Programs for students with exceptionalities must extend beyond the basic literacy and numeracy skills and instead be aligned to students’ needs and abilities and what they will be expected to know and be able to do. Effective leaders ensure that special education teachers design and implement innovative practices that develop deep learning competencies and effective measures for monitoring students’ progress toward their IEP goals and objectives, as well as state and district standards. As a result, students with and without exceptionalities have to be given equal opportunities to engage in rich learning experiences within the general education classrooms in an effort to deepen learning. How will you deepen learning of your staff to be invested in program change and sustainability?
For this Discussion, you will use the same case scenario from Modules 2 and 3. Then, you will consider the six deep learning competencies (Communication, Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Creativity, Character, and Citizenship) to develop a plan for addressing the district mandates. As you begin to reflect on the 6C’s, consider two or three things that will most improve teaching and student learning.
To Prepare:
· Review Chapter 4 in the Fullan and Quinn text, reflecting on the three elements that deepen learning. Reflect on how these elements would impact the organization in the case scenario.
· Review Figure 4.2: Deep Learning Competencies—The 6Cs. Consider what the learning would look like for each competency.
· Consider the five examples presented in the text, reflecting on the similarities each district displayed in moving whole systems toward deeper learning.
· Review the case scenarios presented in Modules 2 and 3 and reflect on how you would deepen learning of the staff to understand the goals of the new initiative.
Your plan sharing the steps that you, as the leader, would take to clarify learning goals and develop precision in pedagogical practices to “shift practices” within the case scenario site. Be sure to include reference to the 6C’s and other chapter topics, such as the student learning model and the role of technology.
· Explain what learning would look like for each of the competencies.
· Identify the pedagogies that foster those competencies.
· Design measures to assess student progress.
Learning Resources
Required Readings
Fullan, M., & Quinn, J. (2016). Coherence: The right drivers in action for schools, districts, and systems. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
- Chapter 4, “Deepening Learning” (pp. 77–108)
- Chapter 5, “Securing Accountability” (pp. 109–126)
Fullan, M. (2015a). Leadership from the middle: A system strategy. Education Canada. 55(4), 22–26. Retrieved from http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/leadership-middle
Leadership from the Middle: A System Strategy by Fullan, M., in Education Canada, Winter 2015. Copyright 2015 by Canadian Education Association. Reprinted by permission of Canadian Education Association via the Copyright Clearance Center.
Norman, P. J. & Sherwood, S. A. S. (2015). Using internal and external evaluation to shape teacher preparation curriculum: A model for continuous program improvement. New Educator, 11(1), 4-23. Doi: 10.1080/1547688X.2015.1001263
Leko, M.M., Brownell, M.T., Sindelar, P.T., & Kiely, M.T. (2015). Envisioning the future of special education personnel preparation in a standards-based era. Exceptional Children, 82(1), 25-43. doi: 10.1177/0014402915598782
Liu, P. (2015). Motivating teachers’ commitment to change through transformational school leadership in Chinese urban upper secondary schools. Journal of Educational Administration, 53(6), 735–754. doi: 10.1108/JEA-02-2014-002
Rock, M.L., et al (2016). 21st century change drivers: Considerations for constructive transformative models of special education teacher development. The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Council for Exceptional Children, 39(2), 98-120. doi: 10.1177/0888406416640634
Chapter 4
Deepening Learning
There is a learning revolution under way because of the confluence of forces. These forces are urgency, knowledge, and capacity. The urgency evolves from the allure of a dynamic, fast-paced, multimedia global world competing with traditional schooling that has not changed much in 50 years. Schooling as we have known it is outdated. This creates a push-pull dynamic. The push factor is that schools are increasingly boring for students and alienating for teachers. A recent Gallup poll (2014) found only 53 percent of students are engaged. Other studies show even less of a connection to schools on the part of students such as Jenkins (2013), who finds that by the time students reach grade 9 less than 40 per- cent of students are enthusiastic about being in school (see also Quaglia & Corso, 2014). This lack of engagement by at least half of students polled is translating into underperformance and ultimately a lack of preparedness for life as Gallup also found that high scores in the engagement index resulted in strong achievement gains. The pull factor is that innovations in the digital world are alluring, omnipresent, and accessible outside the walls of the school (alluring but not yet necessarily productive).
A second force for change is the emerging knowledge base in both pedagogy and change leadership. Cognitive science and research on learning, such as John Hattie’s Visible Learning for Teachers (2012), has given us the tools to make learning effective. At the same time, we have insights into ways to use digital to accelerate learning. In short, pedagogy and digital are intersecting to open radical new ways of engagement and deeper learning.
When we link the new knowledge about pedagogy and digital to “change knowledge”—knowledge about how to mobilize individuals and groups as they innovate—we will get breakthroughs in how learning occurs. We call this “the Stratosphere agenda” (Fullan, 2013c). Imagine a school where all of the students are so excited that they can’t wait to get there and want to carry on their learning at the end of the school day. Students are connecting with each other and experts across the globe as they research, solve problems, collaborate, and connect with their com- munities. Imagine the excitement of creating their own solar energy source or developing a campaign to end hunger in their community. Students are not only building the foundational literacy and content expertise but also, more importantly, learning to learn. Discipline problems disappear because students are so engaged, and learning becomes a 24/7 endeavor. Parents demonstrate their support by contributing to the learning at home and virtually. This may sound utopian, but we see glimmers of this type of innovation in classrooms, schools, and districts where they are trans- forming learning for both students and adults alike. The innovations show promise, but they are often isolated examples.
