DRIVING EDUCATION CHANGE FOR THE NATION

TELSTRA EDUCATION ROUNDTABLE REPORT MELBOURNE 30 NOVEMBER 2011

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Telstra’s engagement with Australia’s educational leaders and thinkers, through structured dialogue and strategic conversations, began with the initial roundtable convened in Sydney in February 2010.

Drawing from a small base of key education customers and partners, Susi Steigler-Peters, National General Manager Education at Telstra, hosted an agenda setting dialogue with Don Tapscott – of Grown Up Digital fame – as keynote. Recognising the value of what has become a unique national forum

of Telstra and the nation’s key educators and systems’ leaders, the Roundtable has grown into a loose but powerful national coalition; one facilitated by Telstra, but driven by the collective recognition that educational transformation by systems alone cannot be sustained without deep partnerships and strategic alignment with the corporate world.

Since the first Roundtable in February 2010, the group has grown in number and influence, with a stronger drive to use the power of this assembly of C level leaders to

help support and shape a new Australian educational architecture. The second Roundtable in Melbourne in July 2010, again with Don Tapscott, followed by a third Roundtable on 8 December 2010, with Dr Margaret Schweer and Telstra’s Hugh Bradlow as key speakers, confirmed the place of Telstra as a recognised leader in transforming education across the nation.

With broad participant agreement, the fourth Telstra Education Roundtable of November 2011 has now established the group as a player of national influence.

In the new world of technology-enabled learning for the 21st century learner, Roundtable participants have come to see Telstra as a crucial player in helping Australian education transition to a new education paradigm.

THE ROUNDTABLE COLLABORATION

The Telstra Education Roundtable draws from the highest levels of the national educational leadership pool; it has an emerging platform for collaborative action based on a set of strong educational propositions; and provides an ongoing forum for thought leadership in designing educational futures for current and future generations.

PURPOSEThe Chair flagged a three part Roundtable purpose which reflected the maturity of the coalition and the readiness to move forward together:

01. Reflecting on the Telstra White Paper Personalised Learning – Meeting the Australian Education Challenge (Telstra November 2011) with a reconsideration of where this collaboration might lead to in redesigning the business of learning in Australia and beyond

02. A ‘reality check’, or establishing the scope of what’s feasible and desirable in responding to the new challenges and imperatives that in kind are ‘purely’ educational but also political

03. Sketching a roadmap for the Roundtable coalition, in concert with the new national education architecture, for a broad and open collaboration.

THE TELSTRA EDUCATION ROUNDTABLE NOVEMBER 2011

CHAIR

Susi Steigler-Peters National General Manager Education, Telstra

SPEAKERS

Dr Margaret Schweer Director, Moxie Insight Chicago

Tony Mackay Chair AITSL; Deputy Chair ACARA; Chair The innovation Unit UK; Executive Director, Centre for Strategic Education

Ross Dawson Advanced Human Technologies

Jeffrey Tobias Director, The Strategy Group

MODERATOR

Andrew Blair Executive Director, Wesley College Institute for Innovation in Education

THE PARTICIPANTS

Paul Doorn CEO, Institute of Public Administrators Australia (IPAA)

John Halsey Sidney Myer Chair of Rural Education and Communities, School of Education Flinders University

Kerry Holling CIO, University of Western Sydney

Eric Jamieson (A) Director, Educational Measurement and School Accountability NSW DEC

John Leaf Deputy Director-General, Finance Western Australia DET

Greg Moo CIO, Northern Territory DET

Rob Nairn President, WA Principals Association

Mick O’Leary Executive Director, Learning Technologies Qld DETA

Michael Sacco Executive Director, Manpower Group

Peter Simmonds Assistant Director, School and Pre-School ICT Strategy DECS SA

Stuart Tait Program Director, Digital Content Services Education Services Australia

Sheree Vertigan President, Australian Secondary Principals Association

Todd Walker Pro Vice Chancellor, Quality Teaching University of Ballarat

Lindsay Wasson Adjunct Professor, University of Western Sydney

Heather Watson Director Learning Services, Education Services Australia

Jai Waters General Manager, TAFE NSW

Greg Whitby Executive Director, Parramatta Catholic Education DioceseNote: Roundtable members not able to participate in the fourth Education Roundtable, but whose contributions in the past have been significant, are listed in the appendix.

