AISC 2024

This presentation will delve into the pedagogy used in the Cambridge Global Perspectives programme. This approach to teaching and learning provides learners with a structured method for developing essential skills in research, reasoning and communication. By utilising a diverse range of global topics as a vehicle, the Cambridge Global Perspectives programme challenges learners to think critically and hone their ability to analyse and reconstruct arguments about global issues through personal research and a rigorous examination of evidence. This presentation will provide educators with an introduction to the Cambridge Global Perspectives programme. It will examine the programme's structure and methodology in detail, followed by examples and student case studies demonstrating teaching and learning approaches in action. 

Expected outcomes: By the end of the presentation, attendees will have gained insight into the pedagogy used in the Cambridge Global Perspectives programme, including its structure and methodology as a critical pedagogy. Through illustrative examples and student case studies, participants will observe the practical application of the approach, equipping them with tangible concepts to integrate into their own teaching environments. Educators will acquire new techniques for cultivating critical thinking, research, reasoning, and communication skills in their students.

This provocative session challenges the foundations of traditional pedagogy by asking: "What if the role of a teacher is not to explain, but to emancipate?" Drawing on Jacques Rancière's radical concept of intellectual emancipation, we explore the creation of "Educational Agoras" - spaces that dismantle hierarchies and foster true intellectual partnerships. The session will explore the types of “thinking partners” that leaders and teachers draw on, from reading and engaging with educational theory and research to literature and art to colleagues and students. This will lead to a thought-provoking discussion of how explicit, sustained, purposeful engagement with “thinking partners” can lead to the emergence of educational agoras where the role of the teacher is to emancipate thinking rather than to assist in the production and reproduction of knowledge. This approach has significant implications for education systems in a time of considerable ecological, geopolitical, economic, and technological change.

In the first part of the session, we will engage with Jacques Rancière's provocative classic text "The Ignorant Schoolmaster" as a way of unpacking the notions of intellectual emancipation and equality of intelligence. This will lead to an exploration of how to reimagine (that is, not to rethink, but to imagine once again) educational relationships as a dialogue of emancipation. We will then apply Guattari's notion of three ecologies (explored at AISC 2023) to consider how an emancipatory approach also nurtures the creation of holistic learning environments. This applies as much to the classroom as to contexts of professional learning, and we will consider how an emancipatory, ecological approach may revolutionize professional learning and development by shifting practice from knowledge transmission and technical expertise to emancipatory practice. The session will conclude with an engaging discussion and interactive design activity focused on nurturing emancipatory educational agoras in participants’ own settings.

Expected Outcomes:
• A provocation to think differently about understanding teacher-student dynamics and the role of the teacher
• Strategies for implementing intellectual emancipation in diverse educational contexts
• Innovative approaches to professional learning that prioritize authenticity and emancipation
• Practical designs for creating spaces that foster intellectual wellbeing and critical thinking
• A call to action for educators to become catalysts for intellectual emancipation

Our collective wisdom asserts that the world is currently changing at breakneck speed, and schools are tasked with preparing the next generation for an “unknowable future”. Meanwhile, external stakeholders expect us to continue generating data they can use to judge our effectiveness today. The system guides students to place maximum value on collecting qualifications and grades that might or might not have enduring value.  

By the age of eighteen, most students will have spent about eighteen thousand hours at school. Are we maximising that investment of time, resources and childhood? There is a significant opportunity cost associated with schooling; we ought to feel obliged to regularly question whether our offer truly honours the trust students place in us.

The teaching profession is a dynamic community of dedicated experts; educational thinking continuously evolves. But are our approaches to learning evolving fast enough? And are we sure they are moving in the right direction?

This workshop will be a chance for educators to come together to explore some fundamental questions about the state of schooling today, other possible futures, roadblocks to progress, and creative solutions to drive immediate improvement. The workshop leader will present, and invite a critical evaluation of his innovative “manifesto for education”.

Expected Outcomes: Participants will engage in new discussions around foundational questions about the role of schools and our core hopes and intentions for education, alongside more practical considerations about why we do what we currently do and the barriers to implementing a paradigm shift in our profession.

By the end of the session, delegates will be enthused to continue this dialogue, exploring further how schools must radically change, to better support students to become fully actualised humans leading successful, useful and happy lives, no matter where the future takes them.

For many years, a range of scientific disciplines have sought to "bridge the gap" between academic evidence and classroom practice. There are teachers with masters degrees and PhDs. There are the curriculum writers. There are consultants. Countless books have been written but most teachers still in the classroom will tell you that there is simply not enough time for research in modern learning environments.

Meanwhile, those same scientific disciplines are facing a more recent challenge: the reproducibility crisis. As Artistotle so aptly put: The more you know, the more you realise you don't know. Modern efforts to reproduce results from even heavily cited papers are coming up short.

With each classroom being affected by many different external variables, some of which greatly impact learning, why are we looking outside the classroom for answers to be handed down?

The questions this presentation hopes to raise are: where are the experts located when we consider each classroom as it's own vessel, who is responsible for ensuring change is meaningful and effective and what sort of standards of evidence do we need in order to make informed decisions about teaching and learning?

We invite you to a discussion about what could be next.

Expected Outcomes:
We hope that by sharing our small approach to a large problem, we can create relationships with other interested educators. The model we are proposing relies on a large community of educators in order to be successful. This means the barriers to entry must be as low as possible, while still maintaining an acceptable level of intellectual rigour.

The notion of Cultural Responsive Pedagogy relates to ways both teachers and school leaders need to adopt a more dynamic relationship between home/community culture and school culture. Whilst from a pedagogical perspective this links to ways teachers adapt their pedagogy to ensure it is aligned with the cultural needs and backgrounds of our students, from a leadership perspective it is indicative of ways we need to be dependent on localised as well as Westernised approaches to leadership when working with staff from non-Western cultural contexts. In turn, this has clear relevance with International School leaders in Asia, as they seek to develop relationships with local as well as expat staff, interactions between leaders modelling expectations for students interaction, and those of the broader school communities. This presentation will use the research on leadership in Confucian societies, as well as broader research on ethical leadership to consider models for leadership when working in International Education in an East Asian Cultural Context.

Expected Outcomes:
I will present a model for leading in a cross-cultural leadership context as a means of reflecting on what culturally responsive leadership looks like in International Schools in the Asia Pacific Region.