Showing papers by "Helen Timperley published in 2010"

Multiple ‘black boxes’: inquiry into learning within a professional development project

Abstract: This article develops the analogy of the ‘black box’ in relation to different levels of a professional development project to understand the nature of learning that results in higher student achievement. Principles of formative assessment are used to frame the on-going, evidence-informed inquiry into learning that operated at each level of the system involved: policy, project delivery, including expert facilitators, and school. Data collected throughout the two-year project cycle (of which there were three), included student achievement in reading or writing; student interviews; classroom observations and responses from teachers to scenarios; interviews, and taped examples of facilitator practice. There were considerable effect size gains in student achievement in each of the three, two-year cohorts of schools. To understand these gains the project and its various contexts for learning are examined. Examples of how inquiry into learning at one level impacted on practice at others are discussed.

Organizational learning facilitated by instructional leadership, tight coupling and boundary spanning practices

Abstract: Three organizational learning mediation processes are proposed as mechanisms for organizational change in this article. These include instructional leadership, tight coupling and boundary spanning. Whilst each of these processes has received attention in the research literature, we propose that their power arises from their particular combination rather than the occurrence of each in isolation. We illustrate the ways in which these processes might combine to create an organizational learning environment required for the kind of changes needed to raise student achievement. We do this with reference to a case study of a New Zealand school that dramatically improved the learning outcomes of students in reading. We describe the practices of a new principal, who was relatively inexperienced in school management but experienced in curriculum leadership. The case study illustrates how through her instructional leadership the principal was able to span the boundaries of her organization so that within a relatively short space of time the school became a more tightly coupled system that learnt to improve the learning outcomes of its students.