LEADing Lights in Support of Schools Achieving Excellence

02 May LEADing Lights in Support of Schools Achieving Excellence

We are inspired by the 2018 Gonski et al. Through Growth to Achievement released this week! The more we read in the Review, the more evident it became that CEWA’s schools and its system programs have built a foundation for our community to achieve higher levels of excellence.

In this post, we’ll highlight a few ways the LEADing Lights initiative aligns to the Review’s priorities and recommendations. The Review includes specific roles for technology to play in advancing Australian education quality. In addition, thoughtfully chosen and applied technology has the potential to contribute to the majority of the Review’s priorities, recommendations and findings.

LEADing Lights as a CEWA program of work since 2016 has created a foundation for schools to access and use technology in support of system and school strategic goals. The selection of technology in the LEADing Lights platform has been guided by principles that align well to the Review’s central messages. Thus, LEADing Lights can and should be leveraged to accelerate CEWA’s progress on national priorities.

The Review provided three priorities, 23 recommendations, and 17 findings to guide schools in improving education outcomes.

The essence of the Review’s message for schools is

Australian students should receive a world-class school education, tailored to individual learning needs, and relevant to a fast-changing world. They should be challenged and supported to progress and excel in learning in every year of school, appropriate to each student’s starting point and capabilities.

Schooling should enrich students’ lives, leaving them inspired to pursue new ideas and set ambitious goals throughout life. (p.viii)

The Review includes the following three priorities, aligned to the LEADing Lights platform and program.

Priority 1. Deliver at least one year growth in learning to every student every year.

Personalised learning is a pillar of Priority 1.

• Claned learning pathways provide customised learning experiences for individuals and groups of students enhanced by content recommendations
• Office 365 for education includes hundreds of thousands of free education resources aligned to Australian and WA curriculum, including thousands of formative assessments
• Teams and Class Notebooks for classes include multiple channels for individual student feedback and support from teachers and peers
• The Administration of Schools and data platform unify student data and associated data for progress monitoring
• Reference paper LEADing Lights, Learning Management and Digital Learning Environments

Collaborative planning is another pillar of this priority.

• Teams provides an environment for professional learning communities
• Claned is a platform for resource sharing and extending professional learning
• Reference paper Implementing New Technologies to Enhance Professional Learning
• CEWA Teams case study coming in June

Priority 2. Equip every child to be a creative, connected and engaged learner in a rapidly changing world.

• Imagine Academy prepares students with skills for employability
• Virtual school offers a scaffolded independent learning experience using 21^st century communication tools
• Technology Integration Matrix and tools guides teachers in use of technology for meaningful learning, and in developing their skills in a learning community
• Reference, Mobile Learning (Chapter 41), Handbook of Research on K-12 and Blended Learning (Second Edition)

Priority 3. Cultivate an adaptive, innovative and continuously improving education system.

• Digital identity connects all data to the right person
• Portals and Admin of Schools provide students, parents, teachers and school leaders with current access to data and trends for academics and wellbeing
• Data platform and visualisations give all staff a unified view across data sources over time
• LEADing Lights programs and resources
• Research into LEADing Lights initiatives are examples to guide continuous improvement at the program level
• Reference paper, Towards an Adaptive CEWA System
• Reference paper, Motivation to Adopt A Teacher Digital Information System (Abstract)