OllieBray.com

Leadership for Innovation and Creativity [Conference Presentation]

 I was asked to lead a workshop on Leadership for Innovation and Creativity at the a recent Scottish Centre for Studies in School Administration (SCSSA) Conference at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh. Conference delegates were mainly headteachers (school principles) from primary and secondary schools.

I’m not a big fan of conference education workshops so I led a lot of the input but allowed time for some questions and discussions to help link the presentation. The format seemed to go quite well.

Anyway, I promised I would post the slides and some notes from the presentation – so here you go.

The slides that I used are embedded below:

Education Leadership for Innovation and Creativity

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The points that I covered were:

1. Change

Everything is changing, everything is changing fast. Innovative leaders need to understand change (even if they struggle to keep up with it).

2. Sharing

Innovative leaders share, borrow and attribute to others. You can not innovate alone. Innovation needs audience (or how do you know its innovative?).

• Activity (1): What have you learned today?
• Activity (2): Who have you told?

3. How has technology changes the way we live work and play?

 

• Activity (3): Historically what technologies can you think of that have been ‘game cahngers’?

  
 
4. Emerging Technology

Three emerging technologies that might change how we live, work, play and learn are:

1. Voice to text speech recognition software for mobile
2. Facial recognition software, social networking and its impact in privacy
3. Immersive multi-player games

• Activity (4): What will the impact of this technology be?

5. Assessing Impact

Innovative leaders always keep an eye on what comes next, they assess impact and try to predict possible outcomes (its OK to be wrong – the thinking is the important part).

• Activity (5): How will you keep your workforce up to date about the developments in technology that will impact on society and in turn impact on education?

6. Learning from Enterprise

Innovative education leaders learn from enterprise. But they learn from 21st century enterprise not traditional enterprise. Traditional enterprise is based on hierarchy and normal gives the customer what the industry thinks they need. Lots of traditional industries aren’t doing that well at the moment (think of the banks). Modern industry is less based on hierarchy, everyone has a voice and their business model is based on what the customers want.

One of the main things that education leaders can learn from industry is that it is OK to re-invent the wheel. But its how you re-invent it, it’s about thinking differently to deliver what people need in a more engaging and efficient way. Think Waterstones Book Store Vs Amazon.

• Activity (6): Think about your subject specialism. Is it important? How do you reinvent / re-package your subject in the same the that Amazon reinvented shopping for books?

The power of social collaboration and playfulness have been two other key components of successful modern enterprise. The challenge is replicating this within an educational context.


7.  Sell the experience

Good education leaders sell the experience. Learning is the experience.

• Activity (7): Why is the iPhone so popular?

Four reasons why the iPhone is so popular is because it is beautiful, can be personalized, its real and can help you with real things. Using the iPhone is an experience. How do we make learning a beautiful, personalized and real experience?

8. Complex problems require innovative solutions

Innovative and creative leaders will realize that some problems are difficult to solve, some problems are unpractical to solve and some problems aren’t really problems. Complex problems require innovative solutions and often these solutions are very simple but they need to be thought about in a creative way.

One thing is for sure if a problem can be tackled locally it is more likely to succeed.



9. The power of the collective

Creative educational leaders harvest the ideas of their workforce to look for strategies, work to people’s strengths and share ideas. Intellectual property will become the oil of the 21st century.



10. Barriers to creative leadership

1. Professional development – you have to take people with you.
2. Time – use technology to make you more efficient
3. Sinicism – Make people see things differently (use real and personal examples)
4. Access to technology – there is enough, we just don’t use it properly
5. Motivation – Motivate the children to motivate the staff

Finally, A wonderful quote from Jesse Schell

“People who are curious about things have a significant advantage. But how do we make people more curious?”

If you were at the presentation – please feel free to leave feedback or if you couldn't make it just tell me what you think?

SQH Viva – now we wait for the result….

Well its over. The presentation seemed to go down well and the assessment panel made me feel at ease with my earlier worries.

To be honest the time seemed to fly by and the questions disappeared in a blur.

I was asked about:

• The difference between ‘thinking’ you have had an impact and ‘knowing’ that you have had an impact.
• The skills and qualities of a leader
• How could you help someone develop as a leader?
• Building capacity for leadership in schools
• Involving and working with partners in the wider learning community
• How you empower people to work with you?
• I was surprised not to be asked questions on literature, finance, recruitment and consultation.

