Education Leaders' Circle 2014

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TELSTRA EDUCATION LEADERS’ CIRCLE REPORT MELBOURNE 25 NOVEMBER 2014RESETTING THE PLATFORM FOR ADVANCING AUSTRALIA’S LEARNING

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CONTENTS

THE TELSTRA EDUCATION LEADERS’ CIRCLE 04

INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS 05

1.0 OPEN EDUCATION 06 David Price

2.0 THE NEW LEARNING ECOSYSTEM & PERSONALISED LEARNING 08 Yong Zhao & Kathe Kirby

3.0 INNOVATING THE LEARNING SYSTEM – THE POWER OF TECHNOLOGY & LEARNING ANALYTICS 11 Nelson Gonzalez & Susan Mann

4.0 WORKSPACE X – A DIGITAL APPROACH TO PERSONALISING LEARNING BY TELSTRA 12 Bobby Gorcevski

5.0 ADVANCING THE AUSTRALIAN LEARNING ECOSYSTEM – THE NEXT STEPS 13 Tony Mackay & Susi Steigler-Peters

THE WAY FORWARD 16

THE TELSTRA EDUCATION LEADERS’ CIRCLE 17

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The first Telstra Education Leaders’ Circle held in Melbourne on 25 November 2014, was a watershed event. It represented a deliberate shift from the advocacy and local action of the previous Roundtables, to the broader consensus and decisive collaborative action of a new Circle. The new Telstra Education Leaders’ Circle draws its inspiration from the challenge to transform education across Australia. It draws its members from Australia’s pre-eminent educators, system leaders and thinkers, and it draws its contributors from the world’s most influential educational innovators, creative entrepreneurs and futurists. After five years of national collaboration and achievement through the Roundtable, it was timely to reassess the national partnership, to refine its purpose, sharpen its focus and reshape its membership.

The Circle challenges its members to define a new national role for the group that Telstra sees as the source of new, refreshed collaborative endeavours for future thinking and action across the Australian education landscape from preschool to tertiary and beyond.

In preparation for the new Leaders’ Circle, Lindsay Wasson was commissioned to write a ‘provocation piece’ to help reset the platform for the new group. In this foundational piece, the journey to date was outlined, achievements of the previous seven Roundtables were referenced, and the major emerging themes enumerated. As well, the paper challenged the group to consider where the locus of agreed actions might take place – at the macro level of systemic change, or at the concrete, operational level where learning and the learner intersect.

Regardless, the imperative to respond to the four big themes was key to any future concerted action by the Circle and its members.

The four big and interconnected themes that emerged from the previous Roundtables are:

• The rise of ‘Open’ education

• Disruptive technologies

• The democratisation of education, and;

• Personalised learning.

The Telstra Education Leaders’ Circle was chaired by Susi Steigler-Peters and facilitated by Tony Mackay.

THE TELSTRA EDUCATION LEADERS’ CIRCLE

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INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS

In his opening remarks, Nick Lambert, Executive Director, Global Industries, Global Enterprise and Services, Telstra, affirmed his and Telstra’s strongest support for the work of the Leaders’ Circle. In doing so, he expressed the hope that ‘some of the work that we do here in Australia we can take global’ and that any intersections with Asia would be a positive for the Asia-Pacific region. He reflected positively on the personalised learning focus of the group and the clear priority to improve learning outcomes.

Susi Steigler-Peters made clear that, with her Telstra colleagues, her strategy would be based on the immutable premise that learning must be ‘personalised, collaborative, immediate, interactive and global’. Referencing the dynamic new learning models being developed by Greg Whitby at Delany College, Granville, Steigler-Peters saw a ‘swift and sticky shift to new pedagogies’ within these new learning environments. New models of collaboration, with student learning agency at their heart, demonstrated what could be achieved when education providers team with Telstra to shape innovative models with deep impacts for students, teachers and parents. Steigler-Peters concluded with a commitment from Telstra to ongoing support for this national grouping while seeking a commitment from the Circle to join in and take the steps towards a new agenda for change.

