The processes in most schools reflected factors that have been found to be important in the educational change management literature. The capacity of schools to manage change was evident in these innovations.
Few of the schools made reference to materials and resources as critical factors in their innovations. It was as if the commitment to the innovation and to the flexible use of resources was sufficient to meet the resource needs of most of the innovations. Given these prerequisites, schools were adept at managing their resources strategically to achieve improved outcomes for students. Innovations that were focused on classrooms tended to be designed to maximise the use of resources that were already available in the school or established as a high priority in school budgets.
There was clear evidence that many of the innovations had been embedded in the ongoing operations of schools. Some were clearly at the vanguard of more substantial reforms that were part of a significant paradigm shift in thinking about the way the school would operate in the future. The school staff involved in the innovations were consciously aware of the value of the reforms. The commitment of the school to the innovation was signalled by the allocation of appropriate resources. Schools were cognisant of the fact that they had tapped into deep currents in educational reform, and felt swept along by the tide of demand for lasting reform.
The whole-school nature of most of the innovations presupposed that schools would develop a shared understanding of the need for and the nature of the change in advance of its implementation. Most, however, encountered some resistance, principally from staff or parents. Their response to resistance was critical to the success of the innovation. Information, communication and opportunities to discuss the change were essential in building support for the innovation within the school and its community.
Access to knowledge in one form or another was a significant aspect of the process involved in all of the innovations. This took three forms: the harvesting of knowledge from the research literature and from successful professional experience; the construction of knowledge about the school, by analysing and developing strategies to better understand the issues that were to be tackled in the innovation; and the enhancement of the knowledge base among school staff, in the form of professional learning. These three aspects of knowledge were critical for self-managing schools in particular, because such schools had to determine for themselves the best way to maintain and enhance their performance.
Although the schools made substantial use of research and best practice information, there was evidence throughout the project that in many cases they found it difficult to locate and access appropriate sources of information. The schools often sought to fill this gap by accessing the professional experience and expertise of other schools. Schools that developed innovations incorporating well-developed designs, such as in the literacy area, generally gained access to the research and best practice sources on which they were based.
Hill and Crévola (1997) provide a framework of beliefs and understandings; school organisation; and practice for understanding whole-school improvement. This framework is employed below to bring together the key findings about effective practice across the IBPP schools.
Beliefs and understandings
The schools focusing on literacy and mathematics innovations provided contrasting cases that demonstrate the value of a whole-school focus in the development of a coherent set of beliefs and understandings. The literacy schools placed a strong emphasis on gaining school-wide agreement and congruence among all teachers about the model of literacy teaching that they were implementing. On the other hand, the schools focusing on mathematics innovations generally placed less emphasis on the development of congruency of understanding about the teaching and learning of mathematics. Further, in a number of schools, the teachers in the mathematics programme had exempted themselves from the whole-school nature of other innovations that were being implemented.
The success of the literacy innovations, and of other innovations that emphasised a whole-school focus, indicates that schools should emphasise the need for all significant innovations to have congruence of beliefs and understandings about learning across the whole school to underpin them.
Well-articulated philosophical and educational foundations were at the core of strategies to align beliefs and understandings across the school. Schools focused on aligning their vision, pedagogy, infrastructure and relationships with external agencies, to enhance the culture and profile of the school in its community.
Typically, the leadership team took the lead role in this process of developing an agreed approach to teaching and learning, the use of space and time in the school, and the establishment of a culture of innovation and improvement. Schools developed a positive attitude towards change that enabled them to recognise that they could respond to student needs by doing things a different way. Most considered that this approach was a defining feature not only of their innovation, but also of the way they operate generally. Sometimes an individual new to the school acted as a catalyst because they could see the importance of change and had experienced similar innovations in other settings. In other instances, groups within the school decided that the traditional approaches to dealing with a problem had not worked, and that something different was needed and should be attempted.
The innovations highlighted the changed beliefs and understandings that are needed for teaching in the learning environments now emerging in schools. Much of this derived from an understanding of contemporary theories of learning that focus on the role of teachers in developing learning environments to maximise the challenge to each individual student. The role of learning becomes more demanding as teachers relinquish much of their traditional information transmission function and shift their focus to supporting the next phase of learning for each student. Given the mixed ability context of most classrooms, this requires teachers to develop the understandings and capacities to simultaneously cater for the specific learning needs of all students.
