‘State of the Art’ sessions
‘State of the Art’ sessions are sessions where knowledge in the three core areas/strands of a) school effectiveness, b) teacher effectiveness and professional development, and c) school/system improvement is reviewed, assessed and codified with additional thinking about what needs to be done to develop them.
There would be a prior circulated mini-paper of 3 000 to 4 000 words on each one of the above three core areas and they would be circulated electronically a few days before ICSEI 2011, to maximise immediacy and impact. Those papers would be generated by five established persons in each of the three fields, who are from as wide a range of countries. Whilst not all the authors of each of the papers would be expected to come to ICSEI 2011, the two ‘lead’ or ‘coordinating’ authors of each group definitely are expected to attend to present and field questions, with any of the others who happen to be coming also taking part. In each of the three groups, coordinator 1 will draw up plans initially and then work with coordinator 2 to develop the final program for each writing group.
The ‘State of the Art’ session would be of two hours duration, with a five minute introduction (from the chair), and three fifteen minutes presentations from each strand. Then there will be three workshops on the three strands, meeting for 30 minutes. Conference attendees will choose which one to go to, each of which will have an ICSEI board member or other member of the organising committee as a scribe and facilitator. Each group will have 2/3 questions given to it, which arise naturally from the review of the particular field. There will then be three five minute feedback sessions from the scribes, which will be followed by open debate and discussion for 25 minutes.
The quality of the papers, and hopefully their interesting and provocative content, would be key here. The papers should give a brief history of each field, an outline of achievements, things still to be done and the ‘blockers/enablers’ in the next few years that will affect the development of the field. Some ‘blue skies’ thinking about needed directions would also be motivational. The papers are expected to be provocative and original as well as summative of the past.
Those contributing to each one of the ‘State of the Art’ sessions many of whom will be presenting are (by group):
School effectiveness:
- David Reynolds, University of Plymouth, UK (Coordinator 1)
- Pam Sammons, University of Oxford, UK (Coordinator 2)
- Yin Cheong Cheng, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China
- Tony Townsend, University of Glasgow, UK
- Jan Van Damme, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium
Click here to download: "School Effectiveness - Session A" paper
Teacher effectiveness and professional development:
- Daniel Muijs, University of Southampton, UK (Coordinator 1)
- Leonidas Kyriakides, University of Cyprus, Cyprus (Coordinator 2)
- Bert Creemers, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
- Lorna Earl, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada
- Greetje van der Werf, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
Click here to download: "Teacher Effectiveness and Professional Development - Session B" paper
School/system improvement:
- David Hopkins, Institute of Education, University of London, UK (Coordinator 1)
- Alma Harris, Institute of Education, University of London, UK (Coordinator 2)
- Tony Mackay, Centre for Strategic Education, Melbourne, Australia
- Louise Stoll, Institute of Education, University of London, UK
- Sam Stringfield, University of Louisville, USA
Click here to download: "School/System Improvement - Session C" paper
The Chair of the ‘State of the Art’ sessions is Janet Chrispeels from University of California, San Diego.