DEMOCRATIC SCHOOLS AND LEADERSHIP. Project 2

Democratic schools and leadership.pptx from Los Gochos

DEMOCRATIC SCHOOLS

A democratic school is a school that is participatory, egalitarian, non-sexist, non-classist and lay, encourages the open flow of ideas, has faith in the ability of the individual and the people to solve problems, promotes reflection and critical analysis to evaluate ideas, there is a concern for the welfare of others.

To be democratic has to:

• Guarantee the school success of all students, but without giving up a good quality.

• The knowledge in the school must revolve around the student and not around the teacher as it is currently done. The students must have the need to continue learning throughout his or her life. The students have to be protagonists of their learning processes.

• The public school (although also the private one) by the help of the teachers, parents and students has to leave the state of general uselessness that is currently now.

Nowadays the democratic centers are public in their great majority, a private school has complicated to be democratic because part of the base to collect money to accede to them, with which they discriminate to a part of the population.

The few centers of secondary that follow democratic ideas have begun solving their problems of coexistence through norms realized with the intervention of the students. It has been seen that much more progress is being made by working together than by doing each teacher in his classroom or ignoring the students' voice.

Main characteristics of democratic centers

• Work with projects, curriculum globalization: They try that there is no work by subject. Project work is very common because it can include a large amount of content.
• Use of libraries: In democratic colleges the library is used as a tool in the search of information and is fully integrated into the curriculum. In addition, the first half hour of the day is usually dedicated to the students reading the books that interest them most.
• Opening to the environment: The surroundings are not just museums, exhibitions or plays. So are people, activities, the countryside or the city in which the centers are located. An environment of a large city may be advantageous for certain activities, but may not be for others. In these schools, especially primary schools, there is a great effort to connect knowledge with reality and to know nature.
• Classroom organization: The primary classes of these schools are full of life and activity, they are not based on seats surrounded by four walls in which the projects are hanged up. There should also be a library in the classroom where students can find the information they need. And the teacher’s desk should be at a place that doesn’t disturb the free movement of the people in the class.
• Teaching based on dialogue: The students are the ones who propose the topics on which to investigate. During the school day three times a week there is a dedicated assembly line, a place where all students have the opportunity to express themselves, and bring something about an issue that has caught their attention. In addition, there is a time for the delegates of the courses to speak in the teachers' room about the global problems of the school
• Use of the new technologies: Democratic colleges use new technologies as a means to make teaching more attractive to students. On the internet you can find activities for all subjects and of all levels.
• A democratic coexistence: In these schools the voice of the parents counts more than that of the teachers themselves, the parents form a cooperative - which becomes an element of creation of social fabric - acquisition of curricular materials and other types of materials. In addition to these schools there are students who are called mediators, who become reference people for all those who suffer integration problems or who feel harassed, getting a conversation between the affected parties solve the problems that exist.

LEADERSHIP

The objective of educational leadership is to find a directional model that contributes in the development of a quality school for everybody.

According to Kurt Lewin there are three different leadership styles than can be followed at an educative centre:

Authoritarian leadership: the leader holds all the power and is the one who makes the decisions. It is a unidirectional leadership exercise in which followers obey what the leader says.

Democratic leadership: it is based on the collaboration and participation of all the members of the group.

“Laissez faire” leadership: the leader is not responsible of the group and let it to its own initiative.

Furthermore, Likert finds five behaviours in a leader’s effective conduct:

♣ Promotes positive relationships and increases the sense of personal growth of the members.

♣ Keeps a loyalty sense of the hole group.

♣ Gets high standards of performance and transmits enthusiasm to reach groupal  objectives.  

♣ Has technical knowledges.

♣ Coordinates and planifies.

A leader can’t always carry out all these behaviours because the ideal behaviour of a leader depends on the context it is developed, the relationship between the leader and the members (the leader’s capacity to motivate his mates and to influence them).

When we realize the leadership exercise we need to keep in mind that its development is influenced by two variables:

Leadership style: directive, oriented to productiveness, supportive and participatory.

Maturity of the members of the group, the ability and disposal of the people to accept the responsibility to lead his own behaviour in the correct task which will influence the capacity (knowledge and abilities) and will (motivation and interest) of the group.

If the team doesn’t have capacities neither will the leader must “lead”, establish the objectives, give instructions, etc. The leader is who provides what, when, where and how. 

♣ If the team doesn’t have capacity but has will, the leader must persuade. The leader has to explain the objectives and tries to convince the members to accept them and get involved in the task. The leader is the guide.