I find out about the result sometime after the 19th June. But as I’ll be away I won’t actually find out how I’ve got on until mid July. I have a nagging feeling they might ask me for a few more pieces of evidence – but I guess I will have to wait and see.

In any case the SQH journey is starting to come to an end and the real leadership journey is about to begin.

Scottish Qualification for Headship (SQH) Oral Presentation and Viva

 

Today is potentially the end of what has seemed like a pretty long journey. At 13.30 I’ll be up in front of staff from the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh City and an experienced Headteacher from Midlothian to take part in my Scottish Qualification for Headship Oral Presentation and Viva.

I’ve got mixed feelings about the SQH. It’s had its good points (networking and opportunities) but also its low points as well. I didn’t feel my field assessment went that well – but I guess I have nothing really to compare it to. I walked away from the meeting with the feeling that my field assessor thought I hadn’t consulted properly, should have a better understanding of school finance and that I needed to be on more interview panels.

Of course, I think, I consult well and one of my strengths is taking people with me on a journey. I think I have a very good knowledge of school finance and a number of successful funding application to outside agencies and I don’t think I need to gather more experience of being on other interview panels before achieving the Standard for Headship. I think I’m a good judge of character and have enough experience to chair interview panels. Perhaps I didn’t submit enough or the right type of evidence or perhaps I am completely misreading the situation?

What ever happens, I’m ready to argue and debate my case over these and other points – the question is whether the SQH process allows this or not. Will the assessment team have already made up their mind or is everything to play for in the Viva?

The Viva itself strikes me as a strange process – particularly if it’s meant to verify, as it suggests, issues identified by assessors in the reflective commentary that I submitted and from the field visit. I have to give a ten minute presentation that:

• Outlines the key strengths of the school
• Discusses the school’s capacity for improvement
• Environ school developments over the next two to three years which will lead to improvement; and
• Make clear what you see as the criteria by which improvement can be judged

So, why do I think this is strange? Well at no point in the assessment criteria for the presentation do I actually have to talk about my project? Have I missed something here? If this is the case, combined with the fact that I don’t think any of the assessment team for the Viva will have read my reflective commentary (why should they – there are not my tutor). I remain confused as to how they will then be able ask focus questions about my project when they don’t know about it? I guess I’ll find out at 13.30!

Anyway below are the presentation slides that I will be using today to support my presentation. Thanks to Andrew Brown as I’ve used a couple of his favorite photographs.

Improving Transition from Primary to Secondary School

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I’m sure I’ll write more about the viva later – I just hope there is light at the end of the tunnel and not a great big rock!

SQH Course Five assignment handed in and back blogging!

I’ve finally handed in my SQH Course Five Assignment after stretching the generous extension from the University of Edinburgh to almost the limit. The assignment comprised of a Reflective Commentary about my school improvement project and a Portfolio of Evidence to try to justify that I have reached the Scottish Standard of Headship. I’ll find out in a few weeks if I passed it or not. 

Course five is the final course in this programme that has taken over 24 months to complete.

With this out of the way – as long as I don’t have to re-submit the only parts of the course left to be assessed is a field assessment (where I will have to go back into Musselburgh for half a day!) and oral presentation.

Hopefully the whole thing will be wrapped up until by the end of June and then I'll reflect here on the final details of the course.

Anyway, now that the main written part is out of the way I should be back a little more in the Blogosphere. I’ve purposely been avoiding writing here while I still new I had an assignment to hand in - its been my longest absence from the world of web 2.0 in the last three years.

I've got lots to catch up on and now I’ll start the long process of up-dating this site.

SQH Course Five: 360 Degree Review

As many of you will know I am currently undertaking my Scottish Qualification for Headship (School Principle). I am now one the final ‘home run’ of the course. In Course One I had to conduct a 360 degree feedback exercise on how I met the some aspects of the Standard for Headship.

As I believe in sharing. I posted some of the detail of my Course One 360 analysis on-line back in June 2007. I’ll reflect back on this below.

As part of Course five, I have had to complete the same analysis – where possible I tried to use the same group of people (although this wasn’t completely possible – the majority were the same).

