It is only with active reflection that we can strive to understand how our values and assumptions guide our thinking and responses. Reflection which integrates experience with new learning and knowledge from different academic disciplines is an opportunity for pedagogical and leadership development. Reflective practice brings about innovative and resourceful thinking for the progress of students, educators and schools.

The practice of reflection is an extremely effective tool for gaining conclusions and generating ideas from an experience, involving open minded and personal searching for why and how. And from reflection, a questioning approach for teaching and learning and leadership forms (Kolb, 1984 and Gibbs, 1998). As educators, we need to imaginatively stimulate enquiry in young children, foster eager minds to ask questions, be interested in, and richly engage with their learning for them to achieve their personal best and experience deep contentment and love for what they are doing. I would argue that the same is fundamental for leaders in relation to their colleagues. Both of Schön’s (1991) recommendations of ‘Reflection-in-action’ and ‘Reflection-on-action’ seem thoroughly worthwhile. As the former suggests, reflection might most constructively be practised ‘in the moment’ when something surprising or unexpected takes place. To create ideas for the future, carrying out reflection after an event would be better served. Indeed, a mix of the two could be more instinctive, remembering that reflection is not to be prejudiced by personal and reactive feelings and thoughts but instead, an examination of self and others in a given situation for higher learning. In agreement with Fording (2017), reflective leadership diverts from an “action bias” to collaboration, and therefore prevents imposition and autocracy on others.
​
A constructivist approach (Densten and Gray, 2016) to learning enables progress by recognising that concepts are not static and by encouraging the process to be the learner’s responsibility. This too can empower and promote autonomy for educators, and also create a culture of collective ownership for learning and everyone contributing to the development of the school. It is important for all members of staff to feel a sense of worth and purpose in working together for a unified ethos and vision. For individuals to feel safe they need leaders to provide respectful space for them to work things out for themselves. When trust from leaders has been instilled even resistance to change can be welcomed as a pause for contemplation. Listening to reasons for resistance not only values the person(s) who is/are resisting but opens up dialogue for facilitating reflection, which could ultimately lead to a different but shared understanding and inspired path. Sometimes resistance can be one person’s demonstration of consideration for change and thus, being interested in it is just as important as cooperation (Hardingham, 2004).

I believe that reflection in education is “learning through and from experience towards gaining new insights of self and practice” (Finlay, 2008). Three strategies for practising reflection for enhancing the experience and success of learning, and for invigorating and bringing about transformative leadership are effective questioning, providing affirmations and using active listening. Padesky (1993) favoured conversations with no pre-determined destination so that detours were not missed and shared dialogue could lead to a more creative and fitting solution. And with this, educators and leaders need to employ the art of effective questions which avoid slipping into a telling mode. Learners and colleagues should be enabled to rethink their assumptions, consider their values, identify alternatives and draw upon different modes of thinking when problem-solving (Clutterbuck, 2013). As we learn and work in teams, affirmations can strengthen a sense of alliance and collaboration, and for the greatest positive impact, should be specific and observation-based. Attentive listening, which reflects what is heard can demonstrate benevolence and compassion towards individuals. Being present as the process of learning is unfolding creates deeper empathy and working together for a jointly invested goal.

Too often, decisions and indeed, changes are made without reflection and have rather been reached from confusion with interpretation. And therefore, becoming ‘psychologically minded’ (Stein 2018) builds our capacity for separating the specifics about what we observe from evaluation influenced by innate personality traits, what has happened and principles we uphold. Without reflection, individuals could exist in a vacuum of ego, conflicting with external perceptions of them. Time to reflect needs to be carved out and reflection encouraged as important and valued for both learners and leaders. Indeed, we as leaders are always learning!

Kirsty Knowles is an Education Leader and recent Head of a Junior School.
​
References
Bachkirova, T (2011). Understanding yourself as a coach
From Passmore, J (2020) ed. The Coaches’ Handbook: The Complete Practitioner Guide for Professional Coaches. Routledge. Section 4

Clutterbuck, D (2013). Powerful Questions For Coaches And Mentors: A practical guide for coaches and mentors. Wordscapes

Densten, I and Gray, J (2016). Leadership development and reflection: what is the connection? From www.researchgate.net

Finlay, L (2008). Reflecting on ‘Reflective practice’. Practice-based Professional Learning Paper 52. The Open University
From www.cambridge-community.org.uk

Fording, S (28th November 2017). Reflective Leadership
From www.engageforsuccess.org

Dr Gerald Stein (2018). What Does It Mean to be ‘Psychologically Minded?’
From www.drgeraldstein.wordpress.com

Gibbs, G (1988). Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Oxford Polytechnic

