Adaptive Leadership and Expertise

Adaptive Leadership and Expertise

Our purpose

The purpose of 2018-2020 School Plan; Strategic Direction 3 (SD3), was to respond to emerging challenges and change by committing to sustaining an innovative and successful school culture that has the capacity to identify, design and provide evidence for new and adaptive ways of knowing, doing and being.

The purpose of the Adaptive Leadership and Expertise PLLT was to develop the capacity of staff as leaders within and beyond the classroom context to adapt and respond to changing needs. Contemporary pedagogical theory and practice focus on assessment learning creating a demand for adaptive practice that is responsive to immediate student learning needs (Loughland & Vlies 2016 as cited in Cawsey and Loughland, 2017). Our purpose was to lead and facilitate to increased capacity of teachers and their ability to not only demonstrate expertise but so called ‘adaptive’ expertise in practice. 

Initially, we set out to discover if we could measure adaptability and develop a ‘toolkit’ to equip teachers to become more adaptable in their classroom practice. It quickly became clear that this would involve familiarising teachers with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST), and in particular, the higher levels of accreditation. As such, our project focused on 2 main ideas:

• Adaptive teaching expertise first requires teaching expertise, at the core of which is lesson design and reflective practice. As such, part of our project focused on lesson design and delivery in the classroom, coupled with reflective practice through the classroom observation program.
  
  

• The skills that allowed teachers to be adaptable and highly successful in the classroom, directly aligned with the key verbs in the APST. Thus, another aspect of this project was to demonstrate teacher capacity against higher standards of accreditation. To achieve this goal the Adaptive Leadership and Expertise Professional Learning and Leadership Team (PLLT) ran a HALT group to support teachers seeking higher accreditation.   

Context - Why have we done this?

In the 2018 - 2020 School Plan, SD3 focused on Culture, Innovation, Adaptability and Creativity. The PLLT contributed to the development of these four domains through the following:

• revisiting the importance of school culture, with particular links to classroom observation and adaptability, 

• the reimagining of the Classroom Observation Package 

• continued collaboration with other PLLT’s within SD3 to collate and examine evidence, and define and measure the expansiveness, adaptability, responsiveness and innovation of our school culture. 

What does Adaptability look like in Teaching Expertise and Leadership?

The very nature of adaptability is that it is adaptable. That makes it difficult to define, but focusing our understanding into how an adaptable expert teacher and leader operates was useful. Examples of the need for adaptability as described by Douglas Paul Margolis (2018, Adaptability in Teaching—Responding to Challenging Situations Appropriately, Wiley Online Library); “include being asked questions to which you don't know the answers, the technology that your lesson depends on failing or being unavailable, multilevel classrooms that demand differentiated instruction, students not responding to the lesson as planned, and supervisors scheduling you to teach classes for which you lack training”. 

How did Adaptive Leadership and Expertise align with the School Plan?

SEF elements addressed:
Classroom Practice (2.1), Professional Standards (2.3)

APST descriptors addressed: 1.5.4, 3.3.4, 6.1.4, 6.3.4, 6.4.4, 7.2.4, 7.4.4

Evidence: 50% of teaching staff have completed or are completing accreditation at APST highly accomplished or lead levels. 

Practice:  There is evidence from observations and self-evaluation that staff are demonstrating the capacity to adapt and respond to changing needs.

Key Performance Measures:

• demonstrate teacher capacity against higher standards of accreditation. To achieve this goal the Adaptive Leadership PLLT ran a HALT group to support teachers seeking higher accreditation

Our ‘Theory of Practice’

• Dylan Wiliam

• Charlotte Danielson 

• Rebecca J Collie (UNSW)

• Michael McDowell

The original theory of practice was Dr Tony Loughland. However, our initial baseline data did not express our agreed-upon definition of adaptability. It supposed that a teacher directing the discussion too heavily, or sticking to a lesson plan, negated their ability to be adaptable; without recognising that the most adaptable teacher is so well prepared that they can take control of the classroom as needed. The PLLT moved toward more of a skeletal framework with adaptability at its central core.

Professional Conversations: Adaptive Expertise

Helen Timperley - Building Adaptive Expertise

• These two videos weer used and critical to this PLLT's underpinning focus

Evaluation and Impact Poster

Are you interested in learning more about this specific project?

PLLT Co-Leaders Brianna Dolling and Channelle Narayan have created a podcast that discusses their project and the how and the why behind their processes. You can click here to listen to the podcast.