Middle leaders as catalysts for improving teacher practice: developing a knowledge exchange and impact network with Challenge Partners' schools
Lead Research Organisation:
University College London
Department Name: London Centre for Leadership in Learning
Abstract
Challenge Partners is a collaborative group of 180+ schools across England, focused on improving the quality of teaching and leadership in pursuit of better outcomes for its pupils. Challenge Partners provides a vehicle for schools that wish to learn from the best of their peers via effective networking across the entire partnership.
Middle leaders (eg heads of subject departments/curriculum coordinators) are fundamental to successful school improvement and improved teacher practice. They lead teaching and learning, and are the key bridge between senior leaders (headteachers/deputy heads) and teachers. Challenge Partners' middle leaders are often outstanding teachers - many have achieved national status awards of Advanced Skills Teachers or Specialist Leaders of Education, and they are charged with supporting colleagues' development in their own and other schools. As government policy expects schools to be increasingly responsible for their own and other schools' improvement, ASTs' and SLEs' role are now especially important. These middle leaders, however, are often frustrated in their attempts to connect and share their own expert knowledge with other middle leaders and teachers, especially in other schools. They also frequently do not know the best ways to track their interventions' impact through to changes in teachers' practice.
This applied research project has been designed, and will be co-facilitated and jointly evaluated by a partnership involving Challenge Partners and the London Centre for Leadership in Learning at the IOE. We aim to explore and learn about establishing an effective network among a key group of middle leaders across the 17 leading Challenge Partner schools, who will extend this learning to their peers in 164 hub schools. This network will be able to: share research and practice-based knowledge effectively across their schools about excellent middle leadership practice and professional development; develop evidence-based tools to track ways in which middle leaders change and improve their practice as a result of knowledge sharing; have mechanisms to track the impact of their knowledge sharing and changed professional practice on changed teacher practice; and be able to share the outcomes of their applied project work more widely to benefit a broader range of educators.
Our project questions are:
1. What do we know about effective middle leadership within and across schools that changes teachers' practice?
2. What are powerful ways to share knowledge about excellent middle leadership practice within and across schools?
3. What evidence-based tools can be designed collaboratively between Challenge Partners middle leaders and academic partners to track changes in teachers' practice as a result of middle leaders' interventions?
4. What leadership conditions in schools help develop and embed cultures of shared outstanding practice?
Project activities will involve:
- workshops where research findings and best practice will be shared, and middle leaders will, with us, use new learning to create and refine processes and tools to help them lead more effectively and track their impact;
- face-to-face and social networking activities where the middle leaders will test new ideas and trial tools in their own and other schools;
- middle leaders evaluating the experiences and the impact on them and colleagues;
- jointly developing processes to embed the notion of sharing high quality research-informed practice between schools in their own networks and for practitioners in other networks.
In a linked evaluation, we will collect information about middle leaders' starting knowledge, beliefs and skills and their schools' orientation to sharing outstanding practice with others. We will follow project activities, observing what happens and talking with participants about their experiences. We will share findings with participants throughout to improve the process and outcomes.
Middle leaders (eg heads of subject departments/curriculum coordinators) are fundamental to successful school improvement and improved teacher practice. They lead teaching and learning, and are the key bridge between senior leaders (headteachers/deputy heads) and teachers. Challenge Partners' middle leaders are often outstanding teachers - many have achieved national status awards of Advanced Skills Teachers or Specialist Leaders of Education, and they are charged with supporting colleagues' development in their own and other schools. As government policy expects schools to be increasingly responsible for their own and other schools' improvement, ASTs' and SLEs' role are now especially important. These middle leaders, however, are often frustrated in their attempts to connect and share their own expert knowledge with other middle leaders and teachers, especially in other schools. They also frequently do not know the best ways to track their interventions' impact through to changes in teachers' practice.
This applied research project has been designed, and will be co-facilitated and jointly evaluated by a partnership involving Challenge Partners and the London Centre for Leadership in Learning at the IOE. We aim to explore and learn about establishing an effective network among a key group of middle leaders across the 17 leading Challenge Partner schools, who will extend this learning to their peers in 164 hub schools. This network will be able to: share research and practice-based knowledge effectively across their schools about excellent middle leadership practice and professional development; develop evidence-based tools to track ways in which middle leaders change and improve their practice as a result of knowledge sharing; have mechanisms to track the impact of their knowledge sharing and changed professional practice on changed teacher practice; and be able to share the outcomes of their applied project work more widely to benefit a broader range of educators.