The maximum score you can get is 4 for any category. Here are my Course Five results:

• Is self aware and manages self effectively – 3
• Inspires and motivates other – 4
• Displays confidence and courage – 3.7
• Creates and maintains a positive atmosphere – 4
• Empathises and listens to others – 3.5
• Judges wisely and decides appropriately – 3.5
• Identifies and solves problems – 3.7
• Seeks and uses evidence and information – 3.7
• Thinks strategically, planning for the longer term – 3.5
• Communicates effectively in a range of settings – 3.8
• Builds effective relationships across the school community – 4
• Shows political insight in relation to the school, Local Authority and national context – 3.5

I am very pleased with the scores. However, the real value of this type of exercise is the comments that are left by the respondents. There are some fantastic re-assuring comments and some sound bits of advice.

Before I go on to compare the Course One feedback and the Course Five feedback. Let me first reflect on the Course Five feedback. By looking at the comments and the above scores my strengths are in ‘Inspiring and Motivating Others’, ‘Creating and Maintaining a Positive Atmosphere’ and ‘Building Effective Relationships Across the School Community’.

My main weakness is ‘self awareness and managing self effectively’. This is an interesting one. I think I am extremely self aware – I do take on a lot, I do a lot of other people’s jobs, I leave some (most) things until the last minute and stretch myself to thinly. I juggle far too many balls as a compromise to maximise progress within an education system that does not (and will not) meet the needs of 21^st Century Learners unless we take action. Some of these balls ‘I drop’ but most, I am very proud to say, I catch ‘just before’ they hit the ground. The children in my care (and trying to build their future) remain the most important thing to me – often at detriment to my personal life and family. I do have some priorities wrong, but I belive my heart and mind are in the right place.

Other sound bits of advice from my Course Five 360 that I will take on board include:

Listening – need to develop eye contact. This is fantastic point. My mind is always occupied with 101 things and I sometimes feel myself ‘drifting’ in and out of conversation. Don’t get me wrong – I think this is a good thing. Where staff are concerned, I am always ‘drifting’ to find solutions or looking for answers.

Innovation – Although I welcome new ideas. I must always listen to other peoples views.

Short term planning – must be less laid back!

 

Now let’s compare Course One to Course Five. I have displayed this information in the table below and colour coded if the score have gone up (green), stayed the same (amber) or gone down (red)

It’s interesting and heartening to look at the scores that have gone up or stayed the same. There is obviously still room for improvement (and continued reflection), even with the ‘4’ scores.

But what about the scores that have gone down? Well, the biggest drop is in, ‘self awareness and manages self effectively’. Interestingly, I brought this very issue up in my Staff Development and Review with my Headteacher in June 2008. I predicted I would go down in this category (how’s that for self- awareness!) but, joking aside, I also recognised some of my time management issues. Hopefully I have reflected on these above.

The other area I have gone down is ‘shows political insight in relation to school, local authority and national issues’. I really will reflect on this. I think I have an exceptional knowledge and have influenced both local authority and school contexts in relation to education?

 

One final point

The 360 review is the most powerful and most useful tool any teacher, manager or leader could use to reflect on their own performance. I would really encourage others to conduct their own exercise and also to share their results in a constructive way, as I hope I have done here?

Now I have no excuse but to get on with the final assignment!

Over the Moon – Feedback from SQH Presentation

I don’t often talk about feedback that I get from courses or presentations. But I had my feedback today from the presentation I did to the Scottish Qualification for Headship Candidates on how to write a Comparative Study.

See details of the presentation here.

Let’s just say I was over the moon with quality of feedback that I received.

SQH - How to write a Comparative Study

I was asked to speak today to a group Scottish Qualification for Headship Candidates on ideas for putting together the Comparative Study Course Three Assignment. Despite the presentation being put together in the early hours of Friday morning it seemed to go down well – I only wish there was more time for more conversations with some of the candidates on the course. It was also nice to catch up with a few familiar faces.

Below are some of the slides that I used during the presentation:

SQH Comparative Study - Slideshare

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: sqh olliebray)

 
As well as telling ‘my story’ I tried my best to concentrate on the methodology behind education action research. I think that if you can get the methodology right it can save you time and also allow you to collect the best data possible. I also concentrated on structure – in my experience with any post graduate education academic qualification if you can get the structure to fit the assessment criteria then you unlikely to have to re-submit.

