Understanding Data

Why we need data

Data is used to construct our knowledge, actions and arrangements. In order to gather meaningful data we need matching concepts and some awareness of the context. A height of 170cm may be "tall" or "short" depending on the person's age, gender, race, group....

The application of data may, or may not, be problematic depending on the nature of causal relationships (if any) involved. For many physical phenomena, cause and effect are consistent over place and time. Thus data can be used to make reliable predictions and transfer best practice.

In most social phenomena, the relationships between cause and effect are not consistent over place and time. This fundamental reality is often masked by the fact that some observations can make sense in retrospect (after the event). The thinking error involved is, "because something can now be explained it could have been predicted before it happened".

Rather the following are often true if the phenomena are complex or chaotic:

• cause and effect may not be related at all in any meaningful way
• cause of effect may be remote from each other in place and time
• cause and effect may be related but also inconsistent over place and time - repeated experiments give significantly different results, or small differences result in very different results
• despite our best efforts, outcomes are unpredictable, messy

Data and Complex Phenomena

In complex phenomena such as social activity it is common for patterns to emerge in/from the interactions of the agents. That is, the outcomes are better understood as patterns rather than "products".
[Note: It is more appropriate to use the term 'product' in relation to the outputs of a production process, one which can be properly understood in terms of Input-> Process-> Output (product)]

The use of data in relation to complex phenomena is to enable us to identify patterns, trends and opportunities rather than to manage our endeavours as production activities. Understanding the difference between production and emergence is critical in field such as education.

Of course education and similar endeavours uses processes but they are typically iterative rather than linear, as is typical of production processes.

The implications include

• Fail-safe (fool proof) approaches are rarely available
• Best practice is rarely a valid assessment despite 'proven' examples
• Some approaches may generally work better than others but there are always exceptions
• 'Transfer' of successful practice is not a simple matter - practices need to be continually constructed and reconstructed
• It is best to try safe-fail experiments - small scale changes that can be easily reversed if they fail to deliver the intended outcomes
• While using data may be better than just guessing, it is much better to use 'knowledge' based on experience and relationships informed by agreed data
• Each of the parties has unique knowledge that is critical to the current success of any working relationshi

Understanding Social Emotional Learning

SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING (SEL) 

I have been mulling over how to understand the social emotional learning component of School-wide Positive Behaviour Support. The following is a summary of my current thinking

For me, at this time, I see SEL as

• a major component of a school's taught, shared and lived curriculum
• complementing the academic curriculum
• enabling teaching, learning and belonging by and for all.

THE SEL CURRICULUM

From listening to schools in the LSN-PBS Network, and monitoring a lot of what is on the net, it seems to me that their are probably four SEL teachable dimensions:  

• Thinking & expectations
• Social skills
• Habits of Mind
• Emotional literacy

As such, these four dimensions represent an SEL curriculum that develops a way of thinking and acting that is in the best interests of all concerned. that is, a curriculum that is likely to support success and well-being for all.

1. Thinking, expectations/rules/agreements - These key school aspects are described and articulated in various ways. They are intended to guide everyone's ongoing actions and interactions but and detailed meanings change from context-to-context, from setting-to-setting. To understand, appreciate, accept and support the school's requirements involves substantial social emotional learning: the expectations have to be met, the rules observed and/or the agreements kept. The capacity to do so involves social skills, habits of mind and emotional literacy.

2.  Social skills - The ability to use verbal and non-verbal communication skills that enable successful interactions between members of the (school) community. That is to meet one's own needs in acceptable ways and to support the needs of others. For example, Teachers frequently use 

• Attentive listening (from Tribes....)
• Active Supervision (SWPBS...)
• Restorative Inquiry (Restorative Practices...)
• Affective Statements (Tribes, RP...)
• Showing appreciation (Tribes, RP...)
• ...

3.  Habits of Mind - Patterns of thinking and acting in one's own best interests and leading to ongoing success. For example, You Can Do It!!proposes several 'habits of mind, including...

• Accepting myself
• Taking Risks
• Being Independent
• I Can Do It
• Giving Effort
• Working Tough
• Setting Goals
• Planning My Time
• Being Tolerant of Others
• Thinking First
• Playing by the Rules, and
• Social Responsibility ... see http://www.youcandoit.com.au/AboutYouCanDoIt/
• ...

For a more scholarly list, see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habits_of_mind

4.  Emotional Literacy

• Identifying, relating and communicating one's (emotional) responses to experience, and
• Understanding and appreciating those of others.

Implications arising

It seems to me that there are some major implications from the above:

Firstly, emotional literacy underpins success including the successful use of social skills and the development of useful habits of mind.

