Joanne Quinn unpacks whole-system change

MATT FORAN:

Welcome to the Bastow podcast ­conversations with big thinkers about the big questions in education and leadership today. I’m Matt Foran filling in for Angela Scaffidi.

We’re delighted to be talking today with Joanne Quinn, co-founder and global director of New Pedagogies For Deep Learning, a global partnership focused on transforming learning. Joanne also leads the design of strategic whole-system change projects at global, national and district levels in Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, the Caribbean and the United States. Her extensive experience as a principal, superintendent, consultant, presenter, author and innovative leader, combined with her passion for improving learning for all children, gives her a unique perspective on influencing positive change. Joanne, welcome.

JOANNE QUINN:

Great to be here.

MATT:

Great to have you here. Now, Joanne, you’ve been working recently with the Victorian Department of Education and Training. What’s that entailed?

JOANNE:

It’s been exciting to work with them because there’s so many new directions going on in Victoria that are really going to be positive for students. So we’ve been focusing on how to assist with thinking through the implementation to make sure that these kinds of changes make it to the classrooms and they impact the students’ lives.

Secondly, we’ve been working a lot around coherence because when you have a lot of new things happening, it can be very overwhelming for teachers and for schools and so looking at how do you integrate things so that they achieve a better ending and they get the results that you’re after.

One of the most exciting parts has been the work we’ve done with schools. We have a global partnership with eight countries and Australia – Victoria specifically – was one of the first ones in. And so 80 schools have worked as pioneers in taking these global competencies, creating deep learning experiences and especially what they’ve done, really, really helpfully for the rest of us, is create videos and exemplars and tools that they’ve now shared with all of the other countries. So they’ve really been at the forefront of these changes. We’ve learned from them over these last five years and it’s been pretty exciting. So when we do presentations in other countries, we’re always taking them on a little trip to Australia, often through video and connections that way.

Last year, we did a sessions-focused symposium for leadership for every single principal in the state as well as all of the regional directors, over a two-week period. And they were very positive about thinking about the ways in which we can focus on deep learning and also be more coherent in that approach so that it’s not fragmented and people feeling overwhelmed.

MATT:

So what do excellent education outcomes look like in the 21^st century?

JOANNE:

One of the ways we think about it is ‘good at learning and good at life’. So we need to be really good at, you know, the traditional academics because we need to be literate, and so forth, but in today’s world, that’s not sufficient. We need more than the foundations of literacy, numeracy and so on because we need young people that are good problem-solvers, critical thinkers, are able to connect globally.

MATT:

How important is that capacity to be able to critically think and to analyse?

JOANNE:

I think it’s absolutely essential. We can find out anything we need to know, pretty much, on Google, so the need for all this content memorisation is long gone but children really need to be able to differentiate whether the information is accurate, it’s real, what to do with it, how to analyse it, how to transform it into another setting so to make all those kinds of decisions. So we really need to shift our thinking from teaching things, to helping students understand how to learn and how to apply that learning.

MATT:

It’s a significant shift, isn’t it?

JOANNE:

It’s a huge shift and that’s what we’re engaged in globally, with eight different countries, um, trying to help them revamp their thinking and Australia’s certainly at the forefront with the general capabilities but sometimes, teachers think that the capabilities are separate from the former academic content pieces and rather, they’re like a lens that you have to put over the content so that you can teach the critical thinking, the problem-solving, the creativity.

MATT:

Do we sometimes underestimate the ability of children to think and behave in that way?

JOANNE:

I think we have underestimated for a long time and what we’re seeing for the last five years, since we’ve really been focusing on this, is that when we allow them and intentionally frame it for them, they just are totally unleashed and they do amazing things. They can create very interesting ways to solve problems even when they’re six years old or seven years old.

MATT:

I’m regularly outsmarted by my 14- and 13-year-olds, so I’m not surprised. Um, what’s the best way to build the capacity of our schools and educators?

JOANNE:

The good news is, you have very strong educators in Victoria and it’s been a joy to work with them for that reason. But I think we have to build capacity by working together.

Long gone is the day also, where we just go and take a course and suddenly we’re going to be good at things. So what we talk about is collaborative cultures that allow us to create a culture of learning for the adults where we’re always thinking how do we improve on what we’re doing, you know, where are we now, what do we need to do and change and do it and then, always do the reflecting part to say, ‘How well did that really improve things and what do we need to do next?’