Hardingham, A (2004). Understanding your clients
From Passmore, J (2020) ed. The Coaches’ Handbook: The Complete Practitioner Guide for Professional Coaches. Routledge. Section 5

Kolb, D (1984). Kolb’s Learning Styles and Experiential Learning Cycle
From www.simplypsychology.org

Padesky, C (1993). Socratic Questioning: Changing Minds or Guiding Discovery?
From keynote address presented at the 1993 European Congress of Behaviour and Cognitive Therapies, London www.padesky.com
​
Rosenberg, M (2005). Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. PuddleDancer Press. pp. 28–33

​Schön, D (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Routledge

Our school has a lot of big personalities, they like to talk, collaborate, and even argue about their Mathematics.
The Creative, Collaborative Classroom (or C3) is the term used to describe activities in the school that get several classes working together. The school has created a collaborative learning space large enough to fit three classes, Students have access to breakout rooms for targeted learning moments and several forms of technology. Ideally the learning revolves around solving some problem that the students can relate to.
​
My World
One project is titled ‘My World’ and requires students to plan the renovation of a space that is important to them. Students calculate areas within the room for painting and floor coverings, create a scale model, and calculate the cost of paint, floor coverings and a few space saving furniture items, justifying the economy of their suggested purchases.

The Task:
Your job is to plan the redecoration of a space you love.
You must:
​
● Take measurements
● Create a scale drawing or 3D scale model.
● Calculate the area of the floor and walls
● Calculate the cost of paint and carpet and any other decorative features you wish to incorporate. Explain how you are getting value for money with the choices you have made.

In all cases you should justify your calculations by showing your working out as well as explaining your reasoning as to why you chose the methods you did.

Container Challenge
Students are shown a new, environmentally friendly drink packaging that decomposes in just 7 years. It is a more expensive packaging option, so students are challenged by a local company to find an aesthetically pleasing container shape that will fit nicely in the fridge door, stack well, hold exactly a litre of a new flavoured drink and, importantly, minimises the use of packaging material. There needs to be three options examined by the students, who build the one they think is best, test it holds exactly a litre of liquid, and create the new flavour’s label and jingle.
This project was judged by older students, and the local company provide some prizes for the winning entries. In the process students learn about surface area, volume, costing, and practice their mathematical communication by demonstrating their calculations and justifying their choices.

The Task:
A local company are looking for a new style of drink container. Your team of 2–3 has been asked to design the new container and advertising material to go with it. It should have a minimum surface area and hold exactly 1 litre of liquid. You will also need to consider how the container looks, how easy it is to hold and how well it will stack and fit in the fridge door.
Your task is to produce three ideas for the solid and show the calculations for their surface area and volume. Choose one and create a prototype. A plastic bag inserted in the container prototype will allow it to hold liquid. You must design a label and a jingle for your new product.
Please ask if you have production questions.
Peer marking will occur in week 9 using the marking grid below. The company will be coming on the last C3 day to judge the best 10 containers and hand out prizes.
Good luck!

The Importance of Samples and/or Scaffolding
One of the things we have discovered from running this type of activity is how important it is to have student samples available. Students get a good idea of exactly what is expected from having a look at past student submissions. Alternatively, good scaffolds can help students step through the task.

Valuing the Learning
These projects are built into the formal assessment for Mathematics, so that students understand the learning is considered important and not just a fun add on. Students really seem to enjoy working with peers in other classes and being able to appreciate the classroom learning applied to a context.

​Marking Guidelines
C3 tasks are launched with marking rubrics. This allows students to maximise heir marks by being able to self-assess against the rubric. It also ensures that peer or teacher marking is consistent, and fairly quick, and helps provide obvious feedback to the student where they are not judged at the highest possible level.

Supporting activities
Students also engage regularly in vertical whiteboarding. After a period of exploring individually, or engaging with content and examples, students are invited to solve problems in small groups at the classroom walls, which are covered in whiteboards. It does not suit every student, and might not be used every lesson, but the school experience is that students find it easier to make mistakes to learn and grow when using the whiteboards.
Another example of collaborative learning is the morning study program. Every morning several classrooms are opened at 8am, allowing students to bring homework, assignments, and study into the room, and offering a light refreshment. The classrooms are staffed by Year 10 tutors, volunteer teacher education students from the local university, and a rostered faculty member. The refreshments are donated by the school community.

Reflection
Students have been observed to be highly engaged in these types of tasks and showing ownership of their learning. Collaboration tends to be broader than simply between students, extending to other year levels through peer marking, between students and teachers, between staff in planning, conducting and evaluating the learning, and with families through the homework components.
​
Cassandra Portelli is the Head Teacher of Mathematics at Hunter School of Performing Arts, New South Wales — a school that champions creative and collaborative classrooms. Cassandra believes passionately in the value of mentoring new teachers, and promoting financial literacy for young people.

