A Step Forward: Knowledge and Skills, Capabilities and Competencies: the Chicken and the Egg

I'm loving the kōrero flying around about the hierarchy of skills, knowledge, competencies and capabilities. Much cleverer people than me are making strong contributions to the kōrero but I'm doing my best to make sense of it for me. I got a bit confused observing the kōrero between @briarlipson and @ThomasHaig (and the others who contributed) because I couldn't quite understand the equation knowledge = skills, or was it the other way around, or if you couldn't have knowledge without skills, or skills without knowledge, or if you were allowed to have both, or if one was more important than the other.

This morning I listened to Valerie Hannon on RNZ and I must admit it created some clarity for me, though I do suspect her views are those that are quite prevalent in my echo chamber so I have to watch out I don't get caught up in an "unstable consensus of experts." I loved the three emphases for schooling and learning that have emerged from the Innovation Unit and are most probably evident in Hannon's book Thrive which I'm about to purchase:

1. Well-being at the centre
2. Competencies not content
3. Learner Agency

And I like the 4 levels of Thriving she touches on in the broadcast (she doesn't get to finish them because the interviewer talked too much):

1. Thriving at the Global level
2. Thriving at the Societal level
3. Thriving at the Intrapersonal level
4. Thriving at the Interpersonal level

Most of all I loved how she argued for the place of knowledge and skills. She claims what are most important are Competencies and that to be strong in them you need to build knowledge, learn and develop skills and explore attitudes and values. This makes more sense to me and is helping me grapple with the kōrero that is circulating.

I think Valerie Hannon and Elizabeth Rata might disagree on the actual 'what' of knowledge in the type of learning we need to create the world we want. In The Basic Flaw in our Education System  she argues for the English Curriculum to be standardised. I wasn't sure what to make of it as I am not an English teacher but I did enjoy Gillian Hubbard's response in her article English teaching not perfect, but it works. Her observations are certainly what match my experience of working with and observing English teachers and learners in English classrooms over many years.

And amongst all this I have personally been grappling with my dissatisfaction and frustration with how we measure achievement. This long-simmering frustration was spurred along by some recent input from Dr Ann Milne who has focused the light quite clearly on the total cultural inappropriateness of how we traditionally measure achievement.

I desperately want to find another way of measuring a different, but more appropriate, both culturally and for-the-sake-of-our-planet-and-future-for-our-kids, type of success. I made the mistake of mentioning this at our last BOT meeting so this challenge has now been formalised into my appraisal!

A couple of days ago I sent out the following tweet:

I have been inundated with suggestions and support with many wanting to be part of the conversation. I'm collecting all of the responses with the hashtag #gradprofile  and would welcome more contributors.

Then amongst all this excitement I wake to read in the NZ Herald a story under the headline Wellington School to completely drop NCEA in favour of Cambridge exams. The principal's comment that her school would be "the first in Wellington to drop NCEA" reminded me of the Monty Python 100m dash for people with no sense of direction when one of the competitors headed off in the opposite direction. (Go on! Watch it!). She was also quoted as saying that amongst her students she "saw lethargic practice" and that her learners were often saying "achieved is enough." I respectfully suggest that it is not the qualification that determines practice or learning motivation, it is the culture of a school and it's approach to the design of learning. At the conclusion of the article she states she is "pretty confident they will do really, really well." I'm sure they'll do really, really well in Cambridge. I hope they'll do really, really well in the world described so well by Valerie Hannon.

At least the principal claims she's "not afraid to take a step forward"! I suppose it's all about what you are moving forward to.

Great conversations!

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Deep Learning and Well-being (students and staff): A Way Forward for NCEA?

Claire Amos,  Steve Mouldey and Gerard MacManus have inspired me to get my blogging going again. As well, over the summer I read Grant Lichtman's latest book Moving the Rock and was reminded by his belief that connectivity empowers innovation, that innovative thinking doesn't occur in an isolated space, but in a connected setting. So if I want to keep up with the innovative thinking I'd better keep practising and modelling connection - one way is through my blog.

At the end of the summer holidays I was interviewed by Kathryn Ryan on Radio NZ Nine to Noon. I had been asked to talk about the motivation for and principles behind our decision to bypass NCEA Level 1 and send our Year 11 learners on a 2 year journey to a quality Level 2. We'd been talking this talk for a number of years and our 2017 students were the first cohort to move through that journey.

The decision to follow this path was based on our principle of Inspire through deep challenge and inquiry. If we wished to remain true to this principle we did not feel we could subject our Year 11 learners to a year of surface learning in a bid to chase in excess of 100 credits to gain NCEA L1, which is a qualification of very little currency. All of us on the staff had seen many examples of over-stressed kids in Year 11, losing all engagement with deep learning in their pursuit of credits. We had certainly seen and experienced the huge demands on teacher workload supporting students in this pursuit. As a result, in designing our approach to delivering NCEA the first principle we decided on was reduce stress.

