Where’s the Innovation? | always learning - About

Generally speaking, schools are excruciatingly slow to change.

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Generally speaking, schools are excruciatingly slow to change. Even when schools are making a concerned effort to be innovative and re-think traditional modes of learning, it often ends up being a variation of what’s already in place.

Highlighted by ptaylorsjr

Tom refers to this as the “Red Queen Effect” after a scene in Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass, where Alice is shocked to be standing in the same place after running quite fast for an extended period of time and the Red Queen explains, “if you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.”

Highlighted by mctumenas

Tom refers to this as the “Red Queen Effect” after a scene in Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass, where Alice is shocked to be standing in the same place after running quite fast for an extended period of time and the Red Queen explains, “if you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.”

Highlighted by jdblack64

nother Hong Kong presenter, Stephen Heppell, was also careful to emphasize that the biggest challenge today is the pace of change: exponential. With this rapid pace of change there is no time for the “staircase mentality” (pilot, review etc).

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what are we mistakenly not valuing now?

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Tom explained that innovation falls squarely in quadrant 2 of Steven Covey’s matrix: it’s “Important”, but “Not Urgent”. For example, we absolutely have to have a new math/science/reading/social studies program. The teachers can’t teach without one, so picking a new one is going to fall in quadrant 1, and ultimately, innovation gets put off until tomorrow. However, innovation has an urgency all its own and those that don’t place innovation as a priority will find themselves displaced.

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nterestingly, Tom also mentioned that resting on your laurels is usually the time when others outpace you innovatively (something I think many good schools are very much in danger of doing all too often).

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his is a good example of the difficulty people face in conceptually realizing the advantages of bold innovation: we naturally assume that slow steady progress will be best (as we are taught from an early age, when the tortoise wins the race).

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The time for innovation is now, as Stephen described (and Marco Torres’ slide below emphasizes), “learning is at a crossroads:” we’re looking at a choice between productivity and new approaches, those new approaches being:

student portfolios;
making huge leaps in our model of education, not tiny steps forward;
working to produce ingenious, engaged, inspired, surprising, collegiate students;
and developing learning experiences that are open-ended, project-focused, multidisciplinary.

Highlighted by jdblack64

xample, we absolutely have to have a new math/science/reading/social studies program. The teachers can’t teach without one, so picking a new one is going to fall in quadrant 1, and ultimately, innovation gets put off until tomorrow. However, innovation has an urgency all its own and those that don’t place innovation as a priority will find themselves displaced.

Highlighted by concetta

I can’t remember who said this first but, “technology is just an amplifier” - technology doesn’t change the quality of teaching or learning, it will only amplify it, either in a positive or negative way. What we need to be looking at is changing our approaches to learning, not modifying our curriculum to a “newer” version of what we’ve already had for the past 20 years.

Highlighted by jdblack64

What does this mean for education?

The time for innovation is now, as Stephen described (and Marco Torres’ slide below emphasizes), “learning is at a crossroads:” we’re looking at a choice between productivity and new approaches, those new approaches being:

student portfolios;
making huge leaps in our model of education, not tiny steps forward;
working to produce ingenious, engaged, inspired, surprising, collegiate students;
and developing learning experiences that are open-ended, project-focused, multidisciplinary.

Highlighted by mctumenas

By innovation, I don’t mean just adding more technology to the classroom, I mean thinking differently about learning in its entirety.

Highlighted by mctumenas

t’s not technology alone that makes us innovative, it’s looking at learning with fresh eyes. It’s asking ourselves: if we could start from scratch, what would our schools look like today? I can’t remember who said this first but, “technology is just an amplifier” - technology doesn’t change the quality of teaching or learning, it will only amplify it, either in a positive or negative way. What we need to be looking at is changing our approaches to learning, not modifying our curriculum to a “newer” version of what we’ve already had for the past 20 years.

Highlighted by mctumenas

technology is just an amplifier” - technology doesn’t change the quality of teaching or learning, it will only amplify it, either in a positive or negative way. What we need to be looking at is changing our approaches to learning, not modifying our curriculum to a “newer” version of what we’ve already had for the past 20 years.

Highlighted by fqprof

bsolutely fabulous. This is great stuff. I just wrote a post on Thursday arguing that the “learning management system” paradigm prevents innovation and change. If we don’t break out of it, we’re destined to get out-innovated, as you suggest.

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I came across a great quote from Frank Tibolt this morning: “We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.”

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“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” - Alan Kay

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has to be driven by a focus on authentic learning and learner competency. What can our students do? What should they be able to do? How do we help them become capable of doing the things that really matter?

Highlighted by ptaylorsjr

Where’s the Innovation? | always learning

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