My name is Mark Heiss, I am a Wiradjuri man from South West NSW, born and raised on Gadigal land in Sydney. I wish to submit an application for the New Indigenous Voice in Educational Leadership scholarship. I am an aspiring educational leader who is continually buoyed by working with others for the best outcomes for students. My love of sharing teacher education is evidenced in my professional development of others through collaboration and design of learning experiences. My passion is to improve learning experiences for teachers and students and would relish the opportunity to build on my current leadership experiences both personally and professionally.

As Director of Innovation and Learning at Marist College North Shore I am committed to teacher development across the College that is based on best practice teaching and aligned to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. In combining these two concepts, I aim to operate at Lead Level to initiate significant improvement in teaching and learning. In my role I have regularly facilitated teachers’ learning, understanding and application of the standards through a number of school based processes. For example, I facilitate teachers review of data sets for the students they teach and setting of their own performance goals. From there, I design, source and implement professional learning opportunities that best reflects the needs of our students. In aligning and evidencing teacher practice to the standards, I ensure that teachers are able to address both the needs of their class and the needs of the profession. I would use this scholarship to see how other educational leaders are working with their staff in best practice for meeting these needs.

As a part of innovation and teacher development, I have taken a keen interest in Harvard Graduate School of Education’s - Project Zero. Attending professional development in Australia through the Project Zero Sydney Network and attending the Harvard Project Zero conference in July 2017 allowed me to experiment and be progressive in my classroom through the application of Thinking Skills. Furthermore I have been able to lead, coach and develop teachers in the use of Thinking Skills and Cultures of Thinking across my school through the use of professional learning. This ongoing commitment to developing our school’s teachers teachers for the benefit of student learning is a passion and ties in well with current research on teacher collective efficacy. This scholarship, attending the ACEL conference and associated workshops would afford me the opportunity to learn and share practice of how new and innovative pedagogies on thinking might be used across other schools.

In addition, my position as Chair of the Board of Directors at the National Aboriginal Sporting Chance Academy has provided me with the opportunity to continually stretch and grow my leadership skills in management and professional development of others outside the educational arena.