LAUNCH OF THE WHITE PAPER – SUSI STEIGLER-PETERSThe strategic conversation of the fourth Telstra Education Roundtable was premised on the directions embedded within the Telstra White Paper, Personalised Learning – Meeting the Australian Education Challenge (Telstra November 2011). This paper, launched at the Roundtable and roundly endorsed by its members, is the product of a ‘quick hit’ qualitative research process that sought to build a picture of changing educational needs in Australia, establish a sense of the role Telstra could play in meeting those needs, and chart a direction for future collaborative work of the Roundtable coalition.

Consensus around two key directions was clear:•The Roundtable, with Telstra as the

lead, is a key connector of stakeholders and offers a structure and process where business, government and educators can collaborate in transforming education in Australia

•Collaborative investment in ‘disciplined experimentation’ should be undertaken by the Roundtable group to create the building blocks of a new model of education based on the underpinning principle of personalised learning.

THE WEDGES OF CHANGE – MARGARET SCHWEERTaking her lead from the White Paper, Margaret Schweer in her keynote presentation identified three closely linked areas for collaborative action that represent the most meaningful wedges of change:

01. Personalise learning within a technology enabled learning ecosystem.This wedge recognises that each learner is unique and requires a different model based on differentiated, personalised, ‘case managed’ learning.

02. Develop flexible content and delivery networksSchweer affirmed the need for ‘empowered participatory networks’ as fundamental to delivering authentic personalisation of learning. Crucial to this is leveraging technology to release and liberate the learning experience for students.

03. Build capabilities within the professionThe role of the teacher becomes more important within a personalised, networked learning environment. Teachers become the ‘amplifiers’, the ‘curators of knowledge’, the ‘pathfinders’ and the ’sense makers’. Skilling up teachers is essential for getting ‘education right for the future’. Skilling, re-skilling, upscaling support, and creating meaningful environments that support the collaborative behaviour essential in a 21st century model are the clear imperatives. If reinvention of the profession itself is the nugget of change, how we do this is the big question.

Together, these three wedges represent a clear and unified agenda for the transformation of education for 21st century learning excellence.

Here the Roundtable coalition can be instrumental in developing environments catalysed with shared purpose and clear objectives, creating ‘a pull not a push’ context for change.

THE CONVERSATION

COLLABORATIONThe most important thing to do is to model the collaborative behaviours ourselves. If we want change to happen, we need to be the change. (Schweer)

ROLE OF THE TEACHERWe’ve never needed teachers more than we need them now. We need teachers who continually engage in building their own capacity and leaders who understand how they can do that. Good teachers who collaborate, reflect on their practice, have the opportunities to connect into the worlds we have been talking about, will engage in powerful learning experiences. (Whitby)

I want to have a profession that’s brilliant at helping me manage my learning. I don’t like the word ‘facilitator’ because I think ‘facilitator’ does not do justice to the design and management of learning. (Mackay)

THE FUTUREThe future is here. It’s just that it’s unevenly distributed. (Mackay)

ROLE OF TELSTRATelstra can insert themselves into this space with a greater level of legitimacy...there’s national identity...there’s national strength. There’s a role for a broker in this space. (Mackay)

The role of Telstra as a broker and an energiser is something I gladly embrace. That’s where I have been coming from and I will continue to grow that. (Steigler-Peters)

The important take away from the White Paper is that it’s not just Telstra, it’s education and Telstra. It does establish what a partnership can look like, or what education plus corporate collaboration can look like, and how it can set a frame for moving into the future. (Steigler-Peters)

We need some disciplined processes of innovation, some structured experimentation that is very much shaped and stimulated by Roundtable members. We can’t wait for anyone else to do it. It’s not going to come from policy because we’re the ones who inform policy. And we need to make sure that these things can happen within the system and permeate the infrastructure, perhaps even change the infrastructure. (Steigler-Peters)

NATIONAL ARCHITECTUREACARA, AITSL and ESA have been successful in getting greater coherence and alignment around a policy agenda in this country that attempts to link curriculum, assessment, reporting, teacher quality, leadership, resources and materials. This is important national architecture. (Mackay)

DRIVERS FOR CHANGEFullan argues that you’ve got to be really careful about right and wrong drivers (for change). You’re in danger of putting too much emphasis on accountability and not enough on what would actually be a profession driven improvement agenda. You need both. His argument is that you’re in danger of putting too much emphasis on the wrong driver and not enough on the right driver. (Mackay)

We need to be very clear about purpose. We’ve cluttered the educational environment with a massive number of complexities, conflicting agendas and expectations. In terms of strategy, we need to... come back to some fairly fundamental principles about the purpose of what we’re doing. (Wasson)