Our project questions are:
1. What do we know about effective middle leadership within and across schools that changes teachers' practice?
2. What are powerful ways to share knowledge about excellent middle leadership practice within and across schools?
3. What evidence-based tools can be designed collaboratively between Challenge Partners middle leaders and academic partners to track changes in teachers' practice as a result of middle leaders' interventions?
4. What leadership conditions in schools help develop and embed cultures of shared outstanding practice?
Project activities will involve:
- workshops where research findings and best practice will be shared, and middle leaders will, with us, use new learning to create and refine processes and tools to help them lead more effectively and track their impact;
- face-to-face and social networking activities where the middle leaders will test new ideas and trial tools in their own and other schools;
- middle leaders evaluating the experiences and the impact on them and colleagues;
- jointly developing processes to embed the notion of sharing high quality research-informed practice between schools in their own networks and for practitioners in other networks.
In a linked evaluation, we will collect information about middle leaders' starting knowledge, beliefs and skills and their schools' orientation to sharing outstanding practice with others. We will follow project activities, observing what happens and talking with participants about their experiences. We will share findings with participants throughout to improve the process and outcomes.
Planned Impact
Who will benefit from this research?
- A catalyst network of Challenge Partner middle leaders in 17 schools.
- Middle leaders in each of the hub schools supported by this core group.
- Teachers in their schools involved in the trialling and, through extension, many others.
- Senior leaders in these schools (headteachers and deputy/assistant headteachers).
- Pupils in these schools will be the ultimate beneficiaries, once practice changes are embedded beyond this project's timeline.
- A wider group of Challenge Partner middle leaders (in 180+ schools in total), as the process is developed and extended, capacity is rolled out and best practice exchanged more widely.
- Leaders of other national networks (for example, Teaching School Alliances) engaged in in-school and school-to-school support and improvement, where lessons learnt from our approach will have salience.
- Policy leaders such as the DfE and the National College for School Leadership that has a brief to grow leadership potential and capacity within the self-improving school system, including that of middle leaders.
- Ourselves as researchers, facilitators and practice partners.
How will they benefit from this research?
A core group of Challenge Partner middle leaders will benefit by who will benefit from intensive capacity building, enabling them to:
- reflect on and analyse own practice in order to understand what makes it effective and be able to articulate this to others
- relate their practice-based knowledge to what is known about excellent middle leadership / leadership for learning
- support colleagues within and across schools to bring about change and improvements in their practice
- track the differences they make to their and colleagues' practice and, ultimately, pupil learning
- share new knowledge across a wider network of colleagues in similar roles to extend and build capacity.
Participating colleagues and senior leaders in the core group of 17 schools will benefit by having evidence of:
- what excellent middle leadership of teaching and learning 'looks like'
- what middle leaders can do to bring about improvements in practice within their own departments, and more broadly within and across schools
- 'what works' in terms of excellent classroom practice; ie, how to ensure that changes in practice make a positive difference to outcomes for pupils
- how middle leaders can work most effectively to share their knowledge and practice with colleagues in similar roles
- the kinds of supporting condition that need to be in place to establish and sustain cultures of shared outstanding practice.
The wider network of Challenge Partner Schools will benefit by having evidence of how to:
- develop excellent middle leadership of teaching and learning
- ensure improved practice is modelled and articulated effectively and that it makes a difference to outcomes for pupils
- embed improvement in teacher practice through sustainable networking.
Leaders of other networks nationally (including, for example, Teaching School Alliances) engaged in in-school and school-to-school support and improvement, and those operating a system level (such as the DfE, NCSL etc.) will have evidence of:
- what constitutes excellent school-to-school support
- how to develop and support middle leaders and specialist leaders of education (SLEs) so that their work makes a difference to colleagues' practice and outcomes for pupils
- how to build capacity for and sustain collaboration within schools and across clusters, networks and alliances.
As researchers, facilitators, and practice partners we will benefit in:
- enhancing our partnership of academics working with schools and networks
- enriching the ways we can support future middle leaders, due to the accruing two-way benefits from animating the knowledge, our overall engagement in the project and from key lessons stemming from its evaluation.