♣ If the team is competent but doesn’t have will, the leader promotes participation. The leader gives responsibility to his followers, helps them to make decisions and their collaboration and commitment. The role of the leader is to make participation possible and to stimulate it.

♣ If the group has capacity and will, the leader has to delegate. The leader observes and accompanies. The rest of the members make decisions and do the tasks. The leader gives the subordinate the responsibility and the instrumentation of the decision making.

Over the years, different proposals for educational leadership have emerged: instructional-transformational leadership-facilitator-persuasive-sustainable-distributive

In the 1980s, a form of educational leadership emerged that broke with authoritarian leadership, instructional leadership, thanks to which the schools that practiced and practice it, have achieved a greater overall development of all its students

It contributes the missions settlement and scholar goals.

♣It helps generate a positive learning climate.

♣ Helps and supports the professional development of teachers.

♣ Develops, coordinates and supervises the center's curriculum.

♣ Encourages teamwork of teachers.

♣ It favors the participation of the school community.

 ♣ Has high expectations for teachers and communicates them.

 ♣ Contributes to generate a culture of evaluation for improvement between teachers and the center.

Transformational leadership is characterized by the ability of the principal to promote the functioning of the school; The development of explicit, shared, moderately challenging and feasible goals; And the creation of a zone of proximal development for the manager and his staff. It is characterized by being a dynamic process, depending on the situation and change generator

Facilitating leadership: it favors the collective capacity of a school to adapt, solve problems and improve its results. The strategies used are: to foresee resource limitations, build teams, provide feedback, coordinate and manage conflicts, create communication networks, practice Policies of collaboration, so anyone can start a task and involve anyone to participate; The process works through negotiation and communication.

Persuasive leadership. It is based on:

Optimism: the leader holds high expectations for others;

 ♣ Respect for the individuality of each human being manifested in behaviors such as civility, education, courtesy and affection;

 ♣ Trust, since humans are interdependent, trust becomes the highest form of human motivation; and,

♣ intentionality: persuasive leaders act from an intentionally suggestive stance.

These premises must be developed in four dimensions: self-motivation, personal (demanding, recognizing) as professional (risky, investigating), and invitation to others, also personal (spirit of community, personal relationships) and professional Learning and supervising learning).

Sustainable leadership. It is based on seven principles: 1) Sustainable leadership generates and maintains sustainable learning; 2) Ensures success over time; 3) Supports the leadership of others; 4) It directs attention to social justice; 5) Develops, rather than uses, human and material resources; 6) Develops the diversity and capacity of the environment; And 7) Has an active commitment to the environment

Distributed leadership, which has more impact and greater acceptance is characterized by a boost to the multiple leadership of faculty, students and the entire educational community, which allows learning from peers and projects of all of them. It involves breaking away from the isolation and individualism of teaching and student practices by supporting the community to move forward with such cooperation. Distributed leadership does not consist in delegating or assigning tasks or responsibilities to others from a central point of view, but rather of taking advantage of the capacities and skills of all, passing functionally from one member to another according to the actions required in each case.

But for any of these proposals to be carried out it is necessary a change in the culture and organization of the whole educational system.

CHARACTERISTICS FOR THE DIRECTION OF SCHOOL CHANGE

Management should be a shared task for the whole school community.

Cultural change of the school based on concepts such as involvement and commitment, learning from everyone, teamwork, good humor, risk, respect. Where they all learn, they develop professionally and personally, to become a true learning organization.

The director of change must focus on the development of the people who make up the school, have high expectations and communicate with them.

The principal must be a school manager, must possess skills and abilities to achieve a new school model, inclusive, based on a realistic plan of action.

In short, we can say that in order to achieve a direction for change, it is necessary to rethink the leadership model from its foundations, starting with reformulating the concept of leadership (to define the power point): who and how it is assumed Equally). Thus, it is necessary to have:

♣ A shared and distributed leadership

♣ A direction focused on the development of people both individually and collectively

♣ A visionary direction

♣Take risks;

♣ Be directly involved in pedagogical decisions

♣Be well formed in processes of change.

Possibly the direction for the change, as we are formulating it, is only a vision, a utopia. But to change you have to have a utopia to fight for. And if, in order to change the school, the principal has to make the maximum commitment, then the management model must be changed and the principals who have to take that step are the principals. Because schools of higher quality and more equitable will be achieved only if managers commit themselves to the task of transforming the culture of the school, a transformation that inevitably happens through a profound reformulation of the management model as it is today. If we want another society, we need other schools, and also another model of direction.

