The Alberta Teachers’ Association

When Michael Strembitsky School¹ (MSS) opened in September 2012, we very intentionally planned all our efforts to focus on new possibilities for school leadership to support innovation. Our story is about “straddling two worlds.” As a faculty, we soon realized that we were oscillating between a variety of shifts in the educational landscape. Over time, we came to understand that these shifts are not about wrong/right, less/more or either/or. The shifts being offered by Inspiring Action² lead to the possibility of a less prescriptive curriculum and more local autonomy to meet the learning needs of an increasingly diverse student population. Here at MSS, we are continuously adapting within this dynamic context.

Our experience has already illuminated how the vision of Inspiring Education will not be realized through a traditional, formal, one-person leadership model that elevates the principal as heroic leader. Such leadership models leave the substantial talents of our teachers largely untapped. Hence, we see the solution to scaling up school improvement or fostering innovation, whether in a school or school system, as one of capacity building. Our teachers cannot be at the periphery of educational reform; rather, our teachers are central to curriculum redesign and sustainable innovation.

To create the vibrancy in learning depicted in Inspiring Education, our leadership team created a succinct framework or theory for teaching and learning. In a world of competing initiatives and ideologies about educational change, this framework helped us consider, filter and incorporate new ideas and approaches to crystallize our vision and maintain our focus. It also assisted us with comparing new concepts to theories already in use. Our framework entails (1) reconceptualizing organizational routines and artifacts, (2) building collaborative structures, (3) supporting ongoing professional learning and (4) intentionally engaging in individual and collective reflection.

Reconceptualizing organizational routines and artifacts

One barrier to more personalized and cross-disciplinary learning was our timetable. We soon realized that we created the very structure that limits new possibilities. Once cognizant of this, we developed a common timetable for Kindergarten to Grade 9. This allowed different teachers to work across divisional levels and to facilitated cross-grade, cross-disciplinary and cross-class collaboration. Children could move from one teacher to another depending on their needs, the task or teacher expertise. We realized that how we use our time can change — but learning must be the constant.

Instead of traditional long-range plans, we asked teachers to develop a curriculum design map that identified the big ideas or questions of the curriculum that allow us to engage students in curricular learning within and across subject disciplines, as well as in the study of in-depth, real-world problems. Instead of the competencies being an inadvertent output, we strategically positioned cross-curricular competencies as an input that shapes planning, instruction and assessment processes.

As we prepared for school opening, we were very thoughtful about the professional culture we wanted to establish — we wanted to harness collective expertise and ensure collective responsibility for learning. In addition to our individual professional growth plans, our entire faculty provided input into and signed a collective professional growth plan³ that focuses on authentic student engagement (this is about student learning) and an examination of what competencies we need to develop as teachers in order to develop the 3Es⁴ in our students (this is about fostering our professional capital). The addition of the collective professional growth plan reinforces our group identity, frames our decision making related to school planning processes and ultimately shapes our school culture.

Adjusting long-standing artifacts and routines embedded in school life helped us see new possibilities for learning, teaching and leading.

Building collaborative structures

We look at school improvement and innovation as a collective and highly collaborative knowledge-building process. Every Thursday after school our faculty engages in professional learning and collaboration. As well, grade level or project teams typically meet weekly to collaborate. Regular, teacher-initiated collaboration supports innovative practice, in-depth project planning and quality assessment. Products generated through collaborative work are shared among our faculty via an internal share site.

As valued members of our school’s leadership team, each teacher belongs to one of four design teams that help them work toward the vision of Inspiring Education. The four design teams are Supporting Diverse Learners, Emerging Technologies to Support Learning, Professional Learning and Learning Commons. In addition to engaging in book studies and reviews of educational research through these respective lenses, these teams develop school-based protocols and tools that shape our practice. Design team teachers explore the merits and limitations of a variety of materials, software and resources to discern what will best meet the needs of our students. Such collaborative structures enable us, as professionals, to explore both the content and processes related to learning and teaching, while explicitly recognizing the nuances of our local context. As teachers shift through the research and resources, they become increasingly informed and confident in their abilities to articulate their practice to parents and other stakeholders.

In targeted areas, we also have organized leadership think-tanks as a means to bringing teachers together to create readiness for change and to ensure sustainability of innovation. For example, 15 teachers represent our faculty on a project-based learning (PBL) leadership think-tank. This group continues to review research, discuss various PBL models and resources and share what is/is not working with their projects in an effort to inform schoolwide practice. These teacher-leaders are facilitating meetings, providing professional learning to their colleagues and, most importantly, are helping us to create our own definition of PBL within the MSS context. 

Relationships characterized by interdependence are the primary characteristic of our school interactions. Strong ties of interdependence fostered through collaborative structures are increasingly viewed as critical to deepening our work and ensuring sustainability of innovation.

Supporting ongoing professional learning

Initially, when our leadership team examined the policy shifts, we thought that professional development or new learning was critical to moving our work forward. However, our story quickly illuminated how much of the real work is unlearning what we know and have practiced. The real work is about disrupting prevailing discourses and unlearning taken-for-granted practices that are no longer relevant.

Our teachers still engage in individual professional development; however, as much as possible, individual learning is leveraged to support collective learning related to the questions in our collective professional growth plan. Because of our focus on authentic student engagement, professional learning has evolved from a focus on content to a focus on competencies. Our professional learning has since progressed to an exploration of how cross-curricular competency development can be more explicitly linked to the 3Es. As students engage in a service learning project, we talk about engaged citizenry, or, as students design a model home, we speak to having an entrepreneurial spirit by problem solving, being innovative and demonstrating creativity.