- A catalyst network of Challenge Partner middle leaders in 17 schools.
- Middle leaders in each of the hub schools supported by this core group.
- Teachers in their schools involved in the trialling and, through extension, many others.
- Senior leaders in these schools (headteachers and deputy/assistant headteachers).
- Pupils in these schools will be the ultimate beneficiaries, once practice changes are embedded beyond this project's timeline.
- A wider group of Challenge Partner middle leaders (in 180+ schools in total), as the process is developed and extended, capacity is rolled out and best practice exchanged more widely.
- Leaders of other national networks (for example, Teaching School Alliances) engaged in in-school and school-to-school support and improvement, where lessons learnt from our approach will have salience.
- Policy leaders such as the DfE and the National College for School Leadership that has a brief to grow leadership potential and capacity within the self-improving school system, including that of middle leaders.
- Ourselves as researchers, facilitators and practice partners.
How will they benefit from this research?
A core group of Challenge Partner middle leaders will benefit by who will benefit from intensive capacity building, enabling them to:
- reflect on and analyse own practice in order to understand what makes it effective and be able to articulate this to others
- relate their practice-based knowledge to what is known about excellent middle leadership / leadership for learning
- support colleagues within and across schools to bring about change and improvements in their practice
- track the differences they make to their and colleagues' practice and, ultimately, pupil learning
- share new knowledge across a wider network of colleagues in similar roles to extend and build capacity.
Participating colleagues and senior leaders in the core group of 17 schools will benefit by having evidence of:
- what excellent middle leadership of teaching and learning 'looks like'
- what middle leaders can do to bring about improvements in practice within their own departments, and more broadly within and across schools
- 'what works' in terms of excellent classroom practice; ie, how to ensure that changes in practice make a positive difference to outcomes for pupils
- how middle leaders can work most effectively to share their knowledge and practice with colleagues in similar roles
- the kinds of supporting condition that need to be in place to establish and sustain cultures of shared outstanding practice.
The wider network of Challenge Partner Schools will benefit by having evidence of how to:
- develop excellent middle leadership of teaching and learning
- ensure improved practice is modelled and articulated effectively and that it makes a difference to outcomes for pupils
- embed improvement in teacher practice through sustainable networking.
Leaders of other networks nationally (including, for example, Teaching School Alliances) engaged in in-school and school-to-school support and improvement, and those operating a system level (such as the DfE, NCSL etc.) will have evidence of:
- what constitutes excellent school-to-school support
- how to develop and support middle leaders and specialist leaders of education (SLEs) so that their work makes a difference to colleagues' practice and outcomes for pupils
- how to build capacity for and sustain collaboration within schools and across clusters, networks and alliances.
As researchers, facilitators, and practice partners we will benefit in:
- enhancing our partnership of academics working with schools and networks
- enriching the ways we can support future middle leaders, due to the accruing two-way benefits from animating the knowledge, our overall engagement in the project and from key lessons stemming from its evaluation.
Organisations
Publications
Stoll L And Brown C
(2015)
Middle leaders as catalysts for evidence-informed change
Stoll, L
(2015)
Perspectives on teacher leadership for evidence-informed improvement in England
in Leading & Managing
| Description | Our main achievements from this knowledge exchange project include: 1.Catalysts have learnt how to lead educational change in a theory-rich way. Introducing a range of research perspectives on the nature of change itself proved highly significant. This immediately resonated with middle leaders and appeared to be quickly internalised by many of them. They consistently drew on it throughout the project, weaving it into workshop conversations and tasks between sessions. They also reported on resulting successes, and were keen to share what they had learnt about change leadership with other middle leaders in their regional hubs and elsewhere. In essence, they had an increasingly sophisticated understanding of their own role as catalysts for change in relation to the project's theory of action about knowledge exchange. 2.Catalysts have learnt robust approaches to tracking impact, and enabled others to do the same (Research Question 3). Supported by us, they designed research-informed impact tools that they found powerful in helping stimulate and track changes in colleagues' practice and which were focused on improvements in pupils' learning. Impact measures were contextualised to specific situations and issues, but the enquiry processes always included a baseline against which impact could be judged. They also crafted questions which helped to open up meaningful learning conversations between them and colleagues. This seemed to shift the emphasis from accountability of colleagues to their professional development. Catalysts described changes in colleagues' practice and greater openness to change because the process helped build ownership. A considerable number planned to use the tools again this year in different situations, and some had influenced senior leaders to embed them within school development plans. 3.We can offer greater understanding about what happens when educational practitioners combine research findings with their own knowledge and experience to generate new knowledge. Operationalising Nonaka and Takeuchi's (1995) theory about knowledge-creating companies in educational settings, embellished with our own theory about learning conversations (Stoll, 2012) has provided insights into the meaning of evidence-informed practice and how it can be achieved. We also know more about how to convey research findings in ways which are are more likely to be incorporated into middle leaders' practice. This includes the relationship between researchers and practitioners and has implications for the meaning of knowledge exchange between researchers and practitioners. 