COLLECTIVE EFFICACY AND THE CHALLENGES OF CURRICULUM CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Abstract

Marcellin College embarked on an 18-month journey to enliven the existing curriculum framework and corresponding pedagogies to align these with the needs of students of the 21st century. The new learning ecosystem ‘Polaris’ recognises and develops the young men as whole human beings. The College aspired to develop a curriculum framework that cultivates a balance of foundational literacies, character attributes and key capability skills to navigate the world as compassionate Christians and ethical global citizens. The challenge with this change has been navigating the vast professional competencies of incumbents, whilst maintaining the daily professional responsibilities of a teacher and leader. This paper highlights the significance of collective efficacy in the development of a new learning paradigm, the perspectives of teachers and leaders experiencing change and further highlights that the education sector is not immune to the inherent issues facing many industries in the area of change management. This research was conducted using a quantitative methodology, where middle leaders completed an anonymous survey. The results were taken from a four-point rating scale and statistical measures were applied. This paper presents results of a study exploring the challenges of adapting to a new curriculum design and the implementation of a new learning paradigm. The results indicate that the uptake of a new learning ecosystem had a substantial effect on staff’s overall wellbeing. This resulted in four key themes emerging from the whole staff data, where teaching and non-teaching staff felt that there was: poor internal communication, poor management and leadership, increased office gossip and; an overall increase in dissatisfaction and workplace anxiety. A further investigation was conducted into the perceived impact of the change process on middle leaders of the college. It was found that middle leaders felt the greatest burden of change in the areas of: college management in general, management of change and; collective efficacy. Where the middle leaders felt most optimistic was in the areas of collegiality within the team they manage and the autonomy they had in exploring their own personal professional learning. Overall, the results suggest that despite poor change management from an institutional level, middle leaders felt empowered within their own teams. Yet, when exploring the perception of teaching and non-teaching staff, deeper concerns emerged for overall organisational health. As a result of the study there were several key implications and subsequent recommendations. These included visionary-like themes and more pragmatic operational suggestions. It has been suggested that staff feel most safe with change when ‘pragmatic’ parameters are structured into their daily workloads; included within this are blocked learning community meetings, clear support frameworks, professional learning built in to the change process and clear communication flow through the leadership hierarchy. Overall, there needs to be overarching vision where all members of the community feel valued and supported and suitable framework applied to ensure effective communications throughout the change period.