THE STRATEGIC CONVERSATIONThere Were Four Key Sessions Of Input, With A Wrap-Up Strategy Session To Explore Next Steps.

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1.0 OPEN EDUCATION - DAVID PRICE

In a brilliant, interactive session, David Price, of ‘Open – How We’ll Work, Live And Learn In The Future’ fame, delivered the platform session for the day. Setting the scene with insights into the future of work where he positions a future of “high skills/low income”, where 50% of work by 2020 will be freelance, and where the “learning is earning” nexus will unravel – he went on to outline his thesis of the emerging reality of “borderless learning” from the ‘Open’ phenomenon in the social space to ‘Open’ in the places we work and learn.

“It’s not a question of whether our schools and workplaces become open but when, and how we help them do it” - David Price

He sees the wider trend of “disintermediation”, the removal of the “middlemen and women” from transactions in many spaces, as now applying to the role of schools and teachers. This he links to the democratisation of learning, where “working around the system”, with technology-enabled learning through social means, has come to the fore. Central to his thesis is that:

“The open exchange of information, ideas and opinions has the power to change the world for the better.” - David Price

Learners need more freedoms than they’ve had up to now because when they are not in the formal learning space they have it and demand it. The power and motivation brought by the sense of autonomy, immediacy and “generosity” experienced in sharing within an informal, open learning environment is transformative for the learner.

Price challenged the Circle to consider the following question:

How Many Of These ‘Do-Its’ Are Present In Our Learning Spaces?Characteristics of social learning:

1. Do it yourself (autonomy)

2. Do it now (immediacy)

3. Do it with friends (collegiality)

4. Do it for fun (playfulness)

5. Do unto others (generosity)

6. Do it for the world to see (high visibility)

‘How Many of These ‘Do-Its’ Are Present In Our Learning Spaces?’ from David Price presentation

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Educators, he argues, are “struggling to compete against the power and the seductiveness of the learning that is happening in the social space”.

“We need to see the school as the base camp and not the destination for learning” - David PriceIn a summary comment on the session, Tony Mackay spoke of the apparent “parallel universes” currently at play, between Price’s “open” commons and the schools’ “enclosure”, and the need to “work our way through the authorising, legitimising authority systems that will actually allow us to really make sure that some of these parallel universes come together and we’re able to broker and enable.”

The slide to the right encapsulates key propositions from Price’s session and provides a frame for systemic responses to the opportunities of ‘Open’ education:

Open Learning Systems:• Extend learning relationships

(mentors, experts, coaches, community)

• See school as basecamp for learning, not destination

• Seek achievement through engagement

• Privilege passion, participation and purpose

• Connect learners — and teachers — globally

• Engage parents in learning conversations

• Pursue equity-based education

• Reject command-and-control as mode of governance

‘Open Learning Systems’ from David Price presentation

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2.0 THE NEW LEARNING ECOSYSTEM & PERSONALISED LEARNING - YONG ZHAO & KATHE KIRBY

YONG ZHAO set the tenor of his inspirational session with a metaphor, likening the reform attempts by schools and systems to “fixing a horse wagon and hoping to go to the moon”. In following up Price’s ‘Why?’ case for a paradigm shift, he set forth three main points:

1. “We have truly arrived at a different stage of human society when we can have or make use of the full spectrum of human diversity. We have arrived at the time”, he argues, “where all human capacity should be or can be capitalised”.

2. ‘The end of monopoly.’ Education has always monopolised two things. One is access to knowledge, the other is the monopoly of credentialing or qualifications.

The first has been lost through the age of ‘Open’ or “the second machine age”, despite attempts to fix that monopoly “by prescribing better content, better knowledge, better pedagogy and better assistance.” The second monopoly remains, although it is under challenge as the value of credentials is questioned in an era of work and societal volatility.

