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Sparks, D. (2003). 'Interview with Michael Fullan: Change agent.' Journal of Staff Development, 24(1).
This paper looks at an interview with Michael Fullan conducted by Denis Sparks.
Fullan talks about the need for professional learning communities in which teachers and leaders work together with a focus on student learning and are supported by high-quality curriculum materials and assessment information. However, Fullan distinguishes between two types of professional learning communities. In one, teachers work together in innovative ways to improve their teaching practices. In the other, teachers interact around traditional teaching practices, which may simply reinforce things that are not working.
He calls for more intensive professional learning with continuous deliberation that is constantly being tested against external ideas.
Fullan sees informed professional judgment as having the potential to reform school cultures. This requires investment in good leadership and improved relationships between teaching staff and between administrators and teaching staff. It also requires that schools sift and integrate the best ideas from the field, which will require knowledge development and knowledge sharing.
Leaders who are effective operate from powerful conceptions, not a set of techniques. The key, then, is to build up leaders' conceptions of what it means to be a leader. I've identified five conceptions - moral purpose, relationship building, knowledge generation, understanding the change process, and coherence building. These conceptions can be fostered, but they must be fostered through a socialisation process that develops leaders as reflective practitioners. If leaders are taught techniques without conceptions, the conceptions will fail. Techniques are tools that must have a set of conceptual understandings. When conceptions and techniques go hand-in-hand, we create breakthroughs. (Sparks, 2003, p. 5)
He makes special mention of moral purpose, which provides the motivation to reculture schools for sustained improvement. Moral purpose includes passionate classroom teachers, whole schools and school districts.