CENTRAL QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY NOOSA HUB A partnership between Education Queensland, Noosa Shire Council and Central Queensland University Briefing paper for Ian Hawk, Director, Office of Higher Education, Queensland Department of Education Prepared by the Steering Committee of CQU Noosa Editor David Lynch 1
CONTENTS Introduction Background to the Establishment of CQU Noosa CQU Noosa Establishment Facts Current CQU Noosa Profile Program Offerings and Current Enrolments Research and Consultancy Profile CQU Noosa Outcomes to date Projected CQU Noosa BLM Enrolments Recommendations The Impacts of CQU Noosa on teaching and Learning (Case studies) Kenilworth State School Tewantin State School Comparison of the BLM and BEd programs in the context of an emerging Knowledge- based economy. Evaluation of Central Queensland University s Bachelor of Learning Management ACER / CQU research project The BLM Program (Smith and Lynch, 2004) 2
Introduction This document has been developed by the Steering Committee of Central Queensland University Noosa (CQU Noosa), to provide the Director, Office of Higher Education, Department of Education, Queensland, with a perspective on the development and the futures operations of CQU Noosa as it relates to the current impasse with sunshine Coast University and the Department of Education, Science and Technology. Steering Committee Members David Turner Cr Lew Brennan Rob McAlpine Dr David Lynch Prof. Richard Smith Lee Goosens Chair/ Principal, Kenilworth State School Noosa Shire Council Executive Director schools; Education Queensland Central Queensland University Central Queensland University Principal Cooroora Secondary College Background to the Establishment of CQU Noosa CQU Noosa Hub is organized and operates as a partnership between Education Queensland, Noosa Shire Council and Central Queensland University through Memoranda of Understandings, contracts and other like agreements. CQU Noosa Hub was developed in response to QSE2010 and the Smart State Strategy, having its birth in 2001. The CQU Noosa Hub concept was devised by a team of senior Education Queensland principals and teachers, realizing that building current and future teacher capability is central to any transition to a QSE2010 teaching/ learning culture. Further, given a population of 250,000 on the Sunshine Coast, the development team realized that a teacher education facility on the Sunshine Coast was warranted. Sunshine Coast University was approached with respect to the idea of establishing a teacher education facility on the Sunshine Coast, but they declined the proposition, citing as a reason, that their strategic plan did not factor teacher education. Griffith University and Central Queensland University were then contacted. CQU was the only tertiary provider to express interest. It is from this expression of interest that CQU Noosa came into being with Central Queensland University. 3
The CQU Noosa establishment team (all education Queensland employees) played a key role in the development of the Bachelor of Learning Management program (and the associated Master of Learning Management program) which is delivered, through what is now known in the education literature as, The Noosa Model of Teacher Education (see research data and articles that follow). CQU Noosa co-exists within the Cooroora Secondary College, as this environment is optimal to the BLM program concept, creating synergies and efficiencies for the goals and objectives of all partners, but importantly the development of viable and capable futures orientated teachers: the QSE2010 objective. In more recent times CQU Noosa Hub has extended its partnership to include Sunshine Coast University, where jointly, CQU and SCU deliver an undergraduate nurse education program for the Sunshine Coast region. Current CQU Noosa Profile 22 permanent / part-time/ seconded lecturers (All EQ employees) make up the academic staff of CQU Noosa Hub. Main teaching facility (Hub) co-exists in Coorora Secondary College through service agreement. CSC has installed a purpose built student centre for the use of university students (Circa $400,000). CQU has financial obligations to them until 2010. 53 Education Queensland Schools that act as Teaching Schools for the BLM program (based on the medical training model where partner schools are accredited/ trained to work in the BLM program. All teaching schools are exclusively Education Queensland schools). 53 Education Queensland teachers are employed by CQU to act as teaching Schoolbased Learning Managers. This is an innovation unique to the BLM in that the program seeks to create a theory / practice synergy and an arena through which BLM students demonstrate capabilities, as opposed to illuminating through essay format what they might do. The BLM is about guaranteeing that its graduates can achieve learning outcomes for all learners. 345 Education Queensland teachers who act as in-school mentors as part of the BLM program. All mentors receive induction into the BLM program and importantly the key elements of Learning Management. 4
Program Offerings and Current Enrolments Bachelor of Learning Management (early childhood, primary, secondary) First Year Cohort 196 Secondary Year Cohort 68 Third /Final Year Cohort 41 * Master of Learning Management Full fee paying students 42 *Doctor of Education Fully funded programs 5 All Education Queensland employees 5
Research and Consultancy Projects Time Frame EQ / CQU Projects Details Value/ Funding Source Funding Breakdown 2003-2005 Professional Learning Project (Dimensions of Learning) Three year professional learning project designed to enhance the capabilities of teachers in the Mooloolabah, Nambour and Wide Bay Districts of Education Queensland. State Schools involved $163,000 (est) Education Queensland $80,750 (est) 2003 EQ Grant $70,000 2004 0.5 EQ Seconded teacher $33,000 As required staff / facilities contribution (Nominal) $60,000 Staff and resources specific to project CQU 2004-2005 Comparative study into BLM and BEd programs in Queensland Joint ACER/ CQU research project, commissioned by DEST under a special research grant from Hon. Dr. Brendan Nelson to investigate capabilities of BLM graduates compared to those of BEd programs in Qld. $350,000 (est) DEST 2004 Dimensions of Learning Pilot Project Consultancy to provide professional development to teachers at Kenilworth State Community College $16,000 Kenilworth State Community College Kenilworth State School (nominal) 2001-2004 Development of the Master of Learning Management Program Joint project to design, deliver and monitor a post-graduate program (masters level) to enhance the capabilities of existing Education Queensland Teachers QSE 2010 strategy $180,000 Education Queensland 2001, 0.5 (Ken Sell) A07 Officer $ 40,000 2002, 0.5 (Ken Sell) Seconded Teacher $75,000 2001-2003, As required staff / facilities contribution (Nominal) $60,000 CQU $235,000 Staff and resources specific to project 6
