come to their classrooms to see what was going on there. There was a lot of movement and excitement.

In four years we had moved from eight schools to about 400 schools that were engaged in this new practice of Learning Communities – we call it the Tutorial Relationships Practice. At that point the Deputy Minister of Education at that time visited one of our schools, and he was very impressed with what he saw there, in terms of the engagement and the skill of the students, so he decided to adopt the model and bring it to scale to 9,000 schools all over the country.

At the same time that the movement at the grassroots was taking place, one of the key leaders of the NGO, whose name is Dalila López, was invited to join the Department of Innovation at the Ministry of Education at the national level, and she was able to bring in people from our organization to the ministry. So we were able to create a team within the Ministry to support the kind of work that we felt was worth supporting, which was developing the conditions for teachers to learn the new practice of tutorial relationships and disseminate it to other places. What the leadership at the top did was create opportunities and mobilize infrastructure for teachers to be able to visit other schools in their regions or in other states so that there was the exchange of information and practice all over the country. We found really good results really quickly.

The large-scale project started in 2010. By 2012, the schools that had data available, but also the ones that had been engaged in this model for a long time, since 2010, increased the percentage of kids scoring with an excellent levels, at a faster pace than and surpassing the national average. This happened in 2012, everything was moving very smoothly and powerfully. There has not been any other program or initiative in Mexico that has shown a clear and significant impact on student learning, even as measured by standardized tests. We started getting a lot of international attention. We had Richard Elmore from the Harvard School of Education, come to visit our schools. He experienced being tutored by a girl from a rural community, Maricruz, a 13 year old girl who was just amazing at guiding him through his own thinking, and identifying some of the weaknesses in his own thinking about how to solve a geometry problem. She was very masterful in supporting him. Throughout that visit, Richard and I were able to write a paper for the Harvard Education Review that discusses this model, and he got very excited about it. He’s been talking about it in his classes, and in 2012 and 2013 we welcomed about 10 students from Harvard’s Educational Leadership Doctorate program to come and learn about the model and report back to their cohorts about what they have learned. We had that for two years, so in total we have had 21 visitors or so. The work has been attracting the attention of several other international experts.

What’s happened since that pinnacle of performance? We had a change in administration at the presidential level, and also a change in the Ministry of Education. They came with a very clear agenda of cutting down any relationship with union leadership, in particular Esther Gordillo and her people. And it so happened that the Deputy Minister who had been supporting this work at the national level, and the one who invited us into the Ministry, was the son-in-law of Gordillo, the leader of the teachers’ union. As soon as this new administration came, they decided to cut down any relationship with them which meant also kicking out the whole team that had been building and supporting this work from the top. So the the leaders who launched and disseminated the Learning Community Project are again grouped around a small NGO called Redes de Tutoría, and they’ve continued to support the work on a smaller scale, but at a deeper level. Right now they’re working with five states that have expressed very clear interest in continuing this work. So the idea is to still go to scale – not at the national level, but at the state level. The strategy is to create “Regions of Excellence,” where you would have several schools who are engaged in this practice and sites where people could come and see what’s possible but also having this as a professional development site for others interested in learning the practice. We’re not entirely sure how many schools are going to continue with this work. As we are putting the pieces together we are trying to find ways in which we can continue to support teachers who are committed to this work but not getting a lot of support from the state-level authorities. We are trying to find a strategy to help continue this work. We’re doing the lobbying that we can because we know that there is some vibrancy in this work that won’t disappear unless somebody wants to really shut it down. I don’t think that’s going to be the case, but we don’t have the political backing at the national level so that teachers can feel free to innovate. The practice has gone underground, it’s invisible but it’s still there.

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Interview with Louise Stoll

Posted on May 5, 2014 by | Leave a comment

 

Dr. Louise Stoll

Dr. Louise Stoll

Louise Stoll is Professor of Education at the London Centre for Leadership in Learning at the Institute of Education, University of London, as well as a freelance researcher and an international consultant. Her research and development activity focuses on how schools, districts and national systems create capacity for learning and improvement, focusing especially on leadership, learning communities and learning networks. This interview, which is part of the Lead the Change Series of the American Educational Research Association Educational Change Special Interest Group, appears as part of a series that features experts from around the globe, highlights promising research and practice, and offers expert insight on small- and large-scale educational change. Recently, Lead the Change has also published interviews with Diane Ravitch, and the contributors to Leading Educational Change: Global Issues, Challenges, and Lessons on Whole-System Reform (Teachers College Press, 2013) edited by Helen Janc Malone, have participated in a series of blogs from Education Week.

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How does one of the top-performing countries in the world think about technology?

Posted on April 28, 2014 by | 1 comment

The following post was written by Sarah Butrymowicz and originally published on The Hechinger Report.

Going ‘at your own pace’ isn’t part of the equation in Singapore

SINGAPORE—Forty students in bright yellow shirts hunched over their computers in Singapore’s Crescent Girls School as they raced against their teacher’s digital stopwatch. They had just a few minutes to add their thoughts about a short film on discrimination into a shared Google Doc and browse the opinions of their classmates.

When the time was up, their teacher led a discussion about the meaning of discrimination and how to judge the credibility of an argument. The computers sat mostly forgotten.