Secondly, the key elements of most structured SEL programs include elements from each of the above SEL dimensions. Consider Tribes as simple example. The Tribes elements are

• Attentive Listening = habit of mind + social skill + emotional literacy
• Showing appreciation / No put-downs = social skill + emotional literacy
• Right to pass = emotional literacy + social skill
• Mutual respect = emotional literacy + social skill
• [Focus on task = habit of mind + emotional literacy]

Thirdly, social skills, habits of mind and emotional literacy are not subject to the law of physics: they are not universals in a determined sense. They areemergent, cultural and situated. This may mean that your school can simply choose its own preferred approach, and if done well, the school will make a profound contribution to the life and work of those involved, both now and in the future.

Fourthly, and keeping this last point in mind, consider your school's key expectations, e.g., "Be Safe, Be Fair and Be a Learner"

Discussion Starters

• What are the required social skills that will enable all staff and students to meet these expectations?
• What are the associated habits of mind that will make meeting the school's expectations natural and easy for staff and students
• What emotional literacy is required of staff and students in order for them to understand, appreciate and achieve the school's expectations.
• What educational strategies does your school currently have in place to develop the social skills, habits of mind and emotional literacy required?
• What needs are not currently being addressed? That is, what are the gaps in the schools continuum of support in these areas, and how do you know (data)?
• Possible next steps?

Changing to a Solution Focus approach

There is  a central issue that has challenged me for years:

• Why is it so difficult to get a field like education to adopt a well
  demonstrated strategy?

The issue is made all the more puzzling by the fact that there are numerous examples of where a strategy (in this case SF) has been used successfully in the field, yet it remains very difficult to achieve wider and systemic adoption. Here is my latest thinking:

Most schooling is currently dominated by the idea of a simple production system

•  input -> process -> output 
• curriculum -> teaching & learning -> knowledge and know-how 

Indeed in most places in the world, schools are the last of the great factories. They certainly are here in Tasmania.

On the other hand, SF is based on the idea of a complex adaptive system: one in which 

• the interactions of those involved result in the emergence (or lack of emergence) of such things as knowledge, relationships, attitudes....

I now believe that the current domination of "production thinking" in education, particularly amongst administrators, makes it  very difficult for education to adopt a  Solution Focus  approach  on a large scale.  

The production model assumes:

• predictability of outputs and outcomes 
• transferability of processes ('best practices'), and thus 
• "justifies" decision making that is remote in place and time.

One the other hand, Solution Focus 

• is a local and real time strategy 
• with unpredictable outputs and outcomes, 
• resulting in  specific situated responses that are 
• not readily transferable, and so 
• highly problematic for administrators and governments responsible for
  policy, planning and resource distribution.

Of course, some aspects of schools and schooling can be modelled as production systems. However, most aspects of teaching, learning and improvement are best understood as complex  (emergent, unpredictable...).

In such situations it is best to understand that the challenges involved 

• are complex, and so are
• about nurturing the emergence of those things that are desirable in the specific situation
• likely to be amenable to complexity-based strategies such as Solution Focus

Almost universally, the world wants teachers to change their practices to improve student learning. But teachers are caught in the middle:

• Good teachers understand the complex nature of teaching and learning and usually respond well to SF.
• At the same time, teachers are constrained by the erroneous 'production system' thinking of the schools amd schools system in which they work.  

That is, the well intentioned policies and accountability requirements  based on "production" thinking make it very difficult for teachers and schools and school systems to adopt well demonstrated but less predictable strategies.

IMHO, this is why there are examples of individual schools having great success with SF but no school system has yet adopted it as its improvement strategy.

See also an overview of Solution Focus and Nurturing Emergence

School Improvement - a conversation

Earlier this year the University of Tasmania advertised several 'New Stars' positions in various disciplines, including one for the Faculty of Education specialising in School Improvement. They couldn't recruit anyone suitable in School Improvement. This would indicate that the lack of expertise in School Improvement may be a much wider issue.

Goldratt has identified a change management strategy based on three simple questions

1. What to change?
   
2. What to change to?
   
3. How to cause the change? That is, "By what method?"

Most people are confident about their expertise in relation to Questions 1 & 2, especially in relation to specific changes. The world is full of experts, who know what's wrong and how things should be.