Leadership and coordination
Sustainable innovations that have a significant impact require the exercise of high-level leadership and management coordination. Innovations that focus only on an individual classroom are easier to implement than whole-school change. However, they are less likely to be sustained, because they do not become embedded into the culture, structures and deep practices of the school.
The role of leadership becomes evident immediately an innovation requires the coordinated action and support of more than a single teacher. The complexity of the innovations had a significant impact on the exercise of leadership. More complex whole-school innovations required high-level support from the school principal and coordinated action, particularly in cases where the innovation impacted on areas of the school that were not directly involved.
The schools found that successful innovation was a challenging but satisfying endeavour. In many cases, the specific innovation was part of a more ambitious process of change to the organisational and learning environment of the school. Many of the innovations were more complex than routine approaches to improvement, as they focused on researching and assessing their impact, followed by modification of strategies to achieve the intended outcomes. The literacy innovations, in particular, represented a change in orientation from a piece-meal approach to improvement to a whole-school design approach to change.
A distributed model of leadership was evident in most innovations. Principals took either a high profile hands-on leadership role or alternatively established the parameters and structures that the innovation required and then delegated the day-to-day leadership of the innovation to a team of teachers. The leadership roles of teachers and principals generally resided in different aspects of the innovations. In particular, teachers often had the most active instructional leadership role and frequently exercised leadership in managing innovations while the principal played a strategic role that focused on the points of intersection between the innovation and other programmes and activities in the school.
A key component of coordination in the innovations involved the flexible deployment of resources. Schools that had the capacity to target resources in ways that explicitly enhanced their innovations were able to support the professional passion and instructional leadership of teachers. Schools used their flexibility in the deployment of resources to develop alternative learning environments off-site, either as an alternative facility or through the development of on-line courses that students could study from home. They deployed resources flexibly within schools, principally by coordinating programmes in the middle- years among fewer teaching staff to enhance the quality of student-teacher interaction.
Standards and targets
Innovations that were based on the implementation of well-established models and designs set clear targets and standards for the learning outcomes that they sought to achieve. Innovations that were unable to draw on models that were as well grounded in the research and professional literature generally were weaker in establishing clear standards and targets. This was due to uncertainty about the nature of the outcomes that they believed could be achieved and the lack of relevant benchmarks that they could call upon to guide them.
The innovations in the area of literacy were the most highly developed and `hard-nosed' in their capacity to focus on the improvement of learning outcomes for students. In line with the best programmes that have been able to demonstrate their effectiveness in the improvement of learning, the innovations explicitly highlight the improvement of specific student learning outcomes as their primary objective and set demanding targets for students (Kentucky Department of Education, 1997).
In some schools, the middle-years and ICT-based innovations sought to demonstrate an impact on the precursors of cognitive outcomes, such as the improvement of student engagement and motivation, rather than specify targets for cognitive outcomes. The inability of some innovations to specify targets and standards had the impact of robbing them of some of the collateral benefits that can be gained by having high expectations for learning. In other schools, ICT innovations were able to demonstrate substantial improvements in curriculum learning outcomes at Year 12. They also demonstrated meta-cognitive and self- regulatory outcomes particularly where the innovation was part of a broader set of reforms. Alignment between the learning outcomes and specific software was evident in some innovations particularly where the ICT innovation had focused on Years 11-12 outcomes.
There was a paucity of appropriate methodologies and instruments available to schools for measuring the outcomes of some of the innovations. The standard range of learning assessments used in schools often did not correspond to the areas of learning that were the foci of the innovations.
Schools indicated that they considered the main outcomes from their innovations were improved student outcomes; and growth in teachers' expertise, understandings and knowledge. The project required schools to provide evidence of the outcomes of their innovation and how they might measure the improvement. This requirement to measure outcomes and formally evaluate the impact of them distinguished the project from previous school improvement initiatives.
The schools were able to demonstrate in most cases that their innovations had improved learning outcomes for students. Almost one-third of the participating schools provided evidence of significant improvement for students that could be attributable to the innovation, and a further 40 per cent provided evidence of improvement in outcomes that was associated with the innovation. Another quarter of the schools provided evidence that the innovation had an impact on intermediate outcomes for students, such as improvement in student motivation, but were unable during the period of the project to show that this translated into improved curriculum learning outcomes.
Monitoring and assessment
The learning outcomes targeted by many of the innovations reached beyond the range of behaviouristic curriculum outcomes normally assessed in schools to include complex cognitive skills, self-regulation learning skills, attitudes to learning, confidence and self-esteem, and social competencies (cf. Corno, 1993; Wang & Pallincsar, 1989; Wittrock, 1986).
