https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/51746/what-makes-a-good-school-culture

What Makes a Good School Culture?

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 (iStock/Rawpixel)

Most principals have an instinctive awareness that organizational culture is a key element of school success. They might say their school has a “good culture” when teachers are expressing a shared vision and students are succeeding — or that they need to “work on school culture” when several teachers resign or student discipline rates rise.
But like many organizational leaders, principals may get stymied when they actually try to describe the elements that create a positive culture. It's tricky to define, and parsing its components can be challenging. Amid the push for tangible outcomes like higher test scores and graduation rates, it can be tempting to think that school culture is just too vague or “soft” to prioritize.
That would be a mistake, according to Ebony Bridwell-Mitchell, an expert in education leadership and management. As she explains, researchers who have studied culture have tracked and demonstrated a strong and significant correlation between organizational culture and an organization’s performance. Once principals understand what constitutes culture — once they learn to see it not as a hazy mass of intangibles, but as something that can be pinpointed and designed — they can start to execute a cultural vision.

At a recent session of the National Institute for Urban School Leaders at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Bridwell-Mitchell took a deep dive into “culture,” describing the building blocks of an organization’s character and fundamentally how it feels to work there.
Culture Is Connections
A culture will be strong or weak depending on the interactions between the people in the organization, she said. In a strong culture, there are many, overlapping, and cohesive interactions among all members of the organization.  As a result, knowledge about the organization’s distinctive character — and what it takes to thrive in it — is widely spread and reinforced. In a weak culture, sparse interactions make it difficult for people to learn the organization’s culture, so its character is barely noticeable and the commitment to it is scarce or sporadic.

• Beliefs, values, and actions will spread the farthest and be tightly reinforced when everyone is communicating with everyone else. In a strong school culture, leaders communicate directly with teachers, administrators, counselors, and families, who also all communicate directly with each other.
• A culture is weaker when communications are limited and there are fewer connections. For example, if certain teachers never hear directly from their principal, an administrator is continually excluded from communications, or any groups of staff members are operating in isolation from others, it will be difficult for messages about shared beliefs and commitments to spread.

Culture Is Core Beliefs and Behaviors
Within that weak or strong structure, what exactly people believe and how they act depends on the messages — both direct and indirect — that the leaders and others in the organization send. A good culture arises from messages that promote traits like collaboration, honesty and hard work.
Culture is shaped by five interwoven elements, each of which principals have the power to influence: 

1. Fundamental beliefs and assumptions, or the things that people at your school consider to be true. For example: “All students have the potential to succeed,” or “Teaching is a team sport.”
2. Shared values, or the judgments people at your school make about those belief and assumptions — whether they are right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust. For example: “It’s wrong that some of our kindergarteners may not receive the same opportunity to graduate from a four-year college,” or “The right thing is for our teachers to be collaborating with colleagues every step of the way.”
3. Norms, or how members believe they should act and behave, or what they think is expected of them. For example: “We should talk often and early to parents of young students about what it will take for their children to attend college.” “We all should be present and engaged at our weekly grade-level meetings.”
4. Patterns and behaviors, or the way people actually act and behave in your school. For example: There are regularly-scheduled parent engagement nights around college; there is active participation at weekly team curriculum meetings. (But in a weak culture, these patterns and behaviors can be different than the norms.)
5. Tangible evidence, or the physical, visual, auditory, or other sensory signs that demonstrate the behaviors of the people in your school. For example: Prominently displayed posters showcasing the district’s college enrollment, or a full parking lot an hour before school begins on the mornings when curriculum teams meet.

Each of these components influences and drives the others, forming a circle of reinforcing beliefs and actions, Bridwell-Mitchell says; strong connections among every member of the school community reinforce the circle at every point.

Leah Shafer is a staff writer for Usable Knowledge, which translates education research and well-tested practices so they're accessible to practitioners, policymakers, and parents. Usable Knowledge is based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. 

ILE, where's the evidence?

https://educationcentral.co.nz/innovative-learning-environments-wheres-the-evidence-2/

With all the attention on innovative learning environments (ILEs) at the moment it’s understandable that many people are seeking clear, empirical evidence that learning spaces positively impact on outcomes for learners. Teacher time is precious and resources are scarce; if we’re going to implement a new approach, we should be fairly certain that it’s going to make a difference for our learners before we embark on any kind of innovation. Helpfully, some key pieces of research are showing that learning environments can, and do, make a difference to outcomes for learners.

What’s very clear from the research is that ‘buildings alone are not enough; it is about relationships and changing cultures and practices’. No educator will be surprised to hear that bricks and mortar on their own won’t change outcomes for learners, we know that learning is a lot more sophisticated than that. Having acknowledged that though, what’s emerging from the research is how much impact a combination of skilled, reflective educators and complementary physical environments can have on learning.

Inclusive spaces

Recent advances in fields such as neuroscience have confirmed what many have suspected for a long time: that when it comes to learning ‘variability is the rule, not the exception’. We all have different needs and preferences when it comes to learning and when those needs and preferences are met, we learn faster and we learn more. One of the drivers behind much of the work taking place in learning environments at the moment is a desire to ensure the physical environment is inclusive and supports all learners as well as it can.