Teachers have no time to waste. Too often our quest for the right activity means wading through mountains of irrelevant material, only to find items incomplete, poorly formatted or frustratingly not quite right for the courses we teach. Moreover, these materials are often not designed with the learning experience in mind. Before students explore a subject in-depth, it is essential they have a strong foundation of knowledge and skills to build upon. What questions can we ask to best guide their learning experiences?

The student driven learning experienceLike teachers, students need to regularly reflect on their learning to understand the skills and knowledge they have developed. This can be done through identifying key strengths and areas for development. Through measuring their progress, they effectively navigate their own learning trajectory — that is, maintain activity in their zone of proximal development (ZPD). Vygotsky defined the ZPD as the difference between the current level of cognitive development and the potential level of cognitive development. To support students to move through the ZPD, educators can use scaffolding strategies. Diagnostically structured questions are a good starting point for supporting students in this self directed approach.

Diagnostic Multiple Choice questionsDiagnostic Multiple Choice (MC) questions are your typical MC questions designed to include incorrect answers which unambiguously indicate a specific misconception. For example, consider the following MC question:
​
Consider a game where two dice are rolled and their sum calculated. If you roll a 2, 3, or 12 on the first roll you lose. If you roll a 7 or 11 on the first roll you win. Any other number on the first roll becomes the target. Your goal is now to roll your target in order to win. For example, if you roll a 10 on the first roll, your target to win is now 10 — so you keep rolling until you either roll a 10 to win or a 7 to lose.
Select options for the items P, Q & R as indicated in the following flow diagram to complete the game logic sequence

Quality diagnostic questions have distractors that, where possible, map to a single issue. This way, students and teachers are provided with specific direction toward remedial action.

An incorrect option which combines a number of possible issues means that students who select the option may of course be having trouble in a number of different ways and therefore indicating relevant remedial action becomes something of a guessing game. For these students, you can use a variety of scaffolding strategies to review the topic and address any misconceptions. Think-pair-share or group discussion can encourage students to articulate their learning with their peers. Creating links to pre-existing knowledge can strengthen the construction of new knowledge. Visual aids can also help students to grasp concepts.
​
Progressive Extended Response Questions
Extended Response (ER) questions also offer an opportunity for self diagnosis and direction by deliberately progressing questions to offer actionable exit points. As a guide, a 3 part ER question may have the following attributes:

For example, consider the same earlier question in ER form:
Consider a game where two dice are rolled and their sum calculated. If you roll a 2, 3, or 12 on the first roll you lose…

Of course there are no hard and fast rules here, however, if you stay mindful of gradually building depth and scope across the ER question, students will be able to work linearly toward their zone of proximal development.

In the Wild
While the examples provided are specific to Computer Science, the principles are certainly transferable to STEM and beyond. For example, material published by Craig Barton clearly articulates analogous principles for Diagnostic (MC) Questions in mathematics — he has some great videos on YouTube worth checking out too.

I encourage teachers and content developers to keep these simple ideas in mind in order that actionable feedback and deeper progressive learning experiences are baked into the building blocks of the tests and activities we rely on — those humble questions.
​
Andrew Belegrinos is the Founder and Director of N7 Education.
N7 Education supports teachers by providing a growing bank of over 250 diagnostic Multiple Choice and progressive Extended Response questions (mapped to your study design) in support of deeper learning experiences in Computer Science. Looking to quickly find similar material or share some of your own gems? … This question and many more (together with all answers) are available at www.n7.education PS: More STEM subjects to come!
Andrew is an experienced IB Mathematics & Computer Science Teacher at Preshil -The Margaret Lyttle Memorial School, Melbourne. Andrew has diverse experience as a software engineer, GIS specialist and content consultant in Mathematics.

by Ioanna Georgiou 

As a maths teacher of more than fifteen years or so, I have been encountered with the questions “why do we do this?” and “how is this useful?” a few too many times to ignore.


The questions are more than fair: the mathematics taught in school was discovered (or invented, depending on your philosophical inclination) several centuries ago. The mathematics used behind the scenes in our increasingly technologically advanced lives are nowhere to be seen in school. So indeed, why and how?
​

School mathematics forms the basis of more advanced concepts and of course without the fundamentals it is impossible to go any further. Hence it is out of necessity that this is what is taught in school (in terms of content — not approach). This fundamental part of mathematics, albeit now very old and simplistic in a sense, was of course once the cutting edge of what was going on.

