CLRI Annual Report 2018

December 19, 2018 by Leave a Comment

The Centre for Learning, Research & Innovation (CLRI) is a joint venture between The Geelong College, Deakin University and The Geelong College Foundation.

The Centre aims to provide people with the ability to affect beneficial change within their schools, institutions and organisations. We engage in research projects, policy development and create professional learning opportunities, by recognising learning as an active, dynamic behaviour that emerges from interactions between the human brain and the social world.

Our 2018 Annual Report is now available and will be my last as Director before starting as Deputy Principal at Mentone Grammar in the new year.

Learn about what we accomplished in 2018 and our plans for the future.

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Supporting Teachers in Obtaining Full Registration

December 18, 2018 by Leave a Comment

The last five years I have supported graduate teachers in obtaining full registration via the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT). Graduate teachers are often feeling overwhelmed at the start of the year so I always give them some time and space to get used to the daily routine of school life before sending them a copy of the email below.

If this is something you oversee in your school and would like some further information on how I go about managing the entire process with each graduate teacher, be sure to get in touch!

Dear [name],

Hope the term/year has started well for you and you are settling in nicely to your new role.

Just wanted to touch base with you about the VIT process at some stage within the next few weeks. If you could let me know some suitable times that would be great – we should only need 20 minutes or so.

The purpose of this meeting is just to make sure you feel supported and understand the requirements of moving from provisional to full registration. There is a suggested timeline in the body of the email below, and I have also attached a VIT publication which has a wealth of information.

In summary, VIT will require of you throughout 2018 to;

  • select a class or group of students and assess the level of learning and factors affecting learning
  • determine what they already know, curriculum expectations, and identify learning outcomes
  • develop a question for inquiry
  • deepen professional knowledge and refine skills to respond to the identified area of inquiry
  • use this new knowledge to establish and implement an action plan to improve student learning
  • assess the learning of students
  • document your learning
  • reflect on the effectiveness of practice on the learning of the students and the implications for future practice and professional learning

Further information is provided in the attached eBook.

Gathering Evidence for Full Registration – Suggested Timeline
A template is provided to assist in the documentation of evidence to demonstrate the standards of professional practice for full registration.

The following timeline gives a guide to when the components of this process could take place, however if you are wanting to get it done sooner rather than later, we are more than happy to expedite the process:

Term 1: Find your feet and begin to understand the VIT requirements for full registration
Term 2: Continue to develop practice, have a mentor observe your class, observe other classes
Term 3: Use an inquiry-based approach to investigate student learning
Term 4: Organize evidence and plan for College panel meeting. Apply for full registration.

See VIT Resources via the VIT website for templates and work/evidence samples. A checklist which succinctly breaks down what is required is also available.

[Name] is excited about being your mentor through this process.

The role of your mentor is threefold:

  1. To assist you in visiting and observing at least one other class.
  2. To organize with you three classroom observations and then engage you in a professional discussion about what they observed.
  3. To sit on the final panel with the appropriate Head of School & the Director of Teaching & Learning before final submission of evidence for full registration. The purpose of this panel is for you to talk about the work you have undertaken, and to ensure that all requirements have been met up to the Proficient Teacher standard of the AITSL teacher standards.

I promise you that the process is not as scary as it all sounds! Look forward to discussing with you in the next few weeks.

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GCI Coaching Accreditation Program

December 18, 2018 by 1 Comment

Earlier this year I completed the GCI Coaching Accreditation Program. It was a culmination of a three year coaching journey, that started with the Introduction to Leadership Coaching program back in the beginning of 2015. The process of becoming a coach and developing a coaching way of being has greatly improved all aspects of my leadership.

As part of the final hurdle requirement I was required to write a reflective essay documenting a coaching relationship. Find an exerpt of this reflection below.

*All identifying information has been removed and I have been granted permission from the coachee to publish this reflective excerpt here.

