Naar een community van curriculumleiders: Een verkennend onderzoek naar karakteristieken van een kwaliteitssystematiek die bijdragen aan het gedeeld curriculair leiderschap van de Geo Future School
Summary
Curriculum leaders are needed to transform today’s school practice into a state of the art curriculum that serves pupils to achieve their full potential by the development of their human capabilities (Lambert et al., 2015; Geocapabilities, 2018). This kind of leadership, however, will not come on its own. The Geo Future School is an exemplary case in which teachers already seem to fulfil their role as curriculum maker by uniting themselves in a new school concept (also known as profile school). This study focusses on a working method behind the application of shared curricular leadership within a school concept. Shared curricular leadership aspires profile schools to function as a signal of quality (i.e. a balanced curriculum with powerful knowledge) and of structural professionalisation. A key aspect of this type of leadership is that everyone in educational infrastructure of the profile school has its own tasks (Nieveen 2018). Therefore, all teachers require access to adequate substantive knowledge and everyday knowledge (Bernstein, 1999) for the development of teacher agency (Priestley et al., 2012) which fosters the opportunity to exercise influence on the curriculum inside and outside the school organization. This research aims to contribute to an appropriate quality system that structurally links curriculum levels together and wherein an intra-school professional knowledge network helps teachers to enhance their autonomy and ownership over their work.
A multiple case study and a user survey have been carried out in order to find out what characteristics of a working method contribute to the shared curricular leadership of the geo future community. Results are based on policy documents of NLT, WON, Beta Challenge and Havisten Competent and interviews with representatives of the profile schools. On the basis of state of the art literature and empirical material, fifteen dimensions are constructed that are categorised into characteristics related to the quality assurance of: the curriculum, the knowledge network, and the quality mark. These dimensions and characteristics are processed into worksheets with a 'slider vignette', a profile school typology and in descriptions (vignettes) of possible choices in a working method. Subsequently, a vignette technique was applied in three focus groups with teachers (starters, middle group, pioneers) in order to map their needs and priorities.
This research finds that the shared curricular leadership of the geo future school community can be strengthened by creating more awareness of, that participating teachers simultaneously operate at different curriculum levels (micro-meso-macro) and that they have a shared responsibility for spreading both types of knowledge. A context-sensitive, internal quality assurance system that is implemented at every curriculum level can help to create co-creative connections between different curriculum levels (Kuiper, 2018) and help to create awareness of mutual dependencies. A wide range of visions and perspectives play a role in the organisation of a intra-school knowledge network through which both substantive and everyday knowledge can circulate. It is advisable to(re)define the nature of the curriculum and the purpose of the profile school together with the participating partners, knowledge experts, professors and teachers as it helps to create unanimity. As a result, appropriate and organisational choices can be made effectively which, in turn, contributes to a cohesive and reciprocal knowledge network.
This research holds important lessons for the future of profile schools and shared curricular leadership. It is recommended to be sensitive to the professional core values of teachers. GFS teachers emphasize that they like creating but dislike budersome meetings. Moreover, special attention should be given to incentives that encourage participation in the new working method; not only for teachers, but also for middle managers and school leaders. In addition, openness should be built within the new working method and feedback should be actively asked for in order to enable improvements.
Concretely, it should be considerd to set up a committee of pioneer teachers to help with the implementation of the working method and the organization of a module development event in which collective work can be done on the macro-level curriculum. As a start for the knowledge network, this event can be supported by expertise and researchers.