So why isn’t better learning happening everywhere? It’s not because of the inputs. Ask any grandparent of a three-year-old, and they will assure you that they are geniuses—full of curiosity, persistence, and creativity. However, by the age of eight, we begin to see the signs of apathy and boredom setting in, and this escalates throughout the high school years. Traditional schooling has become disconnected from the life of students outside of school—from the real world. And the boredom is not restricted to the students, as we heard from a principal in an innovative school: “Teachers were bored too; they just didn’t know it.” These are strong push factors for change. At the same time, the world of digital learning, gaming, and connectivity is exploding as a pull factor that is irresistible but often too random to be productive.
This brings us to the third force of capacity. How, then, do we mobilize the energy of this push-pull dynamic to innovate in a sustainable way? No system or district in the world has made significant gains for students with- out a relentless focus on the learning and teaching process. The challenge is to move from isolated innovations in some classrooms or some schools to transformation for every classroom, school, district, and beyond.
Two notions are critical. First, we must shift from a focus on teaching or inputs to a deeper understanding of the process of learning and how we can influence it. The past two decades of preoccupation with high-stakes testing resulted in fragmentation of the learning process into small bits of content and skills that were practiced in rote styles. The recent introduction of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) holds the promise of a shift to learning that is more authentic, rigorous, and meaningful. That promise will only be fulfilled if we can engender a new partnership for learning in our schools and classrooms that is built on precision in the new pedagogies.
Second, relentless focus (or “focused direction”) means we must abandon the notion that there is a silver bullet, package, or program (including technology) that is a solution and recognize that the next shift in learning will require knowledge building by everyone engaged and must affect all stu- dents. We can shape how children connect with the world and with each other and create deep learners who are curious and committed. The choice is ours, but time is running out because our kids can’t wait; they won’t wait.
We have already established that persistent focused direction and innovation is foundational (Chapter 2) and that purposeful collaborating is the pathway to progress (Chapter 3). Unless that focus and collaboration are directed to the improvement of the learning-teaching process, we are likely to see a lot of activity with little impact on students. This deepening learning is our third component of the Coherence Framework. Let’s now turn to how systems can dramatically improve engagement by using the right driver of deepening learning. There are three elements that deepen learning by doing the following (see Figure 4.1):
1. Establish clarity of deep learning goals.
2. Build precision in pedagogies accelerated by digital.
3. Shift practices through capacity building.
Schools, districts, and systems that mobilize the right driver of deepening learning will cultivate clarity of learning outcomes, identify and shape the new pedagogies combined with digital innovations to build precision, and use collaborative learning to shift practices. Many districts and schools are already overwhelmed with poverty, poor performance, and multiple mandates as well as trying to get the basics in place. How do they address this shift to the digital and global worlds? The solution lies in becoming both learners and reflective doers who are working on continuous improvement and innovation simultaneously. It means going deeper in improving the foundations such as literacy and mathematics while engaging in focused innovation on developing what we call deep learning competencies.
Leaders at the district, state, and school levels need to ask this question: What are the two or three things that will most improve student learning? These may be better strategies for the foundational literacy skills or new learning partnerships that use technology to accelerate learning. In all cases, it is essential to build clarity of the learning goals, build precision in the pedagogical practices, and to foster collective capacity building to mobilize a consistent shift in practices.
Before taking up the three elements of deepening learning, we should revisit the role of technology or digital. We have cast technology as a wrong driver—not because it is always wrong but because without precise pedagogy it is ineffective. This is why researchers like John Hattie and Larry Cuban unequivocally find that the use of technology has a negligible impact on learning. The reason is that technology by and large has been used superficially or poorly pedagogically, not because it has no potential. This remains the case today—that is, the predominant strategy is still based on “acquisition.” The past 30 years have seen billions poured into the acquisition of digital devices and software, with few whole system gains in student performance to show for it. The single implementation strategy of acquisition has given limited attention to developing the new pedagogies that would use technology as an accelerator, or the capacity building essential to ensure educators had the skill and knowledge to use technology to amplify learning. This is changing, and we are part of that shift in practice in our New Pedagogies for Deep Learning (NPDL) initiative (www.NPDL.global). In this new model, pedagogy is the driver and digital is the accelerator to go faster and deeper into learning for all.
Across the globe and in every facet of life, we are seeing three trends that are combining to shift educators from simply acquiring technology to using the right driver of pedagogy accelerated by digital: the proliferation of digital into every facet of living, the impact of globalization, and the emerging new pedagogies for learning.
In The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business, authors Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen (2013) offer insights into how the digital world and globalization are combining to force change:
Soon everyone on earth will be connected. With 5 billion more people set to join the virtual world, the boom in digital connectivity will bring gains in productivity, health, education, quality of life and myriad other avenues in the physical world—and this will be true for everyone, from the most elite users to those at the base of the economic pyramid.
New levels of collaboration and cross pollination across different sectors internationally will ensure that many of the best ideas and solutions will have a chance to rise to the top and be seen, considered, explored, funded, adopted and celebrated. (p. 1).
They predict that the most important pillar behind innovation and opportunity is education and that tremendous positive change will occur as rising connectivity reshapes traditional routines and offers new paths for learning. They identify five ways the Internet is propelling the new digital age:
• The Internet has transformed itself from simple information trans- mission into an endlessly multifaceted outlet for human energy and expression.
• Never before in history have so many people, from so many places, had so much power at their fingertips.
• The proliferation of communication technologies has advanced at an unprecedented speed and is spreading to the farthest reaches of the planet, at an accelerating rate.
• By 2015, the majority of the world’s population will, in one generation, have gone from having virtually no access to unfiltered information to processing all of the world’s information through a device that fits in the palm of the hand.
• The form of connectivity doubles roughly every nine months. . . . The promise of exponential growth unleashes possibilities in graphics and virtual reality that will make the online experience as real as real life, or perhaps even better. (Schmidt & Cohen, 2013)
Technology and global-driven change is inevitable, but we have a choice in how we prepare our next generation for that challenge. We can choose to focus on learning and use pedagogy as the driver and technology as the accelerator. This involves engaging in rapid cycles of innovation, learning from the work, and improving with each iteration.
