Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Which came first - and who cares - it's true

From Values & Beliefs about Learning to Principles and Practice
Julia Atkin published the above paper in 1996. Her circles about values and beliefs are a great tool for schools to align their values and beliefs with their Principles and Practice. Below is an abstract from the article. The TED video is talking about business but the similarities with educational leadership are too good to be ignored. Thanks to @alanalach for this tweet, I just joined the dots.
So now I ask who wants to hear Julia talking about the NZ curriculum, get hands on and work with her. Get to NZConnectED


ABSTRACT : For example, there are many practices congruent with the belief that students can and do learn from each other. A teacher who holds that belief would develop approaches that, in principle, give opportunities for students to learn from each other. So a teacher who holds this belief is likely, in practice, to arrange the room so that students can work together readily, to give opportunities to work together on tasks in small groups and to employ strategies and approaches such as peer modeling, peer evaluation and peer tutoring. The relationship between these particular learning-teaching practices and the teacher’s core values and beliefs is shown in below.
Not only would practices be developed to give opportunities for students to learn from each other but also feedback loops would be introduced to evaluate whether in fact collaborative learning was actually occurring.


A useful exercise to develop the habit of this approach and thinking is set out bleow. As a reflection exercise, work it through individually or in collaboration with a colleague.


EXERCISE FOR DEVELOPING CONGRUENCE BETWEEN BELIEFS AND ACTIONS. Working with a partner. . .
1. Each identify one of your strongly held values or beliefs about learning.
2. If you believe this, how in principle do you respond? How, in principle, do you work towards this belief?
3. Give three examples of different practices which are congruent with this principle and its underlying belief.
4. Identify barriers (or potential barriers) to this belief being lived out in practice.
5. Identify a practice which is not congruent with your belief.

3 comments:

Allan Alach said...

Hvala, Luke. I see what you were getting at. That is a very useful connection indeed which I shall ponder on at length.

Fletchspeak said...

Luke - you are getting scary mate - what have you been smoking lately ?
All joking aside good stuff to reflect on. I have always been a follower of Julia's thinking. She can cut to the chase so very clearly.
Went to the APPA presentation on how the NZPF are going to bring down the Govt- yea right! Breakfast was great.
Would love to catch up sometime soon- I have a new found body so am firing. Don't be rude Luke [lol]

Podgorani said...

sometimes these things just stumble across your computer and then the penny drops. I am really keen on making values the core to what is important. so i reckon trying to justify that just got heaps easier. not that it every needed justification because good people know this. I have a great staff who are working in a multitude of ways in spreading whats important, bringing things down to a micro level. alan the similarities are staggering really, and good models for business are transferrable. I am also keen on how or why good decisions are made. I imagine the Nats havent made a decision on what they believe but on what people want to hear or what will get them re-elected.
fletch I hope the knee is up to 18 holes, i too attended the nzpf stuff but out west, some reasonably decent info without setting the world on fire