Through this professional learning, we discovered that a focus on competencies is less about knowing something and more about knowing how. This shift strikes at the very core of our identities as teachers — that is, where we once saw ourselves as experts or disseminators of knowledge, we now learn alongside our students and are starting to see ourselves as designers or architects of learning. Subsequently, we engage in research, discussion and professional learning about the evolving role of the teacher and changing conceptualizations of school leadership.

Our faculty is also encouraged to pursue graduate coursework to help deepen theoretical understanding. In addition, teachers are provided with opportunities to network extensively with other educators and experts outside of the school.

Intentionally focusing on reflective practice

As you can imagine, seeking possibilities in this work can be messy, ambiguous and complex. Finding tranquility or stillness within the context of a busy school day is not always easy; however, reflective practice is essential to challenging tacit and explicit assumptions, processes and structures. We intentionally structure time to reflect on what we need to start doing, continue doing or adjust and, ultimately, what we might need to stop doing. Reflection underpins our professional learning at MSS.

Because reflective practice is underpinned by creative notions, action research processes allow us to consider how our practice is evolving. Our faculty writes regularly in individual reflection journals, collective reflections are posted and shared, and teachers have written articles about their professional journey towards living the vision of Inspiring Education.

School leaders also need to model reflective practice. As a school leadership team, we focus less on the operational and managerial aspects of school life. To help create coherence for teachers, we help mitigate distractors and negotiate competing agendas. We regularly schedule time to reflect on how our framework supports teacher practice and student learning.

The time taken to reflect has been beneficial. Through reflection, we see the dissonance between our own values in practice and the values we hold dear. Moreover, we have been able to consider new and differing perspectives and are increasingly able to bridge theory with practice. Both beginning and experienced teachers’ understanding of their evolving roles, and professional identities have been enhanced through individual and collective reflection. Reflection and the search for meaning require vulnerability and risk taking — more so than just thinking about problems in a technical manner.

Conditions that Support Sustainability of Innovation

As school leaders, we found that developing a succinct framework or theory for teaching and learning supports our educational renewal. We are aware that sustaining innovation is highly dependent on ensuring that essential conditions for practice exist — conditions that have profound implications on the working lives of Alberta teachers. Our lived experiences have illuminated that these conditions include

• ensuring that changes to new programs of study are implemented within a measured and structured pace to ensure the time necessary for teachers to understand program philosophy, organization and sequencing, reflect on the program and consider appropriate pedagogies that support student learning;
• having a range of accessible supports and resources for teaching and learning, including print and digitally-based resources and access to individuals and organizations that could be leveraged to support curricular learning and competency development (eg, accessing parent expertise, community resources and local/global partners);
• providing regular time for teachers to collaborate, prepare relevant lessons and engage in professional learning and reflection to ensure that the collective power of networks of teachers critical to initiating, supporting and sustaining innovation can be harnessed;
• developing trust within our schools and the greater system so that teachers and school leaders feel safe to take risks and use opportunities to celebrate and learn from both our successes and failures;
• finding new ways of collecting and sharing products of teachers’ collaborative work processes, research, practices and knowledge;
• recognizing the professionalism and sound judgment of our teachers to teach curriculum outcomes using strategies and approaches that work best for the students they teach; and
• ensuring that ongoing work among our profession, Alberta Education and other educational partners is undertaken to actively, consistently and courageously communicate the vision of Inspiring Education to the public-at-large, even in the face of criticism.

Our journey at MSS has shown us how innovation, when intentionally conceptualized and properly supported, is more likely to be sustained. Without deliberate support at the school level, a high-quality curriculum will not be enough to create and uphold a high-performing school or school system. Inspiring Education holds great promise. As school leaders, now is the time to commit our support and do this work — teachers are inspiring education.

Dr. Lisa Wright is the principal of Michael Strembitsky School in Edmonton. Over the past 22 years, Lisa has worked as a teacher, consultant and central office administrator within Edmonton Public Schools.

Sandra Marianicz is one of the curriculum coordinators of Michael Strembitsky School in Edmonton. Her role is teacher-librarian and responsibilities include the Learning Commons. 

1   Michael Strembitsky School is located in southeast Edmonton. The school serves more than 1,070 students, from Kindergarten to Grade 9, in an inclusive setting.

2   Inspiring Action is a discussion paper … within the mandate of Inspiring Education. It indicates that literacy and numeracy and competencies such as critical thinking, problem solving, creativity and innovation will be given value as integral parts of an educated Albertan in the future.” ATA Magazine 91, no 3 (Spring): 37. Also available at http://www.teachers.ab.ca/Publications/ATA%20Magazine/Volume-91/Number3/Pages/Inspiringthehumanspirit.aspx (accessed May 5, 2014).

3   We used the Alberta Teachers’ Association template – “Professional Growth Plan Developed with a Community of Learners” found at: https://www.teachers.ab.ca/For%20Members/Professional%20Development/Professional%20Growth%20Plans/Section%203/Pages/Section%203-Develop%20a%20Professional%20Growth%20Plan.aspx

4   The 3Es refer to being engaged thinkers and ethical citizens with an entrepreneurial spirit as depicted in Inspiring Education and the new Ministerial Order for Student Learning (2013).