“The technology just fades away, and that’s what we hope for it to do,” said principal Ng Chen Kee.

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Students at Crescent Girls School in Singapore discuss conflict and discrimination in groups while working on a shared Google Doc. (Photo: Sarah Butrymowicz)

Crescent Girls has plenty of flashy gadgets, but balances those with these more subtle exercises in a way that’s emblematic of how Singapore tries to approach education technology. Glitzy tech that serves no purpose other than being cool is frowned upon. In classrooms in Singapore, digital devices are increasingly viewed as a means to bring students together in collaboration, rather than separate them further.

In contrast, American students who have tools like tablets and computers in the classroom often use them in isolation, powering through interactive worksheets and online quizzes. Indeed, technology’s main purpose often seems to be giving students personalized learning paths and a way to progress at their own pace.

In part, it’s because online learning in America grew out of a push to move away from rigid requirements of the number of hours a student should spend on a subject in favor of allowing them to move on once a concept is mastered. “That’s where the conversation started within the U.S.,” said Allison Powell, a vice president at the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNacol). “In a lot of other places, it wasn’t about taking an individual online course. It was ‘Let’s integrate it into the classroom.’”

Singapore has been one of the highest performing countries on international assessments for decades, while the United States remains stuck below the top performers. Investments in education technology have been a key part of Singapore’s national plan for two decades and have been cited by some experts as a reason that the country has so much academic success.

Singapore, South Korea and Uruguay were praised by Richard Culatta, director of the United States Department of Education office of educational technology, as global leaders in technology in the classroom. “These are impressive places and they didn’t get there because they randomly decided to do it. These are countries that have not taken their eye off the ball,” he said. “There’s a point where if we’re going to remain competitive globally, we need to make sure we’re keeping up.”

In the late 1990s, the Singapore Ministry of Education unveiled its master plan for technology. The first phase was spent building up infrastructure and getting computers into schools. In the 2000s, in phases two and three, the ministry focused on training teachers in how to use gadgets and identifying schools to experiment with new innovations.

The Ministry of Education would not provide information on how much money it had spent on these initiatives, but in a presentation for the World Bank, said phase one had cost $2 billion over five years and phase two $600 million over three years. In 2010, the Ministry of Education committed another $610 million over eight years for technology in schools, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Crescent Girls School was selected in 2008 to be one of these so-called FutureSchools. With extra money from the Ministry and support from the National Institute of Education (NIE), Singapore’s teacher training university, these eight schools must develop and trial new types of technology. If they work, the plan is to spread them to other schools.

History teachers at Hwa Chong Institution are working to create new social media platforms for students to share reflections. Students at Canberra Primary School visit a 4D immersive lab in groups to learn about different environments, like the rainforest.  Crescent Girls has developed the “digital trails” platform, where students and teachers make interactive maps by adding text, photos and videos. The school also has a room full of touch-screen tables, loaded with games and applications to prompt discussion and teamwork. In one, four students, each with a different responsibility, must use geometry concepts to protect a submarine from enemies.

A student at Marsling Secondary School in Singapore navigates around a virtual environment for the first time. His teachers plan to make a digital gallery for the students to show case designs and comment on each other’s work. (Photo: Sarah Butrymowicz)

A student at Marsling Secondary School in Singapore navigates around a virtual environment for the first time. His teachers plan to make a digital gallery for the students to show case designs and comment on each other’s work. (Photo: Sarah Butrymowicz)

Beyond the FutureSchools, the Ministry is also bankrolling other tech endeavors for schools. Researcher Kenneth Lim has set up a lab at the NIE where he’ll design custom immersive virtual environments for any lesson teachers want, such as a lesson on perspective in an art class or one on water shortages in geography.

The worlds are designed to be incomplete and act as a virtual workbook, where students can try to fill in the blanks. They wander around with their avatars, talking to classmates in person and online. “Their whole threat level is lowered,” Lim said. “They make mistakes.”

Singapore is trying to move beyond the much-criticized culture of high-pressure testing and studying by memorization here and in many other Asian countries. That’s why officials are focusing on soft skills, like collaboration and confidence. Technology, like Lim’s work, is becoming a popular way to allow students to learn by exploring without worrying about the consequences of failure.

On a January morning, Lim and his team helped eighth graders in a Design and Technology class at Marsiling Secondary School enter their virtual world for the first time and practice drawing basic shapes. The end goal was create a gallery that would allow students to comment and help each other on their work.

It’s the first major technological project the school has undertaken, and as Principal Foong Lai Leong stood in the corner watching, she was trying to think of other courses that might benefit from some digital lessons. Science and art, definitely, she decided. Maybe even certain topics in math.

There’s no pressure from the Ministry of Education to use technology for any particular subject or in any way. It is encouraged, but always with a reminder to “be wise, be judicious,” said Ng Pak Tee, an associate dean at the NIE. “It should not be a teacher looking at a technology saying, ‘Wow.’”

This careful and deliberate introduction of digital devices into the classroom sets Singapore apart from many places in America. While some districts or schools have rolled out programs thoughtfully, they’re still the minority, Powell said. “I get calls from superintendents and principals on a daily basis [saying], ‘I went out and bought 500 iPads. Now what do I do?”

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