Approaches such as Universal Design for Learning help us to ensure that all learner needs are met: those who need to read and reflect can find quiet spaces to do this; those who need to draw diagrams, build models, think aloud, explain to others, or work closely with a teacher can do so. This thinking extends to the choice and arrangement of furniture in a learning environment as well.

A couple of recent studies have demonstrated that providing learners with the opportunity to work at standing tables improved their working memory and increased their level of on-task behaviour by 12 per cent or an extra seven minutes per hour. In a world where primary-aged children sit on average for around nine hours a day, providing the opportunity to stand up is good for their bodies as well as their learning.

Culturally responsive spaces

Another key driver in the design of learning environments at the moment is an acknowledgement that there is a strong link between wellbeing and achievement, and that students’ wellbeing is strongly influenced by “a clear sense of identity, and access and exposure to their own language and culture”.

For Māori learners this means an environment where reo and tikanga are supported and enhanced, but it also means being given the opportunity to learn in an environment that promotes approaches outlined in documents such as Tātaiako:

• Ako: learning from and with each other. Peer tutoring, tuakana/teina, reciprocal teaching and collaborative learning spaces.
• Manaakitanga: building on student strengths by providing spaces that allow learners to exercise those strengths: collaboration; reflection; digital media production; visual arts; physical movement and dance; performance.
• Tangata whenuatanga: acknowledging and linking to the history of the land to create authentic, real-world context for understanding ourselves and our community. The learning that takes place outside the classroom is just as important as the learning that takes place within it.
• Wānanga: spaces that allow larger groups to come together to collectively explore some big concept or to engage in problem-solving. The traditional classroom in schools works well for small and medium-sized groups but makes it very difficult to get diverse communities together to engage in learning.

What’s also clear from a lot of this research is that what works for Māori often works for others, particularly Pasifika learners: we can raise achievement for all students by designing and using spaces that promote these whakaaro.

Empirical evidence

Beyond these guiding principles, there is also a growing body of hard, concrete evidence connecting learning environments and increased student achievement. In particular, two crucial studies have been published over the last two years.

The first is a study from the University of Salford entitled ‘Clever Classrooms’ that found that “differences in the physical characteristics of classrooms explain 16 per cent of the variation in learning progress over a year”. This 16 per cent variation is significant; it’s the equivalent of the impact that a teacher has on learning over the course of a year. One question the study gives rise to is, “What are these ‘differences’ in environment?”

The study suggests that outside of getting right things like temperature, air quality and acoustics, one of the crucial areas of focus is what the researchers refer to as ‘individualisation’, or the learning environment’s ability to provide learners with what they need for their learning. In short, to accommodate our growing awareness that ‘variability is the rule, not the exception’.

Some features of the physical environment that help educators to accommodate this kind of variability include:

• breakout zones or rooms: the study found that these impact positively on learning by ensuring that learners could find a quiet space to read or write or do something reflective; or a space where they could be noisy and excited without negatively impacting on other learners
• learning zones: a variety of learning settings that can accommodate a range of different kinds of teaching and learning activities, such as writing, research, performance, collaboration, peer-tutoring, direct instruction or experimentation
• varied floor plans: these support varied teaching and learning better than traditional ‘box’ classrooms, which often have a single ‘front’ to the room which is often occupied by the teacher.

A second study recently published by the University of Melbourne confirmed a connection between ILEs and student achievement in secondary schools.

The study compared two cohorts from the same school – one that learned in an ILE and one that learned in traditional classrooms. Factors such as curriculum, student ability, class construction, assessment and the teacher were controlled in order to focus solely on the impact of the learning environment.

The study found the ILEs led to increases in a range of outcomes for the students including increased behavioural and cognitive engagement, and increases in the range of active, collaborative, personalised, and student-centred learning experiences.

Perhaps the most crucial finding from this study was related to student achievement: the researchers found that overall student achievement for the ILE cohort increased by an average of 15 per cent across English, mathematics and humanities. That’s a significant improvement in outcomes for learners, facilitated by a change in the learning environment.

As these last two studies attest, there is a growing body of research that suggests that when teacher pedagogy and physical learning environments are matching, there are significant gains to be made in achievement.

In a system that appears to be increasingly focused on quantitative measures of progress, it’s important to remember that qualitative measures are also important. Metrics such as student (and teacher) wellbeing, sense of belonging, enjoyment (fun even!) directly impact on a learner’s academic success in both early childhood centres and schools.

What’s reassuring about the current crop of research into learning environments is that putting the needs of people first not only leads to positive affective results but positive gains in achievement too.

Mark Osborne is a senior advisor in Future-Focused Education at CORE Education, particularly in the areas of innovative learning environments, and change leadership. Mark’s personal mission is to turn all schools into awesomeness incubators, and he is currently completing his PhD on change leadership in innovative learning environments at the University of Melbourne.

