Sitting in The 'Big Chair'...

I've just finished a week acting up in the absence of my principal. I'm happy with how things went and I enjoyed the experience, but I'm quite comfortable with my principal returning to her job next week!!

What were my goals?

There were probably two focus points I had for the week, both of which are also at the forefront of my mind when doing the AP role, but probably crystalised in focus for me when being the main point of leadership for all staff:

• Being 'out and about' and visible for staff and students:

I wanted to make sure I made the most of my time when 'the people' were there. i.e. Being accessible to staff and students, as well as proactive about getting 'on my bike' and being in and out of classrooms. I wanted to use the 'non-people' times of the day [mornings, evenings] to work on the various administrative tasks that needed doing [emails, timetables, future planning, etc... ].

• Communication:

Our school is very detail-oriented - a lot of importance is placed upon thorough plans being in place. This approach plays out in the way our daily bulletin is communicated, with each day's items of significance documented in blow-by-blow detail in an online space. Whilst this run down is also displayed in the staffroom, I wanted to make sure I covered every base in terms of communicating information, by talking with people face-to-face about any changes / reminders / special events / etc. affecting them.

Did we tread water, or did we keep moving forward..?

I think we ended up progressing a few more things than I'd planned to - I may be put on a tighter leash next week!!

• We had positive and productive Leadership, Full Staff and School Council meetings - we were fortunate to have  positive, supportive people involved at each of these meetings.
• We progressed a couple of fairly urgent staffing situations - again, excellent support was provided from our recruitment contact.
• We had quality teaching and learning occurring throughout the school - good teachers, working hard with positive attitudes... 

Confession: I was lucky... 

I was lucky for a couple of significant reasons:

1. Our school has an excellent team of teachers, office staff and support staff - everyone hit the ground running for the start of a new term, demonstrating flexibility, positive attitudes and great teamwork.
2. Our principal - although she has been away on some idyllic, tropical location... I've known in the back of my mind that if the proverbial did hit the fan, she would respond rapidly to any email I sent to her with a red exclamation mark... In short, I had a safety net. She also did an amazing job setting things up for us before she left - it was almost a fool-proof scenario [I was probably a good test for this notion!!]

So, yes, I enjoyed the experience of the past week, but I [and probably everyone else] will breathe a little sigh of relief next week when our real captain returns to the ship.

Cheers,

Warwick

The 'zone'

I'm just coming to the end of a one-week 'stand-down' - in the NT, we only have one week for school holidays at the end of the first and third terms, as we have (a glorious!!) four weeks in the middle of the year.
It is these 'breaks' from the fast-paced school term times, where I am best-able to spend blocks of focused, uninterrupted time on creatively planning for my teaching, or working on 'bigger-picture' ideas... I like to go into a 'zone' where I can focus intensely for periods of time, without the interruptions and distractions that are inevitable when working in a people-oriented organisation such as a school.
I find it relaxing to know that I have this time available to me when on holidays, as I don't really find enough 'blocks' of time for this sort of sustained, focused work during school terms (night times and weekends are my best solution atm...). I also find being in this 'zone' intrinsically motivating, as I am able to make some progress on the more 'transformational' projects and work that I consider interesting and valuable - the purpose is clear and important to me.

A typical day:

Whilst I try to give myself a good deal of 'solo time' every morning by way of arriving early at work, a lot of this time is often used on checking plans and details, setting up for the day / week ahead and other 'transactional' tasks. Once the 'people' (staff and students) begin arriving, the day whirs by rapidly and I hop between teaching duties, meetings, communicating with staff and students, general problem-solving, behaviour issues and other tasks in a (very!!) hurried manner...
As an early-riser, my brain tends to 'fade' a bit in the afternoon / evening... So I usually go for a run at this time... I used to enjoy the mental 'break' this gave me from school, but more and more I use this time when I am (usually) alone to ponder some school issues and, if I'm lucky, solve a problem or two...

Before school commences again tomorrow, I hope I have made the most of my time in 'the zone'...


How / where do other people find / make time for sustained, uninterrupted, focused work..?
What are the conditions that best bring out your creativity..?

Measuring and Rewarding Teacher Effectiveness

Recently, a teacher-friend sent me a link to a resource for measuring teacher effectiveness. There are many such resources out there and most Western education jurisdictions now have some sort of initiative that is designed to measure how 'good' individual teachers are. Most of these initiatives are still housed in the performance processes of schools and systems and have not been directly linked to teacher pay scales or other reward mechanisms, or at least not as tightly linked as many 'reformers' would like...

