The MindLab Session 6 - Connected Learning and Leadership Theories

This week session is based around connected learning and leadership theories - these are the core of our next assessment.

Leadership What makes a good leader? A collaborative list: 

Trustworthy - confidential 

Loyal to the team 

Relational 

Vision - able to role model

Collaborative

Empathy with / for others 

Beside you in the journey 

Open and transparent

Up to date and knowledgeable 

Communicator 

The critical part is that the leader needs to take the people along! 

Leadership challenge activity 

Choose a challenge - 

B - You have just started to provide online learning resources to your students. However the use of these is still limited.

How do you increase the engagement with the digital resources when the students are outside the classroom?

Google Classroom - introduced this year to our school - mixed take up

With my Yr13 class I have tried to incorporate extra readings in order to extend and support the texts we have been studying in class - 

- readings

- short videos

- questions

On reflection in  order to improve uptake I could do the following - 

- Model - use class time to reflect and respond

- Share student ideas in class

- Talk up the activity! Enthusiasm for the tasks and activities

- Start each lesson with a review of last 'post' 

Leadership Theories and Styles  - How do we differentiate the two?

L - theories - a theory says here is 'a thing' - a theory tries to understand that 'thing'  we can analyse invade its characteristics, and we can use this to explain what leadership is and that it can be predicted 

- describe, analyse, identify key principles, and predict 

L- Style - your personal approach to leadership - how you choose  to lead - as we have to function in the real world, we have to decide which one we are  going to follow OR there are many elements from many theories and I am going to meld the theories into my style

Many leaders styles are a conglomerate of many theories - many leaders may have had no exposure to theory - but have made assumptions! 

The context will impact on the leadership style that is chosen. These may vary! 

Assessment - look at the theory, analyse the theory and EVALUATE the theory. This is the key part.

The development of leadership begins from the 'great man' theory where leaders are born. If characteristics of leaders are innate but can be identified, surely they can be learned - then does that mean only one person  can lead and do they need all characteristics? But situational and distributed leadership? How can leadership be shared? We assume that the needs of the group are more important than the needs of the individual - servant leadership. Negotiating an agreed outcome - for all the group - leads to transaction ie transactional leadership (both negative and positive outcomes). Transformational leadership is about developing people in such a way that you cooperate and work towards a common goal - an overarching vision! The vision needs to be co-constructed. Shared vision.

Fullan's leadership theory - complexity - networked systems in schools - class, year level, faculty, school etc leaders need to be developed at all levels of the system. Developed for education.

Note: Who are the leading lights in the theory? Or each field. Leading e-learning journals. 

Terry  Henderson 

Australia Journal of Educational Technology

International RROLD

British Journal of Educational Technology

Unfortunately I could not assess my own leadership style on the iPad, will do later - www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/leadership.htm 

Connected Learning (as opposed to modern learning) - 

How are we connected - not just by digital means - Learning takes place outside of formal areas of learning. Learning is ubiquitous. 

Mimi Ito short video - For each learner there is learner there is an optimum curriculum - real works problems, social connectivity, engagement, fluid boundaries between curriculum and spaces, home and school. 

Is there a widening gap between privileged and less privileged - going outside our public infrastructures in order to gain these optimal educational opportunities. 

Mimi Ito - need to look up the Connected Learning Alliance / Digital media and learning research hub 

http://clalliance.org/  - making learning relevant 

The digital divide exists financially / economically - it's not the technology that improves learning, it's not the redesign of the learning activities. A computer won't change the outcome, but it's the learning design. 

Connectivism - George Siemans 

Networked learning - knowledge exists in the network. Learning is not an individual human function - we only learn in a network. We are talking about distributed knowledge - are the brain and the mind synonymous - far too complex for a Saturday morning!

.

Engagement - what does it look like and what does it mean to you? 

There is a much bigger place for the student to have ownership of their r learning - impact on engagement. Many forms of engagement. Nice quote from  - teach like a pirate ! 

How you connected is your presence as a teacher? What exists in a face to face classroom - such as cognitive presence, emotional presence etc... How do we ensure that we have these in an online  environment. 

What is my personal learning environment? We used a storyboard to share the PLN of a pair share! This is the storyboard I created to show Shona's PLN.