Introduction
Coaching is both a formal and informal process of engaging and empowering others using a suite of people-oriented questioning and listening techniques. Whilst no agreed upon definition of coaching currently exists, the International Coaching Federation (ICF) defines it as a partnership between two people that results in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires the coachee to maximize their personal and professional potential. Aguilar (2013) describes it as “doing a set of actions, holding a set of beliefs, and being in a way that results in those actions leading to change” (p.20). Van Nieuwerburgh (2012) describes coaching as “a one-to-one conversation that focuses on the enhancement of learning and development through increasing self-awareness and a sense of personal responsibility” (p.11).

Much of the literature agrees that coaching can have a positive influence on the development of both the coach and the coachee. The coach uses a variety of techniques including active listening and asking questions to uncover beliefs and assumptions to assist the coachee to access new learning. As a result, coaching has much to offer those who work in educational environments.

The Growth Coaching International (GCI) Accreditation Program relates directly to the work I do in my workplace. Working with, leading, learning from and managing others, provides me a unique opportunity to use coaching as personal professional development as I seek to get to know, understand and serve others so that I can assist them in developing themselves professionally and reaching their goals.

Background
Our College has had eighty-two staff recently engage in the Growth Coaching International (GCI) Introduction to Leadership Coaching program. We have another four staff who are at various stages of completing the GCI Accreditation Program. In a relatively short period, we have seen significant changes in the way people talk with each other and have seen evidence of a more empowered learning culture starting to emerge.

In choosing my pro bono client, I wanted to ensure that I would be engaging with someone who was willing and able to participate for the duration of the six sessions. I made contact initially via email explaining to her the course I was completing and that I was looking for a coachee with which to work. My client accepted and as she was new to a senior leadership role in 2018, was very grateful to have someone work with her in this capacity.

My positionality is unique in this context. Whilst I am not my coachee’s direct line manager, I still have indirect leadership responsibilities so it was important to establish clear guidelines for our relationship via a coaching contract. As my client had already completed the Introduction to Leadership Coaching program through GCI, only a re-familiarization with the ICF competencies and code of ethics was required as we established clear expectations via an agreement.

We scheduled a fortnightly one-hour coaching session and agreed to meet in my client’s office. At the beginning of the first session, I explained to my client that I was ready to serve, established confidentiality and asked once again for permission to engage with her as a coach. I explained that I wanted to keep our commitment of a fortnightly session and that I had full intentions of maintaining this coaching space as a safe space with no agenda. With the advantage of having a healthy professional relationship with my client for a number of years in various capacities, I had already established credibility so I began our first session by asking questions, connecting to what my client was saying and validating where possible via a combination of active listening techniques and reciprocal and positive body language. A coaching relationship is built on trust, and having known my client for some time, it was evident that despite both our best intentions, that our existing relationship was also initially a disadvantage, as our first session at times wandered into conversation and the operational day-to-day running of a school.

About half way through this initial session I hit the metaphorical pause button as I explained to my client that we could both see what was happening and decided that we needed to setup a weekly timeslot alternating one week between a purely coaching environment and one week a more operational conversation about the school. We both agreed that this would provide greater clarity of intent and allow us to address our needs of discussing the day-to-day operation of the school and maintaining a space for a coaching relationship to further develop and evolve.

Goal setting process and applying the 8 step GROWTH model
The diagrammatic representation of the GROWTH model is linear and suggests a sequential process. Great coaches use the GROWTH framework in a fluid manner however, one that is non-sequential, non-linear and by necessity uses each stage of the model in unequal amounts. Sometimes a large percentage of time is spent unpacking and peeling back the layers of a client’s reality. Often times, by exploring realities and options, you uncover hidden beliefs or assumptions that require both the coach and the coachee to double back and re-explore what they want to achieve.

As I focused on becoming a better coach, I also noticed significant changes in my way of being. Learning the mechanics of the GROWTH model had enabled me to approach situations with a greater sense of empathy and curiosity. This way of being was reflective in both formal and informal coaching scenarios. It is an authentic and humble stance of seeing others in a positive way and valuing their unique viewpoints and perspectives. This realization was helpful in assisting my client establish a goal she wanted to work on in our first session.