As usual, we pursue these new developments by partnering with practitioners. The best way to break new ground is to get to action around a stimulating agenda. Our biggest foray is NPDL. We plan to partner with approximately 10 clusters of on the average 100 schools in 10 countries (1,000 schools) to learn together through the following:
1. New partnerships between and among students, teachers, and families
2. New pedagogical practices linked to 21st century learning outcomes (what we call the 6Cs—communication, critical thinking, collabo- ration, creativity, character, and citizenship)
3. Change leadership at the school and system levels. So far, we are working with eight countries and over 500 schools.
We are also aware that in addition to the New Pedagogies Partnership and CCSS, countless other schools and districts, some of which we work with, are engaged in similar agendas. They will need to sort out the three elements within our deep learning component of the Coherence Framework: (1) clarity of learning goals, (2) precision in pedagogy, and (3) shifting practice.
Develop Clarity of Learning Goals
The first step in building precision and consistent practices is to be clear about the learning goals. For the last quarter century, education has been giving superficial lip service to 21st century skills without much concerted action or impact. The energy has been invested in describing sets of skills without much robust implementation or effective ways to measure them. If we want to mobilize concerted action and a deep shift in practice then governments, districts, and schools need to develop clarity of outcomes and build shared understanding of these by educators, students, and parents. The CCSS is a step in the direction of deeper learning.
NPDL is developing clarity of learning goals for what it calls deep learning. Deep learning involves using new knowledge to solve real-life problems and incorporates a range of skills and attributes. The global partnership is working to define with specificity six deep learning compe- tencies (the 6Cs), describe what the learning would look like for each of these, identify the pedagogies that foster those competencies, and design new measures to assess student progress in developing them. Their deep learning competency framework and initial descriptors of each competency and its dimensions are displayed in Figure 4.2.
Communication
• Coherent communication using a range of modes
• Communication designed for different audiences
• Substantive, multimodal communication
• Reflection on and use of the process of learning to improve communication
Critical Thinking
• Evaluating information and arguments
• Making connections and identifying patterns
• Problem solving
• Meaningful knowledge construction
• Experimenting, reflecting, and taking action on ideas in the real world
Collaboration
• Working interdependently as a team
• Interpersonal and team-related skills
• Social, emotional, and intercultural skills
• Management of team dynamics and challenges
Creativity
• Economic and social entrepreneurialism
• Asking the right inquiry questions
• Considering and pursuing novel ideas and solutions
• Leadership for action
Character
• Learning to learn
• Grit, tenacity, perseverance, and resilience
• Self-regulation and responsibility
• Empathy for and contributing to the safety and benefit of others
Citizenship
• A global perspective
• Understanding of diverse values and worldviews
• Genuine interest in human and environmental sustainability
• Solving ambiguous, complex, and authentic problems
Source: NPDL (2014).
The overall purpose of the 6Cs is the well-being of the whole student but also the well-being of the group and society as a whole. Learning becomes the development of competencies for the successful negotiation of an uncertain world. Learning is about developing the personal and interpersonal and cognitive capabilities that allow one to diagnose what is going on in the complex, constantly shifting human and technical context of real-world practice and then match an appropriate response (Fullan & Scott, 2014).
This new conceptualization of what we need to be successful in life is gaining attention in all sectors. In her book Thrive (2014), Ariana Huffington describes how as CEO and cofounder of the Huffington Post Media Group, she almost worked herself into a grave by the age of 40. She collapsed from exhaustion after two years of 18-hour days, seven days a week. She recalibrated her life and determined that in addition to money and power, there is a third metric that consists of a syndrome that includes the following: well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving. She discovered new core values, and we must help students develop a keen sense of what they value and are committed to being and doing.
In this context, Fullan and Scott (2014) suggest that well-being and success in life incorporate two big Es: entrepreneurialism and ethics. Increasingly in what we might call the citizen of the future and indeed the present, there should be no distinction between being able to work with your hands and your mind. Entrepreneurialism is being able to resolve complex personal and societal challenges locally and globally. Entrepreneurialism does not just pertain to business endeavors. Every time a group tries to solve a social problem (youth crime, homelessness, bully- ing, and so on), they require the entrepreneurial skills of critical thinking, problem solving, innovative ideas, collaboration and communication, and the qualities of character.
The mark of an educated person is that of a doer (a doing-thinker; a thinker-doer)—they learn to do and do to learn. They are impatient with lack of action. Doing is not something they decide to do—daily life is doing, as natural as breathing the air. Along with doing is an exquisite awareness of the ethics of life. Small-scale ethics is how they treat others; large-scale ethics concern humankind and the evolution of the planet. When we change our education system and when hordes of people are acting individually and collectively in entrepreneurial and ethical ways, the world changes and keeps on changing with built-in adaptation. In these respects, a key characteristic about deep learning is that it is “in the moment.” It embraces John Dewey’s observation some 100 years ago that “education is not preparation for life, it is life.” Thus, in the NPDL, the distinction between living and learning and schooling becomes blurred. Students are living and creating their own lives and futures through under- standing and attempting to solve problems in their own communities and globally (Fullan & Scott, 2014).
This ability to meld and integrate the competencies was also rein- forced in a recent blog, The Unexpected Path to Creative Breakthroughs, by Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, an innovation and design firm. He reminds us to avoid the pressure to define ourselves as either humanities people or science people, either artists or geeks, or either intuitive or analytical types but to embrace both sides. He recounts examples from history—Leonardo da Vinci, Frank Gehry, and Steve Jobs—as people who reached across the divide of the arts and sciences as the starting point for bold innovation (Brown, 2015).