Enhancement of teacher learning and knowledge about literacy and children's learning was the main mechanism through which literacy programmes sought to improve student learning outcomes. Models of literacy improvement implemented by schools generally included ready access to articulated and detailed strategies for assessing student literacy skills. Assessment data from these strategies was used explicitly to diagnose the learning of individual students.
The schools developed an enhanced regard for the usefulness and role of monitoring and assessment of student learning outcomes. The strongest innovations developed strategies that employed the outcomes of assessment as feedback about the effectiveness of teaching, a critical feature of the most effective programmes of learning (cf. Bloom, 1976; Kentucky Department of Education, 1997). They also established processes to track the learning of each student, and made use of this information to target the level of challenge for each student and report on the learning outcomes they had achieved to date. Schools often found that there was considerably more information available in the achievement data they receive from systemic assessments of their students than they had previously thought.
Many innovations targeted areas or years of schooling for which systemic assessment data proved to be insensitive or inappropriate in assessing its impact. Many schools experienced difficulty in obtaining measures that gave reliable feedback about the impact of their innovation on the learning outcomes they were seeking to influence. The middle-years and ICT-based innovations, in particular, found it difficult to locate or develop appropriate measures against which to monitor and assess student progress. Nevertheless, with external support, they developed strategies that were able to demonstrate significant improvement in the conditions likely to lead to enhanced learning outcomes.
In many cases, the evaluations of the innovations included qualitative data from student and teacher interviews. Whilst this provided appropriate evidence about the impact of their innovation, such methodologies are not convenient for providing ongoing information about student learning progress and further development work is required to support schools to assess student outcomes.
There was evidence that the rigorous monitoring and assessment regimes built into many of the literacy programmes were demanding of teacher time, but teachers supported their use for diagnosing the developmental needs of each student. The assessment processes provide high quality quantitative data and qualitative observational data on students' literacy behaviours. Teachers found that, with experience, the monitoring and assessment process became less demanding of their time. High-level expertise in assessment and literacy knowledge was required in order to use this information as feedback to the teaching and learning process.
The research reports from schools indicated that the mathematics innovations regularly assessed students. However, the information generated from the assessments was rarely used to reflect on practice, provide feedback on the effectiveness of teaching, track the learning progress of individual students or adapt teaching to the needs and stage of learning of individual students.
Teaching and learning
Teaching and learning was the major focus of most of the innovations. Unlike earlier initiatives focused on `restructuring' the organisation of teaching and learning in schools, the schools focused their attention on student learning first, and made organisational changes as required to address learning.
The underlying theoretical model of learning that underpinned many of the innovations was one that drew on a constructivist and self-regulated view to learning. The affective domain was often incorporated as an essential element of learning outcomes as it was regarded as a significant precursor of other learning outcomes. For example, there was a strong view in the mathematics innovations that it is essential that students develop confidence in their ability to do mathematics.
The innovations identified the most effective classroom environments as those that provided an integrated role for specific intervention in small group or one- to-one learning contexts in addition to whole-class explicit teaching. Students who needed additional support and additional time to learn were the focus of such intervention and special assistance strategies (cf. Bloom, 1976; Kulik & Kulik, 1991).
Instructional innovations aimed to better meet student learning needs. Teachers sought to gain a deeper understanding of the development needs of each individual student and to adapt strategies to meet these needs, a strategy strongly supported in the research literature (cf. Creemers, 1994). In the literacy innovations, this involved the development of an articulated set of whole-class, small-group, and one-to-one teaching and learning strategies. Innovations in the middle-years tended to focus instructional development on small group and individual learning strategies through the use of approaches such as problem- based learning. The ICT-based innovations placed most focus on the development of individualised learning strategies, although there was also some development of group learning strategies through approaches such as learning teams.
A number of metaphors have been developed to describe the multifaceted role of the teacher in this context. These various roles are not exclusive of one another; rather, they are a suite of roles to be enacted by the teacher. These roles include the theatrical director who directs and orchestrates learners' thinking; the tour guide who guides and chaperones learners; the scaffolder who provides the structures and supports; the provocateur who challenges and struggles with the learner; the negotiator who acts as broker between learner and curriculum; the committee chair who reconciles, organises and manages goals and agendas and the modeller who shapes and moulds learners' knowledge (Watts & Jofili, 1998).