CAN you 'measure' the effectiveness of individual teachers?

In short, I think you can measure the relative quality of individual teachers, or at least get a very good approximation. I certainly acknowledge there are alternative viewpoints out there regarding this!

Measuring this sort of broad, 'intangible' concept - a latent variable, to use a statistical term - is statistically achievable, but it requires a complex and detailed measurement approach. The statistical process of measuring the broad, difficult to quantify concept [eg: the quality of a teacher], is to measure the observable traits of the given concept. In other words, you measure what can be easily quantified and directly relates to the broader concept. A vital aspect of this approach, is to take into account as many of the observable traits that make up the broader concept as possible.

HOW can you accurately measure a teacher's effectiveness?

One thing I liked about the resource linked to earlier, is that they acknowledge the importance of multiple methods being used to gather information about a teacher's performance. Specifically, they cite 'student test scores', 'classroom observation' and 'surveys'. I agree that each of these are valid sources of information about a teacher's performance. 

However, the key to ensuring that a measurement tool / instrument / process is as valid and accurate as possible, is to emphasise [or 'weight'] the items that give the best information about the broader concept being measured.

In the case of measuring teacher quality, both student results and surveys are external indicators of a teacher's performance. Both of these sources of information can be impacted upon by other factors, outside of the teacher's control. 

Classroom observation, IMHO, is the most significant source of information in any determination of teacher quality - how can you accurately judge someone's capacity to perform, if you haven't watched and analysed them performing!?!

So we need to watch teachers teaching and analyse the wide variety of observable traits that make up a teacher's practice. The more specific and deconstructed from larger concepts that these observable traits are, the better. For example, one domain within the broader concept of 'Teacher Quality' would likely be something like 'Professional Knowledge'... This domain should be broken down into a series of items that are more easily quantified. eg:

1. to what extent do the teacher's plans reflect understanding of the content?
2. to what extent do the teacher's plans reflect understanding of the students?
3. to what extent do the teacher's plans reflect understanding of the available resources?
4. how appropriate are the teacher's instructional outcomes?
5. how effectively do assessment methodologies match the goals of the learning sequence?

By rating / scoring the broad range of specific traits that are part of a teacher's role, we can 'build' an accurate picture of the relative quality of an individual teacher.

What about performance pay..?

My own views on this are evolving... 

I don't think the current system of paying people based upon how old [oops... 'experienced'... ] they are is fair or motivating.
Like anyone who has worked in a school, I've seen several examples of gun early-career teachers working for significantly less money than old, outdated, uninspired, ineffective teachers - purely because they haven't 'been there' for as long! I don't think this situation is fair and I think it can negatively impact upon staff harmony, as the underpaid guns get frustrated with the overpaid ineffectives... 

However... the science and research regarding motivation quashes the notion of financial incentives being effective in raising performance. Indeed, Daniel Pink, in his acclaimed 2009 book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, reveals that using financial incentives to motivate people to perform better invariably leads to worse performance!
Pink does not suggest that we work for nothing [phew... ]... but his research found that, if we "pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table" [page 33], then any further financial incentives are ineffective in terms of improving performance and, indeed, can often have the opposite effect, by way of reducing performance over time. Instead, Pink identified three aspects of intrinsic motivation as the best, long-term motivators in the workplace:

1. autonomy
2. mastery
3. purpose

Aside from the ineffectiveness of financial incentives for improving performance, I fear the competition element that this would inevitably ignite between teachers. Teaching needs to be a co-operative, collaborative profession - initiatives that are designed to have some people 'succeed' [earn the financial rewards] and others 'fail' [miss out on the financial rewards] are doomed to see teachers taking more individualistic approaches to improvement and development.

So how should we use information about individual teacher quality?

I won't go into professional improvement processes here, but in terms of how we remunerate teachers, perhaps a fairer and more effective way than present is to pay all teachers a common salary - "take the issue of money off the table"... 
If we are going to reward extra effort, high performance, etc, perhaps we focus on intrinsic motivations and, if we do use extrinsic motivations, use them in a 'now - that' fashion, rather than 'if - then'... eg:

Intrinsic:

• provide greater autonomy to high-performing teachers - "Hire good people, then leave them alone." [William McKnight, 3M President, 1930-1940]
• provide greater opportunities for high-performing teachers to pursue mastery. eg: provide time / resources / etc. for the pursuit of further knowledge and skills, or allow greater time to work on areas of passion and interest.
• give greater purpose to the role of high-performing teachers - create opportunities for them to lead and influence more broadly.