In the United States, the CCSS is another vehicle for building clarity of learning goals as they bring a common language and, if implemented effectively, a consistency of practice. One of our colleagues in the new pedagogies work has described the relationship between CCSS and NPDL in the following way: The CCSS outcomes dovetail well with those of the NPDL. One of the hallmark features of the CCSS is the opportunity for students to build knowledge about the world and other disciplines through text rather than their teacher. This process requires students to be able to read closely, think deeply, and learn independently. It shifts the role of the teacher from the keeper of knowledge to an activator of deep, meaningful learning. This represents a profound shift in instruction; rather than passively receiving knowledge and facts, students are expected to actively participate in their own education, independently applying their skills and knowledge. Essentially, teachers and students become partners in the learning process. The CCSS has the potential to provide clarity of learning goals (the “what”). The weakness of the CCSS is that in its current form, it does not provide the “how” for transforming the teaching and learning process. The NPDL and the CCSS are aligned in targeting the same learning competencies (the 6Cs), and they provide important insights on the “how.” Using cutting-edge, innovative instructional strategies, teachers empower students to develop strong critical thinking skills such as interpretation, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Students will not only be able to think deeply and independently but also be able to articulate the “why” behind their learning. Students are stretched to use concepts rather than simply memorize them. Further, these strategies are based on the belief that if students are to flourish in the 21st century, they must take an active role in their own education (Hamilton, personal communication, November 2014).
It is clear that educators, businesses, and parents recognize that the traditional basics are not sufficient and that future generations need also the 6Cs if they are to thrive. What is critical for schools, districts, and education systems is not just defining the deep learning competencies but identifying their interrelationships, practices that foster progression in their development, and ways to cultivate and share those practices with consistency for all learners.
Build Precision in Pedagogy
Schools and districts that make sustained improvement in learning for all students develop explicit frameworks or models to guide the learning process. This instructional guidance system (Bryk, Bender Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2010) is crucial because it represents the “black box” of implementation. The history of education is heavily weighted toward lofty goals and outcomes (usually poorly assessed) but weak on pedagogy. Our Coherence Framework makes pedagogical precision a priority and a driving force.
Instructional or pedagogical (we use the terms interchangeably) systems must include the development of at least the following four components:
• Build a common language and knowledge base. Cultivate system- wide engagement by involving all levels of the system to capture and create a model for learning and teaching. Identify the learning goals and principles that underlie the learning process. This collaborative approach builds language to promote meaningful conversations about practice.
• Identify proven pedagogical practices. The process typically begins with an analysis of best practices currently used in the district and an examination of the research to validate the model. Ownership and commitment emerge at all levels of the system study, work, and learn together.
• Build capacity. Provide consistent and sustained capacity building based on research-proven practices to build precision in pedagogy. Teachers need “a deep multidimensional knowledge that allows them both to assess situations quickly and to draw upon a variety of repertoires for intervention. Individual teachers possess such knowledge but it is largely invisible to the field as a whole. There are few ways for it to be gathered, codified and shared” (Mehta, Schwartz, & Hess, 2012). Collective capacity building and the collaborative work processes in previous chapters make the knowledge and skills accessible and visible to all.
• Provide clear causal links to impact. Pedagogies should specify the two-way street between learning and assessment. Such a process serves to strengthen the specificity of instructional practice and its causal efficacy in making a difference to learning. This is what Hattie (2012) is getting at with his mantra “know thy impact.” Knowing your impact is not just a matter of being responsible for outcomes but it also reverberates back to clarify how teaching and learning can be strengthened.
For the past decade, North America and the world have been focused on developing basic literacy and numeracy skills. These are foundational for learning, and they continue to be essential but are not sufficient to prepare our students for the complex world they will face. Schools, districts, and countries must find ways to sustain continuous improvement on the basics, while building innovative practices to develop what we call the deep learning competencies (defined previously). Implementing the promise of the CCSS for more critical thinking and problem solving and indeed joining the global digital world will require what we call the new pedagogies.
The concept of “simplexity” refers to the smallest number of potentially interrelated elements that feed on each other and achieve success. The secret to the NPDL lies in building teacher capacity to identify the interrelated pieces and, more importantly, to develop precision in how to combine them or make them gel to meet the varying needs of learners.
In the NPDL work, we have identified three strands of expertise that teachers need to weave together if they are to support deeper learning. These are precision in pedagogical partnerships that engage students in codesigning authentic relevant learning, learning environments that foster risk taking and 24/7 connections, and leveraging digital so it accelerates learning.
We examine each of the three strands of the NPDL depicted in Figure 4.3 and then consider an approach for building capacity to combine them.
Pedagogical Partnerships
The first strand recognizes that teachers must possess deep expertise in instructional and assessment practices if they are to maximize the impact and use of digital to accelerate learning. These new pedagogies build on the foundation of proven pedagogical practices but fuse them with emerging innovative practices that foster the creation and application of new ideas and knowledge in real life. Educators must hone a deep knowledge of the learning process and a repertoire of strategies if they are to use digital as an accelerator. The magic is not in the device but in the scaffolding of experiences and challenges finely tuned to the needs and interests of students and maximized through relevance, authenticity, and real-world connections.
The first step in building precision in pedagogical practices begins with a culture that fosters learning for all. If the adults are not thinking at high levels, it is unlikely the students will be either. Districts and schools that get results have clarity about the elements of their instructional system. They build knowledge from the research combined with best practices in their context and then ensure that everyone has the skills and resources to apply them appropriately.
Schools and districts who want to build a common language and knowledge base and identify proven pedagogical practices may want to consider the work of John Hattie in Visible Learning (2009). He reviews the impact of instructional strategies and concludes that what is needed to raise the bar and close the gap is consensus and skill development by all teachers engaged with groups of students around the most impactful strategies. He differentiates the role of teachers as facilitators that has a .17 impact on learning with the role of teachers as activator at .87. The role of teachers as activators is far more powerful as it is more active in engaging student learning and challenging next practice.