CQU Noosa Outcomes to Date First re-design of teacher education in 25 years Showcasing Excellence Award 2002 All BLM graduates in employment 2004 87% of BLM graduates in employment 2005 36 Education Queensland teachers having completed Master of Learning Management program Maximization of community facilities to create economic efficiencies and new income streams for parties concerned (joint facility use) Special research grant (ACER) to examine the Noosa Model/ BLM program Findings: graduates from the BLM were consistently rated more highly by the observers on each of the eight (EQ teaching standards) performance standards. For several of the standards these differences were statistically significant. These differences applied to both the literacy session and the numeracy session. Projected BLM Enrolments (based on 200 EFTSL per year increase to 2007) 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 2005 2006 2007 2008 EFTSL Minimal Enrolment Impact on Sunshine Coast University by CQU Noosa Sunshine Coast University has recently advised that they are approximately 50 EFTSL short of their allocated target. Central Queensland University by comparison is (preliminary estimate based on first term enrolments only) in the order of 150-200 EFTSL short. Sunshine Coast University has also advised local schools that it has no plans to offer early childhood and primary teacher education in the near future. It is the considered opinion of the CQU Noosa 7
Steering Committee that, given the population growth on the Sunshine Coast, the fact that SCU has essentially met its EFTSL quota, that SCU is not wanting to offer Primary and Early Childhood teacher education (areas serviced predominately by CQU Noosa), that it is viable for both institutions to operate, without undue duplication, on the Sunshine Coast. This profile leads the CQU Noosa Steering Committee to argue for a modest growth (200 EFTSL per year to 2007 as planned by CQU) to meet market capacity as well as scope for CQU to meet its EFTSL obligations. Recommendations In light of the points made in this document, The Steering Committee of Central Queensland University Noosa recommends that: 1. Central Queensland University Noosa be recognized as a viable teacher education facility: specifically an example of a QSE2010 and the Queensland Smart State Strategy. 2. CQU Noosa be permitted to grow to a preliminary figure of 700 EFTSL by 2007. 3. CQU Noosa s growth beyond 700 EFTSL be reviewed during 2007 for future growth targets in line with population growth and potential market streams/ opportunities 8
Tewantin State School Werin Street Tewantin Qld 4565 PO Box 134 Tewantin Qld 4565 Phone: 07 5447 1844 Fax: 07 5449 0693 We write to you regarding our great satisfaction with the Bachelor of Learning Management course currently being delivered by the Central Queensland University via the Noosa Hub. We have been involved with this program, as a Teaching School, for three years and have had the positive experience of growing with the course, hosting students from each of the 1 st, 2 nd and 3 rd year levels. As you are aware, our involvement with the third year students in 2003 necessitated us providing an internship during term 3. This was to prove invaluable for our whole staff, not just the students and their direct supervising teachers. The time made available through the allocation of the student learning managers to classes enabled each of forty-two teachers to complete a Teaching of Reading inservice program during school time. Interestingly we calculated that the cost of supplying TRS for this course would have been around $37,000.00 had we have not had the students in our school. 2004 saw the appointment of four BLM graduates to our school. Justifiably we say without reservation that the quality of these graduates is truly outstanding. The Learning Management framework, which underpins the BLM degree, is certainly evident in the daily actions of these professionals. Their ability to reflect upon their own, and their students achievements, and plan accordingly is an obviously strength. We are aware that a principal outcome of this degree is produce graduates who are workplace ready. Indeed this is happening. The combination of: 1. the time the students spend in schools (around 90 days in third year) and 2. the use of practicing teachers as sessional lecturers to deliver coursework is obviously making a major contribution to this successful formula. We, like many other schools, admit that we were dissillusioned with the courses of teacher preparation as recently as four years ago. Our issues centred around: 1. the need for students to have more in-school experience, and 2. the need for university courses to be more aligned to our schools. The BLM has addressed these issues well. We thank you for your support in developing the partnership between Education Queensland and Central Queensland University as this has allowed us to develop an active role in the professional development of the new generation teacher. Yours sincerely, Bob Grover PRINCIPAL Trish Gray HEAD OF CURRICULUM 9
Kenilworth State Community College 24-26 Maleny Road KENILWORTH 4574 Telephone (07) 5446 0285 Fax (07) 5446 0311 25 May 2005 Kenilworth State Community College has benefited significantly from the partnership with CQU Noosa and the delivery of the Bachelor ff Learning Management. This school has been a BLM Teaching School since 2002 and the relationship with CQU Noosa has greatly enhanced the professional learning community through experienced teachers and BLM student engaging in meaningful conversations about learning and teaching. The 2004 pilot program for implementing Dimensions of Learning as the college s teaching framework is also a significant piece of work that as transformed pedagogical practice in this school. The research base for professional practice has laid foundations for outcomes outlined in QSE2010 and well beyond. In addition two students have completed a Master of Learning Management program through areas of study that have directly impacted on the curriculum and pedagogy at the school. The college s improved student outcomes, the basis for a successful Showcasing Excellence in Education Area award this year for middle phase reform, can be directly linked to the partnership. This work is also the basis for a Doctoral thesis in school reform being conducted by a staff member at this school. The investment of resources, including intellectual, by Education Queensland schools into this partnership is key to its success. It is the most innovative outcomes driven project I have been involved in over twenty years of working in education. David Turner Principal Kenilworth State Community College 10