3. ‘The age of globalisation’. With passion, he argues that our education must not be based on the premise of the “selfish capitalist” but on an education that is qualitatively different; one that ensures we “look at each other as neighbours, connectors, as partners, as markets for each other, and that requires a global competency.” How is this done?

“We have to push to a personalised education. Most other countries cannot and are not able to afford that.”

“We need greatness, and greatness takes time. It’s effort, it’s passion, and takes confidence as well as aptitude.” - Yong Zhao

Zhao confirms that we have arrived at the age of ‘Open’, that we need education that personalises, that enhances and strengthens the individual, where students regain the autonomy of their own learning enterprise. The end point he sees is one where our learners become those who “create products and services and ideas that matter to other people, even learning to become entrepreneurial.”

“We need a globalised campus (where) our students learn with, learn from, and learn for each other across the globe. That’s the new paradigm.” - Yong Zhao

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‘Tomorrow brings us all closer’ from Kathe Kirby presentation

KATHE KIRBY followed Zhao with a session of great clarity and vision, linking Zhao’s commentary with insights specific to the Australian context. Kirby issued three challenges:

1: How do we ensure our students become globally competent?

2: How will we ensure our young people are Asia–ready or Asia–capable?

3: What is happening in our schools to equip our young people to be globally competent and Asia–ready?

In responding to these challenges, and strongly endorsing Zhao’s thesis, Kirby argued that “there is another set of characteristics and attributes that our young people require… They need an understanding of the world that they live in today, and they need the ability to communicate with that world, and to work particularly with different cultures.” Why is that so critical, she asks?

“Because cultural diversity and connectedness is the new norm.” - Kathe Kirby

Of the many attributes of global competence she referenced, languages skills as “providing stereoscopic vision to the global mind” resonated powerfully with the group. This was particularly so when Kirby alluded to the game changer of the planned inclusion of global competencies in the 2018 PISA assessment.

“The world is recognising that in an interdependent global community the future of humanity depends on the capacity of education to produce globally competent citizens.”- Tony Jackson, Vice President Education Asian Society, USA, 2014

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2.0 THE NEW LEARNING ECOSYSTEM & PERSONALISED LEARNING - YONG ZHAO & KATHE KIRBY (CONT.)

In analysing the realities, depth and potential of Australia’s place in Asia and the economic and societal implications for our nation, Kirby made crystal clear the irrefutable

imperative to ensure we are Asia-ready and competent. One telling piece of evidence is the factors crucial to doing business in Asia. These are set out below.

The obverse of this compelling evidence (Export Council of Australia 2014) is that the top barrier for Australian businesses to secure our economic future through Asia-based business is overwhelmingly a lack of knowledge about local culture and languages.

Kirby rounded out her presentation with a telling example of how the connections can be made and the barriers removed. She cited the extensive Australia Indonesia Bridge Program, set up by the Asia Education Foundation, involving 400 schools in both Australia and Indonesia. Teachers take part in in-country exchange, establishing collegial relationships for learning

and collaboration, while students engage in technology-enabled and synchronous learning experiences between schools, across schools and in connected networks of learners. Impacts on both teacher capacity building and student learning have been profound. “Going back to Yong”, Kirby explains, “they are learning from each other, with each other and for each other.”

“Business says the lack of Asia capabilities in the Australian workforce is as real a barrier to entry into Asia as tariffs or exchange rates.”Asialink business market research, February 2014

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Developing an Asia–capable workforce, Asialink 2012

Not at all important

Quality product at accurate price point

Quality partnerships

Great networks

Understanding of local management culture

Cultural understanding

Local stuff

Legal and tax knowledge

Extremely important

“Importance of factors in doing business in or with Asia” from Kathe Kirby presentation

Importance Of Factors In Doing Business In Or With Asia

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In her introduction to Nelson Gonzalez, Susan Mann identified the core questions to be raised in the session:

• How do we progress the agenda inherent in the previous sessions?

• What tools can we use?

• What sorts of approaches are out there and available to the transformational purpose of the Circle?