Extrinsic:

• 'now that you've done [x, y, z... ], here is [insert reward]... '

• don't make these external rewards the reason for performing well at the task [being a good teacher!].

Phew, that was a long post - what was it again that I promised myself for finishing this..?

Different schools, new ideas...

Last Friday, I had the opportunity to visit a couple of schools with the luxuriously simple purpose of learning some new ideas from a different context.
For anyone that works in a school, this sort of opportunity to 'raise your eyes' from the busyness of your own day-to-day work environment can be extremely liberating and a great learning experience.
So it was for me, too.

Why was this a positive learning experience for me..?

I think I learnt from engaging with these different contexts because...

• I observed similar programs to those used in our school, applied in different ways.

This enabled me to consider possible alternatives for how we implement such programs at our school.

• I saw some examples of programs and approaches that were applied in a more comprehensive fashion than at our school.

This enabled me to gauge what the next steps could be for our school, in order to improve upon our existing practice.

• I saw and discussed some philosophies about teaching and learning that were consistent with ours.

This gave me confidence that we are 'on the right track' in many ways, in terms of the beliefs we hold about modern teaching and learning, which underpin our day-to-day programs and practice.


I really value the importance of exposing yourself to new ideas and contexts - I've always found this to be one of the best ways to rapidly improve in a short period of time, as opposed to the more incremental growth achieved through increased familiarity in a known context / setting.

What are some ways that schools and systems can / already do structure for these types of Professional Learning experiences..?

Coaching

Alistair Clarkson and John Longmire - the coaches of the two teams in  tomorrow's A.F.L. Grand Final.

Tomorrow is A.F.L. Grand Final day. Arguably the two most important people in determining the result of this significant national sporting event are the respective coaches of the two teams, who will guide, co-ordinate and lead their teams both in the lead-up to the game, as well as during the game itself.
Yesterday I learnt a bit more about 'coaching', although in a different context. I participated in a workshop on 'Coaching Skills for Managers', run by a professional executive coach. The other participants were a variety of public servants, so the day was not specifically targeted towards education. Despite this, much of the learning I took from the day was very applicable to schools.

Coaching

There were a couple of significant messages for me about coaching, in the managerial sense:

1. Coaching is about empowering people and helping to 'draw out' their own solutions to issues.

In this sense, it is different to traditional views of teaching (although I think teachers should be looking to adopt such coaching philosophies more and more... ) and even mentoring, which the term coaching is often confused and used interchangeably with. I think the distinction lies with mentoring being more of an advisory role played by the more experienced / knowledgeable other, whereas a coach does not generally provide, or offer solutions, instead preferring to guide and facilitate the colleague to identify their own solutions.


2. When coaching, a trusting, respectful relationship is vital.

A primary skill of coaches is the ability to be a good listener. In his popular book, 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People', Steven Covey identifies five 'levels' of listening:

Five levels of listening:

1. Ignoring
2. Pretending
3. Selective
4. Attentive
5. Empathetic

A coach needs to be working at the 'high end' of this scale, endeavouring to be 'present' in the conversation and 'listening first to understand... ' If the coach can understand where the speaker is 'coming from', they are better able to guide their colleague to come up with their own solutions to problems / issues.

A further reason for the importance of 'high level' listening and being actively engaged in the conversation, is the notion that the words we say are actually quite insignificant in terms of communicating a message - what is more important is how we deliver the message and the effectiveness of the body language we exhibit during these conversations:

Dr Albert Mehrabian [1981]

Herman Brain Dominance Instrument [HBTI]

Given the importance of effective communication to the role of a coach, we did some work with the thinking preferences tool, Herman Brain Dominance Instrument.

It was interesting to identify and discuss which 'quadrants' we, as individuals, identified most strongly with, as well as muse about the sections that the people we work with would identify with. From there, we discussed some specific strategies and methods to communicate effectively with people, depending upon their dominant thinking functions. For example, I strongly identified with the 'green', 'blue' and 'yellow' quadrants, but not at all with the 'red', feelings-based section - so please don't dwell on small-talk and friendly conversation when I am in a meeting with you(!!).

Difficult Conversations

The third focus for the day was on how to effectively deal with 'difficult conversations'... We learnt about and practised with some specific processes for carrying out such conversations. The key themes coming out of these processes were the importance of controlling your emotions, focusing on solutions to the issues / problems at hand, as well as working towards these solutions via conversation and discussion.