My client’s goal centred on addressing certain staff behaviours and having the confidence to engage in difficult conversations. In addition, she wanted to ensure that conversations at curriculum meetings remained true to our vision for learning. Whilst our first session was somewhat interrupted as we both struggled to maintain the discipline required to engage fully in our coaching session, we did manage to work towards a goal. Establishing a goal using iSMART and the sentence stem “By…. I am…. So that….” ensured that my client and I articulated a goal that would contribute to my client’s growth and development and was specific, measurable and attainable. I had my client write down her goal as we were articulating it to add an additional layer of accountability – “By Monday 19th February, I am creating a standing item on the curriculum leadership agenda each fortnight, so that we are progressing our Vision for Learning.”

Upon reflection following this coaching session I came to the realization that I had not assisted my coachee in setting a goal, rather I had assisted her with an action. Whilst this action was important for my coachee to take, and a great first step towards realizing a much larger goal, it was not a goal. This was good learning for me and I approached this with my coachee in an honest and transparent way. I asked her how she went with her action at our next meeting, listened and prompted where necessary and then turned the conversation into the direction of clarifying for both of us the difference between a goal and an action. By reframing the conversation and re-visiting what she wanted to achieve, we set a goal of “By the end of 2018, I am facilitating effective curriculum leadership meetings so that we are being true to what we believe.” Through a number of conversations that went deeper into her current reality, this ended up morphing into “By the end of 2018, I am confident in using a coaching approach in challenging situations, so that we will have a more solution-focused staff and I am personally and professionally happier in my role.”

The impact of this goal refining process was increased clarity and as we continued to unpack her reality, the coachee was engaging in some critical internal reflection and making important discoveries about what she thought she wanted to focus on compared to what she actually really needed to focus on. The coachee had a lightbulb moment and started using a particular metaphor to describe the way they needed to prioritize.  I celebrated and affirmed this realization. As we explored this concept and identified the coachee’s priorities, I routinely bought the conversation back to the goal that we had established and asked “Given that we have now identified your priorities, what are some things you could do to work towards your goal?” When one option was offered I would prompt for further options by asking “What else?”

In a subsequent coaching session, my coachee sat down excitedly and told me in detail about how she had come to a stunning realization after our last session. I remember smiling and saying “Tell me more.” The coachee explained that she was making many of the more difficult interactions she had to have in her role too personal. I nodded and again prompted with “Tell me more.” For the next fifteen minutes the coachee explained that these conversations generally have very little to do with her on a personal level, so she felt that she would now be able to take much of the emotion she was feeling out of these situations. She explained that what she needed to do was prepare well in advance for these conversations, take a step back and look at things systemically and to adopt a mindset of curiosity. This was an incredible insight and the positive energy that the coachee was exuding was palpable. I explained this to her and she said that it was like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Harnessing this confident state I asked “With this newfound confidence, what options do you like the most for action during the coming week?” The coachee had to have a genuine conversation with someone in a few days’ time and asked if we could use the remainder of our time together to role play this conversation. Of course I agreed and we spent the next 30 minutes or so talking through different scenarios and tactics. During this time I primarily coached, but at times slid into the role of mentor by asking “Would you like a suggestion from me? At the end of this session I asked “What’s clearer for you now?” The coachee after giving this some thought responded with “That I can absolutely 100% do this!”

During our next session I asked the coachee how the conversation played out. She rated herself 8 out of 10. I asked her to articulate why she gave herself an 8 and not a 7 or a 9. The only answer that the coachee was able to access at this point was that even though she believed the conversation went particularly well, she still felt the emotion “exploding inside.” The coachee’s level of self-awareness here was particularly impressive and we discussed that by noticing how she was feeling she was exhibiting a high-degree of emotional intelligence. We talked through how we can never fully take all the emotion out of a situation.

In order to continue to build on the momentum of the coachee’s new found confidence we started to discuss specific tactics and habits. I asked questions like,
How will you sustain your newfound confidence? What might get in the way? What support will you need to maintain this? What opportunities do you see for practice and consolidation of this skill?