Mann then went on to explain how Gonzalez’s company, Declara, has built a powerful data analytics capability that enables the detection of patterns in emerging teacher practice so content and connections can support teacher self-organisation, co-creation and professional learning.

During his brilliant session, Gonzalez argued that there is not so much a skills gap but a skills imbalance in teacher capacity that “requires the need for us to think about organisational practice and really facilitating an ecosystem in which those skills (that do exist in many) can be taken advantage of.” He cites an Australian example where his platform is being used, “that is feeding the predictive analytics, allowing us to do some very interesting pattern detection”. This is made possible “by an intelligent platform that uses every single interaction that users undertake to understand their identity, their intent and their context. And so our platform becomes increasingly more subtle and enables us to personalise the recommendations of content and connections…”

“By mining the interactive patterns in data that was coming from the actual interactions, we were able to make visible what was invisible and to show the way the collective capacity was actually forming organically through these learning communities and begin to see how the skills and balances might be met through this kind of interaction.” - Nelson Gonzalez

Gonzalez presaged the development by Declara of what he termed “the Mobius strip of learning”, where student learning and teacher learning is inexorably linked.

“So imagine how wonderful it would be if there was the closest to real-time data as we could get on student outcomes, what teachers are doing and what students are doing in a particular classroom today, and what that implies for what a teacher should be doing on the network. What content should she be consuming? What should we recommend to her as a mentor, as a video, as a podcast?” - Nelson Gonzalez

This foreshadows the kinds of professional development environments Declara is focused on, where teachers can work on their pedagogical practices and then have student feedback on experiments around those pedagogical practices. The Mobius strip of learning in practice!

“Given that 70% of adult learning happens through the actual doing of one’s profession… getting as close as we can to student experience and student outcomes so we can differentiate and personalise teaching professional development in as real time as possible, based on that data, is the goal.” - Nelson Gonzalez

3.0 INNOVATING THE LEARNING SYSTEM – THE POWER OF TECHNOLOGY & LEARNING ANALYTICS - NELSON GONZALEZ & SUSAN MANN

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4.0 WORKSPACE X – A DIGITAL APPROACH TO PERSONALISING LEARNING BY TELSTRA - BOBBY GORCEVSKI

Gonzalez’s session brought a break-through predictive analytics platform to the table that was seen as transformational for a more acutely targeted model of personalised learning. In the following session, Bobby Gorcevski from Telstra, demonstrated a cloud-based solution, being developed in collaboration with Steigler-Peters, that delivers a new dimension in technology-enabled personalised learning ecosystems.

“Workspace X - a private app store marketplace” - Bobby Gorcevski

Workspace X is a robust cloud-based service that is an enabler of personalised learning within a secure online workspace utilising quality apps, collaboration tools, safe social media and institution alerts and notifications. This innovative and evolving solution takes learning from the traditional hardware-centric campus/school ecosystem, to a nimble, mobile, web or cloud-based ecosystem. Learner agency is paramount with an experience that incorporates their personal world with their more formal learning world.

“Workspace X enables learner agency and helps it flourish. It puts the learner in the box seat…” - Susi Steigler-Peters

Workspace X was very positively received by Circle members. Here was a serious answer to the biggest dilemma facing the committed advocates of deep-impact, personalised learning models. How do we realise our aspirations for a liberated, personalised learning ecosystem that allows BYOD, harvests the best of the digital learning world, enables learner agency, has single sign-on, is safe, can be brokered by

systems, is accessible and cost-effective? It was clear to members that, complemented by the predictive real-time learning analytics of Declara, Telstra’s Workspace X offers the most advanced, flexible, and complete solution. This solution would not be an off-the-shelf product, but a customer-led, context-determined, flexible design for unique needs and requirements.