Many years ago, as an undergraduate student of mathematics, I came across a most wonderful novel called “The Parrot’s Theorem” by the French author Denis Guedj. In this seemingly ordinary novel that starts with a fire at a house and a subsequent death of its (mathematician) owner, the reader does not know whether the fire was an accident, a murder or even a suicide. The mathematician had incidentally shipped his entire library of maths books to his friend in Paris; devastated by the loss of his friend, and determined to find out whether there was a connection between the death and the shipment of books he had received, he summons his extended family and together they go through the books. That’s where the author essentially embarks the reader on a journey through maths.


Seeing mathematical ideas emerging in their local societies through practical needs as well as intellectual curiosity was eye-opening. Everything suddenly started falling into place for me, an adult undergraduate maths student. And then it occurred to me: if this is helpful for me, a person already quite into maths, maybe it’ll help people who feel alienated by the strict and abstract symbolic form. A form lacking any sentiment — apart from maybe fear and anxiety.
​

I took modules on the history of maths, expanded my own readings, and during my MSc and MPhil studies I continued to look into educational approaches through the history and local practices such as ethnomathematics. As a practitioner, I use those stories in my teaching. I have also been presenting masterclasses and workshops on “stories from maths” for the Royal Institution of Great Britain and also independently. It is highly satisfying to see the students’ faces lit up when they realise the reason why calculating in fives and tens is so easy: it has always been with them, their own personal abacus — their fingers! Or that the peculiar number 360, (who would have chosen that number to describe the degrees in a circle!) is nothing but a nicely (albeit strictly speaking wrong) rounded version of the days in a year.
​

This experience has culminated in the writing of my first nonfiction book for children, entitled “Mathematical Adventures!” Through this book I aspire to give learners a glimpse of how it all started, and how it progressed, making some stops to times and events that were rather seminal. Tarquin Group, a publisher that specialises in educational and recreational mathematics books was supportive from the beginning and showed real faith in the book.
​

The content has been thoroughly trialled for many years. The students’ answers to my questions and their own questions have given shape to the stories that made it through; distilled, concise and relevant, there are lots of connections with what they see in school, alongside some more recent maths that did not make it through the curriculum such as Euler’s graph theory or Cantor’s mind-bending multiple infinities. Euclid’s postulates leading to all the school geometry are fascinating and could not have imagined them coming more alive than in Asuka Young’s illustrations. Her amazing interpretation of these stories from maths have made the book a colourful adventure which I hope many students, parents and teachers alike will enjoy to embark upon!
​
Ioanna Georgiou is the Head of Mathematics & Head of Academic Enrichment at St James Senior Girls’ School, London. She is also a Masterclass Presenter
at The Royal Institution of Great Britain.
Buy Mathematical Adventures here: https://www.tarquingroup.com/mathematical-adventures.html

The Literacy Pirates works exclusively with young people who are both falling behind at school and have fewer advantages in their personal circumstances. Did you know that in the UK your socioeconomic background is still the greatest determinant of your educational success? In fact, two in three children living in low-income households in the UK fall below the expected levels in reading and writing by the age of 11. This attainment gap widens further as children transition from primary to secondary school. This results in low self-confidence, slower progress, and a bleak long-term outlook.

This intractable social challenge lies at the heart of The Literacy Pirates reading and writing intervention.
​
The Literacy Pirates learning programme is a year-long, after-school learning programme devised and led by teachers. During the weekly session children aged 9 to 12 years old work to improve their reading and writing skills, as well as increase their confidence as learners and ability to persevere and keep on going when things get tough in the classroom. We work exclusively with children referred by their school, who identify children who are both falling behind in their educational attainment and they know have fewer opportunities outside of school. By working with teachers, we access children we couldn’t otherwise reach and we are assured they are the right ones who really need our help.

We have embraced being a venue based, out of school and intense programme by setting the learning programme in a fantastical environment with murals, decking, a Pirate’s cat and secret passageways. The children are given adult volunteer support while a qualified and experience teacher leads the session. And importantly, we know children learn best when working towards tangible, published projects, so each term the young people create high quality published books, films and apps.

Established in 2010, we have worked with 720 children on our intense programme offered in Dalston, Hackney. We are confident in the difference we can make because we have an excellent track record. On joining us at age 9, children are on average 13 months behind their peers; and 24 months behind when they join at age 11. We close this gap by improving their reading age over 50% faster than age-related expectations. Furthermore, 100% of Young Pirates who say they don’t enjoy reading for pleasure at the start of the programme have changed their minds by the end. 95% of parents saw an increase in confidence; and 78% of teachers saw an increase in perseverance in the classroom.
​
As an organisation we have now decided to replicate that success in other London boroughs and are working to reach 800 children annually by opening an additional three learning centres or Ships. The first of which opened in January this year in Tottenham, Haringey Pirates. It is an exciting phase of growth in which to reflect on what makes the difference; through all the joy and fun of a learning programme on a Pirate's Ship what actually drives the impact that we see happening through the learning programme?