A Comparative Study into the BLM and BEd Program in the Context of a Knowledge Economy David Lynch 2004 Background to the Study In 2000, Central Queensland University developed a new teacher education program intended to reflect the needs of an emerging Knowledge Economy: The Bachelor of Learning Management (BLM). The BLM is based on a set of propositions about society and teacher education and fit an analysis of societal change from Industrial Society to a Knowledge Society. It is constructed around knowledge base aimed at preparing graduates who are workplace ready and futures orientated. Further, the BLM attempts to accomplish these capabilities in an organization and management partnership model with major employers. These deliberately structured elements of the BLM are different to those of the conventional Central Queensland University, Bachelor of Education (BEd) model of teacher education. This study tests the proposition that the BLM will have different outcomes and that graduates will exhibit different qualities when compared to the BEd program. The study focuses specifically to the Noosa Mode of the BLM. Therefore, in this study, these two teacher education models (ie: BLM and BEd), which are both offered at the same University, are compared. More specifically, the proposition tested is that a change in rationale, content and delivery of a pre-service teacher education model results in different knowledge, behavioural and attitudinal outcomes in graduates. The proposition was tested using a total sample of 221 graduates and 238 mentors form the BLM and BEd programs. The Methodology A mixed methods approach was undertaken to investigate the research problem. A closed questionnaire with Likert scales was administered to 221 graduate students and 153 in-school practicum mentors. Likert scale responses were analyzed using factor and path analysis techniques. A further 85 mentors participated in a series of semi-structured interviews. These research techniques enabled the workplace ready and futures-orientated capabilities to be authenticated by graduate students and school-based mentors. The Findings The study revealed three major findings. First, graduate student capabilities are enhanced when the intervening variables of workplace readiness, futures orientation and partnership operate in a teacher preparation program. Second, the BLM program contributed more to the capabilities of BLM graduates when compared to those of the BEd program, in the same university. Third, inschool practicum mentors of pre-service education students tend to favour teacher-centred activities that are embedded in the here and now. This predilection restricts the scope graduate students have to experience and explore futures orientation capabilities while in schools. In summary the study revealed that an emphasis on workplace readiness and futures orientation in a teacher education program, when organized as a partnership with the teaching industry (BLM), has the potential to generate new capabilities in graduate teachers compared to those of the previous teacher education program (BEd). 11
Evaluation of Central Queensland University s Bachelor of Learning Management Progress Report NOT FOR CITATION March 31 2005 Lawrence Ingvarson ACER There were two main components to the evaluation: 1. An observational study: This study involved 32 primary teachers who graduated in 2003 and taught in Queensland in 2004. Sixteen of these primary teachers had a BLM from the Rockhampton or Noosa campuses of CQU and the remaining 16 teachers had qualifications from other Queensland teacher education programs. 2. A survey study: This included a survey of all teachers who graduated from Queensland teacher education programmes in 2003 and taught in Queensland in 2004 and a survey of all school principals in Queensland about their perceptions of the preparedness of graduates from teacher education programs The Observational Study The observational study has now been completed and the results analysed. Nine highly regarded and experienced teachers were trained over four days in late October 2004. The Executive Directors and Staff from the Nambour and Rockhampton District Offices selected these teachers and provided valuable support throughout the project. A copy of the training program that was developed specially for this study can be found in Appendix 1. Charlotte Danielson from the US made a major contribution to the preparation and the conduct of the training program. Extensive use was made in the training of four specially prepared videotapes containing lessons and interviews with beginning teachers before and after the lesson, as well as interviews with their principals. Valuable support to the training program was provided by David Lynch and Denise Beckinsale at the CQU Noosa Hub. Observers were trained to use a customised rubric based on the Teaching Standards developed by the Queensland Education Department. A copy of this rubric is attached in Appendix 2. There are eight components in the rubric. Each component is broken down into several sub-elements. The rubric contains four main levels of performance for each element (unsatisfactory poorly prepared on this element), basic adequately prepared), proficient well prepared, and distinguished very well prepared) and descriptors for each level. Observers were trained to follow strict protocols in conducting interviews and classroom observations. By the end of the training, tests showed that the observers had reached a high level of reliability. Appendix 3 contains the guidelines that observers used in taking classroom notes and the schedules to follow for interviews with teachers and principals. Owing to a delay in gaining final approval for the study, the time available to conduct the observational study was reduced from three months as planned to just over one month, toward the end of the school year. This posed a considerable challenge to CQU staff responsible for meeting 12
