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A lot has changed since the fall of 2007, when Education Minister Ron Liepert challenged the College of Alberta School Superintendents (CASS) executive to do something about “underperforming” colleagues whose school jurisdictions were too frequently sorted into the orange (low) and red (very low) shades on the annual provincial accountability achievement spectrum. In the intervening years, the largest public engagement process ever undertaken in the province led to the Inspiring Education Steering Committee Report, Inspiring Action and further dialogue that culminated in the May 6, 2013 establishment of the Ministerial Order on Student Learning for an inclusive kindergarten to Grade 12 school system. Over this same time frame, CASS initiated and has sustained a series of research-based capacity-building strategies designed to positively influence the leadership practices of all of its members, rather than focusing solely on those who are struggling to improve student achievement in their jurisdictions.
This article makes the case that collaborative leadership approaches that activate evidence-informed collective wisdom are preferred pathways to improved student engagement, learning and well-being as we learn our way into the principles of Inspiring Education.
The ministerial order will require new forms of public assurance. Sorting schools and jurisdictions into colour-coded categories is counterproductive when the primary goal of education is to enable all students to achieve four transformative outcomes: (1) to be engaged thinkers and ethical citizens with an entrepreneurial spirit; (2) to strive for engagement and excellence in their own learning journeys; (3) to employ literacy and numeracy to construct and communicate meaning; and (4) to discover, develop and apply competencies across subjects and discipline areas for learning, work and life (Alberta Education 2013).
Fortunately, a number of recent advances in our understanding of learning, teaching and leadership are already being applied in a variety of Alberta settings. One of the most enduring legacies of the Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI) is the transformation of hundreds of educators into action researchers and discerning consumers of educational literature. Our universities regularly partner with schools, school, the ATA, CASS and others to systematically investigate innovations in teaching and leadership practice. In addition, an increasing number of internationally recognized scholars have examined and written about factors that are seen to have contributed to the province’s comparative educational successes.
In multiple ways, Alberta educators are activating evidence-informed practices (public knowledge) in tandem with practical wisdom (practitioner knowledge) to move forward with transformative educational practices (new knowledge) (Friesen and Lock 2010). Four examples are provided below.
Evidence, Practical Wisdom And School System Success
Over the past six years, CASS has worked to activate the growing body of evidence that supports the claim that school system leadership is an important contributor to student learning through district practices that encourage wide participation in and distribution of leadership focused on teacher capacity development and instructional enhancement (Leithwood 2008; Leithwood et al 2010). The specifics of CASS’s lateral capacity-building and leadership induction efforts have been well documented (Brandon et al 2013; Brandon et al 2010). For the purposes of this article, these efforts are instructive in their widespread application of research evidence in combination with collective practical wisdom. As Leithwood and his colleagues observe, “most fields informed by the social sciences have imperfect evidence available to inform their practices” and, as such, “judgments are rightly based on the best available evidence, along with the practical wisdom of those actually working in the field” (Leithwood et al 2004). Two thoughtful applications of evidence to deepen inclusive community are presented next.
Evidence-Informed Relational Trust And Collective Efficacy
Chamberlain School, in Grassy Lake, is like many rural Alberta schools. Its hallways, classrooms and other spaces are alive with active learning, cheery children and welcoming adults. What is different is the fact that English is the second language of over 90 per cent of the 200 students.
The enrollment of Low German-speaking Kanadier Mennonite (LGM) children has tripled since 2003, in the wake of increased LGM immigration. While this influx has eliminated the pervasive rural problem of enrolment decline, new challenges of cultural diversity, English language learning and student success have surfaced.
Chamberlain School received provincial recognition for best practices in rural education in 2012 for bridging cultural differences, increasing engagement and closing achievement gaps (Alberta Education 2012). Under the relationship-based, evidence-informed leadership of principal Erin Hurkett and with research support from colleagues in the Horizon School Division office, a remarkable sense of collective efficacy has been developed among teachers, support staff and parents.
What Erin first envisioned as “a messy transformation” actually evolved quite smoothly. Knowing that productive relationships are more likely to occur when formally initiated and nurtured by the school, a new family welcoming program based on respectful, trusting and caring relationships was established and workable ways of involving LGM parents were implemented.
One iterative cycle of professional learning enhanced cultural competence to better support LGM histories, values and beliefs. Another professional inquiry focused on deepening student engagement. Teachers worked on designing meaningful and rigorous learning tasks that activated students’ prior knowledge, fostered academic discourse and scaffolded learning.
Chamberlain School illustrates the benefits of thoughtful activation of the research on building relational trust and strengthening student engagement so that members of the school community are collectively doing the best things for all children.
