Cambridge Partnership for Education ’s Post

The world’s most influential education think-tank, the Paris-based OECD, has just published another of its papers on “reimagining” schooling. https://lnkd.in/edkv-8Tz In fact it’s less to do with “re-imagining” than modernising, updating, improving. That’s absolutely needed and long overdue in many schools and systems, but it’s not the school re-imagined. The OECD’s school is still a place where students go to watch adults work, as Dylan Wiliam put it so crisply. Getting ‘reimagining’ right means beginning from the students’ work, not from teachers’ work or the work of the school. “Michelle Obama recalls her mother insisting that we’re not bringing up children in this family, we’re bringing up adults.” (This is from my Unbeaching the Whale: Can Australia’s schooling be reformed?) “So too school. By the time those labelled as “students” reach their twelfth year in schooling’s workforce they could and should be doing responsible, adult work in the maintenance and administration of the school and, first and foremost, in the organisation and conduct of the work of producing learning, an expansion and reorganisation of the grammar that could be made explicit and thereby guided and rewarded by progressions [or ‘developmental continua’]. This is more than ‘giving’ students ‘agency,’ or getting them to ‘engage’ with what’s put in front of them, or ‘putting them in control of their own learning,’ or ‘making them good citizens of the school community,’ laudable as such ambitions are; it is setting out to make the school more productive of development and growth as well as of learning, to take the school from being a place where children and young people go to watch adults work to one in which they become responsible members of the workforce engaged in the production of themselves, of each other, and of knowledge, understanding and capability.”

"Among the factors behind the decline in education quality are weaker social pressure to invest more and better in education, insufficient spending on school infrastructure, inadequate teacher training, and outdated curricula. Many schools in Europe and Central Asia lack access to modern resources like laboratories and digital learning tools. Limited adequate professional development opportunities for teachers often perpetuate traditional, lecture-based teaching methods that fail to engage students and foster critical thinking skills." Time and again, teaching and learning should progress with society and be research-informed. Great new paper and the blog by Ivailo Izvorski, Michael Lokshin, and Iván Torre

"The Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), characterised by choice and competition, test-based accountability, and a narrow curriculum, has dominated educational policies since the 1990s." - Pasi Sahlberg (https://buff.ly/4el2Fil) The GERM is a strategy fundamentally predicated on exerting control from afar in order to produce academic improvement. It implies that education is an academic endeavor. That is incorrect. Education is a function of expressing agency. Thus, the exacerbation of the gap is a predictable consequence of the exertion of control from afar. Closing the gap will require the support of agency.

Check out this #OA paper, “Internationalizing Teacher Education in the U.S.: Results of the 2022 American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education Survey”, by Erik Byker (University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA), Shea N. Kerkhoff (University of Missouri, St. Louis, USA), et al., featured in the International Journal of Teacher Education and Professional Development (IJTEPD). Colleges of education are often considered the least internationalized units on university campuses. To assess the accuracy of this statement, a research team from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education distributed a survey to U.S. teacher education programs inviting them to reflect on their campus's efforts to internationalize. Access the full paper here > https://buff.ly/4dEkkzF #UNCCharlotte #UMSL #GlobalEducation #HigherEducation #TeacherPreparation

Regardless of developments, the future of higher Ed, at its core, is students and education. Teaching/education-focused specialists know this, face this, and the new network #TEFA outlined here, is: Inclusive: recognising the diversity in teaching/education-focused roles including levels, disciplines, titles, and workload. Open: co-creating a safe (and brave) space for teaching/education-focused academics who wish to connect and share, including their allies, sponsors, and similar third space colleagues. Visible and Valued: raising awareness of and advancing the important work of teaching/education-focusedacademics across the Australian HE sector. Community-led: For teaching/education-focused academics, by teaching/education-focused academics relying on teaching/education-focused participation and contributions.

Transforming Higher Education Through Change Theory: Your Blueprint to Action! #HigherEducation #ChangeTheory #EducationTransformation https://ow.ly/kayB50Sla5Q

The Hansard transcript of the recent House of Lords debate on Education for 11 - 16 Year olds (Committee Report) repays careful reading for those reflecting on the future of the curriculum and assessment arrangements. The breadth of consensus and the depth of evidence underpinning this Report is striking. I am in agreement with the proposals of Lord Jim Knight, namely that we should focus on boosting learner and teacher engagement, reducing curricular prescriptivity, aligning learning better with the skills needed for the future and utilising extended project style assessments as part of a richer, broader assessment matrix. The successful development, implementation and expansion of EPQ over the past 15 years provides a helpful route-map for future development. It is significant that this model of innovation does not rest simply on curriculum or assessment reform, but embraces the contributions of ed tech, pedagogy and teacher professional development. It also leaves open the important question of whether change should be driven through restoring teacher trust or using accountability measures - a question we should discuss further. Rosie Clayton Alistair McConville Liz Robinson Phil Avery Sarah Fletcher Philip Holton Becky Francis Elizabeth Kelleher 🇮🇪🇦🇪 اليزابيث الين كاليهر Hayley White Kate Kibler Meredith Reeve Cranleigh School https://lnkd.in/eTvNdhe5

This is an interesting research on the need for @higher education curricula to be interdisciplinary and for pedagogical practices to work to build capacities in students for critical and reflective thinking. #Higher Education Authority #Higher Ed Facilities Forum (HEFF)

Checks, balances, and stakeholder engagement... FE Week is running a story today about the launch of a "youth-led shadow cabinet" comprised of youth organisations that will be undertaking its own review of curriculum and assessment in the UK. This will happen at the same time as the UK government completes its official review. But is there a need for this dual-track approach to educational reform? We say YES! ➡ It gives young people a voice in a process that affects their future ➡ It brings legitimacy, transparency and accountability ➡ It offers a more global perspective on curriculum and assessment Zooming out in this way can increase the chances of better outcomes... for students, teachers, employers, and society. It's also why we take a similar approach in our work. We offer bespoke language testing services so that we can align all our assessment knowledge and specialist skills to meet each client's individual needs and context. Consultation is central to this process, as is getting feedback from other stakeholders. What are your thoughts on this approach to curriculum and assessment review? Should student voice play a more central role in assessment design? #EducationReform #Assessment #StudentVoice #UKEducation #CurriculumDevelopment #EducationalAssessment Work with us: https://lt123.co.uk/ Link to article here: https://lnkd.in/dk3Y2ycs