INTERNATIONAL ELECTRONIC JOURNAL FOR LEADERSHIP IN LEARNING
A refereed academic journal.
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~iejll
Volume 5, Number 10
July 9, 2001
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Leadership for Cultural Change: Developing a Community of
Learners in Teacher Education, 5(10)
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~iejll/volume5/shortland.html
Bruce Shortland-Jones, Anna Alderson, & Robert G Baker Curtin
University of Technology, Western Australia
Abstract
If we understand ‘culture’ (in its simplest sense) to be ‘the
way of life’ or ‘the way in which we do things,’ then asking
the staff of a university faculty to adopt student-centred
approaches and embed them in an outcomes-focused environment
is expecting of them quite a degree of cultural change. What
many staff are faced with is a massive reassessment of their
role — what they are expected to know, to do and to be — even
those who thought they were (and were acknowledged as) good
teachers in the first place. An outcomes approach to
education requires a shift in emphasis from focusing on
teaching to focusing on learning. A student-centred approach
to education requires focusing on the learner rather than on
the syllabus. For most academics, this is a major shift in
their understanding of ‘the way in which we do things’ in a
university.
This paper describes how Faculty of Education staff involved
in a university-funded Learning Effectiveness Alliances
Program (LEAP) have gone about this process of cultural
change, some of the alterations they have made in their
practices as university teachers and some of the challenges
they have met and grappled with along the way. After two
years into a five year project, no one, including the
leadership, is totally clear where the end point, if any,
might be or what it will exactly look like if they do get
there. By listening and responding to the teachers and
students as the program is implemented, flexibility is
maintained, adaptability encouraged, and ownership achieved.
What is already evident is a renewed excitement in the
process of education and how it can and should be pursued in
a Faculty of Education. For this group at least, it is once
again a community of learners with the teachers providing a
thought-provoking model for their students.
While the program and changes are by no means complete at
this stage, and indeed may never be (we keep telling
participants and interested parties that it is in draft form
only), the challenge of educational leadership roles and
cultural change has not been easy for both teaching teams and
management. However, one of the most pleasing outcomes has
been the success of the collaborative approach to curriculum
development and teacher planning with a close working
relationship maintained between management and teaching
staff.
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The International Electronic Journal for Leadership in
Learning is part of the Change Agency ASCD Network
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~cll/CAN/frameset.htm
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INTERNATIONAL ELECTRONIC JOURNAL FOR LEADERSHIP IN LEARNING
Web Address: http://www.ucalgary.ca/~iejll/
Editor:
Charles Webber, University of Calgary, Canada
Review Editors:
William J. Hunter, University of Calgary, Canada
Michele D. Jacobsen, University of Calgary, Canada
Regional Editors:
Meta L. Krüger, Universiteit van Amsterdam
Robert Peña, Arizona State University, United States
Jan M. Robertson, University of Waikato, New Zealand
John Williams, Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom
Email: [log in to unmask]
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