Our founder was a teacher and the programme devised by teachers. It was designed to align with schools’ goals, working to compliment teachers work in classroom, but not duplicate. We thought carefully about the different elements that we believe drive our impact. One of the central aspects of our Learning Programme is the creation of published projects; books, films and apps that showcase the creative writing of the children.
​
Publishing the children’s written work is both motivating and confidence building.

We work for a full year with children, it’s an intense two-and-half hour weekly session. Every term they will produce just two pieces of writing that they have worked really hard to refine. The theme is always close to home, building on who and what they know and love. The learning comes in the process of writing a piece that requires drafting and redrafting. As you can imagine the fatigue can be real for children to go back over their work again and again. That is where the carrot of publishing their work comes in. ‘Let’s work hard on this, because in a month you are going to have that piece of work published in a book and show it off to your Headteacher’ or ‘Keep going, it will be worth it when you hear yourself speak those words on the big screen at the cinema next month’. School often works on delayed gratification, where the reward for hard work comes at the end of the year as a single result or even exam results at the end of a school career. Publishing children’s work, in our experience, gives them immense motivation in the here and now to put in greater effort.

Publishing the children’s writing also boost confidence. Receiving a copy of a high-quality printed book, with your work, name and this year we included photo is massive! How many of us can boast at being published authors or film screen stars! To make the most of this confidence boost, we put on a celebration event every time we publish their work. We invite parents and carers, teachers and Heads as well as local community leaders and funders. These events are a chance to mark the hard work and achievement of the children. In our spirit of being relentlessly positive, the children perform and speak about their achievement, we have our teachers reflect the journey to date and because we are Pirates, we always play a game or two.

The overachieving sentiment at The Literacy Pirates is relentless positivity. We are not much into failure. Though as teachers we know it has a place in education, we are working with children who are not experiencing success in school as other children might. When you have experienced success regularly, finding the energy to keep going and handling set-backs comes more easily. For those that do not experience success regularly at school, it’s much harder to find the confidence and grit to give it ago. That’s why published projects are a key part of learning programme; they allow the children to experience being motivated, achieving success and being appreciated in a genuine way for that achievement.

There is another element to publishing the children’s work which is that it gives us an opportunity to talk about the full cycle of learning and how it feels to succeed. Talking about how we learn, metacognition, is increasingly understood as key to improving outcomes for children at school. The extended time taken over writing projects at The Literacy Pirates means the children experience planning, drafting, redrafting and experiencing success over a term rather than squeezed into a lesson, day or maybe a week. It gives them time to actually experience and reflect on each aspect as it takes place — the excitement at having an idea, the confusion at planning a story, to surprise at creating an interesting character, the exhaustion of working hard at redrafting, the delight and satisfaction at seeing your own work published. We use a Pirates Log at the end of each session to write down What Went Well and what could be Even Better If’s. We challenge the children to think about the extent of their effort over the session, asking them to be honest and reiterating what normal effort looks like compared to intensive effort or at the other end of the spectrum, ‘just showing up’.

Key things to consider with published projects:

1. Quality needs to be really good. Investing in good design and expensive production is important to create something to be treasured for a lifetime.
2. Taking your time. Allow the process of creation as well and the moment of accomplishment to be given time and space it deserves.
3. Make it relevant. Using a recording studio, putting a film on at the cinema plays into popular dreams of success. Making the themes relevant to children’s lives also adds a dimension of ownership and pride.
4. Co-create. Give the children an opportunity to input into the production process — decide on the name, maybe even design elements. Let them write the introduction to the book, give the blurb for the film or write the instructions for an app.
5. Celebrate, celebrate, celebrate. Make sure the ‘published’ part means getting exposure as far and wide as possible and that the accolades pour in.

Like all educational programmes we are complex in nature; weaving together different physical aspects, pedagogical instruments and psychological processes. It took two years to create the focused programme we know today and another two years to develop a Theory of Change and the right measurement tools to monitor the outcomes. No doubt the next two years of replicating our success, will teach us a lot about ourselves too. And we are looking forward to learning those lessons.

A Case Study

Tayo was referred at age 10 to the programme to give him a boost in literacy as he was attaining below age-related expectations. Although he was engaged in the programme right from the start, in sessions he was often very shy and did not like speaking in a group or performing.

By the end of the year, Tayo’s session leader reported an “explosion in confidence”, which was backed up by his teacher and parents. His teacher said “Tayo has really come out of his shell this year and is a visibly more confident boy”. Both Tayo and his parents mentioned that he was no longer afraid to talk in front of a crowd.

During the programme Tayo’s reading age increased over two times faster than age-related expectations giving him a reading age of well over 12 years old. His teacher told us that he was “back on track” at school.
​
Tayo told us that before Hackney Pirates “I wasn’t really doing really well. But now I am confident and better at reading and writing.”