ConsumeStudent & staff mobile devices

• eBooks• Apps• Files & documents• Collaboration tools• School alerts

Discover CurateInstitution

• Access world-class SaaS providers based on your needs• Bring together your education applications and services

In a NutshellWorkspace X provides learning spaces

for students and teachers that are:

Social

Global

Personalised

Collaborative

Interactive

Applications

Workspace X

Content delivery

management

Device management

& support

Security & auditing

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5.0 ADVANCING THE AUSTRALIAN LEARNING ECOSYSTEM - THE NEXT STEPS - TONY MACKAY & SUSI STEIGLER-PETERS

The wrap up session was designed to transition members from the Roundtable to the new Telstra Education Leaders’ Circle and to determine next steps. In her introductory comments to the session, the Chair made clear the premise under which the Circle would proceed and the basis upon which Telstra would engage with the education sector:

“I want to be completely and utterly collaborative in the way that we manage education not only in this country but also globally.” - Susi Steigler-PetersThe Chair then invited Lindsay Wasson to speak to the ‘provocation piece’ he had been commissioned to write for the Circle’s first meeting. Central to his argument was the fundamental proposition that:

“Unless change is actually focused around students and you build systems around students you really don’t get any useful change at all.”

He went on to say that attempts to replicate lighthouses and pilots had been fraught with failure; that the policy shifts at state and national levels have made holistic change difficult, but that the drive to reform and innovate should not be diminished. The successful learner and successful learning is the business of education. The Circle should concentrate, he argued, on two dimensions of collaborative action: one at the systemic level because it is critical to get the architecture and supports right at the macro level; and two, at the practical student-focused level.

“Without changing systems we really don’t change much, but recognise, as the provocation piece is arguing, that to do that we actually need to focus on the individual learner.” - Lindsay Wasson

He reiterated the thesis in the provocation piece that productive collaborative work should focus on the clear priorities of:

• numeracy/mathematics

• bilingual education in Mandarin and Indonesian

• science, and

• a case-management approach to personalised learning.

Comments

Responses to the provocation piece were mixed, but common threads were:

• frameworks for systemic change within the challenges and opportunities presented by the ‘Open’ phenomenon,

• personalisation of learning, and

• a focus on concrete, discrete areas of the curriculum, particularly Asian languages.

Technology’s role as the essential enabler that binds all areas together was implicit in all responses.

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A sample of Circle members’ responses follows:

“I want to feel that what we’re going to do is learner-centred in the personalised way you have talked about it, but in a completely different order than the way the rhetoric gives expression to that at the moment… We need to take David Price’s Six Characteristics as a frame for designing a learning ecosystem that will reflect the challenges we face.” - Tony Mackay

“The themes that are starting to emerge revolve around big data analytics with a powerful framework that will make a difference and a stronger case for change” - Martin James

“Unless we make a commitment to really bring the technology to bear in the delivery of languages in this country we simply are not going to be able to move forward in any form of scale that’s going to meet the sorts of demands and opportunities that I put on the table.” - Kathe Kirby

“Is the purpose of this group to be going out there pushing new areas, new advances with the knowledge that it might not work? Or are we about getting some quick wins on the board by scaling up what seems to work?” - David Price

“The argument is around revolution rather than evolution. We’ve got to take a jump…and challenge the norms. We also have to use Telstra’s power.” - Nick Lambert

“I would like to look at the fourth provocation around personalised learning–based on case management. I love the idea of someone taking that whole journey and being able to intervene (and) using rich data.” - Simon Mitchell-Wong

“We need a paradigm shift, and as you said Lindsay, we talk about personalised learning, but it’s rhetoric. We talk about data being available but we don’t actually see the flow through to the learner. We haven’t pulled it all together except in words. So we need some action.” - Lynne Davie

“The things that resonated are about respecting the learner, the actual individual that we’re trying to do this to or with and engage with them and understand the whys and the hows… We need to bring their parents and families along in the journey.” - Peter Simmonds

5.0 ADVANCING THE AUSTRALIAN LEARNING ECOSYSTEM - THE NEXT STEPS - TONY MACKAY & SUSI STEIGLER-PETERS (CONT.)

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5.0 ADVANCING THE AUSTRALIAN LEARNING ECOSYSTEM - THE NEXT STEPS - TONY MACKAY & SUSI STEIGLER-PETERS (CONT.)