the target of locating 40 first year teachers who were willing to be observed over two lessons and the plan of using schools that had both a BLM graduate and a non-blm graduate. In the end, 32 teachers agreed to participate, but it was necessary to move outside the Rockhampton and Nambour regions to find non-blm graduates. In the circumstances, this represented a very good outcome. All procedures for contacting schools and beginning teachers were set down carefully and approved by the Queensland Education Department. Appendix 4 contains material sent to schools and participating teacher including a summary of the CQU BLM evaluation, letters and consent forms. Observers had a one month period (November) during which to contact schools and make arrangements for visits at times suitable to the beginning teachers. Each observer visited about seven teachers on average. Two trained observers both observed two teaching sessions for each graduate, one focused on literacy and one focused on numeracy. Each session lasted for one to one and a half hours. Observers were asked to confer and share notes after completing their observations and interviews, but each was asked to make their assessments and record their scores separately. This meant that four independent ratings or scores were obtained for each graduate teacher, a procedure that ensured a high level of reliability in the assessment. Observers As assessors completed their assessments, they used an electronic version of the rubric (Appendix 1). This was submitted electronic to ACER and the results entered into data files for analysis. Assessors also returned detailed hand written notes for each classroom observation to ACER. A straightforward analysis of variance was conducted on the data. The result of that analysis is summarised in the table that follows. These tables show that the sixteen graduates from the BLM were consistently rated more highly by the observers on each of the eight performance standards. For several of the standards these differences were statistically significant. These differences applied to both the literacy session and the numeracy session. For example, for the first Component of the standards in Table 1, Collecting and analysing information about students for the design of learning experiences, the mean score on a 12 point scale for the A group of observers was 7.9 for BLM graduates and 5.4 for BEd graduates. The last column indicates this difference is statistically significant (in bold). For literacy, BLM graduates also performed significantly better than the graduates from B.Ed. courses on: Providing intellectually challenging learning experiences Assessing & reporting on student learning Making a contribution to professional teams Making a contribution to professional teams The Survey Study Survey instruments went out in March to all 2003 graduates and all school principals. So far we have about 500 returns from teachers, about 500 from principals in state schools, 110 from Catholic schools and 20 from Independent schools. 13
We have arranged to send out follow-up questionnaires to teachers who have no responded with the next two weeks. No follow up will be conducted with the principals. Special steps will be taken to ensure the return rate from BLM graduates is as high as possible. 14
Numeracy: BLM (red) versus BEd (blue)teachers on eight competencies (shaded area = basic competency levels) 9 8 7 6 5 4 B Ed BLM 3 2 1 0 Collecting & analysing information about students Planning learning roles and experiences Providing intellectually challenging learning experiences Assessing & reporting on student learning Creating a safe and supportive learning environment Maintaining relationships with the wider community Making a contribution to professional teams Commitment to professional practice 15
Literacy: BLM versus BEd teachers on eight competencies (shaded area = basic competency levels) 9 8 7 6 5 4 B Ed BLM 3 2 1 0 Collecting & analysing information about students Planning learning roles and experiences Providing intellectually challenging learning experiences Assessing & reporting on student learning Creating a safe and supportive learning environment Maintaining relationships with the wider community Making a contribution to professional teams Commitment to professional practice 16
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A New Approach to Teacher Education, in the Context of a Knowledge-based Economy David Lynch Richard Smith 2004 This paper is about the Bachelor of Learning Management logic and its realisation at the Noosa campus of CQU. The fundamental proposition underlying this paper is that rapid and irreversible social changes that affect student behaviours, work place conditions and the knowledge and skill base require a reassessment of teaching and ultimately, the ways schooling itself operates. It follows that preparing teachers for these conditions, that are already upon school systems, entails a different kind of curriculum and a decidedly different work-place in which prospective teachers ( learning managers ) can develop a futures capability. To develop these ideas, the paper explores how such presuppositions are played out in the Bachelor of Learning Management (BLM) program at Noosa, when the design process is part of a collaborative project with teachers, students teachers and school authorities. The paper begins with a discussion of the emerging Knowledge Economy. This analysis identifies the impact of rapid and deep social change on teaching, schooling and by association, teacher education. Teaching practices as they appear in today s schools are discussed next and it is argued that the professional practice of teaching has not kept pace with historical change. This is followed by a brief discussion of the Learning Management concept. Finally, these discussions are brought to bear on the BLM at Noosa as an exemplar of a response to these conditions. The Emergence of A Knowledge Economy The term Knowledge Economy was coined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in their report The Knowledge-based Economy (OECD, 1996). The term describes the emergence of economies based on the production, distribution and use of knowledge and information. By comparison, the economy of the twentieth century relied predominantly