Week 3: Organisational Learning & Academic Leadership

Organisation learning and academic leadership refers to professional development and on-going learning of an organisation which would necessarily include the sharing of best practices between various institutions at three levels: macro, meso and micro level.

Peter Senge’s (1990) The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation proposes Five Learning Disciplines that organisational leaders could consider:

1. Promote the benefits of personal mastery among stakeholders.

In my organisation at the micro level, we do promote a personal vision and educational philosophy by clarifying what is essential, envisioning the future and asking how things can be done better. The motivation can start from extrinsic motivation (e.g. friendly competition among schools and districts) to intrinsic motivation (e.g. fulfilment and as a service to those who are less fortunate). Lasallian conversations and professional development programmes are offered regularly.

2. Aim for a shared vision among all stakeholders.

In my organisation, the shared vision (to provide education to the young especially the poor) is expressed through and in all its stakeholder-members at the meso and macro level. General Chapter (a macro level month-long conference held once every 7 years in Italy.) mission goals tend to be broad-based or propositional and are up to the local community to elaborate on based on its own context (see Report of the Brother Superior General, 2014).

More information on the nature of a General Chapter explained by Br Robert Schieler, Councillor for RELAN

3. Challenge mental models that limit new learning and promote action.

At a micro level in my organisation, feedback and data are collected through the stakeholders through many forums (students, alumni, staff, administration, board etc). Context-specific action planning is developed by stakeholders with a view to attain the shared vision through a process of dialogue, conversation and consensus.

4. Inculcate community spirit through team learning.

In my organisation, there is a focus more on being rather than doing. By this, I mean that before working on a grand project and the like, first and foremost, one must have a good working relationship with one's partner in the work. That all stakeholders are community minded and have a sense of sharing in the Mission of the macro level is essential. A richness of heritage and sense of belonging to the wider, macro Lasallian family can be an empowering source of encouragement. This was expressed in a revolutionary 2010 document, Circular 461. This emphasised the important richness that lay people of all creeds and cultures can bring to the Lasallian educational establishment in a spirit of sharing and good will. (http://lasallian.info/doc/Circular%20461.pdf):

[image] retrieved from http://www.umael.com/administrator/files/useruploads/20121118221119336_iamlasallianposter.jpg

5. Encourage systems thinking to promote renewal

In my organisation, this is done by having timely reviews of what we do, how we do it and why it is done in a particular way. This is done at all three macro, meso and micro levels (General, Regional and District and Community reviews).

Introductory video clip on the Lasallian East Asia District (meso level)

Michael Fullan’s Leading in a Culture of Change (2001) proposes a framework for leadership that can effect change. He highlights five components for bringing about change:

Moral purpose: “acting with the intention of making a positive difference in the life of employees, customers, and society as a whole” (p.3).

Understanding change: Fullan acknowledges the complexities linked to change but also notes that change “can be understood and perhaps led, but it cannot be controlled” (p.33). He then goes on to provide 6 points to help us understand change. I like It is not enough having the best ideas. This resonates with me as the last thing we would want is a leader who has all the best ideas but is not inspirational. The analogy used by Fullan (2001) is from the corporate world where leaders would sacrifice staff morale for short-term goals.

Relationship building: Identified as an essential in promoting change: “if relationships improve, things get better” (Fullan, 2001, p.5). I like Lewin and Regine (2000): “genuine relationships based on authenticity and care” (p.52). School leaders should give as much time, effort and energy to the people in the organisation as we do to “structures, strategies and statistics” (p.53).

Knowledge creation and sharing: exploring the idea of sharing good practices and insights freely while recognising all the dynamics that are play in this: “establishing knowledge sharing practices is as much a route to creating collaborative cultures as it is a product of the latter” (Fullan, 2001, pp.85-86).

Coherence making: Fullan (2001) proposes that the main bugbear in schools is “not the absence of innovations but the presence of too many disconnected, episodic, piecemeal, superficially adorned projects” (p.109). Put another way, “projectitis is when multiple innovations collide” (Hatch, 2000, pp.1-2).

Reflection

I found these two articles (Fullan and Senge) useful for reflection for those in leadership roles because it can start many conversations based on one’s own context at the macro, meso or micro level.

No organisation is perfect and it would be wise to be wary of any organisation claiming so, be they religious or secular. There are some points above that we are strong in such as a clearly defined Lasallian mission, frequency and efficacy of reviews and Chapters and shared vision(ing). There are still other areas that we need to look into and develop, namely further collaboration and glocalisation between meso and micro level organisations such as  the IALU  (http://www.lasalle-ialu.org/) and UMAEL (http://www.umael.com/) initiatives. In my organisation, creating knowledge sharing and team learning in an atmosphere of respectful freedom without fear or favour needs further work, always.

Map showing International Association of Lasallian Universities or IALU Universities

For further consideration
The General Chapter of 2014 will set broad-based policies which will impact the wider Lasallian world. However, the members of the Chapter are from the meso and micro levels. Therefore, would it be correct to assume that the organisational structure of macro level is being fed by views from the ground? If so, of what value is a sharing of knowledge from capitulants of 80 over countries at this summit? And to what extent will decisions at the macro level impact the workings of the meso and micro levels of an organisation?