Website: www.literacypirates.org
Twitter: @LiteracyPirates
Instagram: literacypirates

​Nonna Nerina is the world’s first agile grandmother! In the stunning Italian countryside, Nerina used to run pasta-making workshops from the kitchen of her villa. When lockdown hit, she had to cancel all of her classes. However, with the help of her granddaughter Chiara, Nerina took her pasta making online to keep her business going, and now uses the proceeds to provide meals for children in need! https://nonnalive.com/

Whether it’s companies pivoting suddenly to start making PPE, businesses like Nerina’s adapting to new ways of engaging with customers, or multi-disciplinary teams collaborating to deliver new products or services (such as vaccines) in previously unimaginable timeframes, the language of agility is everywhere. So many people around the world now understand “agility” in visceral ways — the energy, stress or emotion of responding quickly to rapidly changing circumstances. Whether this is the loss of a job or business, new restrictions on our movement or, for so many, the tragic death of a loved one.

What less people realise is that for more than two decades, there has been a growing community of Agile professionals for whom personal, team or organisational agility is their daily concern, and their bread and butter! People who know deeply that ‘the work of change, is the work of changing’ (Steve Peha). And furthermore, they have learned through thousands of transformative successes and spectacular failures that, to create lasting adaptive change in organisations, we need to build rapid learning and deep collaboration into the DNA of the way we work.
​
And the evidence speaks for itself. The reality for companies that have embraced this new way of working is that they have not only survived the challenges of the pandemic but thrived. As Jeff Sutherland highlighted in a recent keynote, while thousands of non-agile companies faced bankruptcy in the first half of 2020, agile companies such as Pegasystems, Amazon and Tesla prospered. MIT Sloan Management Review also predicts that only 17% of today’s leading companies will be leaders 5 years from now. The companies that will remain leaders ‘including organisations like Apple and Alphabet continually find new sources of competitive advantage by reinventing their businesses and adapting to evolving market conditions.’ (MIT Sloan Management Review Research Highlight January 09, 2020)

But what does this all have to do with schools? Well, certainly our schools, leaders, teachers, parents and students have had their fair share of recent and radical changes to which they have had to adapt! But also, learning is our business (isn’t it?!). So surely schools should be some of the most agile organisations in our societies! Hmmm…?

Unfortunately, too often our schools have been governed and structured by the idea that learning is what the students do (if we’re lucky!). And although many schools have increasingly embedded professional learning into their systems, the fact that the organisation itself should be given its own opportunity to learn through regular cycles of action, reflection and adaptation still sounds like an idea from another century!

And yet our schools have learned and adapted at unprecedented speeds in recent times, many incredibly successfully. So, as we take a moment between crises to pause and reflect, we should ask what can schools learn from recent experiences that will help us to be more agile in future? What will help our communities — our students, staff, parents and leaders — to be resilient and well-prepared to thrive in a post-pandemic world of no normal?

“There is no such thing as a new idea… We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.” — Mark Twain

One thing that we have learned as school leaders is clear. Old ideas like the ‘5yr strategic plan’ became largely irrelevant overnight! The glossy 50-page brochure of good intentions has been thrown from the window of the speeding bus, as we swerve and struggle to stay on the right road (not even completely sure which is the right road!).

Even before the challenges of the pandemic, school leaders had already begun to question the traditional strategic planning process. Setting themselves a barrage of carefully-worded whole school improvement targets for years into the future, after a six-month process of community consultation seemed for some like a lot of work for not a lot of added value. As Ewan MacIntosh has highlighted, school directors know full-well that barely 20% of such targets are ever fully achieved. Even the yearly school improvement plan, written too often in detached senior leadership offices, was beginning to feel like an annual administrative obligation rather than the authentic collaborative work of changing!

So, when our systems no longer make sense, (as Will Richardson loves to ask) why do we persist with them? Instead, perhaps we need a ‘new and curious combination’ of ideas, connecting our very real need and desire to improve (or perhaps transform!) our schools, with what we’ve learned about successful agile strategy in other sectors.
​
According to McKinsey & Company (2018) among the most important characteristics of an agile organisation are:

• A shared purpose and vision — having a clear “North Star”?
• Opportunities for continuous learning and igniting people’s passion.
• Networks of empowered teams with opportunities to shift roles, rather than rigid hierarchies of fixed positions.
• Experimentation and entrepreneurial drive is actively encouraged.
• Systems and processes are characterised by visible work-in-progress, action-oriented decision-making and rapid learning cycles.
• Active partnerships are encouraged with the wider eco-system.
• Shared and servant leadership across the organisation.

