Week 26 - A reflection using Rolfe's model

What?

At this point of the Take Action Inquiry the teachers came together to plan their student inquiry for Term 1. Teachers were asked to bring resources to aid integration across literacy and numeracy. My expectations were that this is what would happen and there would be robust discussion and collaboration amongst peers to create this plan using the planning framework.

I observed very few teachers did what was expected and team leaders in particular were not prepared. When this occurs team leaders do not behave as leaders in these meetings and then defer all leadership to me as the facilitator in order to not take responsibilities for their actions. Leaders take a followers stance and alienated at best to try and build camaraderie with others in the group this way they deflect accountability. We are all in this together and no one wants to be here attitude, which is not conducive to creative thinking or mobilising teams into action. 

Great leaders move us. They ignite our passion and inspire the best in us. When we try to explain why they are so effective, we speak of strategy, vision, or powerful ideas. But the reality is much more primal: Great leadership works through the emotions. If leaders fail in driving emotions in the right direction, nothing they do will work as well as it could, hence what happened next. 

So What? 

The framework provides a series of experiences that will scaffold students to be successful at a project based inquiry however the experiences themselves need to be scaffolded through adequate resourcing and integration to reduce cognitive load and allow critical thinking opportunities. What surprised me the most was that many teachers were still stuck on the idea that new knowledge or thinking can be built from class discussion and students and learning experiences were limiting and not student centred.

Perhaps because of the digital world we live in, teachers have forgotten the value of resourcing to match the learning and scaffold the learning. Creativity is lacking with teachers who are happy to plan the same learning experiences that they struggled through last time rather than think up new ones. Learning theories that show links between constructionism, construtivism and connectivism and providing more opportunities for students to engage and deepen their learning does not translate through to the planning.

Now what?

A few actions will need to be implemented to ensure future success and not failure. The group size was too large with 4 leaders and teachers and needs to be split. We need to create teacher agency around this process that is sustaining and effective and so we need the teachers to take on their responsibilities and roles as leaders and be accountable in a smaller group setting first. Teacher agency is often defined as ‘teachers demonstrating a capacity to act to solve pedagogical problems and/or challenges’ which is something teachers need to build on whether we are scanning, focussing or developing a hunch during the spiral of inquiry.

As a facilitator, my role is different from a senior school leader and I believe I need to bring in this team to set expectations for the leaders and drive critically reflection on their leaders' leadership style, strengths and weaknesses. The Senior Leadership team also need to lead by example and model the effect their emotion / mood has within their team. Driving the collective emotions in a positive direction and clearing the smog, created by toxic emotions needs to be the goal of all leaders moving forward.