on the sale of raw resources, commodities and primary processing to generate income and wealth. The key commodity in the Knowledge Economy, by contrast, is knowledge and its use to create new products and services (Donkin, 1998; Gibbons, Limoges, Notwotny, Schwartzman, Scott and Trow, 1994). Characteristic of the Knowledge Economy are man-made brain power industries where there is rapid development, and the subsequent merging of new information and communication technologies, creating a global inter-connected economy (Thurow, 2000,p: 1). In this global economy, time and distance are compressed through advances in information communication technologies and travel, leading to the intertwining of the world s economic and cultural systems, in a process known as Globalisation (Nowotny, Scott and Gibbons, 2001). Globalisation is defined as a set of economic, social, technological, political as well as cultural structures and processes arising from the changing character of the production, consumption and trade of goods and assets that comprise the base of the international political economy (Milani and Dehalvi, 1996, p:3). Globalisation is one of many phenomena within the Knowledge Economy, and is the result of a larger building process of a world markets that started when mankind first began exploring the world by land and sea expeditions (Thurow,2000; Milani and Dehalvi,1996). An effect of globalisation is an increasing structural differentiation of such goods and assets, having spread across traditional political borders and economic sectors, resulting in a greater influence of political and economic changes. Consequently governments of today are dispensing with their regulator role or the function of controlling their national economies to become platform builders that invest in infrastructure, education and research and development, so as to allow their citizens to have the opportunity to earn world class standards of living (Thurow, 2000, p:1). The Smart State strategy in Queensland is one such example of governments coming to terms with the Knowledge Economy and the resultant effects of globalisation (Beattie,1999). The characteristics of the average worker in western economies, for example, and the nature of work itself have changed enormously over the past few decades. Part-time, temporary and casual work, coupled with an upward trend in unemployment and the widening earning dispersion has become the norm in the job market, while privatisation, deregulation and downsizing of public services, and more and more pressure on business to increase productivity has been characteristic of the workplace (Doyle, Kurth and Kerr, 2000, pp1-2). Commentators such as Ilon (2000), Thurow (2000), Starr (2001) argue that advances in various technologies have, had and will continue to have, an impact on the labour market. 18
Thus, technological advancement will certainly destroy many jobs, however at the same time it will create many new and as yet unknown employment opportunities, changing dramatically the balance of skill requirements (OECD, 1996, p. 14). The skill elements referred to are ones that place great importance on the diffusion and use of information and knowledge as well as its creation. This skill-base, it is argued, will allow incumbents to gather and utilise knowledge, where strategic know-how and competence are developed interactively and shared within sub-groups and networks. Continual innovation and learning will be driven by a hierarchy of networks. (OECD, 1996). In a Knowledge Economy there are two dominant views of education and the role it should play. One set of literature contends that a Knowledge Economy driven by technology has the potential to reverse trends in differential access to educational resources and confers on students an increased set of skills and opportunities. In this view, education is a driver and the recipient of the knowledge economy and the opportunities this position bestows respectively (Binge, 1998; Groennings, 1997). The second view is that an increased linkage between education and the economy is an element of global capitalist hegemony that weakens non-market values of humanitarianism, equity and ecology. In this view, education ought to generate resistance to marketisation (De Vaney, 1998; Chafy, 1997; Moran & Selfe, 1999). Nevertheless, both views assume that the most important role for educators to play is to respond to a Knowledge Economy (Ilon, 2000,p:1). The characteristics of current teaching practices Having made these introductory points about social change, it is appropriate to relate them to present teaching practices. According to commentators, such as Lynch and Smith (2002) and Ryan (1998), current teaching practice is characteristically teacher centred activity where content is transmitted to students in a passive learning process known universally around the world as schooling. Schooling exists throughout the world as compulsory formal education, centred within an institution known as a school, where groups of students (cohorts) are made based on age-related grades (Ryan, 1998; Hargreaves, 1998). In the schooling model, students attend a state funded or privately operated school for 180-200 days per year from age of six. They predominantly use pencil and paper as the key learning tool, conduct themselves according to various long established traditions and models of operations drawn from the military such as parades, marching, lining-up, uniforms, and referring to adults by title or formal salutation; and in secondary schools, are tied to prescribed text-books (Ryan, 1998; Logan and Watson, 1992 ). Present schooling practices have their origins in the need to subdue the urban poor and later in research conducted by the industrial era management expert Frederick Winslow Taylor (Hood, 1999). Of fundamental importance, according to Taylor s conception of the industrialised world, a school system based around basic skills, uniformity and conformity were what a mass production industrial society required. Taylor observed in 1900 that "the antithesis of our scheme, is asking the initiative (of the workers)...their workmanship, their best brains and their best work...our scheme does not ask any initiative in a man" (Kanigel, 1997). In a pedagogic sense, Taylor s schooling model is based on teacher centred activity, where systemically developed syllabi and associated curriculum guidelines provide teachers with defined content to be covered during a given school year. The