A SELECTION OF SCHOOL BASED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES

TONY TOWNSEND,

CHAIR DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP

FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY

 

Tony Townsend has conducted a variety of lectures, seminars, workshop and development activities, from a one hour presentation to more than a 1000 people to conducting a three day conference for 200 principals to working with a specific school community for one or more days. The following workshops can be as short as an hour or so, or as long as a day, depending on how much detail, activities, workshops and interactions you wish to have. All of the activities will be a combination of powerpoint presentations, interactive workshops and discussion and participants will be provided with copies of all the materials used to enable them to take them back to their schools, homes or classrooms.

 

To get more information about the following workshops, or other ways in which I might help you to improve the achievement of students in your schools, please contact me on townsend@fau.edu.

 

FOR SCHOOL LEADERS

Leading the Learning
School leaders are expected to do much more now than ever, usually with much more scrutiny and fewer resources than before. This seminar and workshop supports school leaders in their efforts to promote high levels of student achievement through developing leadership models that work at all different levels of school. It will consider ways in which school leaders can provide strategies and support for classroom teachers to promote both pedagogical and content driven learning. For each of these features, there are two approaches…with pedagogy, teachers are either asking students questions or telling students what they need to do and with content teachers can focus on either teaching facts or teaching concepts. These four factors, all of which are used some of the time, create four different outcomes for students. The workshop will look at these outcomes and ways in which school leaders can adjust what is happening in their teachers’ classrooms.

 

Data-Driven School Improvement

The accountability movement has created a climate where measuring student output is now more important that spending time teaching them. This seminar/workshop considers how to use data to drive school improvement and to provide teachers with both the knowledge and motivation to use data-driven decision making in their classrooms. The workshop will consider ways in which data can be used to make informed decision-making and to develop a culture of informed inquiry in the school. It will use an action research model as a means of developing a cycle of data-driven improvement.

 

FOR TEACHERS/SCHOOL LEADERS

Using the Brain

We now know so much more about the brain and its impact on learning than we did ten years ago. This is a seminar for teachers and school leaders that looks at what we now know about the brain and what this knowledge can tell us about student success and failure. It will consider ways in which we can use what we know about the brain to establish the conditions that bring about optimum learning for students. It will consider the physical, emotional and intellectual circumstances that we can create that will support students to establish patterns of learning that will help them succeed.

 

Helping those who struggle to learn

There are essentially two groups of students who enter schools. The first group is going to a place they like to work with people they enjoy to do something that is useful that will help them in their future. The second group is going to a place they hate to work with people they think hate them to do something that has no value for a future they don’t have. There is a strong link between the concepts that students hold about aspects of school and the level of achievement they attain. This workshop looks at the concepts that different students have of school, the impact it has on their learning and considers strategies that will help students change their concepts, thus providing them with a better chance of learning.

 

Engaging Students in the Global Classroom

The world is a different place to what it was when we were kids. The relationships individual students now have can be everything from local to global. Each day students are impacted by issues of world importance. The war in the middle east, global warming, the global economy, among other things, have changed the way in which we have to respond to learning. This workshop will consider four different types of knowledge that people will need in the future: learning for survival; learning to help us know our place in the world; learning about communities; and learning to develop values. The workshop will provide teachers with strategies that will engage young people in a meaningful way in these types of learning and will provide teachers with specific activities that will support the development of the skills needed in the global environment we live in.

 

Measuring what we value

These days politicians and the community seem to value only those aspects of schooling that can be measured, leaving little time to anything that we know will add value to children’s lives. This seminar and workshop provides school leaders and teachers with the opportunity to develop a strategy for establishing skills, attitudes and values that we want all students to know by the time they leave school and a way in which these things can be measured and reported to parents and school authorities. The workshop will establish ways in which teachers can build these skills, attitudes and values into their regular classes, rather than seeing them as something different and extra.