In fact, this isn’t so far away from ideas that have been around since the 1990s of the school as a ‘learning organisation’ (Senge, 1990). Just looking at the OECD’s work on this in 2016, shows very clear alignment with these attributes. Such a school would have:

• A shared vision centred on the learning of all students.
• Opportunities for all staff to engage in continuous learning.
• Team learning and collaboration among all staff.
• A culture of inquiry, innovation and exploration.
• Systems for collecting and exchanging knowledge and learning.
• Opportunities to learn with and from the external network and partners.
• Learning leadership growing throughout the organisation.

This certainly sounds like the kind of school that most of us would love to work, learn and grow in! But the million-dollar question is, how do we get there?


We can certainly learn from the successes and challenges of others charting courses into this new territory already. There are some fantastic and innovative educators and entrepreneurs around the world making these connections real already in classrooms (with EduScrum, Leysin American School’s Edge Program and L-EAF) and whole schools (Blueprint, Agora, Learnlife).


But what we have also learned from ‘agile transformations’ in other sectors is that if you’re waiting until you think you’re fully ready to make as start, it’s already too late! The agile mindset encourages precisely the kind of attitude we have needed to ride the recent turbulence of the pandemic — plan, act, reflect, adapt in short cycles. So here are a few ideas that you can consider testing out in your school:

• Start small with a Kanban board up in your team workspace or classroom. This can be used to identify your “To-Dos” to meet your team or class learning goals (in the left column — of three), what you’re working on together right now (middle column) and what’s met your ‘Definition of Done’ — agreements of quality and completeness (right column). Key aspects of this are that the work becomes visible, team members are held accountable by regular check-ins on progress (called ‘Stand-ups’) and adaptation is enabled by the frequent reflections on progress and close collaboration.
• Ready for something bigger? Look for ways you can encourage more cross-functional teaming across your school. Grade level teams or subject department teams may be commonplace — though the depth and quality of collaboration within them will certainly vary! But what about trying to gather people’s energies around cross-cutting ‘projects’ — such as, redesigning the way a particular space is used, or developing specific aspects of teaching and learning? Again, these are not necessarily new ideas (remember the PLC?) but keep them agile by building in visibility, accountability and intentional cycles of reflection and adaptation.
• You really want to go for it in a big way?! Replace your outdated strategic planning process with cycles of ‘Strategic Doing’. This is a very well-structured and dynamic process designed to help to address strategic (but complex) opportunities — such as, school improvement. Ed Morrison and his team at the Agile Strategy Lab have developed it in partnership with many universities across the US and have seen it have a huge impact on enlivening and re-energising communities and organisations to overcome significant barriers to progress through ‘action-oriented collaboration’.

There are lots more ways to get and stay agile as we look forward to a post-pandemic world. So do get in touch if you would like to know more. There is also a growing ‘Community of Practice’ around Agile in Education on LinkedIn (and other social media platforms) that I would very much encourage you to investigate further. Lastly, do check out the Agile Research Consortium (https://www.arc-for-schools.org), who are gathering resources as they emerge to support these positive transformations.
​

Tim Logan is a consultant and principal supporting schools around the world to drive improvement and evidence-based innovation through advisory, change management and training services.
Website: www.futurelearningdesign.com
Email: tim@timloganconsultant.com

The Minerva Schools at KGI were established in 2012 by Ben Nelson with the aim of disrupting higher education. Minerva’s development was driven by a variety of factors including: inequality in college admissions, high college tuition fees and courses that left students less prepared for work. How has Minerva attempted to address these issues?

What sets Minerva’s curriculum apart from those of other universities?

The curriculum imparts universal cognitive skills and frameworks that are valued by employers such as critical thinking, creative thinking, effective communications and interrelation. These are further broken down into 80 habits of mind and foundational concepts. The way students learn them through salient contexts, ranging from food and water scarcity to unbridled scientific and technological advances to complex social and geopolitical dynamics. For example, in the first year, students grapple with big, multifaceted questions, such as “How can we feed the world?” or “Who should own information?”. The students actively engage with these questions, using the aforementioned habits and concepts, such as searching for the right problem, breaking it down, conducting a gap analysis, understanding constraints and analogies, and applying heuristics. Minerva students also partake in residential rotations to 7 different cities, where they engage with local civic organisations to tackle local issues.

What features does Minerva’s online learning platform have to enhance the overall learning experience of students?

What makes the Minerva education unique is that it combines an intentionally designed curriculum, with a pedagogy fully based on active learning which is then delivered over our platform, called Forum™. This is why we do not license the platform on its own, but rather partner with academic institutions who want to transform their education, through curriculum and pedagogy. The platform enables this, as it was intentionally designed for educational purposes. The interface allows live polling, breakout groups that the professor can listen in to, live collaboration tools, and quick reaction emojis. In addition, the professor has a different interface which allows him/her to see the “talk time” of each student in order to engage those who have been quieter. All these tools provide essential data points and information for continuous evaluation and feedback that the professor can then share with each student.