4.Certain catalysts developed the skills and confidence to engage colleagues in powerful ways as they exchanged their new knowledge within their schools and across regional hubs and/or other networks (Research question 2). They used what they learnt about networking, change, effective middle leadership, impact evaluation and Challenge Partners' models to design collegial learning processes and strategies, or used or adapted ours. Headteachers of these catalysts were very pleased with the changes they had instigated, and further network activities were planned and are ongoing. In less successful instances, either their own immediate context (Research Question 4) or their own middle leadership capabilities or experience (Research Question 1) limited the reach and depth of their impact. |
| Exploitation Route | Key advocates and champions will be the catalysts themselves, who are continuing to move their new knowledge around their schools, hubs and other networks. In relation to our publication plans, as well as our pathways to impact plans, we have already arranged to write jointly with two catalysts and have offered others opportunities to write with us and present or co-facilitate at sessions. We are presenting our findings internationally, have been discussing our findings with colleagues in the US and Canada and are working on an international research bid to take forward the knowledge exchange research. An unanticipated impact pathway was that Challenge Partners (CP) are now further developing their research engagement and are very keen to collaborate in jointly planning an evidence-informed leadership programme. This will be an important and high-profile development opportunity, as many CP lead schools are also national teaching schools which have a significant leadership role in the education system. The programme will incorporate the findings, be offered throughout the partnership, and will also develop research-enriched change catalyst capacity. While these are findings from education, they are pertinent to impact tracking and knowledge exchange in other sectors and could be adapted. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy Education Healthcare |
| URL | http://www.lcll.org.uk/middle-leaders-change-catalysts.html |
| Description | Increasing the effectiveness of public services - behaviour change for school improvement The project findings have been used thus far by three groups: 1. By Challenge Partners (CP) and some of their schools - The CEO and Managing Director of our partner organisation, a charity owned by schools, have told us that it has profoundly affected their thinking and, therefore, how they support all of their hubs/clusters of schools. Since the project started, CP has grown by 300%, with now over 360 schools serving 200,000 students. The work is included in CP's induction programme for new hubs of schools (around 6 a year) and they are required to produce an action plan which CP works with them to deliver over three years. It is also incorporated into a toolkit to all staff used by CP to support schools through their national brokerage service which, the CEO said, 'is a major development for us'. They have received several hundred requests for the service and this has increased considerably over the last few years. The expression 'Catalyst' is now part of CP schools' language. The professional learning cards (Catalyst), trialled by a range of CP's schools, have now been published (see 3 below) and introduced to CP's hub leads and senior partners by request of the CEO, with follow-up invitations to work in a range of hubs. The R&D project and its findings were included in the CEO's national presentations, frequently attended by policy makers, and on his website which is accessed by educators from across the globe. He has continued to refer to the project and outcomes in international presentations. In summary, in the CEO's words, the collaborative project we undertook together and its findings have been 'of considerable value to us'. Further reporting of CP's use of the project findings was incorporated in a jointly written and presented paper at the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement in January 2016. 2. By the catalysts themselves, most of their schools and in various networks - Most catalysts have continued to use different elements of the project. Notably, in follow up telephone conversations with some catalysts, it was clear they consider it extremely important to track their impact and help others do the same. Most were still utilising the impact tracking tool, some of them adapting it for other purposes. Different aspects of the project knowledge on middle leadership, educational change, knowledge exchange and networking within and between schools also influenced their practice and were being shared with colleagues in and beyond their schools. Many of the ideas have been integrated into their everyday leadership practice. In one person's words, 'it's just become part of my mindset'. As all of their schools are now in a number of different networks and partnerships beyond Challenge Partners, these findings have also rippled through into catalysts' work in other collaborative initiatives and we have heard about this when carrying out research interviews of staff involved in other collaboratives. Some of the schools also took up the impact tracking aspect more broadly across the whole staff. The findings on impact on catalysts are further described in a chapter published in 2018 in an international handbook on professional learning communities (Stoll et al, 2018). 