FIRST PROJECT PRESENTATION "Cooperative Learning"

Why to work cooperatively?

• We learn better from each other.
• Teams are more effective when you are in a complex project.
• You will reinforce your interpersonal skills.
• You will also develop your interdependence and your self esteem.
• You will be able to apply all you have learnt in your daily life and personal relationships.

COOPERATIVE LEARNING

COOPERATIVE LEARNING

Introduction

The learning system has always been a competitive environment, as we can see in the picture. Each student, individually, had to memorize the concepts explained by the teacher and on the textbooks as best as they could to achieve a mark that defines how much the student has approach to the model student, the standard. It seems as if students were a manufacture and the school was a fabric. So, those students that are not like the standard are thrown away from schools. This learning process differentiates people as academic and non-academic.

However, there is another methodology, that is cooperative learning, that instead of looking for the standardization of the students, adapts the curriculum to each student to develop their abilities. Students are active rather than passive, the opposite of traditional learning methodologies. On this methodology, students do not learn individually. It is an inclusive education where they work together and improve as a whole. So, none of the students remine isolated or drop out.

There are some factors that conditionate students learning and are needed to make the change between competitive and cooperative learning. These are: the role of the teacher, the class distribution, the engagement between the students and the rules sets by the teacher and the students.

·         Video

As we have done at the beginning this teacher encourages learning and positive relationships, which we think as a group is vital to work cooperatively.

What is cooperative learning?

Cooperative learning is a learning methodology, in which team work groups are the base of the students learning development. It motivates students to become self-directed in their learning. All the students work in group to reach a common goal. They work together encouraging their interdependence (trust), interactivity (communication), accountability (responsibility) or collaborative skills (leader-ship). During the process, all the team members are learning about the topic, since the group members make sure everyone understand the topic.

We, “Los Gochos” team, have defined cooperative learning as group works where students cooperate to achieve certain objectives under some specific conditions.

Classroom Organization

The class must be organized in an environment where all the students can see each other, they can move with freedom around the class to motivate their interaction and communication with their classmates. They can be organized in base structure (like in spike-espiga-) or in expert structure

Group Organization

Base groups: they are permanent and the teacher is the one who organizes it in a heterogeneous way of: Gender, abilities, motivation, hobbies and ethnicity also the suitable number of members is around 3-4 but no more of 6. Finally, this group structure should rest over the course. Ex org e inst groups

Sporadic groups: they can be organized in an heterogeneous or a homogeneous way, they can be composed from 2 to 8 students and they normally last only one session Ex. development psychology groups

Expert groups: base groups are redistributed in different groups to get better in a specific competence. Then the members come back to their base groups and they share the knowledge acquire. Ex communication groups of the topic teachers are afraid of ICT

Internal group organization

Team notebooks: in it students elaborate some files where are reflected the members of the group, their role which should be exchanged or the team objectives in order to reflect on their performance so the group get better in it functioning.

Session diaries: in it the responsible of writing the diary with the rest of the members reflect about what they have done and how acquiring a critique attitude about their personal performance and the group one.

Teacher’s role

Teacher have to explain their students the learning objectives they want them to achieve with the task, as well as organize the class groups in an heterogeneous way. Communicate to the learners they have a common goal and to achieve it they have to work cooperatively, in this process teachers must follow that their students and the group works are going to succeed in their task. To do it effectively teachers have to guide their learners, help them if they are struggle, ensure everyone participates in the group development and motivate continually students in their learning process.

Cooperative learning techniques

Team Assisted Individualization: each member’s work are adjusted to their characteristics and necessities. Students help each other in order to reach the team objectives.

Peer tutoring: this technique consists on a duality of the members of the group in which one of them (the tutor) helps the other one to understand a topic but not giving him the solution, only guiding him to find the answer.

Jigsaw: this technique is based on the expert group organization because each member of the team is responsible to prepare a topic and specialise in it with the rest of the mates who share the same topic. After that, they go back to their base teams to work in a common project understood by all of them.

Group-investigation: students choose a topic depending on their likes and abilities. Later they form groups of 3 to 5 members and with the help of the teacher, they design the objectives in order to prepare a project which has to be evaluated by the teacher and the students.

IDEAS FROM THE READING: COOPERATIVE LEARNING

According to the Johnson & Johnson model, cooperative learning is instruction that involves students working in teams to accomplish a common goal, that maximizes the learning and satisfaction, that result from working on a high-performance team, under conditions that include the following elements:

1. Positive interdependence. Team members are obliged to rely on one another to achieve the goal. If any team members fail to do their part, everyone suffers consequences.

