Expectations of and expertise in school

advisory and development services in a school district in

Iceland

Allyson MacdonaldKristján Ketill Stefánsson

Iceland University of Education

Paper presented at SERA 2006, Perth, Scotland23rd-25th November 2006

The presentation• The evaluation

– the context– purpose of the evaluation – methodology– some results/themes in the data– new questions

• Approaches to advisory services – constraints and contributors – teacher leaders– perceptions of teacher learning – district leaders– school development professionals - standards– interagency learning

• A model for further development

The study

• Peri-urban community, rapid growth– Population about 8000 – Four preschools (480 learners, aged 2-5)

• over 90% of children aged 4-5 at least 8 hours a day– Two compulsory schools (1350 learners)– 113 teachers

• Light industry and services• Holistic school policy developed over two years

and adopted in 2002• Evaluation of the LEA office

Functions of the LEA• Local education authority

– Counties responsible for school provision– Has developed a county policy (2000-2002) which is however

not legally binding for individual schools– Schools required to carry out self-evaluation

• Provision of specialist services – Psychologists, speech and language problems

• Support for school development – advisory services– Curriculum support, school subject advisory services– Inservice education – directly and indirectly; schools also have

their own money– Development projects – directly and indirectly; assistance with

applications to national funds• Five full-time staff (two school-psychologists)

Purpose of the evaluation

• To evaluate the activities of the LEA office – according to legal requirements and local policy– in terms of work distribution and human resources– mapping the overlap between administrative tasks

and specialist and advisory services • To assess the views of school principals and

special education teachers on the services and activities of the LEA office

Data collection• Participants

– LEA staff, school principals, special needs teachers– Preschools (aged 2-5), compulsory schools (aged 6-15)

• Mixed methods – Qualitative

• face-to-face interviews with staff, transcribed • e-mail interviews, analysed with NVivo software

– Quantitative• custom-designed web-based questionnaire (SPSS)

– From documents, including annual reports, figures from them and work descriptions

• Electronic approach at all stages• Data collection from December to March• Feedback meetings from April to June• Prototype for evaluation of other LEA offices

Some results

Political and professional themes• The growing independence of schools,

encouraged by LEA policy, is reflected in attitudes and activities– Financial management more centralised than

principals would like it to be– Increased specialised knowledge in schools– Demands for quality assurance and accountability

• Curricular changes– Increased emphasis on meeting individual needs– Changes in secondary (post-compulsory) education

affect the compulsory curriculum

Social and economic themes• Changes in the employment sector creating new

expectations among parents– Increased demand for all-day places in preschools

and after-school services in the lower yearclasses and a wider and coherent variety of activities for older children

• Changes in society and in the community• School/social inclusion• Demands from parents for quality services• Direct access to schools and the LEA (e-mail) and

demand for actions• The knowledge society and views on education

Psychology services

1,0

2,0

3,0

4,0

5,0Special needs support

Psychological services

Services of a lay minister

CounsellingPrevention measures

Speech development

Teaching advice

Useful

Sufficient

1,0

2,0

3,0

4,0

5,0Follow-up of individual cases

Bullying

Well-being of the student

Prevention activities

Exam stress

Parent education

Child neglect

Depression

LEA office

Schools

1,0

2,0

3,0

4,0

5,0General advice

Mathematics difficulties

Individualized learning/development

General education

Subject-based advice

Reading difficulties

LEA office

Schools

Views of services from schools

Views of services from the LEA

•Preschool leaders and experts more positive towards the LEA than compulsory school participants

•New analytical techniques appearing and being developed for increasingly younger children

•School leaders and experts feel that they have the human resources to provide many of the services needed

•An increased emphasis on prevention strategies, starting at an early age and with parents and children

•What expectations are there• of specialist and advisory services?

•What sort of expertise is available in the LEA office and in schools and how can it be tapped?

•What is the current role of educational psychologists and what roles could they play in learning and teaching?•Where do essential services end and advisory services begin?•What is the relationship between the pattern of increased demand for school-related services to the explicit provision of prevention-oriented services?

A way forward?

From the literature• Becoming a leader in schools

– Lewthwaite (2006)

• How do district leaders promote teacher learning and instructional innovation?

– Spillane (2000)

• Can we relate monitoring-challenge-intervention to the work of individual LEA specialists, to the LEA as a whole and to specialists in schools?

– National Standards for School Improvement Professionals (2003)

• Can we learn from the notion of interagency learning to the need for specialist/advisory services?