At the conclusion of our six sessions I agreed to continue meeting with the coachee fortnightly as one of the many tactics and habits that we discussed. The impact of these coaching sessions for the coachee was quite profound. By holding a mirror up and prompting some deep, internal reflection……..

Get in touch if you would like to talk more about how coaching can influence your own practice.

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Trusting our Teachers

December 5, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Much of the recent discourse regarding teacher education and the profession of teaching is about raising standards. This accountability paradigm insists that boosting the quality of teaching, increasing the standards of entry into the profession and improving the quality of teacher education programs will improve student outcomes. Student outcomes in this case are often narrowly defined.

Marilyn Cochran-Smith shared at the 2018 AARE conference that this accountability paradigm has emerged based on five policy, political and professional influences, namely:

  1. Unprecedented global attention to teacher quality tied to neoliberal economics.
  2. Teacher quality defined as teachers who produce large gains in student improvement.
  3. Continuous public narrative about the failure of teachers and teacher education.
  4. Teacher education defined as a policy problem focused on outcomes.
  5. The teacher education establishments own turn towards accountability.

These five influences have infiltrated, permeated and embedded themselves so deeply that they are often seemed to be self-evident. This tacit struggle is a form of cultural/political domination that de-professionalizes teachers and simultaneously reduces agency and voice. This narrative legitimizes certain institutions, practices and interests, produces policy based on contested claims and hyperbole and positions education reform as a simple cure for inequality.

What can those working in schools actually do? No one I talk to is arguing that teacher quality doesn’t matter. We want the best teachers teaching. We also have to value those that we have in the profession and provide the structures and level of support to move beyond individual and collective appraisal and explicit improvement agendas, to a system that has a focus on learning, growth and pedagogical quality. We do this through trust. By trusting our teachers we can change societal discourse, elevate the profession and perhaps somewhat counter-intuitively, increase levels of accountability. Not accountability to state or national standards, but accountability to ourselves, to our colleagues, to the students in our care and their families. A collective accountability that becomes a responsibility to enhance our profession. A moral responsibility to focus on what matters. A responsibility to tell our own stories, to change the narrative, to create our own visions and to define what counts as a successful education in our contexts.

In my experience the way schools typically enact teacher accountability and performativity measures is to have an appraisal process in place. In 2015, in conjunction with the introduction of a new professional learning model, I removed the need for our teachers to be judged on an annual basis and introduced a process based entirely around individual and collective growth.

From the communication that was sent to staff about the change.

It is recognised that The Geelong College has a responsibility to provide teachers with access to meaningful professional learning opportunities. It is also recognised that teachers are responsible for their own learning and responsible for ensuring professional learning is undertaken and the requirements for teacher registration are maintained.

In recent years teaching staff at The Geelong College have participated in a biennial Appraisal process to assist in the development of their professional skills and to document professional learning. Annual Learning Projects have become important self-determined professional learning experiences for teachers seeking to investigate their professional knowledge and practice. These projects are shared with colleagues annually and they have helped to stimulate greater vibrancy in the professional discourse among teachers. Over the last year or so, the Appraisal process has become increasingly aligned to Learning Projects.

The emerging strong relationships with Deakin University through the Centre for Learning, Research and Innovation (CLRI) and the professional value of the Learning Projects have resulted in an increase in the level of interest in post graduate research degrees among the teaching staff of The Geelong College. This is an exciting and significant development informing the next step in the ongoing development of our approach to the professional learning of teachers.

From 2016 it is proposed that a change in terminology be adopted moving from ‘Appraisal’ to ‘Professional Learning Program’ (PLP). It appears the term Appraisal no longer reflects the nature and needs of the College.

At some point every two years teaching staff will meet with the Principal (or delegate if appropriate) to review their PLP.

