Findings from ICSEI specials

Between the two ICSEI special parallel sessions on Wednesday and Friday during ICSEI 2019, participants were asked to dwell on important questions. The idea was to collect findings during the conferece, but also identify key questions for future research.

Feedback and impulses were collected by LearnLab, and is now summed up in the attached document.

ICSEI Special findings

Key findings

Key findings from the leadership parallel include:

  • The essence of the leadership is to listen, understand and act.
  • Creating a culture of trust  and supporting the risk taker.
  • Developing the principal’s capacity in leading the teachers’ collaborative  learning through collaborative inquiry, lesson study,  learning walks and other collaborative methods that challenges our thinking and practice.

The parallel on teaching and professional learning for the future found that collaboration and listening were the keywords that stood out.

The early childhood education parallel points to the fact that highly trained ECEC teachers will increase quality in early childhood education, which in turn will increase the status  of ECEC.

The ICSEI special parallel on data use parallel sums up their key findings in:

  • Expand the understanding and use of different data, by involving teachers and learners, be aware of the different context and change the practice  based on action learning.
  • We need to avoid that data use leads to a “paperization” of teaching that creates a split world: the “real” world of teaching and meetings in the classrom, vs. the picture of this world in the form of data that are used for accountability etc.

Future research questions

Data use
  1. How is data perceived and used differently across cultures? How can this be leveraged to understand and improve data use?
  2. Further research on teachers’ views: what data is useful to you? ow will you use it to change your practice? What support do you need on your journey?
  3. Why does quantitative data carry so much greater validity than other forms of data?
Leadership
  1. We need more knowledge in the field of managing complexity and uncertainty
  2. How do you practically develop a culture of trust and risk taking? What actions do leaders need to take and which structures do they need to put in place? How do they affect this culture?
  3. What is good leadership in the perspective of the students?