Education Nation | Leanne Steed and Elizabeth Amvrazis - Technology – it’s time to reap its benefits26/12/2016  Disclosure: My attendance at Education Nation (#EduNationAu) was through a media pass provided by the conference organisers. Leanne Steed and Elizabeth Amvrazis were presenting as a duet in the Digital Dimensions stream of Education Nation. They were speaking under a title that intrigued me. The short version, Technology – it’s time to reap its benefits, gave the impression that it would be a discussion of how technology is being used to direct and inform student learning. This session was very quick, or it felt very quick at least, and there was a lot to take in.  Photo from the slide deck of Leanne Steed and Elizabeth Amvrazis at Education Nation 8 June 2016. Does the theme seem familiar? Leanne and Elizabeth began by having the audience stand up and move around the room to inspect a series of models of learning that they had placed on the walls. There were a large range of ideas and models, including learning as skills for work and a pastorally-driven model, amongst others. We came back together to hear Leanne and Elizabeth remind us that technology is important as teachers are now in the business of forward thinking and planning and technology is here to stay.  Australian Culture is now in the Age of FANG. Retrieved from tinyurl.com/h9pd28p on 12 June 2016 I had not heard this before, the age of FANG, but it made sense once it was explained. We are in an age where Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google dominate the online landscape and indeed, as the article from which the above image was sourced, dominate our culture. This is in stark contrast to our own lives when you consider that Netflix, the oldest of the four companies, only began in 1997, less than twenty years ago. Leanne and Elizabeth made the point that at no point prior to this, have we referred to a temporal indicator so much that it became a buzzword. We do not see references to nineteenth-century skills in any records, nor do we see references to the need to ensure our students learn the new skills of critical or creative thinking and collaboration as if they have never been skills that anyone in the past has possessed and are recent discoveries.They questioned why the perception of education portrayed in movies and the media is still of a teacher at the front of a room with students in rows of chairs, and showed us the following video, titled A New Vision for Education. At this point, the audience was asked to go and stand by the poster of the thinking or learning model that were examined at the start of the session which most spoke to them. This led to a brief explanation by some audience members of why they had selected the particular model, which demonstrated that there is a range of thinking in any one room and that we need to remember this in our teaching. It was an interesting session, but I think the workshop version within The Learner would have been a better way to explore the topic due to the longer timeslot. That said, Leanne and Elizabeth did a great job of sharing their thoughts in the timeslot they had.
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 “To sell our children short today is to sell Australia short tomorrow.” – Gough Whitlam, 1972, cited by Stephen Elder, 27 October 2014 Disclosure: My attendance at Education Nation (#EduNationAu) was through a media pass provided by the conference organisers. If you have missed previous articles in the Eduction Nation series, you can find them here. I have to confess to something. By the time Lila arrived, despite her energy and passion, I was struggling to stay focused and engaged. I had conference-brain and I missed much of what Lila said. This was exacerbated by Lila speaking with so much energy and passion; and speed. It was difficult to keep up and my brain simply said no.So if it seems as if Lila’s presentation is a bit jumpy and the ideas only tenuously linked, that says more about my note taking and ability to focus during her session than it does about Lila’s content.  Retrieved from tinyurl.com/gl49b9y on 11 June 2016 Lila opened by remarking that if the education sectors do not work together then the students are the ones who suffer, and it is the students who matter most. Furthermore, of the countries in the OECD whose lead we historically follow socially, culturally and in regards to educational policy, namely the United States and the United Kingdom, their results on PISA testing is going backwards as well, which begs the question of whether we should be following their lead.  Photos of slides from early in Lila’s session. Lila spoke about how targeted funding, that is, funding that is targeted to specific needs and/or programs makes a significant difference within education and that for those students in low socioeconomic areas, where eighty percent of students’ families cannot afford to for the student to attend university, university offers are meaningless. She continued ( think) by saying that we need to be looking to credible, interrogated, and reliable educational research when we make decisions about educational policies and pedagogical practices and she included John Hattie’s research in this. She continued by making reference to work by Ravitch (see photo above) and Pasi Sahlberg‘s (@pasi_sahlberg) unfortunately, though I suspect deliberately acronymised movement, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), which has been gaining traction here in Australia, but which was largely informed by myth. It was at this point that I must have completely zoned out (though my ears must have perked up automatically when publishers and big business was mentioned as I took the below photo, however, as I tuned back in, an unknown amount of time later, I heard Lila say to the audience that “…it is not money itself that is the answer, but how we use the money ,” a sentiment that sounds very logical and sensible and which I do not think too many people would disagree with. It has echoes of some aspects of The Great Debate and some of what was said there, as well as what I have heard other speakers from Education Nation were intimating in their own presentations.  