Key components of the PLP

  1. Annual Learning Project – this is to relate to professional learning and may include action research projects or the development of special projects related to improving student outcomes (academic, pastoral, co-curricular). A variety of methods and approaches can be adopted and may include, but not be limited to, classroom observations, interschool visits, action research projects and professional presentations
  2. Conference/course participation – documentation of participation in professional conferences and courses. This can be as delegates or presenters.
  3. Professional engagement – demonstrated professional engagement such as professional reading, VCAA marking, working with graduate or undergraduate teachers or other ways of contributing to the development of professional skills of other educators

*As a caveat, we still have a performance management and professional conduct process in place that can be evoked if needed.

In my experience, appraisal processes in schools are draconian in their implementation, or such a waste of time that they become a tick-the-box exercise. What we did was a fairly simple shift from appraisal to professional learning. The bi-annual meeting with the Principal or delegate now becomes a chance to talk about individual interests, contexts and passions, in a non-performative setting, that is influenced by a coaching approach. It was an initiative that was very well received across our community.

Systemic issues abound and can become overwhelming. But there are always small things that can be achieved in your own sites and contexts. A focus on trusting teachers is a good start.

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Celebrating who we are

November 26, 2018 by Leave a Comment

This short film is the result of a collaboration between our digital media guru Sam McIntosh and year 12 Media student Ollie Manton from the Geelong College.

Ollie stated, “The journey began on paper, concepts were drawn, presented and approved. Then the various film shoots were planned and shot. We used a variety of cameras; a #BlackMagicURSA, #PanasonicGH5, #Canon5D & 7D, an OSMO and a drone.”

The film was ‘co-shot’ and ‘co-edited’ across file hosting service Dropbox. Sam and Ollie would meet at various points to discuss the direction and styling of the film. Always sharing ideas and thoughts, the two passionate film-makers made light work of a large project. “Many of our catch ups were more about picking apart Christopher Nolan films or how to do particular shots with specific cameras. The catch ups were always fun and collaborative.”

Students and teachers working together is central to the Geelong College Vision for Learning.

Inspiring work by Sam and Ollie.

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Assessment Focus Group

November 26, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Back at the beginning of 2015 I established an assessment focus group at the College. It existed for less than a year and was part of a long term strategy around creating accelerator networks to overcome static and entrenched ways of thinking. By-passing the traditional hierarchy, it attempted to create agency and a more responsive and distributed platform for our staff to contribute to the future direction of the school.

I put out a call for expressions of interest via email and let participants know that we would be meeting twice a term for twelve months. I was looking for representation from each of our Junior, Middle and Senior schools and got 17 members – usually I would keep focus groups much smaller than this but I wanted to get as many people from each of the three schools involved as I could. The purpose was to create a space for dialogue that moved beyond using the terms assessment, reporting and grading interchangeably, and to change the student culture of anxiety about performance, to one of curiousity about what intellectual journey might lay before them. It took a great deal of effort and re-focusing to ensure that conversations remained about assessment as they inevitably (almost inexorably) drifted towards grading or reporting.

We workshopped ideas. People contributed research articles or blogs for discussion. Sub-committees formed and visited other schools. We looked at our current assessment profile across the College. And best of all, after some vigorous debate and discussion, we created actions that led to the creation and introduction of new policies and practices.

I recently found the following summary of one of our focus group meetings.

Can we rethink the basic tenets of teaching and learning and evaluate what students have done in a manner more consistent with our Vision for Learning? This is the question that has driven the discussion of the assessment focus group.

Our most superficial concerns have usually involved the practicalities of how to grade students’ work. Do we use a 5 point scale? A 6 point scale? What are the grade cut-offs? Do we use a normative or criterion referenced approach? We often put emphasis on how to detect plagiarism, rather than focusing on creating better assessments. This focus reinforces and reproduces the traditional paradigm of “test, grade, test, grade” and as a result many students become conditioned to this routine. Students then only engage in learning to a certain extent. They learn not deeply, but deep enough in order to learn how to play the game of assessment that is in front of them. Worse still, this paradigm can be damaging for many students as it reinforces self-narrative and familial discourse such as “I’m no good at maths.”