PERSONALISED LEARNINGUltimately, the best learning comes from a profession that knows how to work together, collaborate, work in teams, and differentiate the offer in order to be able to get the personalised learning. (Mackay)

This conversation has been about...starting with the learner, the personalisation piece and then we’ve got the piece about who is the guide for that learning. (Blair)

TECHNOLOGYMake sure that the relationship between pedagogy and technology is of the right order. (Mackay)

You won’t get a really powerful learning system unless you know how to harness the digital technologies, and you won’t get it unless you shift power to young people, to the demand side. If you don’t get that, you are not operating in the right place. (Mackay)

DEVOLUTION AND THE SELF-IMPROVING SYSTEM(Government moves towards) empowering local schools...is right at one level because it argues for the ‘law’ of subsidiarity, where you put the power of decision-making at the point where you’ve got the most competent people to do it. That’s assuming you’ve done the capacity building to make sure that our principals in our schools have got the capacity to do that, and you’ve got a system around it at both a regional district level and at a state level and a national level that can provide support.

The self-improving system is contingent on:

01. Structural requirementClustering or networking. This has to be seriously designed and supported.

02. Cultural requirementLocal solutions and decision-making.

03. Co-construction requirementCo-authoring, co-owning and co-construction, including the community.

04. Leadership requirementSystem leaders to activate the collaborative communities – brokers who know how to do that. (Mackay based on David Hargreaves)

INNOVATIONInnovation and the self-improving system can occur at four levels:

01. Innovation at the level of practiceYou can innovate at the level of practice, at the level of the organisation. Not only the organisation at the institutional level of the school but the organisation of education.

02. Innovation at the level of platformLeadbeater posits that if you want a self-improving system and maybe even to go further, you’ll have to think about the responsibility for creating the right platforms that enable and empower people to start to collaborate, network, share knowledge, diffuse information and wisdom in much more powerful ways than we are doing at the moment.

03. Innovation at the level of ‘movement’Momentum developed through a ‘movement-like’ exercise, enabled by technologies such as the social media can influence and create system improvement.

04. Innovation at the level of culture and ideologyYou won’t get a learning system of the kind we are talking about unless you change the nature of relationships and the nature of culture. (Mackay based on Charles Leadbeater)

Education for innovationThe notion that we should be preparing our kids for the workforce I think is totally fallacious. I think we should be building new innovators of the world. (Tobias)

I think the opportunity is for us to build, to take the children and to take the learners and harness that innovation and say to the workforce, you know, we’re not catching up with you. You’ve got to catch up with us because you’re not geared for us. (Tobias)

So we are operating in parallel universes, and I think there is a really big opportunity for us to connect those parallel universes, because the whole notion of closed innovation moving to a much more open innovation-based model is the leading edge thinking of the corporate world. (Tobias)

Tobias’s HypothesesHypothesis 1 – It’s not about education preparing the student for the workforce, it’s about us capturing the two-year-olds and building their capabilities as innovators, as the new innovators of the world...and challenging the workforce and asking, ‘How are you going to harness these people?’

Hypothesis 2 – In the education system you have this single source of wisdom of the teacher, which is being seriously challenged ...The notion of a teacher in a school is a paradigm that should become obsolete. I don’t need to go anywhere for lifelong learning, to some school or educational institution. I’ve got it through my connectedness.

Hypothesis 3 – We are slow to change because we fear we will be made obsolete.

Hypothesis 4 – People don’t log in any more. What they do is sign into life, into this connected ecosystem. Our challenge is to integrate the learning and knowledge into that connected ecosystem. (Tobias)

GOVERNANCE FOR TRANSFORMATIONIn the context of the emerging national educational architecture and the question of governance, Ross Dawson’s take on the definition of ‘architecture’ is provocative ‘mass participation creating emergent value’.

Governance in a ‘mass participation’ environment requires, therefore, a highly responsive, broad-based, transformative capability. Here Dawson posits the notion of governance for transformation. Governance to allow innovation, and for useful things to happen, rather than simply being a risk management tool. And from governance comes architecture. That is, the policies, the structures, the dialogue and the frameworks. Governance needs to be designed for transformation, an enabler of transformation with experimentation as fundamental. (Dawson)

ROUNDTABLE SNAPSHOTS

In the ensuing conversation, and with formal inputs from Ross Dawson, Geoffrey Tobias and Tony Mackay, the messages for the future directions of the Roundtable coalition were clear.

