Becoming an Innovative Learning Environment

155 Pages·2018·2.518 MB·English

by  Noeline Wright

Noeline Wright
Becoming an
Innovative Learning
Environment
The Making of a New Zealand Secondary
School
Becoming an Innovative Learning Environment
Noeline Wright
Becoming an Innovative
Learning Environment
The Making of a New Zealand Secondary
School
123
Noeline Wright
TheFaculty ofEducation/Te ToiTangata,
WilfMalcolm Institute of Educational
Research(WMIER)
TheUniversity of Waikato
Hamilton, NewZealand
ISBN978-981-13-0763-8 ISBN978-981-13-0764-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0764-5
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2018942618
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This book is dedicated to the foundation
students and staff of Hobsonville Point
Secondary School, and particularly the
leadership team who graciously gave me
unfettered access. Without you, this could
never have happened.
Preface
Thisbookoffersresearchfindingsemanatingfromalongitudinalprojectthattracks
some aspects of the inception and development of Hobsonville Point Secondary
School (HPSS), particularly leadership decisions linking vision to classroom
practices.
Because the school is carving out a learning path that is different from many
other schools, anonymity is not possible; its characteristics easily identify it. The
issue of anonymity has been discussed with the principal and, because the school
aims for transparency in its dealings with its community—and staff regularly blog
about their developing thinking and decision-making—identifying the school has
been agreed.
HPSS, the subject of the book, is sited in a very new urban area of Auckland,
andthewholenewurbandevelopmentisbuiltonadecommissionedairforcebase.
The larger community is deliberately planned to include different combinations of
new housing, streets, shops, landscaping and a coastal walkway. The primary and
secondary schools are positioned near the centre of this new community and in
close proximity to each other. Both are built using modern learning building reg-
ulations and architectural design, and operate under the same Private–Public
Partnership (PPP) arrangement. This book captures something of the leadership
vision and ways in which the school enacts this vision across a range of areas.
These areas are necessary parts of a school’s being: the curriculum, pastoral care,
timetabling, relationships and connections with community, and signal elements
that comprise the complex nature of schools.
In 2017, cohorts of students have been enrolled for 4 of the 5 years of the
school’s inception. The book centres on significant aspects of the school’s nascent
development.Thefirstoftheseconcernseffortstocreateastaffcultureofinclusion,
mutual support and transparency through the adoption of a critical friend model.
Through this model, staff have access to a ‘sounding board’—who acts as a pro-
fessionalpeer.Thecritical friendstrategyhelpedtheschoolinitiateonefacetofits
logic of practice—its version of ‘how things are done around here’. The second
significant aspect outlines what the principal has, from our early encounters,
describedasoneofitsgoals:disruptingthe‘paradigmofone’.Hedoesnotusethe
vii
viii Preface
term ‘paradigm’ in the way academics would use it to describe, for example a
research paradigm, but uses it to indicate a conception of secondary school edu-
cation that signifies a range of characteristics of traditional secondary schooling in
New Zealand. He uses the term to emphasise how the school has thought about
traditionalpracticesandschoolgeographies,andcomparedthemwiththepotential
and intentional affordances of the open learning spaces in this new school.
Iappropriatedhismetaphortocontinuethetheme,changingtheprepositiontoa
‘paradigm for one’ to feature as the third significant aspect. The change in
preposition signifies the school’s evolving student-mentoring and development
focus, to support each student as an individual and focus on the pastoral care
features of the school.
Thefourthareaofthebookisthe‘paradigmofthemany’.Itreferstothewaythe
schooldeliberatelyfostersthevoicesofthemanystudentsandparents.Theseparts
of the school are seen as partners in the becoming of the school community.
The book was made possible by support from Wilf Malcolm Institute for
Educational Research (WMIER), The University of Waikato.
Hamilton, New Zealand Noeline Wright
Acknowledgements
To Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research in the Faculty of Education,
The University of Waikato, for funding this research.
To Rosemary Hipkins from NZCER. A critical reader in her weekends.
ix
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
MLEs in the New Zealand Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The Regulatory Framework. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Conceptions of Learning and MLEs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Tensions: Ministry of Education Regulations
and Innovative Learning Spaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Framing the Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2 Framing Learning Spaces: Modern Learning Environments
and ‘Modern’ Pedagogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
International Historical Contexts: Learning and Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
New Zealand Historical Context: Learning and Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Ideas About ‘Modern’ Learning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Key Competencies, Pedagogy, Modern Learning and Physical
Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Teachers’ Views (International) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
New Zealand Teachers’ Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Some Implications for New Zealand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Literature About Teaching and Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3 Framing the School: Hobsonville Point Secondary School . . . . . . . . 47
School Profile. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Location. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Private–Public Partnership (PPP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Curriculum, Timetables and Making Sense of What Matters . . . . . . . 50
xi
xii Contents
The Leadership and Their Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
The Principal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
The Deputy Principals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
The Senior Leadership Team’s Work Together. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Creating a Staff Culture: Inclusion, Transparency, Openness . . . . . . . . . 59
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4 Framing the Curriculum: ‘Paradigm of One’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Structuring Learning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
HPSS’s ‘Non-negotiables’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Structuring Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Framing the School’s Learning Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
The Learning Design Model (LDM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Enacting an Integrated Curriculum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Processes of Integration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Pedagogic Work and Social Justice Action. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Teaching Teams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
How Integrated Teaching Can Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
A Module in Action: An Example Involving Curriculum English . . . 98
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
5 Framing Pastoral Care: ‘Paradigm for One’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
The Hobsonville Habits and the Learning Hub. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Morning Tea with Maurie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Pastoral Care and Resilience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Hubs and Habits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Decisions About NCEA and Relationship to Academic Outcomes. . . 118
Respecting Students’ Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
6 Framing Perspectives: ‘Paradigm of the Many’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Student Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Student Views of Hub Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Academic Achievement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Learning in Integrated Modules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Public Scrutiny. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
View from the Pollinators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Students’ Views of Their School Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
7 Framing the First Four Years: Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145