References
Brojas. (2011, May 19). LEAD 1 minute. (video file). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGGmXgTcMaU

Brothers of the Christian Schools (2010). Associated for the Lasallian Mission... an act of hope. Retrieved from http://lasallian.info/doc/Circular%20461.pdf

Brothers of the Christian Schools (2014). Toward the 45th General Chapter: Report of the Br. Superior General. (A Salinas, J. Blease & J, Martinez, Trans.). Rome, Italy: Brothers of the Christian Schools.

Christian Brothers Conference - Lasallian Region of North America. (2014, April 11). 45th general chapter - Brother Robert Schieler, RELAN. (video file). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRbE6qaQdi0

Fullan, M. (2001). Leading in a culture of change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Hatch, T. (2000). What happens when multiple improvement initiatives collide. Menlo Park: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Lewin, R. & Regine, B. (2000). The soul at work. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Senge, Peter M. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Doubleday.

UMAEL. (2011). La Salle, UMAEL.[webpage]. Retrieved from http://www.umael.com/?page=2221#

More on MOOCs and Human Evolution

http://www.ted.com/talks/anant_agarwal_why_massively_open_online_courses_still_matter

Teaser: Anant Agarwal (filmed June 2013) proposes that education needs to go through a huge revamp and that MOOCs are the way of the future.

http://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_shares_mindboggling_new_science

Teaser: Juan Enriquez (Filmed Feb 2009) proposes that with all the advances in technology and education, we may be seeing human evolution in progress.

Thinking aloud: Are we on the verge of witnessing human evolution unfold? And are MOOCs the catalyst of this?

Week 2 : Higher Education Governance, Management and Practice

Governance of traditional Universities, public demand, profit-margins, quality education and MOOCs.

As intense as the discussion above was at the last session, there are a few truisms in the Singapore context that I note below:

1. Government wants quality education for its citizens but there are simply not enough spaces in their universities (Singapore is simply too constrained by land size). Often this forces many middle class families to send their children abroad. Government feels that this is risky as in many cases people study abroad, get a taste of greener grass, start life overseas and never return. This in turn results in a problematic 'brain-drain' and leads to a declining population.

2. At the same time, MOOCs (using COURSERA as an illustration https://www.coursera.org/) and  Distance Learning are currently not being seriously considered yet because there will be a profit loss at local Universities and one cannot control quality education using it. I am thinking here of National Education policies and the national agenda. From personal experience, we have one Brother who was forced to study overseas because his London external degree was flatly not recognised by the Ministry of Education. Not on their list of approved Universities, they said.

3. By the way things are going and with many institutions being 'spooked by the MOOC', as it were, Singapore will have no choice but to keep up with shifting trends (or buy more Indonesian sand to reclaim more land - lots of it!) and allow (and recognise) qualifications offered by MOOCs and Open Distance Education. I was involved in initial talks for a joint venture between our Order & the Ministry of Health and an Australian University (Flinders) but we pulled out citing too much of a risk on our part.

I wish I had a crystal ball to have a peek into the future of how Governments of the world and the traditional University system will respond creatively to the emerging MOOC bandwagon.

Week 1 - Introduction and Higher Education Issues, Concepts and Roles

Before beginning the first lecture, I asked myself why was I taking this course and what issues in Higher Education I could identify.

One possible issue in education for me is the emergence of IB Schools in Singapore [especially schools offering mainly O Levels with an added IB Section]. Because of these two systems operating under one roof, and because local teachers trained in NIE [National Institute of Education] mainly had their training in the O Level delivery method, many schools resort to employing expatriate teachers to teach IB.

What I notice is there seems to be a separation of  'classes' of teachers. IB teachers hardly mix with teachers who teach the O Level stream and vice versa. Perhaps the curriculum difference is a major factor why these professionals do not really gel together or perhaps there could be a deeper underlying issue here.

Further to this, there could possibly arise another sub-issue with regard to school ethos and climate. While old schools like mine (St Joseph's Institution, founded 1852) have developed a solid school culture, many new teachers have yet to absorb the school ethos. I have also heard of the 'tourist teacher' phenomenon.

Most recently, an article from the Daily Mail circulating on social media indicated that the IB seems to be better than the A Level programme. (refer http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-394399/A-level-blow-Baccalaureate-given-rating-5-A-grades.html). Could this perhaps indicate that the way forward in pre-university education is the IB programme? If so, what ramifications does this hold for Secondary Schools? They would definitely want to prepare students for the IB? Would we looking at a curriculum and methodology shift from the traditional O Level delivery to an IB model?

Week 1: Issues in Higher Education

My name is Jason Blaikie and I am a teacher at St Joseph's Institution, Singapore. I teach English and English Literature to Secondary One and Two students (13 and 14 year old boys). In my chosen career-vocation, I am a De La Salle Brother for some 20 years now.

One reason why I selected this course is because I wear many hats. Besides classroom teaching, I am also on the Singaporean Lasallian Foundation Board. The Board is opening a new International (IB) school in Malaysia in 2016. Part of this whole adventure would be getting the right people in for the task. Ultimately this would mean getting new teachers in who would not be familiar with the Lasallian tradition. Hence, I thought this course would be good in me beginning to understand some possible staff culture / school ethos issues that might occur in setting up a school that will cater for Primary school education right up to Pre-University students.

I hope to gain many insights of what to expect in terms of educational issues; staff and culture issues, student related issues and Governance issues. I understand that while the Australian context is obviously different, I hope to make some parallels between the finer workings in Asia and Australia.

This is my first attempt at setting up a blog. More to come soon.