A photo captured at some point during Lila’s presentation. Lila then remarked that many of the educational practices and ideas that are translated from overseas educational systems are informed by myths, referring back to the opening discussion about the Australian tendency to follow the United Kingdom and the United states when it comes to social and cultural developments and that this holds largely true for educational policy. Thankfully, we have not yet completely gone the way of the corporate curriculum being peddled in both those countries, and about which I have heard nothing but negative feedback, scorn, and derision from educators being forced to work in those contexts. It does, unfortunately, feel like we are beginning to move in that direction. I can only hope we manage to avoid the waves being seen in the United States as a result of Pearson’s engagement with education (see here or here for example), where, in many educational jurisdictions they provide the tests, create and deliver the professional development opportunities, write and provide the textbooks and effectively populate the curriculum.  A photo captured during Lila's presentation. A comment about tenure was made, with Lila remarking that she could not imagine not having permanency of employment and the uncertainty that that must bring with it. Lila closed (as far as my notes indicate) by commenting that there is no research which credibly demonstrates a correlation between the decentralisation of educational policy and curriculum with improved academic outcomes for students.
I can only apologise to both Lila and my readers for not having a complete set of notes for this session. I underestimated how intense Education Nation would be cognitively, and it was a late night at the end of day one of Education Nation as I attended the #AussieEd Live event at Kirribilli Club (which was a fantastic night) and had then returned to my hotel to write an article. If anyone has written an article as a result of Lila’s session, or any others, please let me know, as I would be happy to include a link to any articles written from Education Nation by other delegates. Thank you for reading and if you have missed any articles in this series, you can find them here.  Disclosure: My attendance at Education Nation (#EduNationAu) was through a media pass provided by the conference organisers. When I read that Federal Minister for Education and Training, Simon Birmingham (@birmo) would be speaking at Education Nation, I was intrigued as to firstly, whether he would actually attend given that there is an ongoing election campaign at the moment, and secondly, what he would actually say. When he arrived, you would not know that he was five weeks into an election campaign, and looked fresh and energetic. Minister Birmingham spoke for approximately twenty minutes and then took questions from the floor for about ten minutes before leaving. Overall, I think he did well to avoid any overt political campaign rhetoric, other than one small comment, which was not in itself particularly inflammatory or accusing of the Opposition, before moving on. He also made some very sensible and thought-provoking comments. I have included here the full recording of his address, with the only editing being the introduction from myself, and a slight adjusting of the audio levels to make them more consistent throughout. Minister Birmingham began by relating a personal anecdote involving his daughter, Matilda, showing the persistence and enthusiasm of five-year-olds, before relating that he was glad to hear of the discussions that were taking place within Education Nation. He added that as a father, he was confident that he could provide the best for his daughter, but that as the Federal Minister for Education and Training, that his focus to be on ensuring the best for all students across the country. He then said something which I get the impression was rather unexpected, and which I found quite heartening. “We have a good [education] system and a lot to be proud of. We need to celebrate our successes more than we do. In general, we are above OECD averages [on a range of measures] and our system is underpinned by a good basic foundation.” This was a refreshing message to hear, and to be realistic, it should not have been entirely unexpected; he is in the midst of an election campaign and speaking to a room full of educators, it was unlikely he would give a negative message about education. The measures that he indicated we are above the OECD averages included education funding, literacy, and numeracy results, however, he did acknowledge that there is always room for improvement Minister Birmingham spoke about the long tail that we have and the falling results of students at the top end of the academic scale and that the challenges of education are largely well-known and understood, which does not make resolving them any easier. Our PISA results, Minister Birmingham commented, have dropped, in both real and relative terms and while they are not the be all, they are an important indicator that does need to be monitored.  