We saw earlier that in his most recent research Hattie found that collective efficacy (now called collaborative expertise) of teachers had the highest impact of all of the 150 or so practices he examined. One can see as well in our definition of the new pedagogy as centered on the learning partnership between and among teachers, students, and families that collective efficacy for this trio of partners could be even more powerful.
In his findings around instructional strategies, a correlation of .40 or higher represents a year’s growth in a year. Some notable high-impact strategies that would be in an activator’s repertoire include the following:
Cognitive task analysis .87
Giving feedback .75
Teacher-student relationship .72
Student expectations 1.44
Two underused strategies with tremendous power are giving feedback and student expectations. He reports that on average students get three to five seconds of precise feedback per day. What they need is feedback that helps them set the next challenge for their learning and the one after that.
Gaming is a good example of providing specific, timely feedback that challenges the student to consistently higher levels of performance. This requires teachers to move students from what they know toward explicit success criteria.
He also makes a distinction between strategies appropriate for shallow versus deep learning. Shallow learning he defines not as trivial or less important but learning that is essential to understand the content and develop basic skills. Shallow learning then becomes a foundation for deeper learning. Deeper learning is the ability to understand concepts, think critically, solve problems, and apply learning in authentic ways. Strategies for deeper learning include inquiry, problem-based learning, and knowledge production approaches. Not only are these strategies underutilized but they are often not used appropriately and fail to get the results they could.
These strategies and others clearly have the potential to close the gap if applied with fidelity and professional knowledge. What is crucial for schools and districts is an intentional strategy for cultivating collaborative cultures where teachers become more precise in knowing which strategy is most appropriate for that learner and that task.
No learning-teaching process is complete without addressing the black box of assessment. In our NPDL work we are not only identifying the pedagogies that affect learning but also creating new tools and measures for student success. We are shifting from measuring what is easy to measuring what matters. If we want students to develop the 6Cs of communication, critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, character, and citizenship, we need to be able to define and measure those competencies. To that end, we have created learning progressions that describe the pathway many students would follow in developing a competency. These tools become the anchor for meaningful discussion as groups of teachers design more meaningful learning based on the competencies; students and teachers develop success criteria, monitor progress, and evaluate growth. Teams of teachers then collaboratively examine student work and processes to analyze the quality of both the learning design and student progress. They use these data to identify the next appropriate learning challenge.
The pathway to change is accelerated when teachers engage in meaningful dialogue about effective practice using the strategies that provide the most impact. Collaborative examination of practice as described in Chapter 3 increases this precision and causes teachers to raise their expec- tations for themselves and their students. This precision of pedagogical practice is essential as a foundation for deeper learning. We are seeing new relationships and ways of interacting beginning to emerge—what we call the new learning partnerships as teachers use their professional knowledge and expertise to engage and support learning with and among students in new ways.
The new pedagogies go deeper than changing pedagogy between students and teacher; they explore more deeply new roles for students. One of the most distinctive differences between traditional learning and the new pedagogies is the role students play and “the new learning partnerships” that emerge student to student, student to teacher, and student to the external world. New learning goals require changes in how relationships between students, teachers, families, and community are structured. The shift toward active learning partnerships requires students to take greater charge of their own and each other’s learning inside and outside the classroom. The new learning partnerships have the potential to create more authentic and meaningful learning locally, nationally, and globally. This more active role increases student engagement. The shift to a new balance in decision making is inevitable because students are no longer willing to be passive recipi- ents of learning defined by someone else, are digitally connected to massive amounts of new ideas and information, and respond to traditional didactic approaches with passivity once they have foundational skills.
Schools and districts that embrace the new learning partnership are seeing exponential growth in student engagement and success. We filmed recently in W. G. Davis Middle School in Ontario, where in 2009 students were disengaged, disruptive behaviors were on the rise, and achievement was dropping. The principal and staff collaborated over several months to find a solution. They eventually determined that their students needed better role models and the kind of digital engagement they valued outside the school. They realized that they were the ones who had to become role models for their students. This began a process of implementing more authentic learning using problem-based units that crossed traditional content boundaries and implementing a new bring your own device (BYOD) policy. The shift to cross-disciplinary planning and increased technology use caused teachers to move outside their comfort zone. They began using new strategies for coplanning and using digital resources supporting one another and feeling supported to take risks and even fail at first. Almost immediately, they noticed their roles with students were changing dramatically. Students were more engaged and teacher time in the classroom was spent on giving feedback and challenging the next step in learning rather than in delivering content. As they focused on meaningful, relevant learning using what we are calling the new pedagogies, they also saw more than a 20 percent leap in reading and writing scores over three years on the provincial testing (Video: W. G. Davis, www.michaelfullan.ca).
The new learning partnerships we saw at W. G. Davis take time and expertise to develop. Meaningful learning partnerships with students can be accelerated when teachers understand the three elements of the student learning model, depicted in Figure 4.4.
This model goes beyond the notions of student voice and agency to combine both internal development and external connections to the world. We are not talking here about student forums or interest surveys (although they may be part of the approach) but about a deeper engagement of students as codesigners and co learners. The three elements of the model all contribute to the development of students as active, engaged learners who are prepared to learn for life and experience learning as life. Educators need to be aware of these key elements to design learning and environments that maximize student potential to thrive. Moreover—and this is crucial—none of these three components are fixed variables. They can be altered through intervention. This domain represents a vastly underutilized set of factors that would be very high yield (low cost, high impact). The student learning model then focuses on the three elements of student development and ways they become active participants in my learning, my belonging, and my aspirations.