The discussions and workshops throughout our focus group meetings have attempted to move beyond this. Here we have debated and argued about the importance and necessity of allocating students a grade at every opportunity. We have debated the difference between a student in Year 1 and a student in Year 9. We unpacked the difference between assessment, feedback, grading and reporting. We workshopped alternative methods of assessment in order to provide a more meaningful approach that includes portfolios and a more formative focus on student understanding and progress.

After several meetings, almost unanimously the group recommendation is that:

Grades are only given to students on end of semester reports (EL-10) supported by a consistent ongoing online reporting/feedback/progress system, further supported by digital portfolios. In this case, ongoing reporting replaces end of semester reports.

This was a nice find as I clean up the files on my old laptop and a chance for me to reflect on how far we have come on this journey. This group did some great work and contributed to a more diverse assessment portfolio across the College, the introduction of new ongoing reporting platform and the introduction of a new College-wide assessment policy that I include below. I actually believe the policy is an exemplar policy because it is concise and underpinning it is the fact that we trust the professionals in our workplace to enact it in a way that is relevant to their area.

Get in touch if you would like to know more.

Assessment Policy

Purpose
The primary purpose of assessment is to help improve student learning. This process should develop students’ capacity to reflect on their learning and to assist their progress towards becoming independent learners. A secondary purpose of assessment is to provide teachers and parents with feedback about teaching and learning practices.

Policy Statement
The Geelong College assessment policy is informed by research and best practice. There is an expectation that discipline areas will draw on assessment research relevant to their field to underpin how this policy is implemented.

The statements below outline the principles of assessment at the College.

  1. Assessment must reflect the values of the College
  2. Assessment practices should be consistent with the College’s Vision for Learning, including a range of formative, summative, self and peer assessment strategies.
  3. Assessment practices must be conducted and undertaken ethically and with honesty and integrity by staff and students.
  4. An appropriate and diverse assessment portfolio in and across each subject area should demonstrate an articulation and application of knowledge and understanding, skills and competencies.
  5. The design of any assessment should take into account the requirement for timely, meaningful and constructive feedback to be given to students on their assessments.
  6. Assessment practices and processes must be continuously monitored for quality assurance and improvement purposes.
  7. It is expected that assessment tasks are assessed with clear expectations and this can include normative and criterion-referenced approaches.

Responsibility for implementation
Director of Teaching and Learning
Heads of School
Deputy Heads of School
Heads of Department
Curriculum Coordinators

Relevant policies
Reporting
Grading
Vision for Learning

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Turning the Page

September 21, 2018 by 5 Comments

Only when you turn the page do you find out what happens next.

At the end of the year I will be leaving The Geelong College and finishing my role as Director of Teaching and Learning and also as Director of our Centre for Learning, Research and Innovation.

Goodbyes are particularly hard when you have grown to love what you are leaving. I will miss the staff, the students and the families that I have worked with so closely over the past five years. It has been an honour to work alongside some of the most dedicated and impressive teachers I have ever come across. I’ve learned so much during my time at the College, and so many people have been a big part of that. The encouragement, support and guidance of those in the community have allowed us to create a unique culture of camaraderie; one that I hope will continue for many years to come.

I am excited to announce that in 2019 I will be starting a new role as Deputy Principal at Mentone Grammar.

New adventures await.

But before they do, I will be sharing and celebrating stories here over the next three months. Stories about the inspirational people, programs and approaches that make The Geelong College such a special place.

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Student-led Expedition

March 5, 2018 by Leave a Comment

On Christmas Eve, together with a team of Year 10 and 11 students, I returned from a 3-week expedition in Nepal. The team travelled backpacker style throughout the areas of Kathmandu, Pokhara and Chitwan, soaking up the incredible culture, trekking through the Annapurna region of the Himalaya, viewing Mount Everest, and contributing to the rebuilding efforts of a school damaged via earthquakes in the medieval city of Bhaktapur.

This was not your ordinary school camp or tour however. This expedition was 100% student-led. Preparations began in March of 2017 as the team of students designed an itinerary, conducted travel simulation days at the You Yangs, raised funds for the community service project and developed skills of leadership, communication and budget management that would be soon put to use.