3. By knowledge exchange professionals and other professional development facilitators working in collaboration with schools - Although we are not requested to report on how project findings are being used by academia, our knowledge exchange professionals and other professional development facilitators we work with are now using the findings to inform the design of tailored middle and senior educational leadership programmes. The findings have also influenced our work with a significant number of schools and networks of schools interested in evidence-informed practice, for example through the Institute of Education's R&D network of schools, and the Educational Endowment Foundation's funding of Research Learning Communities (primary schools). The professional learning resource cards which we designed with input and support from Challenge Partners were trialled with extremely positive feedback and great interest in accessing them to support evidence-informed practice development, are now published (Stoll et al, April 2018, UCL IOE Press) and being used nationally and internationally. In summary, the findings are reaching other schools and being used by them in a range of tasks they engage in as part of programme, projects and network activities with Institute of Education staff and beyond. Given the challenges we elaborated in our final report, this is encouraging. There has been tremendous commitment on the part of both partners to keep the project and its legacy alive, with follow-up meetings and calls. We anticipate considerably wider use of the project findings nationally and internationally to support behaviour change of middle leaders and teachers they work with and, consequently, public service improvement. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2015 |
| Sector | Education |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |
| Description | Induction programme for hubs joining Challenge Partners |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Input into Delta School District strategic policy and leadership development, British Columbia, Canada |
| Geographic Reach | North America |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Input into Mayor of London's education programme for teaching schools |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Input into Victoria's (Australia) Department of Education and Training Professional Learning Community policy |
| Geographic Reach | Australia |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | IOE Seed Funding Scheme 2016/17 |
| Amount | £11,500 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University College London |
| Department | Institute of Education (IOE) |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 04/2017 |
| End | 07/2017 |
| Description | AIS Leadership Centre Masterclass (Sydney) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | This was a full-day workshop where I used the cards developed from the results of the middle leader knowledge exchange project to help colleagues think about and decide how to develop their own knowledge exchange and middle leaders. Some of the many positive comments received were: "loved the cards - these would be great to use with our middle managers"; "great for group conversation and learning"; "the cards are thought provoking - could be used in a scenario situation" (we had already designed this as one option for use of the cards); "the cards were a great way to begin conversations and structure those conversations"; "loved the cards - clever way to stimulate professional dialogue"; "I could see the cards being used as a resource with the lleadership team as part of reflection/planning". There were many requests to access the cards eg "the cards are grea! I love this idea, I would lovel these to be widely available for use"; "fabulous reousrce - would be even better if they were available for us to take away"; "I would love to get them and use with staff in a variety of ways depending on the group I'm working with". |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Catalyst: an evidence-informed, collaborative professional learning resource for teacher leaders and other leaders working within and across schools |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Day workshop in Sydney, Australia for middle and senior leaders in New South Wales schools to introduce them to the Catalyst cards demonstrate how they can be used, support them in planning next steps, and leaving them with further follow up tasks. All attendees took away a set of cards. There was excellent engagement and many participants had concrete plans for the cards' use. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Challenge Partners website |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Our partner in this knowledge exchange project, Challenge Partners (CP), has put up project information on its website and updates it. It has also sent out regular e-newsletters. The website is accessed by many people interested in education here an in other countries, including schools, policymakers, academics and others with a stake in the future of education. Specific impacts are hard to ascertain at this stage, although this fits well with political interest across major parties in evidence-based teaching. Our key findings highlight that the partnership is continuing. Further information will be provided in our narrative report. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://challengepartners.org/IoEmiddleleaders |
| Description | Designing a research-informed collaborative, professional learning resource to develop and enhance impactful teacher leadership |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Around 80 people (local and national policy makers, school leaders, school consultants, members of NGOs and researchers from about 15 countries chose to attend this session at the international Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement in Singapore. The abstract for the workshop stated: "Leaders' ability to use research to enhance their practice and student outcomes is critical to school effectiveness and improvement. Researchers need to help school and teacher leaders 'translate' research findings to enhance their impact. In this Innovate session we will explore the design process in creating research-informed tools to support teacher leadership development. You will be introduced to Catalyst - two sets of cards created to help leaders 'bring to life' and contextualize findings of a project that explored four research questions: (1) the effectiveness of teacher/middle leaders within and across schools; (2) how they track their impact on colleagues' practice; (3) how they share their knowledge about great teacher leadership; and (4) how school leaders supported them to do this by creating cultures of shared practice. The first set of cards contains answers to the four questions. The second set contains professional learning and other development processes to support collaborative engagement with the research findings and help colleagues use them in developing their practice. We will discuss principles underpinning the translation and animation of research knowledge. You will then explore the cards, considering processes you could use to generate powerful professional learning and school development supported by the research findings." There was very animated discussion and several people came up to me and said they had a much better understanding of how to bring research findings to life in order to support practice change, |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.icsei.net/2018/ |