My Learning
The first element refers to the need for students to take responsibility for their learning and to understand the process of learning, if it is to be maximized. This requires students to develop skills in learning to learn, giving and receiving feedback, and enacting student agency.
• Learning to learn requires that students build metacognition about their learning. They begin to define their own learning goals and success criteria; monitor their own learning and critically examine their work; and incorporate feedback from peers, teachers, and others to deepen their awareness of how they function in the learning process.
• Feedback is essential to improving performance. As students make progress in mastering the learning process, the role of the teacher gradually shifts from explicitly structuring the learning task, toward providing feedback, activating the next learning challenge, and continuously developing the learning environment.
• Student agency emerges as students take a more active role in codeveloping learning tasks and assessing results. It is more than participation; it is engaging students in real decision making and a willingness to learn together.
My Belonging
The second element of belonging is a crucial foundation for all human beings who are social by nature and crave purpose, meaning, and connectedness to others.
• Caring environments help students to flourish and meet the basic need of all humans to feel they are respected and belong.
• Relationships are integral to preparing for authentic learning. As students develop both interpersonal connections and intrapersonal insight, they are able to move to successively more complex tasks in groups and independently. Managing collaborative relationships and being self-monitoring are skills for life.
My Aspirations
Student results can be dramatically affected by the expectations they hold of themselves and the perceptions they believe others have for them (see also Quaglia & Corso, 2014).
• Expectations are a key determinant of success, as noted in Hattie’s research. Students must believe they can achieve and also feel that others believe that. They must codetermine success criteria and be engaged in measuring their growth. Families, students, and teachers can together foster higher expectations through deliberate means— sometimes simply by discussing current and ideal expectations and what might make them possible to achieve.
• Needs and interests are a powerful accelerator for motivation and engagement. Teachers who tap into the natural curiosity and interest of students are able to use that as a springboard to deeply engage students in tasks that are relevant, authentic, and examine concepts and problems in depth.
Teachers, schools, and districts that combine strategies to unlock the three elements in their students will foster untapped potential and form meaningful learning partnerships.
Learning Environments
The second strand that fosters the transformation to deep learning is a shift in the learning environment. Quality learning environments that use the pedagogical practices and build the learning partnerships described previously need to meet four criteria: be irresistibly engaging for students and teachers, allow 24/7 access to learning, cultivate social learning, and foster risk taking and innovation. Students thrive in this type of learning environment and so do teachers.
How, then, do we transform today’s classrooms from the traditional status quo to places of energy, curiosity, imagination, and deep learning? A recent video by the inventor of the Rubik’s cube, Erno Rubik, sheds light on the dilemma when he asks, “How do we get teachers to stop teaching answers but instead to help students generate questions that are waiting for answers?” There is no one recipe for creating classrooms that provoke deep learning, but as we look across the early innovators we see a few common characteristics. In schools on the pathway to deepening learning, we see the following:
• Students asking the questions. They have skills and language to pursue inquiry and are not passively taking in the answers from teachers.
• Questions valued above answers. The process of learning, discovering, and conveying is as important as the end result.
• Varied models for learning. Selection of approaches is matched to student needs and interests. Students are supported to reach for the next challenge.
• Explicit connections to real-world application. Learning designs are not left to chance but scaffolded and built on relevance and meaning.
• Collaboration. Students possess skills to collaborate within the classroom and beyond.
• Assessment of learning that is embedded, transparent, and authentic. Students define personal goals, monitor progress toward success criteria, and engage in feedback with peers and others.
Attention to these criteria will create learning environments where students can flourish. Schools, districts, and systems should consider the degree to which they are providing conditions that support this type of learning environment.
Leveraging Digital
The third strand of the deep learning trio is leveraging digital. We have purposely moved away from the term technology to signal that this discussion is not about devices but about learning that can be amplified, accelerated, and facilitated by interaction with the digital world. This demands a rethinking of the ways we use technology. It’s not about putting a device in front of every student and leaving them to learn independently. That will only result in students who are digital isolates. It is about bringing the digital world inside the process of learning and building collaboration, within and outside the classroom, in ways that are authentic and relevant.
Alan November (2012), a pioneer in the meaningful use of technology for over three decades, describes this new view of the digital world as “transforming learning beyond the $1000 pencil.” Just adding devices is not enough; mind-sets and behaviors need to change for both students and teachers. He emphasizes that students must be taught how to use technology appropriately, safely, and ethically to gain understanding at the highest levels (Bloom’s taxonomy or depth of knowledge). Teachers then “guide students in the complex tasks of innovation and problem solving, and in doing work that makes a contribution to the learning processes of others” (November, 2012, p. 18).
In his book Who Owns the Learning? November challenges educators to ask themselves six questions to determine if they are getting beyond the superficial use of digital:
1. Did the assignment build capacity for critical thinking on the web?
2. Did the assignment develop new lines of inquiry?
3. Are there opportunities to broaden the perspective of the conversation with authentic
audiences from around the world?
4. Is there an opportunity for students to publish—across various media with capacity for
continuous feedback?
5. Is there an opportunity for students to create a contribution (purposeful work)?
6. Does the assignment demo “best in the world” examples of content and skill?
The challenge for leaders is to help educators move from uses of technology as substitution to uses of digital that provide value. If I’m a student studying a unit on poverty and I use technology to create a PowerPoint instead of handwriting a report, there may be little value added. In contrast, if I interview people in four global communities who are living in poverty, synthesize that information, and create my report, there has been tremendous value added through the layers of critical thinking, communication, character, and global citizenship.