 

Involving parents and the community in supporting students

All of the research agrees that the more a parent is interested and involved in their children’s education, the better the child will achieve. In this rapidly changing world, parents, like teachers, are very busy people. We have to raise their level of interest in becoming involved in school activity above that of watching American Idol or the latest football game. To do this we need to adopt innovative approaches to encouraging parents to get involved. This workshop will look at some of the research on parent and community involvement in schools and will provide participants with some practical strategies for getting high levels of parent involvement.

 

FOR TEACHERS, PARENTS/GRANDPARENTS

Helping our children learn

A 2 hour seminar to assist teachers, parents and grandparents to support child learning. The seminar will provide information about how our brain works in ways that can either help or hinder learning and will demonstrate how to use positive questioning as a means of connecting the emotions of enjoyment, reward and satisfaction to concepts associated with school. At the end of the seminar, participants will be able to use these techniques to support the development of positive attitudes towards learning.

 

CONTACT DETAILS

Dr Tony Townsend

Professor and Chair,

Department of Educational Leadership

Florida Atlantic University

777 Glades Road

Boca Raton, Fl, 33431

 

Telephone: 561 297 6771

Facsimile:  561 297 3618

Email:         townsend@fau.edu

Webpage:  http://www.coe.fau.edu/faculty/Townsend/index.htm
 

TONY TOWNSEND (email: townsend@fau.edu)

In August 2003, Dr Tony Townsend took up an appointment as Chair of the Department of Educational Leadership in the College of Education at Florida Atlantic University. Previously he was an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. From 1988-1997 he was foundation Director of Monash’s South Pacific Centre for School and Community Development. He was the President of the Australian Association for Community Education in 1986 and from 1987 to 1996 he was Regional Director of the International Community Education Association's Pacific Region. He has been (1999-2001) President of the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI), and is currently President of the Board of Directors of the International Council on Education for Teaching (ICET). From September 2002 until March 2003 he was the Myron and Margaret Winegarden visiting professor at the School of Education and Human Services at the University of Michigan Flint campus. He has also been a visiting professor in South Africa and Canada. In May 2005 he was the Australian Council for Educational Leaders’ Travelling Scholar, presenting to Educational Leaders in 8 of Australia’s states and territories. In January 2006, Tony was the Chair of the Conference Managing Committee for the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement’s annual conference held in Fort Lauderdale.

 

Tony has given numerous lectures, workshops, conference papers and presentations in the areas of school effectiveness and improvement, leadership, community education, policy development and school and community administration in over 30 developed, and developing, countries and he has served on the editorial boards of the international journals such as School Effectiveness and School Improvement, the South African Journal of Education and Educational Research and Evaluation.

 

He has worked with Education Departments and school communities in all Australian states and has worked with teachers and educational leaders in countries including the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, Thailand, Taiwan, South Africa, Malaysia, Namibia, New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, England and Scotland. Much of his work has been in the area of strategic planning and accountability, leadership and community relationships, all focusing on maximizing student attitudes and achievement. In Australia, he was a school reviewer for the Victorian and South Australian Departments of Education.

 

His research interests include school effectiveness and improvement, school restructuring with a particular emphasis on public education, educational leadership, student engagement, strategic planning, global education and community education and development.  He has published extensively in the areas of school effectiveness, school improvement and community education and development, in Australia, Europe and North America.

 

He has published extensively in the areas of school effectiveness, school improvement and community education and development, in Australia, Europe and North America. His books include:

·         Effective Schooling for the Community: Core Plus Education  (1994) Routledge,

·         Restructuring and Quality: Issues for Tomorrow's Schools (1997) Routledge

·         The Primary School in Changing Times: The Australian Experience (1998) Routledge,

·         Community and Parent Support for Schools, (1998) University of the South Pacific (with Henry Elder)

·         The Global Classroom: Activities to engage students in Third Millennium Schools (1999) Hawker Brownlow (with George Otero)

·         Third Millennium Schools: A World of Difference in Effectiveness and Improvement  (1999) Swets & Zeitlinger (with  Paul Clarke and Mel Ainscow)