How does Minerva’s admission process differ to most traditional universities?

In addition to high school grades, Minerva considers each applicant’s accomplishments outside of class, their performance on a series of cognitive challenges, and their conduct during a video interview.

The process was developed with equity in mind, as we believe that talent is equally distributed. The admissions committee does not look at SAT or ACT scores, parents’ earning power or net worth, nor the typical applicant essay because all of these have been shown to bias toward wealthy applicants. Wealthy applicants are able to enlist the cadre of tutoring, test prep, and essay editing service providers that is beyond the reach of their less-privileged peers. High school transcripts, extracurricular accomplishments, and cognitive tests are less biased measures of talent, ambition, and grit, and are far better predictors of future success.

Although we do not have quotas, our student body is very geographically diverse (roughly a quarter each coming from North America, Asia, and Europe, with the remaining quarter coming from Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East) and almost equally male and female.
​

What evidence exists demonstrating the positive contribution that Minerva has had on its students?

Our first graduating class graduated last May and over 90% were employed or accepted in prestigious Masters programme within 6 months of graduating. Our students are encouraged and assisted in getting internships as of their first year, so when they graduate, most of them have had a few internships. We also work with some employers to incubate innovation labs that would be staffed by a group of our students.

What are the Minerva Schools’ goals for the future?

On the university side, our goals continue to provide the best education experience to our students. With Covid-19, we are fortunate that our academic component does not change and there is no disruption to our students. Obviously our global rotations’ experiential component was moved to a virtual environment and we will continue that until it is safe for our students to resume their in-person global rotations.

​Minerva also partners with academic institutions who are transforming their education, through licensing our pedagogy, curriculum and platform. This often entails co-design and tight collaboration with our partners. We do hope that we will continue partnering with other academic institutions as many seize the opportunity to re-think the experience they are offering their students.

An interview with Conrad Wolfram, physicist, mathematician and technologist, Strategic Director and European CEO/Co-Founder, Wolfram Research.
​
Conrad is a leading advocate for a fundamental shift of maths education to become computer-based or alternatively introduce a new core subject of computational thinking. He founded computerbasedmath.org and computationalthinking.org to fundamentally fix maths education for the AI age — rebuilding the curriculum assuming computers exist. The movement is now a worldwide force in re-engineering the STEM curriculum.

Dr Robert Massey has experience in teaching History and Politics in private schools, prisons and universities. His contrasting teaching experiences reinforced his belief that anyone has the potential to become an expert learner. The author of From Able to Remarkable: Help your students become expert learners, shares more on the techniques he uses with his secondary school pupils to foster expert learners.

How can educators create deeper learning experiences and foster expert learners?
In my book From Able to Remarkable (Crown House Publishing 2019) I write about the idea of pupils becoming expert learners. If we want deeper learning experiences, by which I understand more long-lasting and meaningful experiences, we can’t just look at teaching. The modelling which teachers display, as Ron Berger showed us in An Ethic of Excellence, can be modelled in turn by pupils: adults lead, students learn, students lead. Giving children the chance to become more self-aware learners is, for me, vital in moving learning forward in any context or subject.

What made you decide to write From Able to Remarkable and what issues does it address?
I wrote this book because I had to. There is very little available for educators who want to stretch and challenge what are often called ‘gifted and talented’ pupils. Since those are the pupils I see every day, I wrote it for myself and my colleagues. The book draws on evidence from behavioural psychology, as summarised by for example Daniel Willingham in his book Why Don’t Students Like School? and by research evidence drawn from experts such as Professor Dylan Wiliam in Creating the Schools Our Children Need. But evidence only helps to a certain degree. The other key ‘evidence’ is classroom practice, so I’ve drawn on skills and techniques adopted by colleagues which work on a Friday afternoon — the toughest test of all!
​
What approach can teachers take to create context-specific strategies to support expert learners?
First, hook yourself into a community of educators and learners so that you don’t feel alone. Whether this is in your college or school, or via social media such as Twitter (which personally I find very useful), there are certainly other educators looking at the same issues and problems as you are and trying to find solutions. Secondly, dip into some of the many blogs or a book or two which looks relevant to what you are doing and see what you can take from it. Finally, be yourself. It’s no good modelling yourself on a brilliant educator such as Doug Lemov. Your students would love to know more about you (within reason!) and your learning experiences. I think all educators should be looking at excellence for their own children and their classes. No one will consistently set that standard for you so you will have to do it yourself, so be sure that you know what excellence looks like and aim for it.