Making the New Pedagogies “Gel”
Building capacity in all three strands of the new pedagogies takes persistence and commitment. We find a good example of sustained focus that gets new and better results in our work with Napa Valley Unified School District. The district is making progress in building on powerful pedagogical practices—particularly problem-based learning and leveraging digital. Napa has developed a clear instructional focus on what they term their 4Cs and combines that with growing use of digital. The approach began more than a decade ago at New Tech High but has evolved to engage the entire district. Napa intentionally built the capacity of teachers in every school, over time, to use the new pedagogy and then used the addition of digital devices to enrich the thinking and learning. They have taken an approach to innovation by starting with some schools but using that learning in rapid cycles of reflection and doing to diffuse the learning to all schools. Each year they host an “Educators Exchange” to share the knowledge they are gaining with their schools but also laterally with other school districts.
Schools and districts need to foster collaborative inquiry into the three strands of the new pedagogies: pedagogical partnerships, learning environments, and leveraging digital. There is no simple recipe; this is a job for professional educators who must develop the expertise and knowledge base that is a foundation for fostering deeper learning. The simplexity is knowing the elements and integrating them so that every child has the learning experience that challenges and supports them. The challenge for schools and districts is to build momentum across all classrooms.
Shift Practices Through Capacity Building
Once districts and schools have clarified the learning goals and developed precision in pedagogical practices, they must focus on the “how” of shifting practice. They need to identify the processes that will support a shift in practice for all educators. We will highlight the key attributes and then illustrate with examples in action.
As we look at districts that are making the shift to support deep learning, we see that several conditions are in place. Superintendents and principals shift behaviors on a large scale when they combine the strategies noted in Chapter 3.
• They model being lead learners. They don’t send people to capacity building sessions but learn alongside them.
• They shape a culture that fosters an expectation of learning for everyone, taking risks and making mistakes but learning from them.
• They build capacity vertically and horizontally in the organization with persistence and single-mindedness until it affects learning.
How do schools and districts tackle the shift to deep learning? The first step in making a change is to assess the starting point. We offer a few questions for reflection about your capacity to shift the practices in your school, district, or state.
Assessing Capacity
Teachers:
1. Do teachers possess knowledge and skills in pedagogical practices?
2. Do teachers have knowledge and skills to develop new learning partnerships?
3. Do teachers have the knowledge and skills to create learning environments that move
beyond the traditional classroom?
4. Do teachers have the knowledge and skills to use digital resources to accelerate learning?
Schools:
1. Do school leaders have the knowledge and skills to create a culture of learning for teachers
and students?
2. Do schools have collaborative learning structures and process?
3. Do schools have access to models of effective practice and opportunities to share laterally
and vertically?
Districts:
1. Does the district have clarity of learning goals?
2. Have high-yield pedagogical practices been identified and shared?
3. Does the district create a culture of learning for all educators?
4. Does the district provide resources for collaborative learning structures and processes to
thrive?
We use examples to illustrate how schools and districts can use the elements of the Coherence Framework to assess their starting point and then either focus on continuous improvement of the basic literacies or sustain those basics while innovating with deeper learning.
The first school example is Cochrane Collegiate Academy in North Carolina that in 2008 lacked clarity of goals, had little precision or consistency in pedagogy, and had weak capacity and culture to support change. They needed to focus relentlessly on continuous improvement of the basics. The second school example is Park Manor Senior Public School in Ontario, which had some clarity of goals, good pedagogy, and teacher capacity but was underperforming. They combined continuous improvement with innovating with deep learning and digital and saw their writing scores soar.
Cochrane Collegiate Academy
We look first to a school that was able to engage an underperforming student population with dramatic results using pedagogical precision and capacity building. In 2007, Cochrane Collegiate Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina, was listed as one of the 30 lowest-performing schools in North Carolina. By 2011, the number of students performing at grade level had doubled and the achievement gap had been reduced by 35 per- cent in reading and math. Most notable was that their growth was 3.5 times that of North Carolina in mathematics and twice the rate of growth in reading.
Cochrane serves a population of 640 students in grades 6 through 8. Eighty-seven percent qualify for free or reduced lunch, 60 percent are African American, and 30 percent are Latino. In a recent Edutopia (n.d.) video, teachers described the situation in 2008 as out of control with students running and screaming in the halls, weak performance at 20 percent in reading and math, and good teachers choosing to leave the profession.
Staff attribute their success to their principal who brought out their potential using five key components:
1. Use quality professional development that is research based, consistent, convenient,
relevant, and differentiated.
2. Use time wisely by flipping faculty meeting time to focus on learning, not administration.
3. Trust your teachers to determine the professional learning they need next.
4. Facilitate, don’t dictate by providing teachers with what they need and allowing them to
make decisions.
5. Expect the best by holding everyone to high standards.
Guided by research, they identified their top 10 teaching practices and engaged weekly in professional learning to help them implement the practices more effectively. Their nonnegotiable list of strategies included the following: essential questions, activating strategy, relevant vocabulary, limited lecture, graphic organizer, student movement, higher-order thinking questions, summarize, rigorous, and student centered.
What differentiates this school is not which top 10 instructional strategies they selected but the fact that they built a common language, knowledge base, and set of practices about quality learning and teaching. They instituted practices and processes such as weekly professional learning targeted to this instructional guidance system. Strong professional relationships, collaborative work, and learning partnerships with their students are making the difference. They have work still to be done but are on a trajectory for success.
Park Manor Senior Public School
The second school example is Park Manor, which serves grades 6, 7, and 8 students just outside of Toronto. It is a normal school with the same standard resources of all schools in that district. In Stratosphere (2013c), Fullan profiled the innovations at Park Manor for two reasons. First, they increased scores on the Ontario assessment, which measures higher-order skills, from 42 percent to 83 percent in just four years. Second, they applied what we are calling the three strands of the new pedagogies to shift practice across the entire school.