We couldn't be happier with how things have played out at our school. Our students, at the end of the calendar year, have achieved NCEA L2 to a level expected by students from schools such as ours and the level of Merit or  Excellence endorsed qualifications was higher than expected.

What is more pleasing is the largely calm manner in which our students went about compiling their quality NCEA L2. I had learning conversations with most of our Year 12 students as the year drew to a close and 2 things stood out:

1. The low levels of stress and anxiety many were experiencing as they explained their progress towards their quality qualification
2. One student, in particular, reminding me that there was no panic or alarm that he was on track to achieve 'only'  70 of the credits he needed for Level 2 to be awarded in 2017 because he was coming back in 2018 as a Year 13 student and would pick up his Level 2 as he moved towards gaining his Level 3. This was a reminder to me to wind back the level of stress around NCEA.

I began to think about how we set our students on a 2 year journey to their quality qualification and that we didn't get hung up on reporting where they were at at the end of the Year 11 calendar year. Now that our narrative is changing to a 3 year journey towards a quality qualification I am wondering why we get hung up on where  every kid  is at at the end of the calendar year, while at the same time wondering what our school will look like in League  Tables which look at results over a calendar year.

With the upcoming review of NCEA, which has some great thinkers involved, I've been thinking about how our experience could influence the outcome of that review.

How about this  as a possibility?

• A single qualification is awarded when a student graduates from secondary school.
• The level of the qualification is determined by each student's best, say, 80 credits achieved over their last 1, 2 or 3 years at secondary school.
• If a student knows they will be at school until the end of Year 13 and will be achieving the equivalent of NCEA L3 they shouldn't have to be jumping through the hoops and continual qualifications assessment required of Level 1 and 2. They could be spending those years engaged in deep learning as they bring together the evidence of this deep learning.
• Published levels of school achievements would simply be the level of qualifications achieved by students as they graduate.

I'm only a country boy and there will be lots of fish hooks in my suggestion but if the starting point is the promotion of deep learning and student and staff well-being it might be worth considering.

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NCEA - Deep Challenge and Inquiry

One of the Principles that has formed the foundations of our curriculum decision-making is to Inspire through Deep Challenge and Inquiry. When it came to making our decisions in relation to NCEA we were close to deciding to approach it in much the same way as all schools until we focused on this Principle.

Our approach which we settled on in early 2015 is described in an earlier post  by me and one by Claire. I included the following in that previous post:

I then explained why NCEA Level 1 was a qualification of little value; it leads to no employment or further training. Despite this all schools expose their 14 and 15 year olds to a full year of six subjects offering anywhere between 18 and 24 credits (both internal and external) meaning to get the 80 required (for a meaningless qualification) students were being exposed to 120-140 credits. It's like being hit by a tidal wave! All of a sudden their focus moves away from the joy of discovery and learning to credit chasing and teachers take their eye off the NZC and 'teach to the tests' - all for a qualification that has little value! Stress levels rise for everyone - students, teachers and parents.

Our plan is that our Year 11 students will achieve around 20 quality Level 1 or 2 credits that emerge from their co-constructed learning programmes. Most of these will be from their areas of interest and passion though if we identify that a learner will struggle to receive literacy and numeracy credits at Level 6 or 7 then we will direct them to the literacy and numeracy Unit Standards.

Our learners will take their 20 quality credits with them to Year 12. Their focus in Year 12 will be on 60 quality Level 2 or higher credits. When these are matched with the 20 they have brought with them they are awarded NCEA L1 and 2. They will have done this after having attempted around 100 credits over their 2 years rather than the 220-280 they may have had to attempt elsewhere.

So, as we approach our 4th year and have students moving into Year 12 (Q2 in our lingo), how did 2016 pan out for our Year 11 (Q1) learners?

We started 2016 by setting a target of every Q1 learner achieving 20 quality credits to lay the foundation for their 2 year journey to a quality NCEA L2. Programmes were set up in such a way that all learners would have the opportunity to attempt 20 - 40 credits.

This is what happened:

• 97% achieved at least 20 credits (the 4 who did not are high priority learners). This shows we came close to the quantity part of our target. What about the quality?
• 57% of all internal standards were awarded Merit or Excellence
• 62% of all external standards were awarded Merit or Excellence

How well have the foundations been laid for a quality NCEA L2?
On average, our Q2 learners arrive this year with 12 Level 2 credits, meaning they need 48 at Level 2 or higher to gain their Level 2.

Our programmes will allow our Q2 learners to access 60 - 80 credits at Level 2 or higher and I am confident that we will achieve the quantity part of our target for them. I am also confident we will continue to nail the quality element. Our Q1 learners have flourished in an environment that concentrates on deep learning while avoiding the downside of assessment anxiety as they chase 80+ credits for a largely meaningless Level 1 qualification.

At HPSS we are all determined to maintain an environment focussing on deep learning and not on assessment even as our learners move through Q2 and into Q3 in 2018.

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