psychology developed in the same era related these concepts to forms of development stages so that curriculum could be linked to a series of age related groupings in the kindergarten, elementary and secondary phases of schooling. In this organisational model based on the metaphor of ladder, students who demonstrate capacity with an ever increasing level of education at each rung continue to further study, while others traditionally drop-out to begin work or are tracked into vocational curriculum streams (Presnsky, 2002; Wise, 2002). Recent advances in learning-based technologies (see for example Roschelle, Pea, Hoadley, Gordin, Means, 2000; OECD, 2002) argue that a one-size-fits-all system fails to accommodate different kinds of aptitudes, interests and experiences in learners. In today s world, many students become bored and disinterested with the lockstep process of schooling, inappropriate subject matter and repetitive pedagogical techniques. Schooling practices endeavour to compensate for the loss of intrinsic interest in the work itself. "Most of the time, what keeps students going in school is not intrinsic motivation - motivation derived from the process of learning itself - but extrinsic motivation - motivation that comes from the real or perceived consequences associated with success or failure...over the course of their educational careers, students are increasingly exposed to extrinsic rewards for schoolwork" (Steinberg, 1997). 19
There is then prima facie evidence at least that schooling as it is conventionally arranged is fast becoming historically outmoded and, as a corollary, that the present teacher workforce and its administrative support lack the intellectual capital to re-engineer education systems for a Knowledge Economy and beyond (Lynch and Smith 2002; Ramsey, 2000; Education Queensland, 2000; Smith, 2000; Gardner, 1999; Foley, 1998 Abbot and Ryan 1998; Hargreaves, 1997), Our argument then is that teaching itself needs to be redesigned to fit the characteristics of a Knowledge Economy and its transition into the following era. Learning Management as Teaching and Learning Concept for the Future The term Learning management of course has little to do with management as it is used in managerial or control or even bureaucratic contexts. Instead, it is a design-based construct aimed at identifying the repertoire of knowledge and skills necessary for achieving learning outcomes in students. The learning management concept drives every element of the new Bachelor of Learning Management (BLM) program, making it distinctive. Thus, the major BLM claim for prominence in teacher education is its emphasis on pedagogical strategies rather than curriculum development. The aspiration is to graduate students who understand and can implement the design of pedagogical strategies motivated by a commitment to change the present practices of schools. Now, this stipulative definition of learning management raises an important scholarly issue. It is frequently argued that the learning management concept is a managerial or technocratic approach to teaching and indeed education. In addition, critics see it as enforcing a lock-step approach to teaching when in reality teaching is a multifaceted, complex, complicated, unfathomable, diverse activity that brooks no quick fixes. To counter this criticism it is necessary to remind readers that the learning management concept was derived from architectural design (an artful arrangement of resources for definite ends) and from the ideas of wrighting and wroughting (Bruce Archer cited in Fletcher, 2000, p. 413). The two terms were once associated with reading, writing and arithmetic and are best rendered as design with intent. The business management literature does not incorporate these concepts and was never an input into the idea of learning management. Learning management has more affinities in the mind of its developer with the connotations of managing illness in medical discourse than with business managerialism. In short, learning management refers to a learning manager s capacity to design pedagogic strategies that ensure learning outcomes in students or other kinds of clients. Moreover, if pilots and medical professionals for example require specific expertise to do the tasks they undertake in order to be acknowledged as experts in flying an aircraft and undertaking medical practice respectively, then experts in achieving learning outcomes need comparable expert knowledge and skills. Teachers tend to be bricoleurs who creatively make up their day-to-day work in ways analogous to poets rather than professionals whose work is codified by a common language and a body of essential professional knowledge. Yet, in a learning society (Lundvall and Borras, 1999), while the capacity to learn is a requisite generic skill for knowledge workers in knowledge industries and the fact of continuous education (P-85) is acknowledged, preparation for the school teaching profession and later professional development continues to be based on the subjective judgements of individuals so that there are potentially as many pedagogies as there are teachers. Learning management seeks to narrow the scope and range of this variation in the interests of more expert learning manager workforce. The Bachelor of Learning Management (BLM) Program Accordingly, the BLM is a four year pre-service professional learning degree that can be completed in three years, anchored in concepts drawn from the New Economy and its successors and educational writing, namely Futures; Networks and Partnerships; Pedagogy; and Essential Professional Knowledge (Hargreaves, 2003; Marzano, Gaddy, Dean, 2000; Topper, 2000; Darling-Hammond, 2000; & Wehmeyer, Palmer, Agran, Mithaug, & Martin, 2000; Reigeluth, 1999; Grossman, 1990; 2001; Shulman, 1986). Course titles signal the purposes of the degree and include Learning Management, Futures, Networks and Partnerships, e-learning Manager, Entrepreneurial Professional, Essential Professional Knowledge (the core is Dimensions of Learning 1 ) and Portal Task, amongst others. There are over 1000 students enrolled in the degree at sites in Mackay, Rockhampton, Emerald, Gladstone, Bundaberg and Noosa. The first BLM graduates entered the workforce in 2003, following a compulsory internship. The program logic depends entirely on collaboration between professional partners with different but equal expertise, what we call a business-to-business ( B-2-B ) model. The agreed goal is to graduate industryready learning managers (teachers) who have a futures-disposition and a demonstrated capability to 1 See McREL at http://www.mcrel.com/ 20