The whole-school initiatives in literacy, focused mainly in the early-years, were able to draw on a well-developed research literature and proven instructional models, but middle-years initiatives generally had to assemble their improvement strategies from a range of diverse sources. The models of literacy teaching and learning provided teachers with a detailed understanding of the development of literacy skills in the early-years and a highly structured programme (cf. Pelligreno et al., 1999) that aims to ensure all students master literacy skills at a level necessary for them to progress to their next stage of schooling (cf. Bloom, 1976); Rosenshine, 1987). The literacy innovations adapted research-based models of literacy learning, such as Reading Recovery and First Steps , to school contexts and the specific needs of students (cf. Crévola & Hill, 1998b).
The innovations in the middle-years introduced strategies that transformed learning environments. These transformed environments were designed to support learning as students matured cognitively (cf. Kuhn, 1999), provide learning opportunities and hold high expectations for students. Unlike the literacy innovations, the initiatives were not able to draw on a well-elaborated model of teaching or learning, but had access to a substantial literature from national and international research and inquiries into the issues that students face in learning at that stage of their development. Hence, in contrast to the literacy innovations, those in the middle-years provided a greater challenge to teachers to translate their understandings into practice and evaluate their efficacy.
One of the significant outcomes from the middle-years innovations is the emergent focus on a `thinking skills' curriculum that is designed to provide students with a better opportunity to develop effective strategies for the self- regulation of their learning. Further, this emerging curriculum seeks to equip students with a broad set of skills and knowledge about problem solving and other meta-cognitive strategies. The research literature on the transfer of skills and knowledge indicates that the most successful approach to the teaching of thinking skills is to ensure that they are learnt in the context of the propositional knowledge to which they will be applied (Hattie et al., 1996).
Many schools were successful in integrating ICT into their learning environments to provide more authentic and adaptable contexts that better meet the learning needs of individual students in the middle-years. Schools found that they were able to integrate ICT into their learning environments to support significant enhancements in student enjoyment and motivation to learn (cf. Kulik & Kulik, 1991). The challenge addressed by many of the schools was how to move beyond the instrumental use of ICT to enhance standard curriculum knowledge to achieve outcomes associated with higher-order cognitive development, affective development, and the enhancement of social competencies.
The innovations in these schools focused on opportunities for students to learn in more constructivist and flexible ways. Such approaches enabled students to develop their meta-cognitive and self-regulatory skills and the skills and capacities for collaborative and cooperative learning. These they can use to achieve team- based outcomes, thereby enhancing their capacity to engage in learning.
In line with a social-constructivist approach to learning, many of the innovations developed strategies that sought to present students with a constant challenge to move beyond what they know at any time, to develop new knowledge and understandings. Other ICT innovations focused on the implementation of well- established models of ICT use, such as programmes in which every student has their own laptop. Innovations with a more local focus generally sought to explore the use of ICT in a specialist area of learning.
The mathematics innovations did not generally seek to comprehensively reshape teaching and learning to the extent found in the literacy and middle-years innovations. They sought to address the issues of making mathematics more meaningful for students through the development of strategies to make learning more authentic. They also sought to develop strategies for students to learn at a pace they could manage and to experience success in learning mathematics. Much of the emphasis was on enhancing the disposition and attitude of students to mathematics as a means to gaining improved student engagement.
School and class organisation
Many of the innovations changed classroom practices by restructuring the instructional framework to integrate whole-class, small group, and one-to-one learning. This was particularly evident in the literacy innovations, but also had some profile in the middle-years and ICT innovations, albeit in a somewhat different format. The structure of grouping in the early-years of primary schooling is considerably more advanced than the use of grouping to stream or set students that is used by some schools in the early years of secondary schooling. The aim of the integrated multi-tiered grouping design is to ensure that students who do not gain mastery of the skills required in whole-class instruction have the opportunity to develop their skills in small-group work, and if required, in additional one-to-one instruction (cf. Crévola and Hill, 1998b; Janssens, 1986). To provide the resources required for this model of learning, schools scheduled longer blocks of time for literacy sessions, minimised any interruptions during this time, and deployed all available staff in the literacy programme during this period of the day.
The restructuring of grouping in the middle-years and ICT innovations focused on increased use of project-based learning and cooperative team learning, and individualisation through the strategic use of ICT. A range of other innovations also introduced new organisational groupings of students, mostly in the form of multi-age classes. Innovations across both primary and secondary years made use of temporary grouping for specific purposes, such as adapting teaching to the needs of students considered to be `at risk'.