I don't know if I'll be contending for any premierships in the near future... but I do now feel better about my capacity to effectively coach colleagues in my school.

Instructional Rounds - Part Three

This is the final post in a three-part post. Here is Part One and Part Two.

Part Three - Next Level of Work... 

At our team's debrief meeting, we were able to identify two focus points for our Next Level of Work, which is where Instructional Rounds shifts gears from being a professional learning experience for the teachers involved, to become a school improvement tool that affects all teachers and our collective practice as a team of teachers. A phrase I found myself using a lot was, "it's about us as a school, not me as a teacher... "
The two focus points I wanted to discuss further with staff were borne out of our team's debrief discussions about what we observed to be effective [in relation to our Problem of Practice].

The next stage in the process was how to address this Next Level of Work. I ended up running a session for our teachers that fed back to them about our experiences with this new process, before focusing in on the improvement points identified for us as a school. During this discussion, I arranged for one of our teachers who had built up a very student-centred classroom learning environment [one of our identified focus points to aspire to as a collective group of teachers], to talk about how she had worked up to this stage.
Again, I was keen to minimise any apprehension teachers may have felt about such a session, so we played a  game initially, then made sure we went through a series of 'highlights' that we observed from individual teachers. This eased a bit of the natural apprehension that can occur when you are about to hear some feedback about your professional performance!
Although not hugely significant, here are some interesting graphics that we also discussed at our Next Level of Work staff meeting, re. the sorts of words we [the observing team] were using to describe each of the three elements:
What did the teachers say / do?

What did the students say / do?

What was the task / learning experience?

This was a really positive experience for us and, in the short-term, I hope we can build some momentum with our Instructional Rounds journey by getting another group of teachers to experience the process in the near future...
Ultimately, I'd love for this process to become embedded in the way we 'do' professional learning at our school.

Instructional Rounds - Part Two

This is the second in a three-part post. Part One is here.

Part Two - The Rounds... 

Having thoroughly planned how we would carry out the Rounds, it came time for our team to enter classrooms with pen and note taking sheet in hand! I made up a simple recording template for us all to use:

I was hoping to breed consistency in what and how we recorded our observations, whilst also staying true to the three elements of the 'instructional core' that underpin the Rounds process - the teacher, the students, the task / learning experience.

         Teacher                               Students                  Task / Learning Experience

So, in we went! As a team, we visited nine different classrooms, only missing one class, which had a new teacher starting that week and was deemed to need time to settle into this new relationship. 

We saw some common themes, some obvious points of need for improvement, as well as lots of excellent practice by our colleagues.
These experiences of watching 'teachers teach' were valuable professional learning experiences for us as a team, but the next step in the IR process is just as significant, if not more so in terms of professional learning. As a team, we needed to meet soon after our classroom observations, to have genuine professional discussions about teaching and learning - it is this stage where we 'talk about teaching with teachers'. This consolidated our own learning experiences, but also required us to move into identification of 'the next level of work'... 

Instructional Rounds - Part One

Part One - The build up...

Our principal often flicks the leadership team some professional reading, with the aim of stimulating some 'transformational' [rather than 'transactional'] discussion at our leadership meetings...
Early / mid last term, one such article [excuse my markups... ] was on Instructional Rounds - a school improvement process focusing on the 'instructional core':

“In its simplest terms, the instructional core is composed of the teacher and the student in the presence of content…a focus on the instructional core grounds school improvement in the actual interactions between teachers, students, and content in the classroom…” [From Instructional Rounds in Education: A Network Approach to Improving Teaching and Learning by City, Elmore, Fiarmon and Teitel, 2009]

Although I don't usually need much encouragement to engage in education-related readings [words such as 'geek' and 'nerd' are regularly directed towards me!]... I was particularly interested in this topic, as I'd recently read a bit about the IR process and have long valued the professional learning benefits of observing other teachers in action.
I had several follow-up discussions with my principal, as well as with Cameron Patterson - a Sydney-based educator with a lot of experience in using Instructional Rounds in schools. [Cameron's blog is http://learningshore.edublogs.org and he can be found on twitter at @cpaterso ]
Following these discussions, we decided to give the Instructional Rounds process a go at our school.

A crucial aspect to IR is that a team of people carry out the Rounds. We decided that one of our professional learning teams could pilot the Rounds process. We opted for a team that both myself and my principal were on, so we could 'drive' it in this pilot stage [there were also three other classroom teachers on this team].

The next step was 'schooling' the team on the IR process, before deciding upon a Problem of Practice - this is another critical aspect of IR. The team is focusing on a particular element of teaching / learning and should not be distracted by other issues during their classroom observations.

In my mind, one of the most important parts in determining how successful we'd be with this project was how effectively we could educate our staff on the process itself, as well as the value and benefits of such an approach. To this end, I was keen to discuss IR at a whole staff meeting, prior to the team beginning the Rounds. In this meeting, I tried to stress the learning benefits for the team that does the observing, as well as to clearly distinguish the purpose of IR from the purpose of 'traditional', performance-oriented observations...
Staff were generally very accepting and positive about the IR process following this session, allowing us to minimise the 'intrusive' feelings sometimes experienced by teachers, when people come into observe their practice.

So we were ready to begin...


This is the first in a three round post. See Part Two and Part Three. 

In Rushing To Teach, Do We Restrict Learning..?

Yesterday afternoon, I participated in a Skype session with a math's education expert from New Zealand. There were many interesting concepts discussed, but the one that struck me the most was her highlighting of the benefits of letting students have some initial 'exploration' time when presented with a math's problem... i.e. rather than us [as teachers] dive straight into explaining and analysing the problem for / with the students, there are benefits in letting students ponder and explore the problem on their own [or with peers], before we step in with assistance.

Traditionally, the teacher's role is to... well... TEACH(!!) the concepts, skills, content, etc... This has tended to result in a model where it is the teacher who starts and directs the learning process, by way of conducting the explanation / model / explicit teaching / etc. at the beginning of the learning process...

Explain / Model / Teach

Play / Explore

Learn

Whilst there is probably still room and need for these styles, we need to change the sequence of our instructional processes if we are to move towards a more student-centred approach to learning.


It is widely recognised that children are not all 'ready' to learn the same concepts at the same times, yet that is often what we are asking them to do when we teach a topic / concept to 'the group'.
We often say that we need to make learning 'relevant' for students - will all students see the 'relevance' in learning a concept if they haven't experienced it for themselves..?

By shifting the teacher's role in the learning process back, we can ensure students have time to play and explore a given concept, allowing them to develop a personal need to learn more. For example, as a student explores a task, they will eventually reach a point where they need to learn something, in order to progress past the point providing difficulty [so long as the task is challenging enough!!]. At this point the student is likely to be far more motivated to learn further about the concept, than they would have been if this learning was directed to them before they had the intrinsic need.



Many modern approaches to learning utilise principles that relate to this more student-centred process. eg: play-based learning in early years education, which builds and follows up on the structured play opportunities that occur at the beginning of the day; inquiry learning approaches, which build upon shared first-hand experiences that children ideally have at the beginning of an inquiry; even the learning process in video games, which youth spend so much time engaging with outside of school, usually requires players to play first, then offers tutorials / hints / etc. when difficulty is struck and a need for learning presents. 

So, let's give students more ownership of their learning, by letting them take the lead in this process and stepping in with our explanations, our models, our teaching when it is needed by the students and when they are most motivated to learn about the given concept / skill. 

Play / Explore

Explain / Model / Teach

Learn

Cheers,
Warwick

Which Room Do I Live In..?

I have just returned home from a staff 'team building' weekend. Aside from some fun games and, ahem... evening socialising... the focus of our weekend was identifying and understanding our respective personality profiles, as determined by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment [MBTI].
Many will be familiar with the MBTI - one of the most popular instruments for measuring one's personality. The MBTI assessment identifies 16 different personality types - sometimes referred to as 'rooms': 

All individuals have a natural preference for one of these personality types. It is important to note, however, that individuals are not 'stuck' in their 'room' - they can [indeed, need to] demonstrate their non-preferred traits at times, in order to meet the demands of the situation. 
The 16 types derive from the eight aspects of our personality, which are represented as four dichotomies. Each of our natural preferences in these four dichotomies informs our overall, four-letter personality type. The four dichotomies are represented below:

When tested in 2005, my responses indicated that my natural preferences were for Introversion, Sensing, Thinking and Judging, resulting in my personality type of ISTJ. When retested earlier this year, I came out as an INTJ. i.e. I now prefer to take in information using my intuition, rather than my senses.


Back to our team building weekend... 
Given that all of our staff did the MBTI assessment in the lead up to this weekend, we were able to have some great discussions, including:

• identifying similarities and differences with our colleagues - 
• Who has the same personality type as me..? Who else is similar..?
• Who has the opposite personality type to me..? Who else is different..?
• how we can use this new awareness of eachother's preferred ways of working and behaving to work more effectively as a team? 
• what are the strategic implications for our team, in light of knowing the range of personalities that make up our current staff group?