achieve learning outcomes in students and who are equipped to play a leadership role in taking the education sector 5-10 years into the future. The collaborative model is a fundamental issue. Apart from the warm professional feelings invoked by terms such as partnership between teacher educators and school folk (the cucumber sandwiches and tea syndrome), the futures-orientation and disposition that the BLM seeks to produce in its graduates, is also aimed at increasing the capability of the education system to deliver the goals set out in policies such as Education Queensland s QSE 2010 and ETRF and the Catholic Education Commission s policy documents. A major requirement of the partnership arrangement then is not only collaboration and joint decision-making, but a commitment to the vision and outcomes of the BLM on the part of lecturers, teachers, casual lecturing staff, schools and systems. What used to be called fieldwork supervision in CQU s previous BEd program is undertaken by schoolbased learning managers who are bound to complete an induction program about learning management and the rationale of the BLM before taking up the mentoring and expert role. In keeping with the B-2-B model, the induction sessions are organised and presented by collaborative teams drawn from the different interests in the BLM. There are on-going trials in which the BLM teaching is tendered to schools and school clusters, in order to make better use of the expertise in schools and to leverage the significant amount of supervision funds paid to individual teachers by the university on a yearly basis. Each BLM student has an assigned in-school Learning Manager who provides a range of services to students while in schools, such as; just-in-time learning to contextualize and strengthen on-campus work, as well as individualised attention through coaching and mentoring. The Learning Manager is assisted by a team of classroom practitioners who act as in-class supervisors for specific skill development. There is a major difficulty with this model and indeed with all teacher education (nursing, social work etc) models that rely on fieldwork inputs provided by people who are not themselves part of the on-campus coterie of staff. That is, teacher education resists the mere imitation of what schools and teachers do, yet, like art, it depends on the world it mocks for its performances, resources and its performance sites. The BLM then aims to be a driving force for educational and social change, and therefore must be transgressive in principle. The B-2-B relationship is premised on both the importance of real-life practice and performance for neophyte learning managers, but the program seeks to affect conceptions of teacher education generally, social trends in education and training and the individual performances of teachers in schools and their organizations and of course BLM students. In short, there must be a process, sui generis, to reach preferred states such as the future, expressed as a new way of aligning curriculum, pedagogy and assessment in schools as an effect of teacher/learning manager practices in a partnership context. The payoff for BLM partners (including the university), is that the mechanism for change is tied to the respective workforces that must transform practices in ways that conventional teacher education supervision simply did not require. The BLM is about learning management ; learning management has a technical meaning and a strategic intent; and it follows that staff teaching the program and the professional experience sites must also be undertaking the BLM rather than their personal predilections. To reiterate, partnership in this model is not a vague pleasant feeling but an operational necessity if the model is to be successful. A Case Study: Central Queensland University Noosa The Noosa teacher education campus at Pomona 2, provides an exemplar of the arrangements described here. First, the BLM program is offered in an Education Queensland school (Cooroora Secondary College), where the university and Education Queensland have a formal understanding about shared costs and facilities. The partnership is based on shared business understandings and a set of expectations about what the program will provide in both pre-service and later professional learning. Local Education Queensland schools, principals and district office personnel are part of all planning teams and policy development processes. The Noosa Council and state and federal politicians are part of the collaborative model. Second, based on these formal arrangements, the conventional university lecture/ workshop regime comprises facilitated colloquiums, virtual conferences, on-line learning segments, e-resources banks, and various multi-media presentations that can be accessed by students real-time on-campus, at home or 2 2 The Noosa Campus is collocated in a state high school and through a Memorandum of Understanding between Education Queensland and CQU significant resources are provided to support the delivery of the BLM program there. 21
wherever computer access is available, mimicking the profile of the Knowledge Economy. The conceptual underpinnings delivered by university and school-based staff who see themselves as managers of BLM student learning, recognising and modelling the paradigm that underlies the philosophy of learning management. Third, BLM students are appointed to an accredited teaching school, a parallel to the teaching hospital used by medical schools, from week 1 of their BLM program. In these sites, students complete a series of embedded learning tasks known as Portal Tasks and associated just-in-time learning sessions. This appointment embeds the student in the work of a learning manager where performance, in terms of achieving learning outcomes, is the focus. Fourth, a pedagogic framework, known as the 8 Learning Management Questions, scaffolds student learning 3. These questions provide a design sequence that compels the student and mentor teachers ( learning managers ) to focus on learning outcomes for their allocated class and then establishing a pedagogical framework through which to do it. In recent months, the 8 Learning Management Questions have been themselves underpinned with the Dimensions of Learning framework to provide expert, researchbased pedagogical principles. BLM