Here are some links to websites that I mentioned:

Activexpression - The interactive voting system that we used during todays presentation was Promethean Activexpression.

Wordle.net – Generate fantastic word clouds. Great fun but think about other uses. For example, what are the dominant words in your school (or Authority Development Plan?) Does attainment feature bigger than achievement or learning or children? Have you got your priorities right?

On-line questionnaires:

Consider these tools:

SELS – Some school / authorities have already signed up to this package.

Surveymonkey – Free and professional version. If you are thinking about collecting questionnaire data then this will make your life a whole lot easier.

On-line Focus Groups

Consider these tools:

GLOW Meet – If you have GLOW in your school, then this is a great way to get teacher together for a focus group discussion. More information about GLOW here:

Skype - is software that allows users to make telephone calls (and video conference calls) over the Internet to other people that have Skype installed on their computer.

Flashmeeting – Still, for me, the best service possible. Flash based video conferencing provided by the Open University. If you choose to record for call you can re-play audio and video and see who like to talk the most!

Literature and other web based research

Consider these tools:

More specific search engines for academic research include Google Scholar and Google News.

There are other great web 2.0 tools to help you learn, including:

Google Alerts - This tool helps you deliver the future Internet to your mail box. A Google 'Search' goes backwards and a Google Alert goes forwards - this could save you hours!

This video makes Google Alerts easy to understand (You Tube Video Below): 

RSS - Would you rather walk to the shop everyday to get your paper or get it delivered to your door, for free? Have you heard of RSS or a feed reader such as Google Reader? This will help you bring useful websites into one place and could save you hours.

This video makes RSS easy to understand (You Tube Video Below):

If you have any questions about your SQH comparative study or if you enjoyed todays presentation- why don't you leave a comment?

MGS Guitar Hero Transition Project – Part Two: The Virtual Battle of the Bands

This whole project will eventually be catalogued on the edubuzz MGS Guitar Hero Website – where we hope to produce a guide for anyone wanting to replicate the project. I have already talked about the background and stage one of the project here.

But in summary the whole transition project basically has three stages:

1. Using Guitar Hero as a Context for Learning in P7 between Easter and the Summer 2008.
2. Bringing all P7 classes together for Virtual Battle of the Bands in June 2008.
3. Follow up work related to the context for learning in some secondary subject areas up until the September holiday weekend 2008.

This post will document Part Two of the Guitar Hero Project: The Virtual Battle of the Bands

Background

I feel that one of the reasons that you get so many relationship difficulties at the start of secondary school is because secondary schools spend a lot of time working with individual primary schools but not very much time bringing the future S1 together and working with them as a collective group.

I also think that when you get new S1 classes they very rarely have anything in common to talk about, they struggle to strike up conversation due to fear of saying the wrong thing and may also have problems building relationships with teaching staff.

One of the philosophical ideas behind this project was that every primary school in the Musselburgh Cluster would use the same context for learning (Guitar Hero) between Easter and Summer. Each primary school would take ownership of the project so each school may have a totally different experience. But then we would bring all of the children together. Not in their schools but as their S1 practical sets (no more than 20) for a morning at the Grammar School.

The programme for the morning was devised by a short life working group and consisted of the following:

• Registration (Primary children made their own way to registration at MGS)
• Introduction
• Workshop One
• Workshop Two
• Break
• Workshop Three
• Summary and Conclusions

During the morning everyone had the opportunity to participate in a ‘round robin’ of three workshops. Each workshop was 45 minutes long. In no particular order, they consisted of the following:

Workshop One – Battle of the Bands

Woking in their practical sets we had 10 PS2’s set up in the hall. The only requirement was to have fun and that they must compete against someone in their new class that was not from their old school. Originally I, naively, thought that the only real learning here was to have a bit of fun. But I had forgotten about the social interaction. During this workshop I saw children helping children that they didn’t know, laughing with (not at) each other and chatting about a common interest (the game).

Senior students supervised the event so there was also an opportunity for new students to ask them questions about life at the school.