So we need to provide opportunities for them to do that. We call it ‘learning from the work’. So it’s not so much just going out to a workshop and getting a new approach – that’s part of it – but if you don’t come back and have somebody to coach you or to work with you to really apply it, chances of it being implemented are about 15 per cent. But if you do add those things in, with someone on site supporting you, even if it’s a learning partner or your teaching buddy, um, and you come back to it to say, ‘How well did that work?’ and then, ‘Let’s tweak it and do it again’, you can get that implementation right up to about 95 per cent.

MATT:

Wow. That’s quite an increase, isn’t it?

JOANNE:

It’s a big difference. Yes.

MATT:

And what a difference that makes to the system.   

JOANNE:

Exactly. And so you can focus on a few things that are really important and go deep with them, rather than trying to have people learn, you know, ten different approaches all at the same time because you don’t get really good at any of them.

MATT:

You talk about the importance of collaboration in leading change and that’s both within schools and across schools. Could you elaborate a little more on that?

JOANNE:

Well, collaboration within the school is what I was talking about, about the collaborative work, where instead of being isolated in a classroom, which we were, as teachers, many years ago. You went in and you shut the door, you worked with your little group, no matter what age they were. And yet, we found that in having teachers learn from and with one another, we get better faster. The medical profession has known this for a really long time but it’s taken longer for us to build that transparent practice. So within the school, we’re looking at how do we connect people around learning – so who’s good at different aspects of it, as we take on new things, how do we coach each other, how do we mentor each other, how do we analyse how well it’s gone so that we can take that next step?

In the same way, we find that schools and groups of schools that have really gotten better and are able to show really strong results – I can say almost unequivocally, they are all connected to the outside. So even though they’re really good at what they’re doing, they don’t rely on just themselves so they reach out to other people. It might be experts, it might be taking a course, it might be working with the school down the street, it might be connecting with a university or just knowledge base, but they’re constantly seeking those ideas so that they keep them fresh.

The one big difference is some schools do that by just going out and buying new ideas and never really implementing them – so there is a distinction there. The schools I’m talking about are very critical consumers in that they’re looking for the best ideas out there and incorporating them into their own context.

MATT:

Mm. So it’s a really genuine sense of collaboration.

JOANNE:

Very genuine. And taking control of, you know, what needs to happen because they know their students and community best and so it’s not a one-size-fits-all but it’s drawing from the best knowledge that’s out there.

MATT:

And how do you encourage collaboration more generally? How do you encourage that in the educators and the principals?

JOANNE:

One way we talk about it is a concept called being a ‘lead learner’ and that could be the principal or the head of the department but it also can be teacher leaders within. But they take on certain behaviours in three areas that they work in.

One is being a model of learning and that’s by doing it yourself. So if, for example, I’m a principal, I’m not asking teachers to go and do things, I’m participating with them so that I understand what the challenges are of doing it and I’m interacting, so that I’m learning more about that issue that’s being implemented at the same time that they are, making sure the resources are there, making sure the capacity-building is there for them. So that’s one aspect of leading the learning and building a whole set of teacher-leaders on site because they can be far more influential in those on-the-spot conversations that you have, that help you refine what you’re doing.

The second thing they do is they build a culture and they build a culture where it’s OK to make a mistake, it’s OK to learn something new, to have norms of how we behave with one another, that it’s good to have transparency about our practice, not to go in and shut the door. And that doesn’t happen by chance. We have to help people and give them the skills to do that.

And then, the third thing is making sure that all of this collaborative work doesn’t just mean we like each other – that would just be cooperation – and we’re polite. But the collaborative work means we’re really get inside what we’re doing and we’re sharing that practice. So you have to really keep the focus on the learning of the kids.

MATT:

So it’s a robust discussion, it’s a robust exchange of ideas at the moment too, isn’t it?

JOANNE:

Absolutely. Yeah. And you’re building, at the same time, a common language, a common set of skills, understandings, and that really helps because students then, when they’re going from grade to grade or, if high school, from teacher to teacher, they’re starting to see the through-line and they’re not trying to figure out in every different classroom, ‘What does the teacher mean when they ask me to “identify”?’ or, ‘What do they mean when they ask me to be creative?’, because we start to have a common language and expectation about the basics of learning and teaching.

