School Improvement

As discussed above, ICT integration is an important component of curriculum delivery in schools and, as such, should conform to best practice. This section explores information regarding school improvement in general and relates this to the particular issue of ICT integration.

In recent decades there has been widespread attention to school reform in various nations, provoked by concerns about student achievement. A body of literature has emerged in recent years regarding school improvement and there is a growing consensus about the attributes of effective school systems. In the US[1] and UK[2] and to some extent in Australia, standards based reform has been prominent. Standards based reform involves, in part, external testing of student performance to recognise high performing schools and to identify, support, and sometimes sanction low performing schools.

A modified and more nuanced position which is at variance with simplistic standards based reform, supports schools retaining a large measusre of autonomy in relation to curriculum delivery and professional standards. This emerging central position accepts both teacher professionalism and responsibility to develop and maintain their expertise along with accountability for student performance through external reviews, assessment and monitoring.

"This emerging central position accepts both teacher professionalism ... along with accountability for student performance through external reviews, assessment and monitoring."

There is extensive literature on school improvement. In their book Breakthrough, Fullan et al[3] cite research that found:

'... only tenuous links between professional development and classroom instruction for many teachers. Most teachers seemed to experience a disconnection between their professional development experiences and their day-to-day classroom experiences.'

This disconnection between teachers’ day-to-day practice and their professional learning is a significant issue.

In The New Meaning of Educational Change, Fullan[4] wrote:

'Numerous studies document the fact that professional learning communities or collaborative work cultures at the school and ideally at the district level are critical for the implementation of attempted reforms.'

The evidence regarding the value of local professional learning communities is now merging with a professional approach to the use of external review of schools and standards based improvement using external testing.

Richard Elmore is a leading proponent of this approach. In his essay, Building a New Structure for School Leadership,[5] Elmore argues that the prevailing view of teaching for several decades has been that it is a 'loosely-coupled' activity, where teachers work with a high degree of independence.

'[loosely coupled teaching] cannot be clearly translated into reproducible behaviours, it requires a high degree of individual judgment, and it is not susceptible to reliable external evaluation.'[6]

The loose-coupling argument continues that the administrative superstructure of the organisation (principals, board members, and administrators) exists to 'buffer' the weak technical core of teaching from outside inspection, interference, or disruption. The result is that teaching is largely a private activity buffered from external influence. 

Elmore observes that this excessive privacy of individual teaching practice has provoked the imposition of sometimes ruthless external testing in an attempt to bring about improvement in school performance. He claims that this rather brutal application of standards does not build a system that improves itself on a long term basis. 

"...this rather brutal application of standards does not build a system that improves itself on a long term basis."

Elmore's [7] studies show that schools that have received fail grades in high stakes external testing literally do not know what to do to improve. Working harder at their current practices will not work. It is only when teachers engage in collaborative work, based on high quality analysis of their practices coupled with external examples and support, that they are able to make sustainable improvement. This type of professional learning will not occur in a threatening environment.

Elmore advocates the development of systems that open up teaching practice to analysis by learning communities of teachers, featuring a clear focus on student results combined with external standards based assessment that promotes a culture of improvement.

Focus on student outcomes

Student outcomes include a broad range of intended learning, including some that are difficult to measure. As mentioned in ICT Professional Learning Past, much ICT-related professional learning has focused on improving teachers' personal ICT skills in order that these will later be applied to good use in work with students. Such a gap, between immediate purpose (teacher ICT skills) and ultimate purpose (student outcomes), results in aa lack of relevance in much of teacher ICT learning.

A central thrust of the work of Fullan[7] and Ellmore[8] around school improvement is that teacher learning should be directly connected learning to improved student outcomes. This finding has particular relevance to learning how to apply ICT in the classroom.

"...teacher learning should be directly connected learning to improved student outcomes."

Use of ICT is often focussed on low level skills that relate to the technology itself rather than learning about deeper principles such as skills and attitudes for problem solving and lifelong learning.

Teacher learning teams

If teachers have control their own learning agenda, a high degree of responsiveness to new developments in ICT is allowed. It means that teacher learning communities can rapidly experiment with new ICT and quickly communicate their ideas to related teacher groups. In large systems this can result in a responsive approach to new opportunities. The system provides overall curriculum direction and guidance with teachers responding quickly in taking advantage of new developments. Systems also have a role in providing resource support to learning teams. In such an environment systems must to provide tools to facilitate the sharing of ideas, and infrastructure flexibility to enable schools to utilise new ICT.

'Teacher learning teams are the most effective long term means of professional learning, but their success depends on an appropriate school culture that is supportive. Teacher learning teams require accountability.'[12]

School improvement strategy

A recent report, “How the best performing school systems come out on top,”[13] reinforces the essential elements of this approach to school improvement. The report, prepared by McKinsey and Co in cooperation with the OECD and based in part on PISA results, examined a number of school systems, in particular Finland, Boston, Singapore, England and South Korea, and observed the following:

To improve instruction, these high-performing school systems consistently do three things well:

• They get the right people to become teachers (the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers).
• They develop these people into effective instructors (the only way to improve outcomes is to improve instruction).
• They put in place systems and targeted support to ensure that every child is able to benefit from excellent instruction (the only way for the system to reach the highest performance is to raise the standard of every student).[14]

These unremarkable conclusions translate into quite a distinct culture within successful schools:

At the level of individual teachers, this implies getting three things to happen:

• Individual teachers need to become aware of specific weaknesses in their own practice. In most cases, this not only involves building an awareness of what they do but the mindset underlying it.
• Individual teachers need to gain understanding of specific best practices. In general, this can only be achieved through the demonstration of such practices in an authentic setting.
• Individual teachers need to be motivated to make the necessary improvements. In general, this requires a deeper change in motivation that cannot be achieved through changing material incentives. Such changes come about when teachers have high expectations, a shared sense of purpose, and above all, a collective belief in their common ability to make a difference to the education of the children they serve.[15]

The three elements (openness to critical reflection, authentic classroom based demonstration, and motivation based on student outcomes) mirror Elmore’s findings[16] regarding the central role of collaborative learning teams.

The McKinsey report also emphasises that well managed systems ensure consistently strong performance.[17] The report found that high-performing systems consistently used external monitoring to measure the quality of teaching and learning, generally by examinations and school reviews, but that some top performing systems have largely dispensed with national examinations, conducting only periodic assessments of student performance.[18]

The Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development’s “Seven Principles of Highly Effective Professional Learning”[19] applies the philosophy discussed above; that is:

• The focus is on student outcomes, and teachers and schools are accountable for them.
• The professional learning is largely school-based, focused on the day to day work of teaching.
• For the most part the professional learning revolves around collaborative learning teams and influencing the individual teacher’s practice.

The Victorian Department’s Seven Principles are as follows: [19]

1. Professional learning is focused on student outcomes (not just individual teacher needs).
2. Professional learning is focused on and embedded in teacher practice (not disconnected from the school).
3. Professional learning is informed by the best available research on effective learning and teaching (not just limited to what teachers already know).
4. Professional learning is collaborative, involving reflection and feedback (not just individual inquiry).
5. Professional learning is evidence based and data driven (not anecdotal) to guide improvement and to measure impact.
6. Professional learning is ongoing, supported and fully integrated into the culture and operations of the system – schools, networks, regions and the centre (not episodic and fragmented).
7. Professional learning is an individual and collective responsibility at all levels of the system (not just the school level) and it is not optional.

The adoption of a national approach to school improvement that focuses on student outcomes and teacher professional learning would provide a much needed concentration of energy in the integration of ICT into the curriculum and associated professional learning.