2. Individual accountability. All students in a group are held accountable for doing their share of the work and for mastery of all of the material to be learned.

3. Face-to-face promotive interaction. Although some of the group work may be parcelled out and done individually, some must be done interactively, with group members providing one another with feedback, challenging reasoning and conclusions, and perhaps most importantly, teaching and encouraging one another.

4. Appropriate use of collaborative skills. Students are encouraged and helped to develop and practice trust-building, leadership, decision-making, communication, and conflict management skills

5. Group processing. Team members set group goals, periodically assess what they are doing well as a team, and identify changes they will make to function more effectively in the future.

However, instructors who attempt it frequently encounter resistance and sometimes open hostility from the students.

Examples from cooperative learning:

Problem solving: in these tasks it would be recommendable that children solve the problems individually at home and after that, they join and compare their answers and help each others because if they solve them at the same time some children would be faster than others.

It is a good idea to make a test after each project with the objective that every children work actively and all of them understand the task in order to understand the topic better. That way every student know every part of their project and not only their own part.

Students will evaluate their own classmates giving them a feedback of the project and from those recommendations the evaluated group would give a paper to the teacher including their mates’ comments. Using rubrics is useful but these need to be shown to the students firstly so they know what it is expected from them.

In peer-led team learning (PLTL), lectures are supplemented by weekly 2-hour workshops in which students work in six- to eight-person groups to solve structured problems under the guidance of trained peer leaders.

Students worked in teams of three or four on activities that involved guided discovery, critical thinking questions that help provide the guidance, solving context-rich and sometimes open-ended and incompletely defined

problems, and metacognitive reflecting. Most activities focused on a single concept or issue and could be completed in a 55-minute session. Following each workshop, students completed an individual quiz on the workshop content, thus promoting individual accountability

Individual student performance was superior when cooperative methods were used as compared

with competitive or individualistic methods. The performance outcomes measured include

knowledge acquisition, retention, accuracy, creativity in problem solving, and higher-level

reasoning. Other studies show that cooperative learning is superior for promoting metacognitive through, persistence in working toward a goal, transfer of learning from one setting to another,

time on task, and intrinsic motivation. better social skills and higher self-esteem (3), as well as more positive attitudes about their educational experience, the subject area, and the college.

Students usually have rejection behaviours towards cooperative learning and for that reason teachers shouldn't use all the techniques at a time but focus on only one to make the pupils feel comfortable and introduce new ones slowly.  

Groups are formed by the teacher in an heterogeneous way:

• 3-4 members in each group
• Living in different places
• From different countries

Groups are made by a previous questionnaire.

It is important that each member has its role but all members need to understand the other's work and that is the role of one of them.

The members of the group should evaluate themselves and the rest with the objective to improve.

For a correct development groups should stay the same for about a month. Provide for periodic self-assessment of team functioning. Every 2–4 weeks, teams have to respond to questions

such as: How well are we meeting our goals and expectations? What are we doing well? What needs improvement? What (if anything) will we do differently next time? Ayudarles en la resolución de conflictos

At the beginning of the course, explain to students what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and what’s in it for them. Let them know what they’ll be doing in teams, what procedures you’ll follow, and what your expectations are. Then tell them why you’re doing it, perhaps noting that it will help prepare them for the type of environment most of them will experience as professionals, and sharing some of the research results (particularly those relating to higher grades). The section in this chapter on research support for cooperative learning provides useful material of this nature.

What are the main functions of the teacher in this  kind of learning?

1. To specify the learning and teaching objectives from cooperative learning by choosing the correct technique and the strategies. This implies that the teacher dedicates one or more sessions to what we could call “initiation activities” presenting the topic to the students and giving them information.
2. To choosing the right size of the teams in an heterogeneous way.
3. To dispose the classroom in a way that the members of each group are together looking at each other and also see the teacher and the blackboard.
4. To provide the class with the materials needed and suggestions to do their work.
5. To explain the students what they have to do and the structure they have to follow.
6. To explain the objectives that the teacher wants the pupils to achieve and to connect concepts and information. To define the main concepts, explain the procedure students must follow and give them examples to understand the topic better but also give questions to the class to check what students know.
7. To structure positive goals interdependence: tell the students that they need to reach a goal as a team by working cooperatively with their responsibilities.
8. To observe interactions between students. The purpose of this observation is to know the problems of cooperative learning and to check that students are open to different ideas. Every member must give solutions and express their personal opinions but any member should have the role of a leader. The teacher can interpose himself giving comments and suggestions.

 PRESENTATION