The middle-years innovations also focused on restructuring the organisation of the curriculum and introducing vertical-grouping across grades. Curriculum restructuring involved the development of cross-curricular approaches to teaching and reducing the number of teachers that each student had contact with by having each teacher teach in two or more curriculum areas. Another aspect of the organisation of schools common to the literacy and middle-years' innovations was the restructuring of time. In particular, a number of the literacy innovations introduced fixed two-hour segments each day for teaching literacy. These segments were quarantined from interruptions and given over entirely to the teaching of literacy. To achieve this, schools needed to develop more flexible practices in the use of staff so that all students could be engaged in literacy lessons at the same time and also develop and resource strategies to support small-group and one-to-one learning. These particular innovations occurred mainly in schools that had the capacity to redirect their resources to meet specific objectives.
Professional learning
Research indicates that programmes that have demonstrated a clear impact on the improvement of learning outcomes emphasised professional learning-by valuing the pedagogical knowledge that teachers have acquired previously-and were highly responsive to the professional learning needs of individual teachers (Kentucky Department of Education, 1997).
Teacher learning was a dominant strategy used by IBPP schools to achieve their goals. The role of teacher learning in the innovations substantially extended pre- existing conceptions of professional development. Many schools viewed teacher learning as the primary vehicle for enhancing school capacity to develop and implement their innovation.
Fundamental to the emerging model of professional learning are three features: learning together in teaching teams; learning through `working' with knowledge to develop an understanding of its practical application in the classroom; and evaluation of the efficacy of teaching strategies developed through professional learning.
Schools allocated significant time for teams of teachers to be actively involved in the following:
- gathering information about knowledge and practice elsewhere, either from the literature or from the professional experiences of other schools;
- participating in focused discussions and reflection within schools;
- engaging in experimental development activities and trial strategies;
- developing strategies to use feedback from student learning to monitor the effectiveness of teaching; and
- developing mentoring and peer observation strategies to support teacher learning.
Strategies focused on developing understandings of contemporary theories of student learning and teaching practices that had been found to be effective elsewhere. Schools continuously revisited the underlying rationale and development of practices as their innovations developed. Many of the professional learning strategies involved teachers in much closer relationships with researchers and specialist consultants than has been the normal case with traditional professional development programmes.
A wide range of contexts and activities were designed to support teacher learning. Strategies for teacher learning were embedded as a core element in the implementation of the innovations themselves. The multi-faceted and flexible nature of the teacher professional learning programmes meant that it was possible to explicitly value the experience and knowledge base of individual teachers and to focus further learning on the development of new skills and knowledge to meet specific needs. In most innovations, the learning needs of teachers changed and evolved as the innovation was implemented. Schools made use of both expert outside and internal input in providing teachers with opportunities to work through issues and engage in new learning both in and out of the classroom.
The distributed form of leadership that was evident in many of the schools also supported teacher learning by giving teachers leading roles in the instructional development of the innovations. Although teachers took responsibility for their own individual learning, the learning processes used were commonly group processes in which expert input, team reflection, argument, debate and the generation of ideas were able to influence both the group and the individual. Many schools appointed teachers with a specific role to coordinate the development and implementation of the innovation. These teachers took on the explicit role of `lead-learners' responsible for establishing structures and processes that supported mentoring, professional sharing and channelling of relevant professional literature to teachers involved in implementing the innovation. This extended role of professional learning was strongest in the literacy innovations. However, there were significant elements of it in many of the whole-school innovations.
The teacher learning contexts and processes developed by schools provided more than the opportunity for teachers to gain knowledge and skills. It also supported the development of common understandings across the school and played an important role in motivating staff and maintaining energy and enthusiasm for the innovation. Professional learning was the main focus of strategies for addressing resistance from staff, often those not directly involved, to the innovations.
Home, school and community partnerships
Schools built on the research base that indicates a strong role for parents in supporting effective student learning. Recent research has indicated that parents would seek improved opportunities for schools to provide them with specific educational advice about how they can support the learning of their individual children (Cuttance & Stokes, 2000).
Developing positive relationships with parent communities was a key aspect of school culture building. The support of parents was crucial to the success of the innovations. A few schools underestimated the potential for the parent community to thwart or impede the innovation.
Strategies that schools developed to include parents included: communicating with parents about how to monitor the progress of each child; training parents in strategies to support teachers in the classroom; providing parents with an enhanced understanding of the nature of the learning that schools were seeking to achieve; and, enhancing home learning environments to support the overall learning programme of students. A number of schools with innovations in the middle-years and with ICT-based innovations also established linkages with community organisations and local businesses to support students' overall programmes of learning.