Focus and Themes

New Departures For A Learning World Of Quality And Equality

The congress theme “New Departures for a Learning World of Quality and Equality” is designed to provide opportunities for us to build on our strong traditions of school effectiveness and improvement as we consider innovative and imaginative practices to create new forms of quality and greater equity across schools, districts, and countries.

Building on the theme of educative partnerships in New Zealand 2008 and looking forward to the policy orientation in Malaysia in 2010, the Vancouver Congress will focus on and connect four key areas:

• Knowledge of School Effectiveness – We need the rigour of this tradition to answer the question: What do we know?
• Knowledge and Practice of School Improvement – We need to move our knowledge into action to improve the learning lives of all our young people. How do we apply what we know?
• Imagination – An emerging body of work is making a difference to learner engagement. How can we incorporate this thinking into our learning improvement work?
• System Transformation – Jurisdictions around the world are making the shift from sorting to learning systems. Can we work together to build on our strong traditions and foster innovation?

Participants are invited to present proposals discussing approaches to improving both quality and equity within the context of deep learning. We encourage proposals that examine how partners work together across roles to create stronger schools and systems.

Proposals are invited around these four strands:

1. Transformation, Innovation, Networks – How can we use innovation and imagination to create transformation in classrooms, schools, districts, systems and countries? How can we help each other in respectful ways across countries? What are the disciplined innovations with the most promise? How do networks foster innovation and transformation? We invite authors to submit papers or posters that explore the role of innovation, imagination and networks in deepening quality and developing much greater equity for the learners being served.
2. Leadership and Learning – What are the emerging understandings about quality and equality of learning and what are the implications of these new models for leadership? How is the new knowledge base shifting teaching, professional learning and leadership practices? The goal in this strand is to make links between leadership and learning and we encourage authors to submit papers that focus on theoretical frameworks and implications for practice.
3. Equity and Quality – How are countries, organizations and schools meeting the challenge of improving learning for ALL learners? Who are the underserved and what is being done to improve the quality of their learning? What new forms of quality are being considered? How are these being conveyed to the public? How are policy-makers addressing the equity and quality issues? What are schools doing to engage all learners? The focus on equity in this strand reflects one of the key principles of ICSEI and we invite proposals that approach improvement from this critical perspective.
4. Communities Learning – If we are serious about creating new forms of quality and greater equity, we cannot do this in isolation – one classroom or one school at a time. We need to work in partnership – across schools, districts, and agencies. What do we know about effective community partnerships? How are we involving parents, families and community members in creating new forms of quality and equity? In this strand, we want to build on the knowledge of professional learning communities to explore the broader role of communities as important places of learning.