MATT:

So you set that foundation. And in many ways, it must make life much easier not just for the student but for the teacher in that environment as well.

JOANNE:

Absolutely.

MATT:

I’m really interested in what you believe the role of technology is in driving better teaching and learning outcomes.

JOANNE:

When we started our work four years ago, we wanted to help teachers shift their practice and so we looked at four things that we thought were really important to consider when you’re designing learning and one of them was leveraging digital. And five years ago, I would say that was the most challenging for us to help people with because for 20 years, what we’ve seen is a whole lot of what I would call ‘substitution’ and low-level use of technology. We’ve had it around, people have tried but a lot of it was, you know, instead of writing me an essay, you get to do a PowerPoint. It’s slightly better but it’s not ground-breaking.

Because we’ve put the focus on what we call ‘leveraging digital’, we’ve been asking people to think about when you’re designing learning and you look at your pedagogical practices – that’s the best way for kids to learn this – and then, you look at who needs to work with whom – that’s the partnership piece – and then, the environment and when you have those things in mind, ask yourself the question, ‘How could we use the digital world to leverage the learning? How could we get it to be amplified, to go deeper?’

So what we’re seeing is that instead of having kids do drill and practise exercises, and so on, they’re using simulations, they’re using virtual reality. Most recently, I’m seeing a lot of use of collaborative platforms so that kids are talking to other kids, they’re talking to experts, they’re doing real research, um, they’re acting like a scientist and using technology in the same way an adult scientist would instead of just using those lower level, shall we say, skills of technology.

MATT:

And also, from the perspective of collaboration, distance is no longer a tyranny.

JOANNE:

Exactly.

MATT:

Because you’ve got access to people and ideas virtually across the world.

JOANNE:

And we have kids working with children in other parts of the world and they can easily be looking at the same concept. Maybe they’re studying climate change, poverty, whatever it might be, but they want to hook up with another class that is in a different part of the world, either to understand what it’s like for them or just to refine certain skills that they have.

MATT:

It’s an incredible age to be part of this, isn’t it?

JOANNE:

It is!

MATT:

In your latest book, you talk about constructing and driving meaningful deep learning experiences. Why is that so important?

JOANNE:

Well, I mentioned that we have ‘competencies’ and we think that young people, to be successful, we’ve identified six. Victoria has seven. Things like creativity, character, communication, citizenship, critical thinking and collaboration, these are key skills that we think young people need to go forward and we can’t leave it to chance. It’s really important that we pay attention to those.

And so to do that, we have to make it easy for teachers to amend what they’re already doing so they’re used to teaching to the standards, the curriculum standards. And we still have to do that because we can’t teach critical thinking in a vacuum around nothing. So the standard’s still important but it’s helping them see how to put on … I call them the ‘glasses’, the ‘lenses’ and say, ‘If I’m teaching something, how can I do that at a more rigorous, critical thinking level? How can I make sure that my students are collaborating in a way that’s deepening, enhancing their skills at collaboration?’

So we’ve created ways of measuring all of those so for each of those competencies, we’ve identified what the dimensions are, what are the aspects that you need to get better at and what does it look like at different levels of proficiency, so that teachers know how to design the next level of learning. And students have their own versions of these and they can say, ‘Well, here’s where I am now but I know that in terms of being part of an interdependent team, here’s what I need to work on next.’

MATT:

Mm. It’s interesting. Sitting here talking to you, it sounds almost common sense to be approaching it like that. But does it feel like a bit of a revolution when you’re in the classroom in the thick of it?

JOANNE:

It does but what’s interesting is I’ve been in education for a really long time so as we approached that, we knew that whatever we did, it had to be easy for everyone to pick up on, because this wasn’t intended for just a few kids in a few lucky classrooms, it was what could we do to really change learning for all kids so that they had multiple ways to show what they know and their talents, not just pencil/paper. And so once it starts and once people get the hang of it, kids just thrive and as soon as teachers see that, then they want to continue because once they see the impact and they realise what their children are capable of.

So you’ll hear from teachers things like things like, ‘I didn’t know my kids could do this. I didn’t know I could do this’, and some teachers saying, you know, ‘I’m not going to retire now. I’m having too much fun. Because this is what always wanted to do.’