graduates will have a systematic pedagogical framework and a common language about curriculum, pedagogy and assessment to implement their teacher preparation philosophies. Fifth, the eight Learning Management Questions and the five Dimensions of Learning are grouped into three strategies. Students are oriented to their learners in a process broadly referred to as profiling. In addition, close attention is paid to the means for designing learning experiences. Student develop a Learning Journey or Unit of Work, using the answers to the questions and drawing on the DOL framework to understand and deal with the context. Questions 7 and 8 in the question list deal with the demonstration of student learning and taken as a whole, the eight questions and their DOL correlates become the student learning manager s plan of action indicating how a teaching and learning cycle is conceived, planned, implemented and evaluated. The partnership with schools ensures that learning managers and supervisors in schools are fully appraised of what students plan as the planning happens so that there is mutual input and support for the plan of action. This is an important element of the BLM Noosa exemplar. The capacity to design pedagogic strategies that achieve learning outcomes in students or other clients is the primary aim. While BEd on-campus work has traditionally articulated many theories and strategies that are associated with effective pedagogy, each has rested on the assumption that such coursework is automatically translated by student teachers into actionable sequences during fieldwork (Korthagen, 2001; Smith, 2000; Tom, 1997). Furthermore, it is also premised on the notion that teachers will support the many theories and strategies that are taught on campus. These assumptions are clearly false in far too many cases and the Noosa model consciously attempts to short-circuit the grounds for such misinterpretations. To these ends, we are especially vigilant about student learning managers overly relying on their own experiences at school to fill in the gaps rather than having a learning management agenda to follow (Korthagen, 2001; Smith, 2000; Tom, 1997). In practice, the school-based (teacher) learning managers have a particular mission to fulfil, namely the inculcation of pedagogic scaffolds, such as the 8LMQs, that bridges the theory- practice divide and that articulates remarkable pedagogic activity for the learning manager novice. Seventh, the Portal Tasks that are embedded in each year level are at the heart of the BLM. Portal Tasks are the conceptual and practical mechanism through which theory is connected to practice, and content to demonstrable student outcomes, by means of creative tasks and assessment. Portal Tasks require and encourage collaborative networks between university staff, school-based administrative staff and classroom teachers. This imperative means that the former distant relationship of the university towards prac schools cannot be sustained. New, equally responsible arrangements have been hammered out in the Noosa model to implement the BLM and to sustain it across different employers and levels of schooling. For most BLM students, portal tasks are undertaken in schools or training institutions but could include other sites as well. A Portal Task is defined for student teachers as a problem-based learn-by-doing task and its composition is the product of a university and school collaboration. It is not difficult to see why collaboration is required and that partnership is indeed the sine qua non of the portal task and the BLM. First, staff and student have to agree on the outcomes that produce pedagogical strategies and the task descriptors that define the scope and sequence of the Portal Task. Similarly, there must be collaboration on the performance criteria that integrate the courses held in that term which is used to assess the student learning manager and there has to be agreement about the times for staging the Portal Task. All of this is distant 3 This is the scheme developed by David Lynch at the Noosa Campus. 22
from the model whereby students are allocated to teachers and classrooms by a campus-based person and the student teacher is expected to produce whatever is in the practice teaching booklet, regardless of what the teacher might have planned. In summary then, the Portal Tasks are discussed and planned in advance by Education faculty and the student s in-school Learning Manager. The Portal Tasks are articulated with the in-school learning manager s daily teaching program and ensures that class time is not lost through misaligned university requirements and importantly that the host class benefits from the experience. In preparing the task though, the student learning manager is to plan so that the task fulfils the BLM paradigm, a means for new insight and skilling commensurate with the learning management pedagogic practices the BLM espouses. Undertaking such tasks in real-life settings according to a a Learning Management Plan based on the 8 LMQs and DOL. provides student learning managers with a means to bridge the immanent theory / practice divide. Conclusion To paraphrase Stephenson (2000: 10), the BLM processes are aimed at the autonomous development of the neophyte learning manager, with the university supporting the student s development in the context of the employer s business, whether it is the government, catholic, independent or VET sectors and irrespective of the P-85 location. The employers benefits are both immediate through the availability of another set of hands and a transgressive outlook and long-term through the creation of a collective capacity to manage change within a shifting environment. The respective interests of the three parties in this partnership is protected by the student learner s commitment to the purposes, directions and content of the learning; by the university s specialist facilities and access to accreditation; and by the employer providing opportunities to learn through work with access to resources and help. Indeed, at all of the 5 BLM sites, the major employers provide significant resources as part of the BLM partnership. This is not teacher education as much as an intervention in the present and future capability of the education and training workforce. Once that conclusion is reached, the vision and the imagining of what is possible changes to meet a different set of objectives. This is where the BLM is headed, at least in our imaginations. 23