Generating And Displaying Evidence Of Engaged Thinking
The first public meeting of the newly elected Calgary Board of Education, in November 2013, featured a video presentation by three Grade 9 humanities students from Gladys M. Egbert School (see www.cbe.ab.ca/Trustees/video/archive/video_20131105.asp). Following introductory remarks by their teacher learning leader, Andrea Shaffer, their principal, Sandy Searle, and Area III Director Dianne Yee, the students went on to passionately outline the meaningful work they had undertaken in a humanities inquiry into the criminal justice system. The video was one of 41 year-end reports developed by Area III principals to display evidence of instructional leadership and effective teaching practice.
Gladys M. Egbert School is a 400-student middle school in the demographically diverse north east section of Calgary. For the past two and a half years, Sandy Searle and her teachers have collaborated with area office leaders, colleagues from four nearby middle schools and inquiry experts from the Galileo Educational Network in iterative professional knowledge-building cycles designed to deepen student learning and to more fully engage students in worthwhile work and discipline-based inquiry. Throughout the process, teachers regularly bring forth evidence of student learning to guide next steps in both student and teacher learning.
Teachers design student learning through the lens of an evidence-informed teaching framework (Friesen 2009) and then adapt teaching based on the evidence they systematically collect to determine how well their students are doing.
Public Assurance Through Collective Leadership And Parent Engagement
Parents and educators in the 12 school settings that Paulette Hanna and I studied in the spring of 2013 reinforced the view that effective school councils clearly focus on supporting student success through collaboration in a variety of contextually unique ways (Brandon and Hanna 2014). Our research indicated that the nature of collaboration and partnering is evolving to the point where effective school councils are increasingly well integrated into the functioning of their schools and, to a lesser extent, their school systems. Highly effective school councils are now frequently participating as members of the collective leadership teams in Alberta schools and school systems. Collective leadership is the total amount of influence attributable to all the participants in a given educational system: teachers, parents, principals, district office staff and community members. This is good news for Alberta students, in view of the evidence that in schools “with more democratic collective leadership practices that include parents in influential positions, student achievement is higher” (Leithwood et al 2010).
The importance of school councils in strengthening system-level planning, deepening community engagement and assuring public confidence was another important finding from work in the four school divisions. Ongoing connections among school council representatives across a school system can be of tremendous help to leaders navigating transformative change. Sustained community dialogue on important educational initiatives can build support and/or guide course adjustments.
Leading Learning Together Through Ongoing Cycles Of Inquiry
At a small planning session in Edmonton this past summer, ATA Professional Development Coordinator Mark Yurick indicated that he was once again impressed, as he often has been in similar gatherings of educators from around province, by our willingness to use the wisdom in the room to make things better for kids. The four short examples described above are illustrative of approaches that blend practical wisdom with ongoing evidence-based inquiry and collaborative leadership. Such approaches may be helpful to leaders at all levels of the Alberta system.
References
Alberta Education. 2012. Promising Practices in Rural Elementary Education. Edmonton, Alta: Alberta Education. Available at http://education.alberta.ca/media/6807246/rural%20education%20report.pdf (accessed February 4, 2014).
———. 2013. Ministerial Order #001/2013. Edmonton, Alta: Alberta Education.
Brandon, J., and P. Hanna. 2014. Inspired Partnerships: School Council Contributions to Student Success in Alberta. Edmonton, Alta: Alberta School Councils’ Association.
Brandon, J., P. Hanna, R. Morrow, K. Rhyason and S. Schmold. 2013. The Alberta Framework for School System Success. Edmonton, Alta: Henday.
Brandon, J., R. Morrow, K. Rhyason and S. Schmold. 2010. “Building Superintendent Capacity for School System Success.” Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Denver.
Friesen, S. 2009. What Did You Do in School Today? Teaching Effectiveness: A Framework and Rubric. Toronto: Canadian Education Association.
Friesen, S., and J. Lock. 2010. High Performing School Systems in the Application of 21st Century Learning Technologies: Review of the Research. Edmonton, Alta: College of Alberta School Superintendents.
Leithwood, K. 2008. Review of the Characteristics of High Performing School Districts. Edmonton, Alta: College of Alberta School Superintendents.
Leithwood, K., K. S. Louis, S. Anderson and K. Wahlstrom. 2004. Review of Research: How Leadership Influences Student Learning. New York: Wallace Foundation.
———. 2010. Learning from Leadership: Investigating the Links to Improved Student Learning. New York: Wallace Foundation.
Jim Brandon is an assistant professor and director of professional programs in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. He is also a past president of the College of Alberta School Superintendents.