MATT:

All the reasons you got into teaching at the beginning of your career. Isn’t that great?

JOANNE:

Exactly. And sometimes, I think, for a while there, we were so tied to testing that…in some countries, that teachers felt restricted from letting children explore. But these days, they want to solve the problems of the world and we need to give them the skills to do that.

MATT:

What are the right drivers required to activate this type of innovation and, importantly, sustain it?

JOANNE:

So the work we’ve been doing is related to a concept that we call ‘whole system change’ because you don’t want to just play with one little part. So if you want to change the way kids are learning in classrooms, you have to pay attention to every level of the system, not just focus in on teachers and expect them to do it all. But some of the things that you need, first of all, at the core, you need something that’s your anchor and for us, we call that the ‘competencies’ and you would call it your ‘capabilities’ – so being clear about what we want children to know and be able to do and be like and having ways to measure that effectively.

Then the second thing you need is a way for teachers to get better at it and to change what they do, easily. And that was where I mentioned these four elements of designing learning so that it is deeper, taking a look at your pedagogical practices, looking at the learning partnerships so that children can be having a voice in what they’re doing and making, co-designing with teachers around their interests and around authentic problems; the learning environment so kids feel safe to be innovative and to take a risk. And sometimes, change in that environment nowadays is very exciting ‘cause it doesn’t have to be inside the classroom, as we discussed; and then using digital. So that’s the second piece.

And then, the third one is you have to create the conditions at the school and at the system level to make sure that teachers and leaders feel supported to make those kinds of changes.

MATT:

Yeah. It’s interesting. It was my very next question, which was how do you get buy-in from the leaders and educators for this sort of innovation?

JOANNE:

What I found is we need to have a common experience where we start to take a look at the question of what do our kids need to know and do to be successful and I’ve always found that if my first question to people is, ‘Think about a young person that you know.’ And I have a new, 18-month-old great-niece and so it’s always her little face that’s in my mind and when I answer that question, I might answer it differently than if it was just an academic question.

And when you ask that of parents, of leaders, of politicians, of community members, of teachers, you get pretty much the same thing and that’s where we got our six global competencies. They seldom say, ‘I want them to be good at algebra’. They say, ‘I want them to be literate’, of course. But they’ll say things like, ‘I want them to be able to make good decisions, I want them to be able to be successful in life, to be able to work with other people, to make a contribution.’ And so that’s how we settled on these six global competencies.

MATT:

So very much an outcomes focus on what you want out of the education system.

JOANNE:

Yeah.

MATT:

Yeah. There’s an ancient Chinese proverb that says the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago and the next best time is today. In terms of putting this sort of innovation into the education system, is this something that you can do immediately and reap benefits, or is it something that really has to go back into the education system from the beginning?

JOANNE:

Any time. My change theory is get started, try it out and learn from what you’re doing and then take the next step ­so never wait until all the conditions are perfect because it never happens. So when you said how do we get people to want to do this, so first of all, they need to see what’s possible and once they see that there is a different future possible for these kids and then you can explore – here are some ways that we could make that happen and then let’s take one step and as soon as you take that first step and you build that learning from it, people start to see it was possible. So you’re giving them new skills. We call that ‘capacity to do it’.

At the same time that they’re trying it and they’re learning and they’re seeing some progress, that builds ownership. So they’re getting better at doing it and they’re more committed to doing it and it’s very synergistic and that’s what happens. Not being naïve, though, there are whole levels of government that you have to work with as well, so these conversations need to happen at every level. That’s what we mean by the ‘whole system’.

MATT:

We’re at a point in time in history, at the moment, where the world really seems to be retreating from a united approach and purpose to universal problems. How important is it, in that sort of environment, that the education system produces more global citizens?

JOANNE:

Well, I think, if we’ve been watching the news, children are not waiting for us to figure that out! (laughs)

The news, in the last few weeks, of students taking action is pretty profound and maybe we were anticipating that five years ago, when we got started at trying to really focus on this. Because that’s what we realise, that our children are capable of so much but they just need to have that potential unleashed and in a lot of ways, our traditional education system has been very good for some children but a lot of kids have struggled or been under-served for a whole variety of reasons. Perhaps they come to school not as ready to learn. There are just a whole raft of reasons that that could be happening for.