| Description | Eight-school network knowledge sharing event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | A team colleague shared the cards we have been trialling, explaining how they can be used, and colleagues looked through and discussed them. people described them as 'a great development opportunity', they liked the feel of the cards - 'they look and feel nice', felt that 'they are pitched right', 'they promote discussion' and 'pose challenging questions' People asked if they could take the cards away to try out in their schools |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Launch of R&D network |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Talk and questions we posed stimulated lively dialogue and fed into decisions about how the practitioners want the R&D network to operate Several participants told me they appreciated our approach to knowledge exchange between researchers and practitioners, and the emphasis on focusing on impact and behaviour change |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Lead the change interview |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | I received a number of complimentary emails from SIG members in USA and Canada interested in my work and looking forward to findings A colleague in a US university contacted me to start conversations about a possible collaboration over knowledge exchange based on reading about this (p3) and my other work. I sent him the project outline and link to the blog. I invited my project con-investigator (a junior colleague) to join us in an initial skype conversation. We have had several more conversations and my colleague is now leading on writing a bid for an international project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://www.aera.net/Portals/38/docs/SIGs/SIG155/38_Louise%20Stoll.pdf |
| Description | Middle leader change catalyst project blog |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Five comments, including interest from the USA One person reblogged this |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://ioelondonblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/knowledge-exchange-between-researchers-and-practitione... |
| Description | Middle leader change catalyst second blog |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Both authors have had verbal feedback from a number of people about the topic content One person reblogged this |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://ioelondonblog.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/middle-leaders-as-catalysts-for-change-in-schools-an-a... |
| Description | Middle leaders as change catalysts in professional learning communities |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | 60-70 participants attended an interactive workshop I facilitated based on the topic of the knowledge exchange project and using a final trial version of the Catalyst cards described under other activities. A follow up email from the Dean of Professional Learning in a school in New South Wales (Australia), the location of this workshop, stated: "I just wanted to write to you to thank you for your excellent presentations at the recent EduTech conference. It was so nice to also meet you at the start of your breakout session. I have only been in this new role for the last 6 months and have been researching best practice for embedding school based professional learning and specifically Professional Learning Communities in our school. I found your presentations very affirming that I am on the right track but moreover I found your practical frameworks and resources outstanding. This will be an enormous help as I seek to change this part of our school culture. I can't thank you enough for your incredible work in this field and your beautiful sharing of the work that you do." In a follow up email, he wrote: "Thanks for letting me know about the Catalyst Cards. What an awesome resource!". And someone from the New South Wales Department emailed me: "I attended your sessions last week at the EduTech Conference in Sydney and found all of your sessions to be extremely interesting and very engaging! I work for the NSW Department of Education and am part of the Learning, Teaching and Leading Team as a Teacher Quality Advisor. As part of my role I support schools through professional learning communities and work with their 'middle leaders' to develop their knowledge and practice. I came back to our team and was very excited to discuss how we can begin to improve the work we do with our professional learning communities and share your work with them as a result of attending your sessions (all of them!). I have been asked by my supervisor to present to our team on what I heard at EduTech ... I realise that the professional learning cards you discussed in your breakout sessions aren't ready to be published yet, however, I would be very interested in getting a copy of these when they are ready. I know our team would find these a great resource to be able to use when discussing, presenting and thinking about professional learning." |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | New South Wales Department of Education and Communities Think Tank |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | There were a mix of policy makers and school principals. The first part of the day was an interactive keynote which stimulated discussion and questions during the session and in the breaks/at lunch. The afternoon was a planning session. There was considerable interest in the professional learning cards we have designed based on the results of