Building Networked Learning Systems
By Christopher Chapman
“If you want to understand something, try to change it” is a quote often attributed to the social psychologist, Kurt Lewin. This is exactly what the team at the Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change and more recently the Network for Social and Educational Equity (NSEE) have been doing for the past 12 years at home and abroad.
These Research-Practice Partnerships (RPP) have involved building Networked Learning Systems which are driven by collaborative inquiry, the use of evidence and professional learning to shift cultures and drive improvements across different types of organisational, disciplinary, geographical and professional boundaries.
In one example, over a period of eight years Professors Chapman and Donaldson have been members of the West Partnership (WP) Board and advisers to the Lead Director. The WP is a collaboration of eight local authorities in the west of Scotland which serves around a third of Scotland’s children and young people. From inception of the WP Chapman and Donaldson have worked with the Directors of Education to build the vision for and to create the WP Networked Learning System, while the wider team have both researched and supported developments in the field. This has involved Hall, Lowden and the team building capacity for collaborative action research and supporting network development across all phases of education in the region, whilst Bell provided research and evaluative support from 2018-2024.
Central government has withdrawn funding for Regional Collaborative Improvement. However, such is the impact of what has been achieved by this RPP that the eight local authorities have committed to continue to support WP from within their own heavily pressurised and reduced budgets. Chapman and Donaldson continue to act as critical friends with their recent publications informing thinking and innovation. Their forthcoming publication for WP explores the learning from the WP and future of regional collaboration and professional learning within the context of a period of controversial national reform.
The ideas, research and practice that underpin the team’s commitment to build Network Learning Systems have been developed across regions, as in the WP but also across entire cities such as in the Dundee educational strategy of Every Dundee Learner Matters and in diverse international contexts including Chile.
To find out more about this impactful work please see: https://nsee.org.uk
contact: chris.chapman@glasgow.ac.uk