What we’ve seen is that this changes it for them. This gives them equitable outcomes because they can demonstrate their learning in a whole variety of ways. It doesn’t have to be just a test at the end of the unit. They can actually change the world, they can figure out how they’re going to address climate change. I just heard two students yesterday talking about what they are doing for climate change in their own community and connecting globally with people to get ideas but taking action within their own school, within their own community. So all of this is quite possible and I think our world is in such a situation that we can’t leave it to chance, so we have to make sure that our young people really have these skills.

MATT:

I think we underestimate them at our own peril sometimes, don’t we?

JOANNE:

Absolutely.

MATT:

And do you find, sometimes, part of the resistance to innovation is…is not believing that children can actually perform at that sort of level?

JOANNE:

I think there’s a couple of things operating there. I think, sometimes, we underestimate because we think if we don’t keep a lid on things, if we don’t keep control, um, things might go off track.

The other thing too is that, you know, teachers are highly skilled and they’re good at what they do and now, suddenly, we’re saying, ‘We want you to go over here and do something entirely differently’, and, you know, we’re not really clear on exactly what it looks like because this new kind of learning is more open-ended. If you’re going to pursue how to solve a problem, you’re really looking at multiple outcomes. You can’t plan it all on Sunday night, down to every moment, the way we used to be able to for the whole week and you knew what you were doing Thursday at three o’clock.

MATT:

Yeah. There’s no prescription.

JOANNE:

No. It’s not the same. And so you need, actually, better teaching skills to do it because you need to be able to anticipate and activate and create that right kind of culture where kids will be innovative and you need to know when to use those different teaching models that you have under your…and your expertise but you also have to be able to take a risk and to trust and I think that’s the hardest thing. So we also say to people, ‘Try one thing. Think about something you’re doing in the next two weeks. How might you use a competency or capability more intentionally? How might you use some different strategies? Pick one and then, we’ll come back in two weeks and we’ll talk about how that went.’ And you do that two or three times and people will see – what they see is the change in the kids. They see a response as soon as they give students a choice or they’re more intentional about it. And then, they’re willing to try.

MATT:

Can it be confronting to adults, either educators or principals or even parents to be watching their children go through this process?

JOANNE:

I think very confronting because…I think especially because if some teachers are doing it and you’re not doing it, it’s fine, and then the students start to come in, especially if you’re in high school, or something, and say, ‘How come we can’t learn the way we do down the hall?’ So that’s a bit confronting. But I’ve seen time after time where teachers will say, ‘You know, I wasn’t really interested in this. I didn’t think it would work. But once I saw what happened with the students, you know, now, I realise I’m a better teacher and I am allowing them to be better learners.’

And so, you know, we have to give teachers an opportunity to learn themselves and to learn from one another that this will make a difference for them.

MATT:

You’ve had the privilege of working with a broad range of education systems across the world. What excites you about the future of education internationally?

JOANNE:

I think what really excites me is that I’m seeing a huge convergence, a convergence of probably three different things. The first is, um, a readiness. Five years ago, when we started talking about, you know, capabilities and global competencies and being prepared for the future, you had to really spend a lot of time getting people to understand why this might be important. Now, we don’t have to have that conversation hardly at all. Instead, what people say is, ‘We know. We understand that the traditional system is not going to make it for the future, but how do we do this?’ So there is a readiness now. People want to know how.

There’s a willingness to change. The second thing is we have the knowledge base. We know about the cognitive sciences, we have a strong pedagogical knowledge base, we’ve got lots of digital tools at our fingertips and we have change knowledge. We know how to help any organisation. We’ve spent 30 years pulling together all the change knowledge of how do you help people grow and change and how do you help systems become more effective – so we have that knowledge base as well.

And then, I think, finally, there’s a bit of urgency. I think everyone understands that we can’t wait around, we can’t think about it for five years and then have a taskforce on it and then do something because it’s just too urgent for our kids and for the planet.

MATT:

Great. Joanne, thank you so much for your time today.

JOANNE:

Thanks and great talking to you.

ANGELA:

Thank you for listening to the Bastow Educational Leadership podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this conversation, why not tell your friends and colleagues. And join us next time! You’ll find episodes on the Bastow website, and you can listen or subscribe wherever you find your podcasts