the project - as one said: "These will help me focus my coaching conversations. You know you can stray into being the experts etc. These will help me keep focused". After the session, a number of people gave me their details and requested that they be informed when the cards are available |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | One-day masterclass (Singapore Academy of Principals) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | This workshop was designed to help Ministry of Education policymakers (seconded teachers and leaders) and current school leaders consider issues around creating capacity for learning, including developing catalysts, understanding knowledge exchange and creating conditions for this, and impact tracking. By the end of the workshop, participants had used a range of processes and tools to apply the research findings to their context, collaboratively engaged in activities that compared their experience with research and had designed ideas to take this forward. At the end of the day, participants showed me a several designs for taking the work forward, and a number asked me when the 'Catalyst' cards will be available for purchase |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | PLCs - The big picture: refining your thinking about powerful collaboration in your school |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Whole day workshop for participants (school teams) in the Victoria Department of Education and Training (DET, Australia) Professional learning Communities initiative. DET purchased a copy of the Catalyst cards for all schools attending. There was a pre-session the day before for the DET PLC policy team. The workshop supported participants to integrate the cards into their PLC activities. They were extremely engaged and keen to use the cards back in their schools. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | R&D annual conference keynote and learning conversation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | There was great interest in the idea of 'genuine knowledge exchange' between researchers and school leaders and several requests for copies of the cards we are trialling based on the project findings. Senior leaders wanted to use them with their middle leaders. Here is one example of a response emailed to me afterwards: "I think that they could be a very powerful Continuing Professional Development (CPD) tool and I can see so many uses for them: • Engaging staff in school improvement discussions, but in a way that is interesting and stimulating • Stimulating discussion amongst under performing staff, or those lacking in confidence • Heads of Faculty coaching their staff to develop effective practice • Nurturing a desire to engage with academic literature for staff at any level • Leadership team conferences/residentials - stimulating discussion that is fresh and teacher centred, but rooted in established theory I could go on. In short I think that schools will be able to use them in a variety of ways that will be stimulating, interesting and extremely useful. They would provide a fresh approach to CPD and they could easily be used to facilitate differentiated sessions. I can see that they would have an impact on school improvement processes, largely because they support a research and development model as well as facilitating coaching practices. When will they be available?" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Rektorprogram - leadership development in Norway |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | The presentation included a task to get the leaders thinking about identifying and growing distributed leaders - change catalysts - in their own contexts The course leaders who had invited me told me that conversation (in Norwegian) indicated that participants were thinking of new ways they could involve other leaders |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Social Ventures Australia Dialogue |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The CP CEO informed me that his talk in Sydney stimulated questions and follow up discussions among policymakers and representatives of other organisations and agencies. It is being repeated in Melbourne and Adelaide CP's CEO informed me that there was interest in using the R&D findings, and in the project design |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Transforming schools into learning organisations: the power of catalysts |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | A workshop with school leadership teams and prior seminar with policy leaders in a British Columbian (Canadian) school district, where the Catalyst cards were introduced (one set purchased for each school and several extras for district policy leaders) and will be used over time as part of the district's efforts to develop schools as learning organisations. This is supplemented by an ongoing critical friendship relationship with regular conversations with the policy leaders, and there will be specific workshops for teacher leaders ('Inquiry leaders'). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Victoria Association of Secondary School Principals keynote presentation (Australia) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | The keynote's focus included developing change catalysts and knowledge exchange, including showing tools developed during the project and using the project findings. I invited colleagues to discuss the findings during the presentation and several people asked questions Several principals (headteachers) asked how they could get hold of the cards to use with their middle leaders and senior leadership teams |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Workshop module for school leaders (Italy) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | This was a two-day workshop that dealt with a number of issues around leading creative professional learning communities. The Catalyst cards were used here. There was considerable interest in the cards. The Italian Foundation sponsoring the workshop was interested in translation of the cards into Italian, and the Austrian organisers of the workshop asked to be informed about possibilities to translate the cards into German. Colleagues use the findings, along with others, to inform their school development projects. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |