This document presents findings from an ongoing school improvement project in Sweden, exploring how principals and teachers navigate the tension between external pressure for student achievement and local curriculum development. It highlights the importance of collaborative learning, instructional leadership, and the concept of 'learning capital' in enhancing school improvement efforts. The document concludes with reflections on the challenges and insights related to the sustainability of these improvement initiatives and their impact on teaching and learning outcomes.

1. Improve the school - International comparison on methods,
tools and practices of school improvement
Naples 14-15 May 2015
School improvement in practice –
learnings from ongoing research
Jan Håkansson
Linnaeus university, Sweden

2. Background
• This presentation is built on empirical data from
an ongoing school improvement project.
• In terms of ”ongoing evaluation” researchers, in
this project, study and support principals and
teachers school-based curriculum development
on five compulsory schools in Sweden
• In focus: learnings from principals and teachers
school based curriculum and improvement work

3. Purpose and research questions
• The purpose is to explore how local school actors
(principals and teachers) understand and handle the
parallel process of, on the one hand, external pressure
to improve students achievement and, on the other
hand, the local school-based improvement work.
• In the light of such a tension, what are the principals
and teachers understanding of:
- The selection of content areas for curriculum
development?
- Their own learning?
• How can the schools’ capacity building for school
improvement be understood through the concept of
”learning capital”?

4. The context of school improvement
work in Sweden (I)
EXTERNAL PRESSURE
• Increasing focus on students' academic achievement
and school results (like in many other countries).
• Reform initiatives aim to improve achievements for all
students and the equality between schools.
AND AT THE SAME TIME
• Schools are required to work with school
improvement and local curriculum innovation based
on scientific knowledge and proven experience.
• There is acting space for local school actors to make
decisions in their daily curriculum and improvement
work.

5. The context of school improvement work
in Sweden (II)
Increasing interest in the WHAT and HOW
WHAT?
• Students learning
and achievement in
focused curriculum
areas
• Teachers and
principals learning
• Teaching qualities
HOW?
• Systematic data-
collecting and analyze
of data on student and
teacher learning and
teaching qualities
• Evidence-informed
discussions on
teaching and learning
• Transparency in
planning,
implementation and
evaluation of teaching.

6. School improvement – what do we know?
”Evidence shows that schools in which teachers act
in collaborative settings to deeply examine teaching
and learning, and then discuss effective
instructional practices, show academic results for
students more quickly than schools that do not”
(Darling Hammond, 2004).

7. School improvement – what do we know?
• Strong evidence for local and school based learning supported
by literature reading and data collection from teaching and
learning.
• Also evidence for learning processes including self-evaluation
and investigations in school-practice supported by different
types of data, e.g. official data and locally produced data.
• The critical question – the movement from teachers individual
learning towards collective learning in professional learning
communities.
• So called instructional leadership seems to be connected to
(pupil/teacher) learning more than transformational leadership.
(Stoll et.al., 2006; Hallinger, 2011)

8. To understand school’s capacity
building through learning
• Shulman & Shulman (2004) distinguish between four different
aspects of the capital concept, i.e. types of learning qualities:.
1. Moral capital – to will
2. Curricular capital – to know
3. Venture capital – to change/take risks
4. Teaching capital – to do
• These distinctions make it possible to study and better
understand the local school-based improvement work:
- What forms of learning capital emerge in schools and
what forms seem to be most important, and why?

9. Methods
Different qualitative methods have been used:
- semi-structured group interviews with principals
and teachers
- sound recordings from several planning and follow-
up meetings with principals and teachers
- document analysis of school planning documents
Also a teacher survey at the beginning of the project – not
presented here.

10. The selection of content areas for curriculum
development and improved school results
• Two broad areas chosen: i) classroom management, ii)
development of language in all subjects.
• Need for specification of content areas became
gradually obvious – e.g. development of classroom
questioning, classroom interaction, formative
assessment, peer assessment, the use of homework to
strenghten pupil’s learning et cetera
• The specification of content areas a strategic choice for
school-leaders to motivate teachers in the
improvement work.

11. Principals leadership and learning
• Successive development of confidence in leading and
organizing improvement work:
- Keep focus and communicate connections between
different activities.
- Observe relations between school/teacher efforts
and pupils’ achievement.
- Strategic use of personnel resources and time:
”I use my development group more distinct giving them
tasks connected to these improvement efforts” (Principal 1)
- Courage to run long-term school development

12. Principals leadership and learning
• Extended repertoire of improvement strategies e.g.
collegial observations, pedagogical discussions, literature
reading, ”Study circles”.
• More frequent use of classroom observations from
principals.
• A growing consciousness of the meaning of school
improvement:
”It has been big changes in my thinking of what school
improvement work is. Before I didn’t see this
properly.” (Principal 2)

13. Teacher learning in school
improvement work
• More pedagogical discussions now than before – the
relationship between teaching and learning in focus.
• Collegial and focused classroom observations create the
content of discussions (4 of 5 schools).
• A common language is growing.
• Consciousness about teaching aspects (e.g. the way of
asking questions to pupils):
”You get incredibly conscious of how you ask questions.
Without collegial observations you never had set eyes on
that.” (Teacher 1)
• Confidence in testing teaching strategies connected to
content areas.

14. Collegial observations of teaching – learnings
from one of the improvement strategies
What is important?
• Concrete and explicit focus on what is being observed
(related to general curriculum area)
• A short observation is enough but you need
documentation (e.g. protocol, video-tape) for the
reflection and discussion
• A short common reflection after classroom observation
• Conversation with moderator, focused on:
1. Descriptions of observed situations.
2. General knowledge and learnings from observations.
3. Pedagogical consequences (for future teaching).

15. Schools capacity building through learning capital –
some learnings about change
Explicit changes of schools’:
Curricular capital – in terms
of deepened pedagogical
discussions from facts
(protocols, video-tapes,
literature) and curriculum.
Teaching capital – from
individual to collaborative
learning through classroom
observations and
discussions.
Less explicit changes of schools’:
Moral capital – more of common
development , BUT at the same
time ongoing negociations with
staff about the importance of
common ground instead of
individual solutions.
Venture capital – from learning to
action, the most difficult part in
this phase of the improvement
work!

16. Some general insights so far!
• Differences in schools readiness for improvement work (from
the survey results)
• School improvement takes time
• Principals learning and development during the process
important
• The importance of principals active participation –
instructional leadership rather ”new” in a Swedish context
• The importance of support in the process (e.g. from
municipality super visors, ”first teachers” et al)
• The need for conversations about teaching and learning

17. Some reflections for the future – summing up case studies
of ongoing school improvement at the end of 2015
• Principals ability to deal with the balance between top-down
and bottom up initiatives and strategies
• Initially the research and development design (R&D) seem
to support principals’ learning and leadership – what has
happened when researchers draw back?
• How can teachers’ learning from school improvement
activities maintain and be part of daily teaching? (from
teaching capital to venture capital)
• How visible are school improvement learnings on a pupil
level (teaching and learning in the classroom, national tests,
grades)?