Since the beginning of the 21st century, Australian schools, although still central to ‘nation building’, have been thoroughly scrutinised in light of current trends and influences such as globalisation, increased cultural diversity and massive technological changes (Mulford, 2008). Concerns and questions have centred around speculation on future employment opportunities for students and the skills, knowledge and understandings they might require to make active contributions to a rapidly changing world.
As curriculum has changed to meet needs, schools no longer aim to fill students with knowledge and information. Instead, learning is personalised and students learn skills and capabilities deemed transferrable within a range of educational …show more content…
Mentoring in this way is an effective method of informal leadership as teachers discuss, advise and model with a view to improving teaching and learning. It also gives the mentor opportunity to reflect on their own practice and fine tune their own abilities.
Within the Figure 1 concept map, both formal and informal leaders are located to the right of the map’s centre. They are shaded in similar colours to the principal’s cell on the map – denoting that they are all leaders of some type. They make contributions to school decisions, collaborate and work to achieve a shared vision – these elements are linked at the top of the map as they are important across all areas of interaction and leadership within a school.
Across a range of differing schools, similar broad goals such as continued forward movement of student outcomes and improvement of overall school culture will be shared. There will be similar content being taught and many common practices, strategies and pedagogies being used based on theories and knowledge of student development. One constant in education is that there always seems to be change – a new idea, program, practice or strategy being proposed. Many of these innovations, even when well thought out and researched, however, are short lived (Cuban,
As curriculum has changed to meet needs, schools no longer aim to fill students with knowledge and information. Instead, learning is personalised and students learn skills and capabilities deemed transferrable within a range of educational …show more content…
Mentoring in this way is an effective method of informal leadership as teachers discuss, advise and model with a view to improving teaching and learning. It also gives the mentor opportunity to reflect on their own practice and fine tune their own abilities.
Within the Figure 1 concept map, both formal and informal leaders are located to the right of the map’s centre. They are shaded in similar colours to the principal’s cell on the map – denoting that they are all leaders of some type. They make contributions to school decisions, collaborate and work to achieve a shared vision – these elements are linked at the top of the map as they are important across all areas of interaction and leadership within a school.
Across a range of differing schools, similar broad goals such as continued forward movement of student outcomes and improvement of overall school culture will be shared. There will be similar content being taught and many common practices, strategies and pedagogies being used based on theories and knowledge of student development. One constant in education is that there always seems to be change – a new idea, program, practice or strategy being proposed. Many of these innovations, even when well thought out and researched, however, are short lived (Cuban,