·         Educational Change and Development in the Asia-Pacific Region: Challenges for the Future  (2000) Swets & Zeitlinger (with Yin Cheong Cheng)

·         Teacher Education in Times of Change: Globalization, Standards and Professionalism (2007), Springer, Dordrecht, the Netherlands and New York (Edited with Richard Bates)

·         School Effectiveness and School Improvement: Review, Reflection and Reframing (in preparation), Springer, Dordrecht, the Netherlands and New York (Edited)

 

Recent Keynote addresses

Townsend, Tony (2006, March 15) ‘Leaders of the Future: Leading the Learning’. A keynote address to the 2nd International Principalship Conference, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Townsend, Tony (2005, October 17) ‘Navigating Your Future: From Local to Global Learning’. A keynote address to the annual conference of the Utah Association for Adult, Continuing and Community Education, Ogden, Utah

Townsend, Tony (2005, July 15) ‘Leading the Learning: Implications for a New Program in Teacher Education’. A keynote address to the annual conference of the International Council on Education for Teaching, Pretoria, South Africa.

Townsend, Tony (2004, November 13) ‘Beyond the Boundaries’. Closing keynote address presented to National Community Education Association Annual Conference, San Diego, California.

Townsend, Tony (2004, November 10) ‘Current Trends: Boundaries for Community Educators’. Opening keynote address presented to National Community Education Association Annual Conference, San Diego, California.

Townsend, Tony (2004, October 27) ‘The Power of Positive Questions for Managers.’ A keynote for the Florida Society for Certified Public Managers Conference, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Townsend, Tony (2004, March 12) ‘The Accountability Game.’ An invited address to the Australian Council for Educational Research, Melbourne.

Townsend, Tony (2004, March 11) ‘Maximising Learning in Third Millennium Classrooms.’ A keynote address to the Victorian Chapter of the Australian Council for Educational Leaders, Melbourne.

Townsend, Tony (2004, January 6) ‘The Accountability Game: From Rules and Regulations to Real Improvement.’ A keynote address to the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

 

Recent Presentations/Workshops/ Professional Development Activity

Townsend, Tony (2006, July 10) ‘Improving the quality of thinking’. A presentation to the Faculty of Education, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

Townsend, Tony (2006, July 5) ‘Leading the Learning: The Role of Superintendents in Educational Change’. A presentation to Superintendents of Schools, Education and Manpower Bureau, Hong Kong.

Townsend, Tony (2006, April 5) ‘Thinking and Acting Locally and Globally’. A presentation to the TIESWEB conference, Miami, Florida.

Townsend, Tony (2005, October 18) ‘Every Child Moves Ahead: An Answer to No Child Left Behind’. An after dinner speech to the Bonneville Knife and Fork Group, Salt Lake City, Utah

Townsend, Tony (2005, October 17) ‘The Power of Positive Questioning’. A presentation to the annual conference of the Utah Association for Adult, Continuing and Community Education, Ogden, Utah

Townsend, Tony (2005, July 20) ‘Leading the Learning.’ A workshop for principals conducted at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

Townsend, Tony (2005, July 18) ‘Engaging Students in the Global Classroom.’ A workshop for teachers conducted at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

Townsend, Tony (2005, June 9) ‘New Waves of Leadership: From Accountability Games to Real Learning’. A full day workshop conducted for school leaders on behalf of the Australian Council for Educational Leaders, Melbourne, Australia.

Townsend, Tony (2005, May 24-June 9) ‘New Waves of Leadership: From Accountability Games to Real Learning’. A series of full day workshops conducted for school leaders on behalf of the Australian Council for Educational Leaders. This was part of the Travelling Scholar’s Program. Workshops were held in Canberra, Hobart, Tamworth, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne, Australia.

Townsend, Tony (2005, February 7) ‘School Plus: Why, What and How’. A full day workshop conducted for the Saskatchewan Community High Schools Conference in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Townsend, Tony (2005, February 5) ‘Leading the Learning: Engaging Students in the Global Classroom’. A workshop conducted for the University of Saskatchewan doctoral program in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.