Retrieved from tinyurl.com/jjubjyw on 11 June 2016. Slide Thirty-five. We were then reminded that ten years ago, the iPhone and Netflix did not exist and that Facebook was in its infancy at one year old. We do not know, he continued, what the world will look like in ten years and what the world will look like for our students in the future when they graduate, however, we do know that they will require a richness in varied skills and learning, which sounds rather similar to the now famous Alvin Toffler quote shown below.  Minister Birmingham said he welcomes the discussions taking place at Education Nation and that his commitment is to make sure that Australia is driven by evidence that is credible and reliable and that appropriately reflects what can best improve student learning outcomes. This, he continued, will be supported by two key goals. The first will be to continue delivering the basics on which all learning now and in the future is based upon, though he didn’t elucidate further as to what, exactly, that meant. The second is to prepare students for the dynamic world they will be entering into as young adults. Minister Birmingham added an additional thought to this. Typically, he told us, the two goals are considered in terms of either/or, however, they should be considered as complimentary goals. It was here that we heard a modicum of election rhetoric, Minister Birmingham reminded the audience how much funding the Turnbull Government would commit to education, however, and I have respect for this, he also noted that while there were differences between the funding both parties had committed to, under either party, there would be an ongoing increase to education funding. Irrespective of your political stance, it would have been easy for him to make negative comments about the other side, yet he actually paid them a modicum of respect. A politically astute and rather sensible choice. He continued past this, commenting that funding would continue to be distributed on a needs basis and that they would be working to address the challenges that education faces, specifically reading, writing and science, working to set minimum standards of achievement. This confused me a little, as I thought we already had minimum standards, as laid out as part of NAPLAN, if nowhere else. He spoke about the need to identify clear targets and address reading levels at a young age, to identify and learning difficulties in our children earlier in life.  Retrieved from tinyurl.com/h7nolqd p.85 on 11 June 2016 There will be fourteen measures put in place to lift STEM rates, including additional training and support for teachers, early years support, and the lifting of ambition for graduating students to encourage more to enter into STEM-based Undergraduate programs, though there was no mention of specific steps to ensure these occur. His next point, the need to address and fix NAPLAN and the way it is implemented in order to foster richer data that is more quickly and easily accessible to teachers in order to make it useful and usable, was one which I believe surprised a few. NAPLAN, from what I have heard this election campaign, has had little attention in this vein, so it will be interesting to find out more about what that looks like if the Turnbull government are re-elected. We need to ensure, Minister Birmingham told the audience, that students receive one year of learning for one year of teaching and one way that this will be attained will be an improvement in the quality of initial teacher education (ITE). This is an area that does need to be addressed, as there are significant skills that teachers need that were not included in my own ITE, which I have written about in the past.and which I suspect are not an isolated issue.  Minister Simon Birmingham speaking to the Rethinking Reform Delegates at Education Nation. 8 June 2016 Debates surround educational policy are typically painted as binary arguments; we hear about public versus private education, or about STEM and coding versus traditional subjects, or about direct instruction versus experiential-based pedagogical practices. Minister Birmingham said that these all sit in a grey zone and that we should, in fact, be looking to give autonomy to our teachers, our schools, and our students to make contextualised and evidence-based decisions for the benefit of our students’ learning outcomes. Which of course brought to the fore the point that not all evidence is equal and that we need to be aware of the prejudices inherent in research, whether from the researcher or the commissioner of the research. Minister Birmingham closed with an idea that I suspect gained him respect throughout the room. He spoke about what he would do, what issue he would resolve; if he could wave a magic wand and fix any single issue or challenge that faces education. It would not, he said, be within schools that he would look. It would, in fact, be in the home of students, to improve the home lives of students where improvement is needed. Minister Birmingham said that whilst teachers provide the greatest influence on a student’s learning outcomes within a school, outside of the school, it is the home life which provides the biggest influence. The session was opened up at this point to questions from the floor, which I will not cover in this article but will leave for you to listen to in the audio above. I thought Minister Birmingham’s comments regarding a desire to address and improve the home life of students interesting. I have heard colleagues from both government and non-government, and from early childhood, primary and secondary, all make remarks about students whose home lives negatively impact their learning outcomes. Thank you, as always, for reading this far, and I would be interested to hear your thoughts on Minister Birmingham’s address. If you have missed any articles in the Education Nation Series, you can find the full list of articles here. |
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