Workshop Two – The Guitar Hero Challenge

These workshops were facilitated by the Guidance Staff. The first task was for the guidance staff to ask if there were any problems from the visit days (that had occurred two weeks previously).

The second task was to ask the question, ‘tell me and your class what you have been learning about during the Guitar Hero Project’. The feedback from the children during this section of the workshop (as long as it was facilitated well) has been fantastic. Remember that each school took the project in its own direction. It was a chance for the class to communicate with each other about a common interest, swap ideas and learn about learning in each others schools.

The third part of the task was to allow 20 minutes for the group to be split into 4/5 people and to come up with a band name, logo and jingle. One of the S6 students commented to me, ‘I can’t believe it, they have just come up with that in 5 minutes.’ This was an important part of the experience. I have a concern that secondary teachers do not know the true ability and creativity of the new S1. This is something we must challenge.

Logo’s and jingles were photographed and videoed and the best groups will be awarded prises in the new term.

Workshop Three – Guitar Hero Option

Each practical set had an opportunity to participate in a different activity. All of the activities had a different theme related to rock music or the game. The idea behind this was to capitalise on secondary staff and senior pupil expertise, but also to capitalise on the experience. When the P7 classes got back to their associated primary schools, because they would have been in different workshops (remember they participated in the morning as S1 practical sets) they were tasked with sharing their experience with the rest of the class.

The optional activities included:

Guitar Hero Orienteering – using maps of the school to navigate around the school grounds to find the name of rock bands and answer the bonus Guitar Hero Questions.


Deigning a CD Case – using Microsoft Publisher.

Designing a guitar – using Photoshop (Mr Hall Skilfully doing to demonstration below!)



Rock Drama – lots on mime and improvisation to rock music in this workshop. It was great to see four different schools collaborating and working together almost in perfect sequence.


Rock Dance – Led by S6, I couldn’t believe the routine they produced in 40 minutes. I looked like at least 3 days worth!


Meet the Band – Working with an S6 band and learning how to play ‘Smoke on the Water’ on the guitar as well as getting a tour of the MGS recording studio.


iTunes Challenge – A numeracy related quiz using Activote. I’m just not sure about the last question. I think might have been set up there?

Displays

During the morning there was also an opportunity for schools to display some of the Guitar Hero Work that they had produced over the last few months. It was all outstanding!

 

 

 

 

Guitar Hero at Wallyford: ACE in Action!

Here’s one example of the amazing talent displayed at last night’s ground-breaking GH08 showcase at Wallyford Primary by P7 students from Wallyford and Whitecraig Primaries.

In these routines, each band performed a dance:

• they had choreographed,
• to a track they had created using Garageband
• wearing the T-shirts they had designed, and which they were selling on the night.

Contact Stacey Betteridge at Wallyford Primary to get your T-shirt before they sell out!

Guitar Hero Showcase: I love it when a plan comes together!

A number of months ago I suggested to the Musselburgh Cluster that we engage in a Games Based Learning project to help with transition. I suggested that we used Guitar Hero as the context for learning and base the projects on some of the work being carried out at the Consolarium.

Our project would initially follow a similar form to the Aberdeen pilot but then develop into a real and worthwhile  transition activity. The work would then be carried on into the initial stages of the S1 programme. I think when I first suggested the idea a few people thought I might have completely lost the plot. However I was absolutely delighted when all of our primary heads signed up to the project.

We secured the funding for equipment from various sources – more on this later and then Guitar Hero was let loose in P7 classrooms across Musselburgh. Lots of people have helped us on the way and I will thank them all in a separate post.

Tonight I have just come back from A Guitar Hero Showcase Event performed by children (and teachers) from Wallyford Primary and Whitecraig Primary at Wallyford Primary School. The event was outstanding and was truly A Curriculum for Excellence in Action! During the evening we saw dances, songs, music that the children had composed, animations, t-shirt designs, logos, character studies, artwork (Elvis Lives!), photography, digital video and huge amount more!

A huge amount of thanks must go to Stacey Betteridge (PT at Wallyford) and Jenny MacNair (P6/P7 teacher at Whitecraig) for all of the hard work they have put into this project. I hope to be able to share some of the performances with you soon and also some of the planning that went into this project. In the meantime above you can see some of the outstanding work that was on display during the evening.