The Changemakers Program is held over 12 months, conducted through three workshops and through ongoing personalised coaching and peer connections. The workshops follow a strict 80/20 rule, which restricts ‘presenter talk’ to 20% of the time. This provides the opportunity for discussion, collective thinking and collaborative problem solving for the remaining 80% of the time. The intention is to harness the ‘collective genius’ of the group and for the participants to take ownership of their development.
The below figure displays this process, followed by a brief description of each stage.
Recruitment
All teachers and schools wanting to participate in the Changemaker Program need to apply online. Education Changemakers collaborate with School Regions to select up to 40 participants per program. They assist the School Regions with marketing, distributing advertising material and offering social media support. Education Changemakers are purposefully selective in their recruitment. This is to ensure that selected participants are passionate educators who are capable of becoming exceptional leaders in education.
Workshop 1
This initial two day intensive workshop is intended to reinvigorate a new wave of optimism and passion for education. The participants are exposed to practical applications of innovation, leadership, entrepreneurship, and strategy. While these examples aren’t always specific to school education, their methods are transferrable to classroom and school settings.
Dave discussed that teachers often enter this initial workshop feeling drained and disillusioned about teaching. For early career teachers (ECTs) this is particularly noticeable and there’s a desire for strategic direction:
‘Early career teachers are hungry for a mindset where they actually feel valued when they come into the room. Where we actually say: “You know what? You are talented. You’ve got the answers. What we are going to do is facilitate, really genuinely facilitate. And we will give you some ideas and we’ll give you some scaffolds, but we actually think you are intelligent, capable, and next Monday in your school you can make changes happen. You are the one that is on the ground getting it done.’
Following this exposure to examples of success in social change, the participants begin to plan and strategise for their own individual ‘change’ projects. Facilitated by Dave and Aaron, planning and discussion of projects is conducted within groups. This is then followed by feedback given by the group about their planned project. Change projects vary according to the teacher’s passion or area of concern. Past projects have focused on: improving parental engagement; improving student attendance; involving more local Indigenous language into the classroom.
While developing projects, Dave and Aaron strongly emphasise the importance of building an evidence-base. This includes both justifying the need for the project, and building a framework that measures the project’s effectiveness. Resources and suggestions for appropriate measurement and evaluation tools are given to teachers in this process.
Personalised Coaching & Ongoing Connection
Participants receive ongoing coaching over the 12 month program by Dave and Aaron. This provides another source of support to participants to discuss implementation and possible issues concerning their individual change project. Communication is made through phone calls, email and video conferencing.
The Education Changemakers team also manages a private Facebook page for participants to discuss particular issues in an online forum. This has been an effective method of maintaining the cross-school networks that the teachers have made during the workshops.
As Dave commented, the ongoing source of support is especially critical for ECTs when implementing a change project. While they often receive substantial support internally by staff, they appreciate the ongoing external support and feedback throughout the 12 months.
Workshop 2
This two day session is held three months after Workshop 1. It is designed to assist participants to reassess, refine, and sustain their individual change project. As all participants will have begun implementing their change projects, many will have experienced challenges and barriers in this process.
Therefore, this workshop equips participants with methods relating to effective community engagement, team-building practices, and specific strategies to bolster their projects. The workshop is again conducted in a group setting, so as to encourage peer feedback.
Workshop 3
The final workshop session is held towards the end of the 12 month period. This workshop is focused on presenting individual change projects and reflecting on their achievements. Before project presentations, however, the Education Changemakers team facilitate training on presentation and public speaking skills. The participants then put this into practice and present on their change projects. After which, there is a discussion about the future direction of the individual change projects and options to scale to achieve a broader impact.
Focus on Early Career Teachers
In response to the alarmingly high attrition rates of ECTs in low SES schools, Education Changemakers have developed a Graduate Program. The Program will be launched in 2014 and will follow the same format as the regular Changemaker Program. Instead of being open for teachers in all stages of their careers, the Graduate Program will only accept ECTs. This will allow the program to focus on leadership and change management strategies specific for teachers at the beginning of their career.
Overcoming these high ECT attrition rates has been the main motivation for the Graduate Program. Dave explains:
‘This is something that needs to happen in this country. There’s not enough support going on. We’ve got one in two teachers leaving the profession in the first three years and in disadvantaged settings it’s worse. There’s not enough being done to capture these people going and to get them to really make an impact. They are choosing to go to other places… The amount of teachers these [other] organisations have because those organisations are saying ‘actually we think you can make a difference right now’. In education we haven’t said that enough. We haven’t shown them the possibilities of not only being in formal leadership positions, but just being able to make a huge difference. Many of the early career teachers just feel overwhelmed by some of the systems that are in place.’