Park Manor’s stated mission is to develop “global critical thinkers collaborating to change the world.” The goal is clear and concise, and it is shared by everyone. Many schools have inspiring goals, but Park Manor was an early innovator in developing a clear strategy for moving forward. Their approach was to build a collaborative culture that was learning together how to do this work. James Bond, the principal, and Liz Anderson, the learning coordinator, facilitated a process where they and the teachers developed clarity about what learning needed to be like to serve their students. They developed as a staff what they call an accelerated learning framework to guide the transition from goals to action (see Figure 4.5).
Over a two-year period, they developed several versions of the framework and still see it as a work in progress. Teachers explained the following:
We begin with the student and then embed the 6Cs into every- thing. From there we develop the learning goals, success criteria, rich learning tasks and then make decisions about the pedagogy that is most appropriate. Only then, do we consider the digital tools and resources that will accelerate the learning. (Video at www.michaelfullan.ca)
While they are committed to incorporating digital, they learned early on that pedagogy had to be the driver with digital acting as an accelerator. Visitors to the school are always impressed that every student can articulate their learning goals and success criteria, the reasons for the digital or pedagogical strategy they may be using, and how the tools are meeting their learning needs.
Three indicators of success have evolved: first, gains in student achievement have been significant; second, the school uses success criteria and evidence to determine the effectiveness of the framework as it relates to student learning; and third, the notion of developing a learning framework has been taken up by other schools across North America. Schools and districts are seeing the development of a learning framework as a powerful process to build shared language, knowledge, and expertise. The framework serves to clarify the small number of goals, identify the pedagogical practices that need to be in every teacher’s repertoire, and provide a focus for capacity building that gets results.
Moving Whole Systems Toward Deeper Learning
In Chapter 2, we described a large-scale transformation in Ontario, Canada, where they significantly improved learning in an entire province—5,000 public schools—by using the elements of the Coherence Framework: focusing direction, cultivating collaborative cultures, deepening learning, and securing accountability. They have developed considerable consistency of pedagogical practices across the 5,000 schools. They are sustaining the continuous improvement but simultaneously focusing on more innovative practices to leverage digital. At the district level, we have referenced examples such as York Region, Long Beach, and Garden Grove that have inten- tionally focused on consistency of practice and are now moving toward the innovation side. This resulted from attending to the pedagogical precision combined with a collaborative culture that fosters risk taking and an infra- structure that will support the new approaches both in policy and practice.
One of the few examples of “whole system” improvement using digital is Mooresville, North Carolina (Edwards, 2015). Based on principles aligned with our work, Superintendent Mark Edwards has used leadership, pedagogy, and collaborative cultures to transform the culture and performance of a district of 6,000 students and 9 schools. To take but one indicator—the state’s Annual Measurable Objectives—Mooresville has gone from being one of the lowest-performing districts to becoming the highest-performing in the state, despite having one of the lowest per pupil budgets. In short, success is possible by employing the small number of key principles and implementing them well and persistently, learning and adapting as you go. We began the chapter by suggesting the time is ripe for a revolution in learning. Robust examples of whole districts that are successful on the innovation side of deep learning are not yet visible. We are following districts and countries that are exploring the intersection of pedagogy and digital. One global partnership, NPDL, is particularly promising. Hundreds of schools in countries including Australia/New Zealand, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Uruguay, and the United States are blending a focus on strong pedagogy with innovation to accelerate student learning leveraged by digital. Equally important, they are using the whole system approach to change by providing enabling conditions at the school, district, and country levels for innovation to flourish. This is an innovation laboratory for building and sharing knowledge about what deep learning is, how we get more of it, and how we measure these crucial competencies. We look forward to reporting on this growing social movement to transform learning.
Final Thoughts
Coherence is on everyone’s radar. Leaders at the school, district, and state levels recognize that the piecemeal efforts of the past will not allow them to meet the promise of CCSS or the needs of their students. You will recall our reference in Chapter 1 to the study by Susan Moore Johnson and her colleagues (2015) of how five districts achieved greater coherence and concluded that success was not a matter of the degree of centralization or decentralization but rather the quality of implementation. In both scenarios, effectiveness required strong vertical and horizontal trust and partnerships.
As we look at those five districts and other schools, states, and districts cited in this book, it becomes clear that the pathway to success for students is not about size of districts or schools, centralization versus decentralization, poverty versus privilege, or one program versus another. The pattern that emerges is consistent with our framework for coherence.
First, all of these examples had a clear and shared focused direction. They articulated a small number of goals directly linked to improved student learning and then persisted in working toward them. Often, the stimulus was an urgency to respond to serious issues of poverty and/or underachievement. In every case, this was not a simple solution but a concerted effort of committed leadership at all levels, over multiple years— it’s hard work and not for the faint of heart.
Second, they built a collaborative culture by focusing on capacity building. They fostered strong relationships with teachers, leaders, and community. They recognize that lateral capacity (connecting and learning across schools) and vertical connection (good relationships between central office and principals and teachers) to the overall agenda forms the glue of coherence.
Second, they built a collaborative culture by focusing on capacity building. They fostered strong relationships with teachers, leaders, and community. They recognize that lateral capacity (connecting and learning across schools) and vertical connection (good relationships between central office and principals and teachers) to the overall agenda forms the glue of coherence.
The elements of the Coherence Framework do not operate in isolation; rather, success depends on the synergy of their integration—seeking the com- bination that makes the elements gel, knowing that coherence will never be achieved as an end state but will always need to be sought. You can become better at it, achieve greater degrees of coherence, and you will end up—with a greater coherence making capacity in your system. Focusing direction gets us into the game, cultivating collaborative cultures provides the pathway for change, and deepening learning is the core strategy for affecting student results. We turn next to the fourth element, securing accountability, which is essential if we are to measure and achieve growth in meaningful ways and be accountable to ourselves and the public.
Review the contents of this chapter using Infographic 4 before proceeding to Chapter 5, Securing Accountability.
