Elizabeth Baxter

17220141
25 June 2018

Individual Critical Reflection

Developing a Numerate Community

The process of school improvement is not a one size fits all solution. With no
recipe or simple steps to success, the approach must be flexible and dynamic but
with the same end goal in mind; to improve student performance (The Process of
Change - Why Change, What to Do, and How to Do It, 2014). This remained relevant
to our group’s project based learning proposal to improve numeracy, where we first
had to establish the method of design and implementation. Asking ourselves
questions such as why are we doing the project, what is the change we are going to
make, where the change is heading and how we are going to get there were all part
of the initial planning process. In the following critical reflection I will explore the
journey our team took to achieve the end project linking to current theories and
effective teacher leadership as well as evaluate what changes need to be made in
planning future projects. I will discuss themes such as collaboration, goal setting and
implementation of the project.

Collaboration is the joint intellectual effort of teachers engaging in a common

task to enhance their professional practice (The University of Sydney, n.d). Our initial
focus in the beginning of this project proposal was to create a strong team
environment amongst ourselves. We had to establish the most effective means of
communication which we decided were; organised Zoom video meetings for
extended discussions and Facebook Messenger for instant messenger and keeping
in touch between Zooms. The first couple of meetings were used to get familiar with
each other and settle into the group structure. We tried to avoid falling into any

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hierarchy and so followed the task role distribution theory where jobs were assigned
in an organised way. We chatted about our key learning areas, how far through our
Masters degree we were, professional experience, commitments during this time
frame and the level of competency we felt towards the assignment. Although the
initial goal was to distribute tasks evenly, there were some barriers that hindered this.
I found that within the group their were a range of personality profiles, with the more
dominant types often come across as very direct and sometimes overpowering
(Payne, 2014). Another complication was that some group members (including
myself) were undertaking their second professional practice whilst also working, so
time constraints were an issue. It often gave other members a perceived lack of
commitment and effort. At times it was challenging to maintain the group dynamic but
allocating individual tasks helped to clear these issues up.

The second part of the design/planning phase was goal setting. Robinson,
Hohepa & Lloyd (2007) identified goal setting as one of the dimensions of leadership
which works to create a difference between what is currently happening at the school
and the desired future state. From combining this strategy with our research, we
were able to establish our project proposal and come up with a strategic plan for
where we wanted our project to go. Using effective goal setting allowed us to create
more meaningful links to the school improvement. In terms of getting the work done,
we also made individual and group goals for completion of work. The only problem
we found in this process was that it was hard to keep all group members
accountable of their tasks. To solve this we ensured all goals were timely, ie. set a
specific time frame for submission. Creating goals were a great way for us to get all
members of the group engaged, motivated and on task.

Once we had the plan for our project, the next task to look at how we were
going to implement it. The Quality Implementation Framework guides us to
synthesise our research/data, focus on specific actions and create critical steps
(Meyers, Durlak & Wandersman 2012). In doing this, we created a time line of
events allowing us to see how the project was going to roll out in the school term.
We could control the pacing of the student’s progression and allocate the appropriate
time needed to complete each component of the project. Investigating resources was

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also an important aspect of planning for implementation. We had to think of aspects
such as time, cost, access and availability of these resources. A challenge of this
was not knowing if the school could afford to implement this type of project. On
evaluation, we could have furthered our research into looking at the school’s funding
and how much they could allocate each year for project based work. This would
increase the accuracy of the program and also appropriateness.

In creating this project it was interesting to see all the ideas and planning come
together at the end. There are minor changes that could have been made to the
process but on the whole I am happy with the outcome of the final product. Although
we did come across some challenges such as individual personalities and time
constraints, we were able to pull it all together in the end. The collaboration allowed
me to get a range of different perspectives on the task that I would have never have
come up with on my own. We were able to bounce off of each other and all displayed
great teacher leadership. The next step will be to take the feedback from our project
and apply that in the real world.

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 References

Collaborative learning. Retrieved from

http://sydney.edu.au/education_social_work/learning_teaching/ict/theory/
collaborative_learning.shtml

International Center for Leadership in Education. (2014). The Process of Change -

Why Change, What to Do, and How to Do It [Ebook]. New York. Retrieved from
http://www.leadered.com/pdf/Process_of_Change_2014.pdf

Meyers, D. C., Durlak, J. A., & Wandersman, A. (2012). The quality implementation
framework: A synthesis of critical steps in the implementation process. American
journal of community psychology, 50(3-4), 462-480.

Payne, L. (2014). Personality profiling tools. Training & Development, 41(6), 7.

Robinson, V. M., Hohepa, M., & Lloyd, C. (2007). School leadership and student
outcomes: Identifying what works and why (Vol. 41). Winmalee: Australian
Council for Educational Leaders.

Stempfle, J., Hübner, O., & Badke-Schaub, P. (2001). A Functional Theory of Task
Role Distribution in Work Groups. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 4(2),
138-159. doi: 10.1177/1368430201004002005

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