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Dulwich College International School Evaluation
- 1. Recognising student agencyas the golden source: a guide to school self-evaluation Craig Davis - Director of the Education Team, Dulwich College International Dr Kevin House - Director of Curriculum, Dulwich College International Sandra Hite – Director of Early Years, Dulwich College International
- 2. Core questions beingexplored in this session ● What is a school learning evaluation process for? ● What aspects of evaluation work, and what doesn’t? ● What do the Dulwich College International group do differently? And why? ● What has the process taught us as a group of schools and as educators? ● How has this process already altered the whole group’s philosophy of education?
- 3. History of DulwichCollege International ● The group’s first college opened in Shanghai in 2003 ● It quickly opened more colleges in Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou, Seoul, Yangon and Singapore ● The group also operates a range of schools for local children in China ● It is an intention to continue to grow its family of schools in Asia and other regions of the world ● In 2018, the Education Team was expanded to support all school’s across the group
- 4. What did wewant to know about our schools? ● Steer a group-wide strategic vision of learning ● Understand the impact of our teaching and learning ● Identify gaps learning experiences of our students ● Gain a deeper understanding of teaching ● See if the curriculum provision was appropriate ● Get an understanding of the holistic student experience
- 5. ● Documentation/policy/programme standardsand practices IB/CIS/WASC ● Performance review/professional growth conversations with teachers ● Critical friend peer review of teaching ● More traditional externally sourced lesson observations ● Learning Walks ● Work sampling ● Surveys Components of traditional evaluation processes
- 6. Dr Calnin -March, 2019 “I’ve spent 25 years evaluating the evaluation of teachers and none of it works”
- 7. We drew onresearch ● Dr Gerard Calnin, University of Melbourne, Education Department, Graduate School of Evaluation, August 2018 ● Prof Rob Coe, University of Durham ‘What Makes Great Teaching’ 2014
- 8. What did itteach us? ● School evaluation does not improve student outcomes ● Traditional inspection models actually reduce outcomes ● Classroom observation is a poor instrument for evaluating teacher quality ● Expert teachers observing other teachers only get it right 50% of the time - it’s a coin toss ● Observation leads to a narrowing of curriculum, teaching practices and targets ● Value-Added is a better metric for evaluating learning and teaching impact, especially for groups and cohorts, but not as not as robust for individuals
- 9. Research argues thatmore effective interventions are: ● Longer term consultancy partnerships with schools ● Working closely with teacher groups to keep the evaluation process contextually tight ● Deciding together the progress indicators of effective learning focused differently by age and stage ● Not narrowing outcomes or definitions of success ● Aligning the process with school values and priorities - e.g. creating good people who can make a difference ● Collective efficacy and intrinsic teacher motivation is a big effect size ● Clarity of purpose
- 10. Leading evaluation ofteaching performance - Finnish principals example ● Over 50 school leaders visiting Singapore schools in 2014 ● No formal periodic performance or appraisal system ● Trust in student impressions of under performing learning environments ● Clear process of teacher support interventions and professional learning
- 11. Our new evaluationvalues ● What You Measure is What you Are - (Observation determines meaning - Neils Bohr) ● Finding an approach that is both qualitative and quantitative, actionable and unearths the daily, lived experience of students and staff ● Basing the focus and process on student interactions ● To prevent narrowing of success criteria and to honour the whole child, their wellbeing, their place in the world, their relational, social emotional value, we needed to create holistic evaluative tools ● A methodology that moves beyond the superficial snapshot and the performative
- 12. First efforts... Student wereinterviewed in class but we encountered the following problems: ● Distraction ● Teacher presence ● Self consciousness ● Disruptive to learning
- 13. Withdrew students andfound: Out of the classroom environment interviews were more relaxed with students able to: ● Reflect on their learning experience holistically ● Reflect on their learning more generally and not focus simply on a particular lesson ● An artful approach to questioning that quickly builds trust and leads to authentic responses
- 14. For Early Years- up to Year 2 (Grade 1) The group already had a self-built process called Engaging Spaces that is very closely aligned with the DCI SOP used with the older students. It involves: ● Observations of student learning ● Observations of student-teacher learning conversations ● Practitioner reflective conversations
- 15. Co-construction and partnership ●Specific school leaders/teachers form part of the review team ● Learn the language and context of progress for specific age and stage in that school context ● Work in partnership with the school and department pre and post review ● Co-construct emergent action points that are aligned ● Do not report ‘to’ or ‘at’ but report ‘with’ ● Create agreed accountability markers, touch points and calendared road maps ● Circle back around with the same methodology to gauge impact at a later date
- 16. Our guiding lenses DCILearning Principles DCI School Review SOP Engaging Spaces
- 17. Data overview todate After six full reviews and one ‘mini’ preparatory visit the DCI Education Team, and invited school members, have interviewed and interacted with close to 4000 students. Our last visit had: ● 700 students were involved in the Early Years ‘Engaging Spaces’ process. ● 600 in our Junior Schools. ● 1000 students in our Senior/High Schools. ● The Early Years ‘Engaging Spaces’ review has included over thirty personnel drawn from the DCI Education Team and five DCI schools/colleges. ● The Junior School ‘hybrid’ interview and ‘Engaging Spaces’ review has included eleven members drawn from the Education Team and five schools/colleges. ● The Senior School process has involved twelve people drawn from the Education Team and a total of seven schools/colleges
- 18. General themes thathave emerged to date ● The importance of student-teacher relationships ● An enormous desire for learning to be active, engaging and relevant ● A desire for more targeted formative feedback of consistently high quality ● More student consultation around curriculum provision ● More consistent student support services ● A focus on developing pedagogical leadership across the schools ● The need for a reliable and robust metric for tracking wellbeing development
- 19. Impact on group-widestrategy ● Focusing professional learning in individual schools and group-wide on the learning gaps or perception gaps identified by students ● Embedding the reporting recommendations into each school’s strategic plan ● More focus on pedagogical leadership ● Building more opportunities to understand and develop meaningful student agency ● More opportunities for educators to collaborate in school and across the group ● Heightened awareness of the need to prioritise student and teacher wellbeing ● The need for a consistent understanding of the importance of student-teacher relationships
- 20. Conclusions for usas educators ● The Finnish principals were right - students know ● This process is exacting - a form of institutional counselling ● Perhaps more than ever our students want us to emphasise human connection ● A real sense of how much simple acts impact on wellbeing and learning ● Build collective self efficacy based on a common purpose of student needs analysis
- 21. Serendipity! Contextual Wellbeing,Dr Helen Street and Dr Jamie Chiu
- 22. Please reach outand give us your thoughts... [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]