Each day in Nepal a student or group of students would be responsible for leading the group. Nothing was pre-booked, so these responsibilities included arranging accommodation for the night, transport, logistics and navigation, deciding on locations for breakfast, lunch and dinner, ensuring the team had enough drinking water and most importantly, managing the team budget.

Our Vision for Learning recognises that students require an awareness and understanding of not only themselves, but also the world in which they live. Students need to explore the world in a variety of ways to develop skills and attributes to communicate across cultures while expanding their awareness of the world’s complexities and learning to appreciate difference. By giving students opportunities to lead and make real decisions, they become skilled at making good decisions and develop a greater understanding of what it means to be a leader and indeed, a good citizen.

Students did both themselves and the College proud by showing resilience, perseverance, leadership skills, teamwork, confidence in travelling and being independent and self-sufficient. College programs like this student-led expedition empower young people to uncover their unique identity, develop life skills and embrace the world beyond their own borders through a combination of adventure, cultural immersion and experiential learning opportunities.

This Expedition to Nepal will become a permanent addition to our College calendar and is an exciting part of our commitment to student leadership development and community service.

The Geelong College Student-led Exhibition to Nepal, 2017 from CLRI on Vimeo

 

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Speaking in Public

March 4, 2018 by Leave a Comment

I do a fair bit of public speaking at internal workplace events like parent information evenings, parent dinners, staff briefings, chairing meetings, staff professional learning workshops, presentations to councils and boards, VCE information sessions and community events through our Centre for Learning, Research and Innovation. I still speak at quite a few external events too, things like conference keynotes and workshops, facilitating panel discussions and chairing conferences.

Public speaking improves with deliberate practice and through studying the art and science of effective speaking and storytelling. I have no doubt about this as I used to be terrified of getting up in front of an audience. Sure, I still get nervous on occasion, but the minute I stop being slightly apprehensive about speaking in front of an audience is the moment I know I have become too comfortable.

Much planning goes into something like a keynote presentation but increasingly I am finding myself able to go off script and engage in a relatively unplanned presentation. This is absolutely true for smaller events where I am invited to provide a welcome speech or to provide a short presentation framing an evening.

Sometimes I still find value in writing out word for word what I am going to say. This doesn’t happen too often as I rarely have the luxury, but when I do I actually enjoy the process. I recently spoke at our Year 7 parent dinner to welcome exisiting and new families to our College. This is what I had to say.

Good Evening everyone. A warm welcome to you all on behalf of Dr Peter Miller, our Principal, who unfortunately can’t be here tonight as he is in Sydney on College-related business. My name is Adrian Camm and I am Director of Teaching and Learning here at the College and I have responsibility for the oversight, development and delivery of the College’s overall teaching and learning direction and the academic program from early learning through to Year 12. I am also the Director of our Centre for Learning, Research and Innovation that seeks to develop our staff professionally but to also offer educational events throughout the year to students, teachers and parents in our wider community.

Please be sure to keep your eye on our bulletin and also on our Facebook page for our many free events this year focusing on contemporary teaching and learning approaches, women in leadership and advice for parents in dealing with the many issues and challenges that present themselves throughout a child’s teenage years.

This is my 12th year in education and my 5th here at the College. I have had the great honour and privilege of receiving some humbling awards in my career to date including being named Australian Teacher of the Year at the 2009 Australian Awards for Teaching Excellence and in 2012 receiving the ACCE & ACS National Outstanding Leader of the Year Award. As a result of these awards I have had the great privilege and honour of working with and in hundreds of schools around the world, across government, catholic and Independent sectors, in areas of Japan, China, the US, the UK, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Singapore and of course in different parts of Australia. Having seen what other schools and education systems are doing, I can safely say that the experience that Geelong College offers its young women and men is right up there with the best in the world.

Our teaching and learning programs are underpinned by our Vision for Learning which I encourage you all to access on our College website if you haven’t read it already. Our Vision for Learning describes our teaching and learning philosophy not in terms of discreet subjects, specifics or narrow measures, but in terms of seven holistic and conceptual dimensions: Enterprise, Creativity, Creating, Contributing, Identity, Communicating & Thinking and outlines how the most important aspect of a modern education is “learning how to learn.”

