Guest Speakers & Discussion Points

Dr. Claudia Harvey-October 4th, 2018

Policy Formulation, Implementation and Evaluation:  Experiences at the School, National and International Levels: Examples from Personal Experience 

PowerPoint

Thesis- Practitioners' perceptions of an innovative school system in a developing country. PhD Disertation, The University of Toronto.

 

New Discussion Point

What is clinical Supervision?

Readings

A Philosophy or a Model

Leading Learning-Book by Carl Glickman

Handbook on Clinical Supervision

 

The PCR

Ingrid Kemchand

The Presentation

October 11th, 2018

 

 

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A proposed Evidence-informed Implementation Plan?

 

 

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Comment on the 2017 to 2022 Draft EPP



Report

Venues



Kamini Bhagaloo

Acting Assistant Director, Testing, DERE

November 1st 2018

Decentralization & SBM

 

The Big Debate

How do we pursue whole school change?

Read this interesting piece on why schools remain the same

Banathy (1991) suggests five reasons why our efforts to make a transition have met with so little success:

• the piecemeal, or incremental, approach;

• failure to integrate solution ideas;

• a discipline-by-discipline study of education;

• a reductionist orientation;

• staying within the boundaries of the existing system (not thinking out of the box).

All five are examples of paradigm paralysis, or mumpsimus, which Webster defines as “persistence in a mistaken belief,” the attempt to interpret current experience using old models and metaphors that are no longer appropriate or useful. 

 

 Read

Features of systemic intervention approaches

• Advocate more coherent district-wide goals and policies

• Presuppose a geographic connectedness of schools or teachers making up a subsystem

• Are based on ecological systemic change thinking

• Emphasise the roles that national-level and district-level agencies play in supporting local schools

• Recognise multitier and integrated systems made up of supra-systems and peers

• Take a function-structure lens, which highlights the connectedness of inputs, processes and outputs

• Emphasise the importance of the goals of a system and how the key functions of the system are used to attain those goals, and the specific subsystems (or components) that are used to carry out those functions

•  Recognise that schools, and their learning processes, are couched within broader social and political milieus

 

What are sub-systems in a school?

 

 

How does this impact intervention design?

 

 

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Benchmarking

Definition-an educational policy strategy that involves comparison of systems, processes, and performance of different countries/ education systems in varying social and economic contexts[1].

 

See Strong Performers and Successful Reformers

 

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[1] De Lisle, J., Mohammed, R., & Lee-Piggott, R. (2014). Explaining Trinidad and Tobago's system response to international assessment data. Journal of Educational Administration, 52(4), 487-508.



1. Benchmarking is a systematic process.  That means that it follows a standard protocol that may be replicated by others.

2. Most commonly, eight steps may be identified in benchmarking used in industrial management: (1) identifying the strategic intent or process to be benchmarked; (2) identifying performance variables or criteria; (3) selecting comparator countries; (4) collecting data on policies and practices; (5) making explicit comparison and identifying gaps; (6) specifying actions to meet and surpass; (7) implementation and monitoring; and (8) recalibration.



1. The process of benchmarking is valuable in itself because it can lead to competitive intelligence[1] in an organization. This is insight gathered from defining, gathering, and analyzing system documentation, expert opinions and reviews.

2. The information obtained in competitive intelligence is useful for identifying key questions, critical processes, and performance measures from published sources.

3. The outcome of benchmarking may also be valuable to policymakers in nation states, especially country systems in which forced transfer of policies and processes was common.

4. Tan (2010)[2] described a trajectory of policy transfer for post-colonial states, arguing for an evolution of practice from telling, rebelling, and selling to gelling.



Questions for Review

1. Why is the benchmarking process useful for policymakers in Trinidad and Tobago?

2. How can benchmarking (process and results) be included in your assignment?

 

Readings

Benchmarking East Asian Education Systems from an African Perspective

SABER Benchmarking-Asian-Pacific

How Shanghai Does it

 

 

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Benchmarking2

Please review the following videos below and discuss the questions that follow

1. South African Education System

2. Transforming the South African Eduation System

3. Elaine Foster-Alleyne on education Change in Jamaica

4. CAPRI-Research for Reform in Jamaica

5. Didacus Jules on Education Performance and Change in the Caribbean (start half way)

 

• After 1 and 2-What is needed to transform the education system of South Africa? What is similar and dissimilar to the situation with Trinidad and Tobago?  What can Tobago in particular learn from the case?

 

• After 3 and 4- What should be the role of evidence and research in transformation? How would you retool the research unit in Tobago to fill the needs for transformation? List the areas that require greater attention for system reform in Tobago.  List the types/areas of evidence that must be generated to support reform.

 

• After 5-Discuss pros and cons of Dr Jules argument. As secretary of education, propose an agenda for system reform in Tobago.

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Benchmarking 3

Present sections 1 and 2 of assignment

Reflect on characteristics of a high performing, equitable school system.

Systems to Review

Shanghai

Ontario

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Education Reform in the global South

• The upcoming topic is Education Reform in the global South
• We will begin paying some attention to the Caribbean and its unique education structures
• We should begin discussing our assignment and we should have finalized our decisions to attend/not attend ICSEI 2007

Things to Read

Case Studies in Secondary School Education Reform

SEMP FINAL COMPLETION REPORT

SEMP Pre-qualification for Leadership Training

SEMP & Nalis

Explaining whole system reform-De Lisle