For references to this article please contact editor@educationcentral.co.nz.

/exploring-ways-to-say-so-long-to

https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/02/06/exploring-ways-to-say-so-long-to.html?cmp=soc-tw-shr

Pa Sites in New Plymouth.

https://www.scribblemaps.com/maps/view/New_Plymouth_Pa_Sites/ksstVRvlI2

How School'S Thrawt Passions

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/freedom-learn/201811/how-schools-thwart-passions

Number Agents, great post on Play

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Some things I have learned so far.

Posted: 10 Nov 2018 12:18 AM PST

This is our fourth year growing into play.  This is the richest journey I have ever been on in my professional career.  This journey has unfolded naturally without the need to be forced, time has allowed me the opportunity to reflect, respond and change as needed.

My one concern at the moment is that with the growing popularity of play, teachers will jump on board, without a why, thinking they need to put everything in place at once, rushing in without taking the time to let the process guide them, and in turn finding the journey is not as successful as they believe it should be, in turn they will blame play and return to the old way of doing things.

I know and trust that my journey still has a lot to teach me, but wanted to share some of the things I have learned so far.

1) You have to have a why, a reason to start this whole journey, and it can't be because others are doing it and it seems like a good idea.  Our initial why was the limited oral language children were coming in with and the apparent rise of 'learning difficulties.'  Our why now has morphed into developmental readiness.  This why needs to be clearly evident when lovely people like ERO visit, if you are the best person to speak about that why, be part of that meeting, don't count on others to be able to articulate it for you.

2)Clearly have the bones of what you are trying to do in your head and on paper from the start.  What dispositions are you after?  Are you using elements of Te Whariki?  What are the values you want to develop?  How will you guide social and emotional skills?  These are the elements that will help to shape where you find your place in the programme.  Where and how will you take the opportunity to 'coach' these things?  What is it you want for your children?

3)Trust, this is crucial, you need to take time to develop trust in yourself and trust in the children, without trust, this approach will be quite restricted.

4)Learning, how does it look and how does it happen?  I have learned some much about the brain and how it develops.  It is crucial in a play based class that you are aware of developmental needs and how you can use these to engage with each child in your class.

5)Time, it is important not to try to change too much at once, take time with everything, it has been important for me that I have had time to reflect on what I am seeing and respond to these.  I have changed so much of what we do, but don't believe at any stage I have been wrong, I just didn't know better yet.

6)You can not run a class based on play and developmental needs and still hang on to the old way of forcing learning.  This needs to change.  A play-based/developmental approach is at cross purposes with a programme that forces academic learning and testing in the way it has been done in the past.

7)Children are individuals and need to be treated with respect given to their needs.  One of the gift a class based on play gives us is the opportunity to really see children, but we must allow us to take the time to do so.

8)The curriculum comes from the children, trust that it will.  In fact I have never discovered so much with my children, I don't plan for this, but it is up to me to notice it and work out a way to respond if appropriate.  It is up to me to see how the prescribed 'curriculum' has been falling out of our days, not the concern of the children who naturally see everything as connected.

9)Oral language is off the hook in a play based classroom, if you are looking for a way to improve confidence and ability to speak, play based is an absolutely perfect way to do this.

10)Eventually there is a need to ditch weekly planning and the timetable, this will happen naturally and as if feels right.   Backward planning is where it is at.

11)  There is no need to spend loads of money on resources, in fact we have ended up ditching many of ours.  If you want to purchase items, take time to watch the interests and urges first.  Open ended items are the absolute best.

12) Mess is good, pack up at the end of the day.

13)Reading, writing and maths can still be part of your day, these just may look a little different.  For us we use storytelling for writing, number agents for maths and reading is individual if and when they are ready.

14) Get ready for that old teacher on your shoulder to have a field day every time you see the actual age of children and compare it to their so called reading level.  This voice will dim with time, but it will always be there.  Take it from me, progress will be there, but it will look different.  Measures of reading, writing and maths may be more relevant from Year 4 on.

15) Children will naturally deepen play, you don't need to do it.  There is no need for beautiful provocations, take time to provoke or invite when you are responding to an interest.

16) You may have wonderful ideas for a provocation, and the children may not take the bait...don't worry, just shelve that idea.

17)Children love a 'sense of a mysterious other' and it is a great way to provoke writing.  Use magic at every opportunity.

18) Every day won't be a wonderful leap through the daisies, this approach is hard work, I have never worked harder, I go home brain dead and some days wouldn't make the pages of facebook.  The great days outweigh the difficult ones.

19) Eventually you will be able to ditch any rewards you have been using in a traditional classroom.  We have phased this out this year.  Children simply don't need them.

20) Allow yourself good chunks of time to reflect, honestly look at your programme, if something is not working, why isn't it...what can you change?

Play has transformed our classroom and continues to transform our school.  We have learned to see children from a point of competence, to see them as creative, imaginative and able...this lens has helped us to change the way we see children and in turn, change the way we interact with them.

Number Agents

Rubik's Cube: A question, waiting to be answered