I found myself to be in the same 'room' as two other members of staff. I probably don't work closely enough with these colleagues to comment on the significance of this. A couple of other aspects were interesting, however...

• I was well and truly in the majority group in terms of how we get our energy - we have many introverts on staff, but relatively few extraverts... 
• There were two people with the exact opposite personality type to me. What I found interesting about this was that I particularly admire and like both of these people... I put this down to a general trait I've developed over recent years of admiring and respecting people who are strong in areas I am not. eg: I usually admire people who demonstrate extroverted ways of behaving, such as speaking or performing in front of an audience, as these are not my preferred way of behaving.

A common theme in our discussions was how to use the new-found awareness we have of eachother's personality preferences - we all need to keep these individual differences in mind when we are communicating and working with the range of personalities we have in our school.

The strategic implications of this new information will come into play [for example] when forming teams within the school:

• Should we aim for a diverse range of personality types in the make-up of our teams..? 
• Or should we adopt more of a 'horses-for-courses' approach, by targeting particular personality types for particular tasks [eg: filling a Creativity Team with 'N' people... or the Social Club Team with 'E' people... ]..?

What type are you? How does this affect you in your work life? How should schools deal with the inevitable range of personalities they have amongst their staff..?

Cheers,

Warwick

Learning to be a teacher

Today is the last day of a three-week stint I've had supervising a student teacher. My student is in her second year of a four-year degree at a university in Victoria. She has been very impressive. During these three weeks, I've had a couple of reflections back to my own days as a student teacher, which are getting further and further away now!!
You often hear teachers [and student teachers] complain about the 'relevance' and usefulness of their teaching degrees. An oft-quoted comment is something along the lines of, "I learnt heaps on my teaching rounds, but I didn't learn anything at the Uni... "
Practising teachers will often bemoan the relative 'quality' of newly-graduated teachers, too - "what do they teach them these days..?" "they have no idea about x, y, z... " [x, y, z often referring to 'behaviour management', 'grammar' and 'explicit teaching'... ]

Why might this be the case? 

In the case of the dissatisfied / under-prepared student, is it the quality of the leaning that occurs at universities, the quantity / quality of practical experiences provided, or a combination of both..?
Universities are often criticised for a heavy reliance on outdated teaching approaches [exhibit a - the 'lecture']. I'm sure many teaching courses are moving away from a heavy emphasis on this model, but perhaps this is a change that needs to be accelerated! 

Many of today's university students were born post-1990 and have grown up in the internet age. They access information, learn and communicate in a much more technology 'heavy' way than earlier generations, as a result of this. 

What about experienced, practising teachers who shake their heads and tut-tut about newly-graduated teachers..? Does the problem always lie with the low 'quality' of the young teacher, or is part of the problem in this scenario the experienced teacher's desire for old ways / methods / approaches to be maintained and reinforced..? I think I've seen the latter a few times... 

As for my own teaching degrees [squinting in the rear-vision mirror now... ], I had a very positive experience and felt like I was well-prepared to have a go at life as a 'real' teacher. 
Yes, my courses had lots of lectures and, yes, I probably didn't learn much during these times! However, there were lots of opportunities for discussion-based learning in smaller tutorial groups and, importantly, I had some lecturers / tutors that were excellent models for how to go about being a teacher in a primary school setting. 
Another important aspect of my time at university was the content of the learning - a lot of the theories of learning and teaching approaches we focused upon were modern and moving forward from traditional approaches. Since I began my career as a fully-fledged teacher, I have certainly found schools to [generally] be a lot more conservative and slow to recognise the need for change in teaching and learning approaches.

Earlier, I mentioned that a commonly-cited student teacher's notion was that they learn the most from their practicums / teaching rounds. Even though I enjoyed and got a lot out of my learning at the university, I think I am in the same boat as the majority here - I really valued and am appreciative of the practical, first-hand experiences I had in schools working with 'real' students and teachers. The diversity of experiences I had over the course [get it..?!? 'course'... ] of my under-graduate years was a key element in my feeling of preparedness upon graduating and readying myself for the 'real thing'. 

We often cite research about and promote the value of experiential, student-centred learning for young people - I think this needs to extend to us as adult learners, too. We learn best by experiencing concepts first-hand and discussing our experiences with peers and colleagues. A the moment, this is a shift that seems to have greater traction in the classroom, than it does in universities and professional development experiences. 
Thoughts..?

Cheers,
Warwick