But a gaping void exists in relation to Question 3. This usually leads to attempts to drive school improvement by

• focusing on outcomes (MySchool, Tasmania Tomorrow...) and/or
  
• mandating changes to teacher practices (often based on notions of 'best practice')

 [The continual search for best practices is based on the largely unexamined assumption that 'best practices' are universally best, and are also readily transferrable] 

These approaches tend to make school improvement initiatives

• disparate
  
• episodic
  
• inefficient
  
• ineffective ('after the horse has bolted')
  
• lacking in overall coherence
  
• often mutually disruptive: most schools struggle to meet the demands placed upon them

On the other hand, there are a whole range of proven improvement strategies available. However, they seem have little or no traction in the field of Education. Tasmania is ideally situated  to redress this situation.

 Change management strategies worth considering include

• Action Learning* (Revans,...)
  
• Activity Theory (Engestrom,...)
  
• Complexity Theory (Snowden,...)
  
• Theory of Constraints (Goldratt)
  
• Continuous improvement (Deming,...)
  
• Sense Making (Weick, Snowden)
  
• Solution Focus (McKergow,...)
  
• Communities of Practice (Wenger,...)
• Knowledge Management (combines with complexity theory and sense making)
  
• Key Factors (Webb)
  
• and even SWPBS (Sugai,...) - as per my recent email
  
• ...

The latter two strategies are currently understood to be specific to particular school contexts: the implementation of ICT and student behaviour respectively. In fact,  both have the potential to be generalised in such a way that they become applicable  and useful in improving most aspects of the life and work of the school.

Interestingly, all of these strategies are constructivist and they boil down to being Action Learning in one form or another - not really surprising!!

Thus, there is an urgent and important conversation to be had around the question

• School Improvement -  by what method?

 And the conversation needs to be fostered at all levels and with all stakeholders.

Checking perceptions of justice

Insights into how we really dispense justice can be powerful and essential contributions to aching change. I suspect that many staff would be surprised at the what they actually practice.

Staff perceptions
One way to bring these out would be to
1. Get several staff members to tell a story of a recent difficult situation and how it was dealt with, then

2. Get them to rate it (putting dots on a triangle) in terms of

• retribution,
• deterrence and
• restoration

I would see such an exercise as being important in the implementation of Restorative Practices in any school.

Student Perceptions

And there is another 'triangle' that could also be useful... in this one students might rate staff  in terms of whether they are

• controlling (assertive/aggressive)
• helpful (altruistic)
• just focused on the facts  (analytical)

Same technique: get each student to

1. Tell the story of a recent experience then

2. Rate what the staff did (put dots on a triangle) in terms of in terms of the these three possible responses

The Role of the School in Restorative Practices

Restorative Practices involve a major response from the school itself (over and above the staff response). Staff need PL (knowledge, skills and understanding) but, that is just the beginning...
RP involves a change of culture which requires

• engagement of senior staff in the everyday life and work of the school, especially
• engagement of senior staff in the everyday conversations
• and a change in governance 

Associated changes in school governance need to be made and communicated ...

• the school accepts responsibility for the use of RP (staff act on behalf of the school)
• the school enables staff to use RP - time, provides structures, process, support, back-up, recovery strategies and assistance (it need to be OK to fail, at least in the short-term),
• the school monitors the use, costs and contributions of RP (especially to capture the learning and experiences...)
• the school genuinely lives the values required at all levels
• the school understands RP as an investment (not just a solution), which means,
• the school accepts that it is OK to lose time now in order to save time later on

Consequences and our notions of justice

I came across an interesting study the other day. The study collected stories involving justice issues - what happened and how things were handled.

The study then asked the contributors to tag their stories in terms of the extent to which they were about
1. Retribution (on behalf of the victim???)
2. Deterrence of the offender and others from repeating the offence
3. Restoration of the offender

Lots of food for thought here I think.

I suspect a lot of the use of 'logical' consequences in schools is
  - about retribution
  - justified as a deterrent
  - with an implied 'logical' outcome of 'restoration' of the offender 

Of course, our responses are shaped by
  - the significance of what happened, and 
  - the offender's response.

And, what we believe others would expect of us is also very powerful. I continue to be amazed at how little awareness many people (not just teachers) have regarding the natural consequences of doing the wrong thing. It is common for the natural consequences to be underestimated or simply disregarded.

Doing the wrong thing is very bad for the offender (Glasser was strong on this).

IMHO, one of the most common reasons kids continue to be difficult after doing the wrong thing is that
  - they are embarrassed  - the know they have done the wrong thing and wish they hadn't, and 
  - they feel disempowered - it can't be undone, and they don't know how to fix it up.

So to save face they get into denial, blaming, justifying.... It is a very painful to lose face - something I never required of a student. Maybe Restorative Practices is as much about restoring the offender's face as it is about restoring relationships.

After all, face is very much the key element in all relationships.