The Roundtable represents such an enabling structure for transformation within the broader educational architecture of the nation.

Tony Mackay insightfully described the duality of focus required for transformation through national collaboration with the Roundtable coalition integral to the action:•collaboration on an improvement

agenda around what currently exists•collaboration for system

transformation.

This is the split screen of action, not an ‘either/or’ but a ‘both/and’ proposition. The ‘first screen’ improvement agenda is, according to Mackay, necessary but not sufficient, as simultaneously we need to invest in innovation and collaboration for transformation (the ‘second screen’). As leaders of an emerging new ecosystem, we have to be responsible in both spaces. We’ve got to make sure that the improvement piece...helps us transition from current paradigm to new paradigm.

Our responsibility as educators and as Telstra is to help us to seriously occupy, in the best possible way, both spaces.

Now, (the design and management of learning) is a big job and you can’t do it without the power of technology, and you can’t do it without the power shifting to the young person. Now that’s a job for Telstra.

Telstra’s got to say we’ll put the spotlight on teaching but it won’t be just in the catch up and improvement space. It’s going to have to be a lot more in the innovation and transformation space. That would be a good White Paper. (Mackay)

The Roundtable has brought to a point the threads of an emerging national consensus about what’s needed for the urgent and necessary task of reshaping the business of education for better learning futures. Emerging from the fourth Education Roundtable, the Roadmap is an agreed platform for the reshaping task.

At the heart of the construction of the Roadmap is the central role of the Roundtable coalition and of Telstra within the newly emerging national educational architecture.

The Roadmap is, necessarily, a work in progress but the elements that define it were clearly articulated and broadly agreed by participants. These elements are conceptual and philosophical (principles), and concrete and practical (actions).

PRINCIPLES•The education paradigm has to change.

•Personalised learning must be the powerful driver of the new paradigm.

•Technology in learning is core to a personalised learning ecosystem.

•Teachers are pedagogical designers for the current and future generations of students. Teachers are pre-eminent in the creation of innovative, engaging, and powerful learning within collaborative, technology enabled, quality learning ecosystems.

•The national education architecture will be enhanced by the collaborative structure of the Roundtable coalition.

ACTIONS•Robust 21st century learning

ecosystems need to be built for a learner-centric model. Acting with common purpose, Roundtable coalition members will bring thought leadership to this important enterprise.

•The coalition of Roundtable members will contribute to the shaping of the national educational landscape through a combination of relationships for learning, technology and innovation.

•Deep and valuable change can only be effected and sustained through broadly based collaboration, through alliances and partnerships of key stakeholders of education, government bodies, educational associations, business and key corporations. The Roundtable group will continue as a unique coalition of these stakeholders and will play an increasingly influential role in the national space as a change-wedge coalition.

•The work of the Roundtable coalition will be made more powerful by internationalising its intellectual reach and depth through formal links with organisations such as the Innovation Unit in the UK.

•The Roundtable coalition will move from agreement to action to ‘disciplined experimentation’ with the design and implementation of change-wedge pilots of national reach and significance.

•The next Roundtable will consider and agree national pilots that support and give substance to the direction of the new national education architecture.

•Through Telstra, the Roundtable coalition will commission research related to the three wedges of change and strategically aligned with the priorities of the new national educational architecture.

•Through Telstra, the Roundtable coalition will undertake a mapping of the key transformational initiatives across the nation as a foundation for understanding the breadth, depth and efficacy of the new landscape in creation.

THE WAY FORWARD

ROADMAP FOR THE ROUNDTABLE COALITION

The fourth Telstra Education Roundtable was no talkfest without purpose; it was a collaboration with meaning and an exploration with discovery.

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The Roundtable coalition has one purpose – to help bring to life the principles and actions of the emerging national Roadmap for educational change for the nation.

Roundtable Report prepared by Lindsay Wasson

APPENDIXPast contributors to the Telstra Education Roundtables

Shirley Alexander Evan ArthurAnn Brewer Stuart Campbell Andrew Cheetham Patrick ConnorsPam Christie Peter CrosbieJames Dalziel Neil DurrantRoy Green Kevin HarrisJuanita Healey Darren HollandDavid O’Hagan Mick HoulahanDerek Pola Greg PriorKatrina Reynen Andrew Street Garry Trinder Tom Urry Raju Varanasi Glenn VeenSteve Wilson

“Join as we broaden this debate and connect educational pioneers and thought leaders across Australia and the world.”

Tony Mackay