Introduction
World-wide there has been a focus on schools and schooling as countries grapple with increasing competition in a more global economic environment that requires work to be of an international standard and workers therefore to have a high level of skills and knowledge. At the same time, the very nature of work is changing rapidly as technological advances have been applied to increase the efficiency of work processes and enhance the effectiveness of support services. As the previous article showed, Bahrain’s signing of the free trade agreement with United States of America in 2006 brought with it both opportunities to diversify its economy in the face of depleting oil reserves, but also many challenges as it entered the global trading arena. Consequently, huge pressure was put on the education system to ensure that young Bahraini entering the workforce had the skills and knowledge required for the twenty-first century. This resulted in the introduction of the School Improvement Project (SIP) across all government schools in Bahrain at a time when they were facing the challenge of expanding their provision to deal with increasing numbers of students due to natural population growth as well as immigration. Whilst acknowledging the local culture, this article places Bahrain’s School Improvement initiative within this wider context and outlines what the Kingdom can learn from the international literature focused on school improvement.
The first section focuses on trends in learning and pedagogy and introduces the schools as organisations established to facilitate learning in the wake of economic changes. The evolution of the economy in Bahrain, as in most Western countries, is the driving force behind school reform initiatives, so this article seeks to develop an understanding of the concepts of school improvement and school effectiveness, school capacity building and sustainable improvement. A common thread within the research is the importance of leadership for sustainable improvement and specifically the critical role that teachers’ leadership plays. Consequently, the capacity and capability building aspects required for successful school improvement are highlighted, with a review of literature related to the professional development of teachers, the utilization of professional learning communities, and the role of external support and internal improvement teams. Finally, the article concludes with a section that considers the literature concerning managing change in order to learn from others about effective implementation of innovative educational practices. This article serves as a vehicle for developing the conceptual framework ,which will be outlined in another article, exploring the meaning of, and the strategies involved in, building schools’ capacity for continuous improvement towards sustainable educational excellence in the Kingdom of Bahrain (KoB).
Trends in Learning and Pedagogy
The quality of teaching is often listed as a hindrance in the implementation of education reform, with inadequate training and lack of experience amongst teachers identified as common problems in schools, according to Plank (1987). The quality of schools depends significantly on the quality of teaching and the quality of learning, or how well teachers teach and how well learners learn, and outstanding school leaders create a school environment that enables students and teachers to perform well. Indeed, the literature suggests that the main elements in building school capacity for sustainable improvement are teaching and learning, students’ personal development and academic achievement. Learning involves changes in the skills or knowledge required to do something and is generally defined as:
… all relatively permanent changes in potential for behaviours that results from experience but are not caused by fatigue, maturation, drugs, injury, or disease. Strictly speaking, of course, learning is not defined (human or nonhuman) as a result of experience. Changes in behavior are simply evidence that learning has occurred (Lefrancois, 2011, p. 4)
However, there are many theories of learning in the literature, with a shift from a developmental to a sociocultural perspective evidenced since the late twentieth century, and a recent focus on lifelong learning that promotes the skills and competencies necessary in the workplace, according to the State of Victoria’s Department of Education and Training (2005). It is important to link theory to practice in the design and development of any instructional system, and theoretical constructs emerge from our perspectives on knowledge. Epistemology focuses on how we know the world. It asks how we know that what we think is real. Therefore, there is a link between effective teaching and the way students learn (Ambrose et al., 2010).
Research exploring, on one hand, the effects of different approaches to teaching, and on the other hand, “how humans learn, how they acquire knowledge, process information, develop skills, think and reason, has started to merge” (Westwood, 2008, p. v). Constructivists believe that learning is when an individual discovers for him/herself (Long, 1968). According to Zevenbergen (1995, as cited in Westwood, 2008), learning requires creating understanding from action and reflection, not from teacher’s presentation or a textbook, while Mayer (2004, also cited in Westwood, 2008), suggests that learning can be stimulated by verbal and visual means. However, we should not be asking which of the two approaches (constructivist, and instructivist or direct teaching approach) is better, “but rather which approach is better for teaching what type of curriculum content”, Westwood argues (2008, p. 16).
It has long been recognized that improving school performance requires enhancing teaching quality (Newell, 1996), and making teaching more student-centred (Knight, 2006). The judgement on the quality of a school is reflected in the quality of teaching (Barber & Mourshed, 2007), with high performing teachers enhancing students’ achievement. Barber and Mourshed indicated that students’ progress 50 percentiles with high performing teachings compared with low performing ones (2007). In the new conceptualization of schools as learning communities (discussed further in section 3.8) “the role of a teacher is somewhat redefined due to new beliefs about how learning occurs” (Westwood, 2008, p. 11) and in this approach a teacher becomes a learner, facilitator, supporter, and leader, rather than an instructor. The needs of the children and the cultural context are also aspects that warrant consideration when determining the appropriate teaching approach for effective learning to occur, and this is the subject of section 3.2, which follows.
Dr. Ahmed AlKoofi
Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., Norman, M. K., & Mayer, R. E. (2010). How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching. USA: Wiley.
Barber, M., & Mourshed, M. (2007). How the World’s Best-performing School Systems Come Out on Top. London: McKinsey & Company.
Department of Education and Training. (2005). Research on Learning: Implications for Teaching (pp. 1–18). pp. 1–18.
Knight, P. (2006). Quality Enhancement and Educational Professional Development. Quality in Higher Education, 12(1), 29–40.
Lefrancois, G. R. (2011). Theories of Human Learning: What the Professor Said. USA: Cengage Learning.
Long, E. T. (1968). What is Significant Learning? Improving College and University Teaching, 16(3), 178.
Newell, S. T. (1996). Practical Inquiry: Collaboration and Reflection in Teacher Education Reform. Teaching and Teacher Education, 12(6), 567–576.
Plank, D. N. (1987). School administration and School Reform in Botswana. 7(2), 119–126.
Westwood, P. (2008). What Teachers Need to Know about Teaching Methods. Camberwell, Australia: ACER Press.
