“Being Together” in Learning: A School Leadership Case Study Evoking the Relational Essence of Learning Design at the Australian Science and Mathematics School

Abstract

[...]there is the relationality that comes with more personalised learning practices that call upon leaders and teachers to be actively engaged in ongoing reflective attention to student learning lifeworlds, including students' learning interests and how carefully crafted school structures, "contributive" leadership practices, and an enabling school culture can work together to foster deeper pedagogies of engagement. [...]we mean the relationality of the learning disciplines (the subjects) and how they naturally speak to one another when an overarching inquiry question is posed necessitating sophisticated teacher and student thinking and planning about how the disciplines, when forged together, can more authentically represent how we all experience and make sense of our world. [...]these learning benefits were not only seen by leaders from a student learning perspective, but also from a teacher learning perspective. (Leader 5, December 2016) Forms of learning freedom, learning choice and learning relationships are enhanced through the ASMS inquirybased interdisciplinary approach. Because of the interconnectedness of the learning space and the learning community, a learning culture exists that allows the students to seek out teachers - or other students, for that matter - to explain a learning concept that they may be grappling with.