– Warmington et al. (2005)

Becoming a teacher leader• Constraints and contributors

– professional trajectory– risk and protective factors – attributes and processes, also time-dependent– intrinsic and extrinsic factors– personal attributes, microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem,

macrosystem – interplay between systems

• Development is a joint function of the person and the environment– Personal dispositions of commitment and interest– Proximal conditions – collegial and professional support and

expectations within the microsystem• Key concepts: individual, systems, development

Lewthwaite (2006)

District leaders’ perceptions of teacher learning

• New/reform policies, changes in content and pedagogy, leaders as change agents, learning theories

• Study of 40 teacher leaders in nine school districts, part of a larger study on reform

– 34 leaders (85%) – quasi-behaviorist approach – outside expertise, transmission, control of funds, teaching practice not addressed

– five leaders (12,5%) - situated approach – teachers play an active role in their own learning, work with teachers’ identities

– one leader (2,5%) – quasi-cognitive approach – individual rather social or group process, reconstruction of own knowledge

• Individual agency and social structure– Structural arrangements constrain transformation of thinking– Trust – teachers hide deficiencies from leaders– Motivation for teacher learning and change - cynicism– Work of teacher leaders fragmented – wide variety of responsibilities and may

compete with each other

• Key concepts – structures, trust, learningSpillane (2000)

National Standards for School Improvement Professionals

Monitoring

Challenge Intervention

Being a professional

Department for Education and Skills 02/2003 DIES/0130/2003. http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/la/pdf/NSSIPS-Final.pdf?version=1

• Standards – reflect an approach to working with schools and teachers– also reflect economic constraints

• Key concepts – information, reflection, action, management, expertise

Interagency/professional learning I

• Developmental work research (DWR) – joined-up learning• DWR based on third generation activity theory (AT) which

focuses on interacting activity systems– Expansive learning

• Bateson (1972) – three levels of learning – conditioning, acquisition, questioning

– Co-configuration• Victor and Boynton (1998) – distributed expertise

• Five AT principles (key concepts)– system is the unit of analysis, multi-voicedness of systems, historicity,

central role of contradictions/tensions within systems – possibility of expansive transformation (reconceptualisation of object

and motive)

TLRP LIW project (see for example Warmington et al., 2005)

Interagency/professional learning II

• Boundary-crossing – Engestrom – expertise developed with professionals collaborate horizontally

(cf. vertical model of professional development) – transferring and creation of knowledge – horizontal learning

• Boundary zones – Used in practitioner workshops in which the negotiation of new professional

(support and advisory) services can emerge – ‘free from prearranged routines and patterns’

• Literature review – Tensions between strategic and operational practice and ambivalent attitues

to distributed expertise• Intervention

– Short-term, analysing services, redefining the object, looking at tools, rules and division of labour

TLRP LIW project (see for example Warmington et al., 2005)

School management

School development

MONITORINGUsing

information and data

aboutperformanceEvaluating

effects

SPECIALIST/ESSENTIALSERVICES

CHALLENGINGSetting

standards/benchmarks

Accountability and taking

responsibilityWorking with underperform

ers

SCHOOL MANAGEMENT

AND CONTROL

INTERVENTIONProfessional leadership

Preparation of needed

interventionsKeeping up with official

policyTaking the initiative in

self-evaluation

SCHOOL DEVELOPMEN

T

ADVISORY SERVICES

CHALLENGINGSetting

standards/benchmarks

Accountability and taking

responsibilityWorking with underperform

ers

Schools LEA

MONITORINGUsing information

and data aboutperformand

Evaluating effects

SPECIALIST/ESSENTIALSERVICES

CHALLENGINGSetting standards/

benchmarksAccountability and

taking responsibilityWorking with

underperformers

SCHOOL MANAGEMENT

DWR and joined-up learning

Schools LEA

INTERVENTIONProfessional leadership

Preparation of needed interventions

Keeping up with official policy

Taking the initiative in self-evaluation

SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT

ADVISORY SERVICES

CHALLENGINGSetting standards/

benchmarksAccountability and

taking responsibilityWorking with

underperformers

DWR and joined-up learning

A way forward......• Clarify the issues – expectations and expertise• Learn from the research literature

– individual, systems, development– structures, trust, learning– information, reflection, action – management, expertise– multi-voicedness of systems, historicity – contradictions/tensions within systems– developmental work research (DWR) – joined-up learning

• Set up structures for professional learning– about specialist/essential services– about advisory/developmental services