Monday 28 August 2017

Educational leaders play a crucial role in setting directions for improvement and innovation. Leaders – whether or not they are in formal leadership roles – create the tone of an institution, set priorities and directions for change, build coherence and shared commitment across the community and maintain a sharp focus on measurable improvements in student outcomes. Effective leaders take a deep interest in the quality of teaching and learning. They closely monitor indicators of student achievement and wellbeing and promote institution-wide conversations and professional learning focused on improving teaching and learning processes and student outcomes. They also form partnerships with other educational institutions and external organisations to better meet students’ learning needs. Research Conference 2017 will profile recent research into leadership practices and initiatives that have revitalised educational institutions and produced significant improvements in student engagement and performance.

The leadership of improvement is a challenging task, requiring capability in 1) using relevant knowledge to 2) solve complex educational problems, while 3) building relationships of trust with those involved. In this keynote address, Viviane describes what she has learned from her leadership research and development program about each of these three leadership capabilities. In addressing the first of these leadership capabilities, she describes key findings about how leaders’ relevant knowledge intersect with their ability to build trust and solve the problems that stand in the way of their improvement goals. Her discussion of the second capability draws on empirical research about how educational leaders typically solve complex on-the-job problems. She discusses how leaders communicate perceived problems, how they analyse and attempt to solve them and the consequences of their typical strategies for single- and double-loop learning and for educational improvement. In discussing the third capability, that of building relational trust, Viviane presents key findings about the interpersonal skills leaders employ in their on-the-job problem-solving conversations and the dilemma they frequently experience between progressing the problem and maintaining trust. She then discusses the types of professional learning and development that are more- or less-effective in building leaders’ capability in these three critical capabilities. In the final part of her address, Viviane reflects on the considerable methodological and design challenges that are involved in conducting research on leadership capabilities that is simultaneously highly rigorous and highly relevant to leadership practice.

This session contends that leadership and learning are mutually supporting and reinforcing. It is only recently that attempts have been made to describe in practice the complex connections existing between the two activities by drawing on empirical evidence. To this end, this session will depict ways in which leadership and learning are indispensable to each other in day-to-day teachers’ work, and the implications this symbiosis has for practice. Firstly, the session will consider the key foundations and principles of leadership for learning, especially as they relate to the Carpe Vitam international leadership for learning research project. Secondly, we will discuss the features of teachers’ professional learning that are likely to facilitate desirable conditions, practices and opportunities for promoting interconnections between leadership and learning in schools. Finally, the session will present exemplars of teachers’ work at an empirical level, in which teachers’ agency is enhanced when they are learners and leaders in different contexts. These exemplars are drawn from teachers’ action-enquiry projects designed to contribute to organisational improvement. Collectively, the exposition will present a persuasive portrayal of teachers’ agency being nourished when teachers are both learners and leaders, in their classrooms, among their colleagues and across their communities.

In 1988, Professor Sarra commenced his career as an educator. After a very personal revelation about how he as an Aboriginal student had been ‘sold short’ by schooling, he became determined to change expectations of Aboriginal children in schools throughout Australia. It was a lofty career ambition, but one he feels he has achieved: the stronger smarter approach, which he developed and now shares with an army of hardworking and courageous educators, has had success – despite the questionable efforts of education researchers with little or no insight into the profound complexities of such an undertaking. This paper will reflect on aspects of the stronger smarter journey and invite education researchers to consider how to enhance this pursuit rather than get in the way of it.

Innovative collaboration between schools and university can enhance teacher education. This model was developed as part of a partnership between a school principal leading a cluster of diverse primary schools, and a local university school of teacher education. The partnership established a memorandum of understanding to support targeted and standards-based professional learning for teachers and new leaders across the schools in the cluster. Novice pre-service teachers were also assigned to these schools for an extended weekly professional placement. This session outlines the model as it was designed: to respond to the strategic demands of particular school communities, as well as to ensure teaching and leadership development for pre-service and in-service teachers. The session will explain the model’s conceptual and research base for professional learning. It will identify practical theories for skill and leadership development in pre-service and in-service teacher education respectively.

What does ‘empowering teachers-as-evaluators’ mean in whole-school strategic planning and evaluation? Our work seeks to develop and empower teachers as whole-of-school evaluators to embrace ownership of the school’s plan and directions, build communities of practice, create transparency, openness and trust, and ultimately improve student learning outcomes. Our previous research in whole-school qualitative empowerment evaluation showed that principals who were fully engaged in their schools’ evaluations were more likely to be influenced by the evaluation process, use the evaluation results and build evaluation capacity than those who merely participated as a guest. They engaged in double-loop learning. We further found that key values, such as trust, acted as catalysts for evaluation influence. This raised questions as to whether the influences on principals from this research would also apply to all staff if they were similarly engaged in their whole-school’s evaluation. We describe one school’s ongoing journey since 2015 in such a process and our research findings to date. Our findings draw on observation, interview and questionnaire data from all staff at all levels in the school. The research reveals that as staff members develop transparency and trust in the process and with each other, their understanding of and input into the school’s plan and directions are increasing and their evaluation capacity is being built.