There are some parts of a modern education that look very similar to when you were all in school – we still want our children to be highly literate and numerate and to have strong moral and ethical principles, teachers still ‘teach’, but with the world changing rapidly a modern education now also requires that young people be skilled in the use of technology, be entrepreneurial, to be able to solve complex problems in complex and unfamiliar situations, to be adaptable, independent, flexible and to develop the disposition of curiosity – because throughout their lifetime they will need to continually be learning. Gone are the days when you got your education in secondary school and university and that then would hold you in good stead for the rest of your career. To succeed in the future our young women and men need to see themselves as true lifelong learners.

Our teachers recognize this and engage in constant learning themselves, modelling for our young people what it means to be a learner. Indeed 17 of our teaching staff have this year embarked on post-graduate research study to ensure we continue to adapt and stay at the forefront of current approaches to teaching and learning ensuring the best possible experience for our young people. I know each of our 135 teaching staff individually. And I know that each and every one of them work late into the night, every night, preparing for the next day, and when they come through the school gates each morning they are all asking themselves the same question – they are asking themselves, “How do I make the next 6.5 hours, the most rewarding, memorable, personalized and engaging, 6.5 hours of these young people’s lives?”

Whether you are new to the College in 2018 or have been with us for some years, we look forward to working closely with you all for many years to come, in a partnership, ensuring your children all exceed their potential and are well equipped to face a rapidly changing world. Wishing you all a fantastic evening of conversation, food, beer and wine and all the best for the rest of the year. Thank you very much. Have a great night.

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Thanks for the Feedback

January 9, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Why do we dwell on criticism buried among an abundance of compliments and affirmations?

Feedback on a person’s performance which is then used as a basis for improvement is a natural element of some professions. Take sports as an example. An athlete has a constant stream of feedback to contend with. Whether this is the coach giving instructions from the sidelines, the roar of the crowd, the morale of team members, the look on the face of the opponent, or the physiological data collected on their cadence, heart rate or recovery time between hard efforts. Further feedback is then delivered post-game by watching game footage and analyzing positions, technique, work rate, commitment to the contest, adherence to the team plan or general game sense. Feedback is a natural part of being a sports person. If we put in a poor performance we want to know why and learn from it.

Not all professions are this open to feedback, however. Educators respond to feedback in different ways and with varying levels of comfort. An adverse reaction to challenging feedback can challenge our sense of who we are and what we stand for. Our identities are tied to a story that we tell ourselves. When feedback is received that challenges this story, our emotional bands are stretched and the elasticity of our emotions factor into the way this feedback affects us both physically and emotionally.

Thankfully, Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone in Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well, outline how receiving (and giving) feedback is a skill that can be developed by cultivating a curious disposition, active listening techniques, and adopting an empathetic system thinking approach to conversation.

When we receive feedback we can question the substance of the feedback itself and thus dismiss it as wrong or unhelpful but often issues arise when we question the motives of the feedback giver. Our previous interactions, their credibility, experience, expertise and our level of trust all influence whether we can disentangle the feedback giver from the feedback itself. Heen and Stone invite their readers to recognize that we each bring a unique frame of reference and usually only see part of the problem (the part that the other person is contributing). Systems thinking corrects for the skew in any single perspective. We can seek to understand by asking questions like, “Tell me more” or “I hadn’t thought of it that way. Can you give me an example?” or even “Can you help me get perspective on your feedback?”

One of my big takeaways from the book is the fact that we often have multiple issues present in any feedback conversation that confuse, disorient and lead to conflict. When this occurs we need to be explicit and signpost that this is the case with a statement like, “I think that there are two topics here. Let’s discuss each topic fully, but separately, as both are important. Ok. Let’s loop back to the start and start with the first topic.”

I found this book to be a great compliment to the work that I am doing in the Growth Coaching Accreditation Program and highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to further develop their ability to give and receive feedback.

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