Subject: School Model Under Construction

Posted by Martin Schaffernicht on 1/21/2014
In Reply To:School Model Under Construction Posted by Tim Joy on 1/20/2014

Message:

Hi Tim,

I've just read your description of the model on the Blog, and I want to ask you some questions.

You write "the three things needed for high impact instruction to occur are students, teachers, and content", so I inferred that "content" is equivalent to "curriculum". If this inference is correct, then I wonder "what about the methods"? According to the method, pupils will have different forms of activity, and therefore lern different things. For instance, Montessori or Project-based would not lead to the same development as frontal. In this case, if we take a given school which currently follows a traditional frontal approach, reaching the decisión to make a change and bringing it to live is a rather slow process. Even less ambitions changes like infiltrating SD into the courses takes years. Should the model take this into account?

The teachers you modelled appear to be rather "generative" of change, or at least willing to embrace change. I wondered what happens when the teacher population is mixed, let's say X% pro-change and 100-X% conservative. Then the school leaders will have to develop the teachers team over time be careful selection and development of teachers, and at each point in time the particular mixture in the school will govern the speed (or slowness) of the things related to "instructional efficacy".

One big issue with respect to change and the role teachers play in it seems to be "method". I can only speak on grounds of my very limited experience (Chile), but where I live it appears to be very difficult to find teachers interested in (or willing to) develop beyond the methods they were trained for at university. (And it is even more difficult to make universities change the profesional training they provide te future teachers.) If this is similar where you live, then it should be the case that the "mix" of teachers you have is one of the main regulators of the speed of methodological change.

I thought maybe you want to consider these issues for the future development of the model.

Best Greetings,

Martin Schaffernicht

Follow Ups:

School Model - Teacher Training - Tim Joy 1/22/2014 
School Model - Teacher Training - Martin Schaffernicht 1/24/2014
School Model - Teacher Training - Barun K. Pani 1/24/2014
School Model - Teacher Training - Tim Joy 2/1/2014
School Model - Teacher Training - Bob Gorman 1/24/2014
School Model - Teacher Training - Ed Johnson 1/27/2014
School Model Under Construction - Pedro D. Almaguer Prado 1/21/2014