“A lot of things I support here. I particularly like the idea around languages. It would be great to really raise awareness as well as do some really concrete stuff.” - Susan Mann

“I believe that some affiliation between parents and business would mount an irrefutable claim for change that I don’t think any government could deny.” - David Price

“I think it would be easier for us if there was a united front across Australia so you could really leverage the power of the Telstra organisation, and we would be behind you. We’re locked in, shoulder to shoulder and up for the fight, so we absolutely declare our interest and energy in developing something.” - Nick Lambert

“The early years really need focus because we have allowed ourselves to slip… and languages are critically important. Personalised learning has to be systemic, and again, it has to be across every single state if you are going to leverage the national change capabilities that you’ve got.” - Nick Lambert

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THE WAY FORWARD

From a day of exceptional input, robust discussion and insightful agenda setting, the key threads for the future of the new Telstra Education Leaders’ Circle emerged:

• There was strong endorsement of the concept and purpose of the Circle

• Telstra’s leadership role as convener of this unique assembly of Australia’s leading educators was affirmed

• The pivotal role in the Circle of the great Australian educational institutions such as AITSL, ESA, ACARA, AEF and CSE was resoundingly endorsed

• Links with the world’s most important educational thinkers and analysts (David Price, Yong Zhao, George Siemens, Nelson Gonzalez) were cemented.

Most importantly, and this was powerfully expressed by Steigler-Peters in her summative comments, the future focus of the Circle on a new, case-management approach to personalised learning was agreed as the centre-piece of the Circle’s future collaboration.

Responding to the Circle’s commitment to explore further the way in which we can migrate from rhetoric around personalisation to a deep-impact reality, Steigler-Peters outlined her immediate and longer–term agenda:

“I want to look at personalised learning through the lens of Workspace X. To take Workspace X to the next level, I’ve commissioned some research from George Siemens around learning analytics. And Nelson Gonzalez is also involved, so we have the best minds in the world around it. The aim is to deliver a tangible service that will make personalisation work in your environment.” - Susi Steigler-Peters

Steigler-Peters went on to say, that personalisation with Workspace X as a powerful, liberating underpinning will naturally capture all the strands of educational priority including Asian languages, numeracy and STEM.

By the end of 2015 the Circle should see complete models, enriched by the work of Siemens and Gonzalez, that offer a serious step up in our quest for the co-creation of universal learning success involving each individual learner.

The commitment of Telstra to this great aim would involve highly responsive, individualised services to the systems and institutions represented around the Circle table.

This report was written by Lindsay Wasson.

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ChairSusi Steigler-Peters Telstra

Keynote SpeakersDavid Price Innovation Unit UK Yong Zhao University of Oregon Nelson Gonzalez Declara Inc. USA Kathe Kirby Asia Education Foundation Susan Mann Education Services Australia

ModeratorTony Mackay Centre for Strategic Education

Other Circle ParticipantsCheryl Best (apology) NSW Department of Education and Communities Keren Capel Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership Lynne Davie Department of Education & Early Childhood Development (Victoria) Steve Elder Catholic Schools Sara Glover Mitchell Institute Eric Jamieson NSW Department of Education and Communities Martin James Australian Institute for Teaching & School Leadership (AITSL) Kerri-Lee Krause University of Western Sydney Simon Mitchell-Wong Catholic Schools Melbourne Michael O’Leary Queensland Department of Education, Training and Employment Rob Randall (apology) Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority Bruce Rigby (apology) National Standards Interoperability Program Peter Simmonds SA Department for Education and Child Development Lindsay Wasson Education Consultant Greg Whitby Catholic Schools Parramatta

Bobby Gorcevski Telstra Nick Lambert Telstra Mario Pavlou Telstra Chris Pearce Telstra Naomi Turner Telstra

THE TELSTRA EDUCATION LEADERS’ CIRCLE

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