How can education systems embrace innovation?

by Dirk Van Damme
Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress division, Directorate for Education and Skills

Innovation in education is a highly contentious issue. Talking to education ministers one quickly gets the impression that education systems in general are very reluctant to innovate, and that there is strong resistance to change among teachers. But teachers would give you the opposite idea, by telling you that there are too many changes imposed on them without much consultation and without ensuring the necessary preconditions for a successful implementation of change. In some countries, innovative change has been implemented without either the care and diligence needed or the appropriate prior testing, experimentation and evaluation.

In its recent publication, Measuring Innovation in Education, the Innovation Strategy project of the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) provides evidence that suggests that there are a lot of changes happening at various levels of the system. The widely accepted view that education professionals are change-aversive seems to be wrong. But few of the innovative changes the book documents are the result of deliberate top-down reforms. Other work in CERI, specifically in the Innovative Learning Environments (ILE) project, has revealed a huge reservoir of innovative energy at the micro-level – definitely the most relevant level where teaching and learning actually happens.

How to square these different views on innovation in education? Maybe the core of the dispute is not so much about the actual amount of change and innovation in education, but about the process - how change and innovation happen. A lot of well-intentioned innovations fail not because of a lack of quality or because their intended direction of change is wrong, but because of how they have been implemented. Teachers will be able to give you rich accounts of top-down innovations, implemented without much consultation, without taking into account the experiences and knowledge base at the point of delivery of education. Lack of trust, lack of ownership, a poor evidence base, and lack of empowerment of the key actors – these seem to be the main ingredients of the recipe for failure in changing education.

To better understand this, we need to know more about how the governance of education systems has changed. Many attempts to bring about innovative change in education do not yet seem to be based on what we already know about how education systems are governed. Decentralisation, greater complexity, multiplication of stakeholders, broader dispersion of knowledge and expertise, more levels of decision-making all make education systems more difficult to steer and to change. At least that’s the impression one gets when looking at the system from the outside. Indeed, the complexity and the multilevel nature of decision-making in education systems make top-down reform much more difficult to achieve. But complexity, in itself, does not necessarily jeopardise change through innovation.

Too often education ministers and policy makers react by tightening the screws, i.e. by reinforcing accountability, supervision and bureaucratic control systems. This may lead to short-term behavioural adjustments of the actors in the system, but very rarely to sustainable change. Work in CERI’s Governing Complex Education Systems project has shown us what makes for effective, sustainable innovation and reform: the professionalism of teachers and school leaders, strong knowledge-management frameworks and trust among all stakeholders and actors in the system. Professionals bring about innovation when they have a stake in it, when they see the evidence and the supporting knowledge base as credible, and when they trust their colleagues. In the same vein, parents will commit to innovative change when they feel involved and listened to, and when they understand the rationales and underlying evidence for change.

Does this mean that the capacity of education leaders, ministers and policy makers to steer the direction of change in education has evaporated? Have education ministers become powerless? No, definitely not. But they have to find new ways to set the course of change. Building a convincing case for change and articulating a credible narrative that appeals to both the professionalism of teachers and the interests of parents and stakeholders in the community can go a long way towards effecting change in complex systems. But change also works the other way around. The enormous reservoir of innovative energy at the micro-level can result in sustainable change if the actors involved can make a compelling case that gives direction and meaning to change.

The education community shows a great interest in better understanding these processes of change, reform and innovation in education – and the governance arrangements that support or obstruct them. That’s why some 200 policy makers and professionals will be gathering at the CERI Conference on Innovation, Governance and Reform in Education in Paris next week. The findings from CERI work in four different research projects will be shared and discussed so that we all can better understand the conditions under which sustainable and effective innovative change can be realised.

Links:
CERI Conference on Innovation, Governance and Reform in Education
CERI Conference Webcast
CERI Conference Agenda
CERI Conference Background Paper: Innovation, Governance and Reform in Education
Measuring Innovation in Education: A New Perspective 
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI)

Follow the conference on twitter: #OECDCERI

Photo credit: Brainstorming / @Shutterstock

Leadership for 21st Century Learning

by Marco Kools
Analyst, Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education and Skills

Against a backdrop of increasing globalisation, rapid technological innovation and a growing knowledge workforce, few would dispute that the primary task for management today is the leadership of change. The education sector is no exception to this.

Contemporary learning environments (schools) must be able to keep pace with the changing times, while delivering on their core task - equipping students with the knowledge and skills for life in the 21st century. This requires leadership to set the direction, taking responsibility for putting learning at the centre and keeping it there. Sounds simple, but what does it really mean in practice? Where does one start? Who does what?

These are some of the challenging questions that the recently released OECD publication Leadership for 21st Century Learning responds to. The publication builds on the prominence given to the concept of learning leadership in the recently released Innovative Learning Environments. It addresses the "Why? What? How? Who? Where and When? of learning leadership and presents a selection of leadership strategies from Austria, Australia, Canada, Israel, Norway, Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The analysis of the leadership strategies, international literature and the contributions to this volume by leading international experts shows that by its very nature, learning leadership is social and connected. It shows the importance of participating in professional learning communities and networks as a vehicle for learning leadership to flourish and to make it more effective. This is not argued principally in order for community members to feel more positive about themselves through a sense of belonging. Rather, it allows professional learning communities and networks to serve as a means for shared strategies and visions to emerge within learning environments, and for developing appropriate expertise through sharing. A key role for government therefore lies in creating the conditions that facilitate networked professional learning opportunities.

For 21st century learning to flourish on the ground, learning leadership must be exercised at different levels of the education system. Although the initial impetus for change might come from any level - from within the system or outside - it needs the corresponding decision making and action at other levels of the system in order for it to be sustained at scale. This is increasingly relevant as learning environments become more innovative and involve a range of different non-traditional partners like businesses, foundations or cultural bodies from outside the formal system. 

A key question for governments to consider therefore is what these changing leadership dynamics mean in terms of issues like quality assurance, governance and accountability when the education system's boundaries deliberately become more blurry. These are some of the key issues being investigated in the last strand of work of the OECD Innovative Learning Environments (ILE) project on "Implementation and Change" and its sister project Governing Complex Education Systems (GCES), which are activities of the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI).

Links:

Leadership for 21st Century Learning
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation CERI
Innovative Learning Environment project
Governing Complex Education Systems
Related blog post by Marco Kools: Designing 21st century learning environments

Photo credits: Cover © Inmagine LTD.

Designing 21st century learning environments

by Marco Kools
Analyst, Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education and Skills

Innovation is a key element of today’s societies and economies, and that includes how we learn. Much has been written about innovation in education, but what does it really mean in practice in terms of content, organisation of learning, roles of teachers, etc.? How does one design a powerful learning environment that enables students to thrive in the 21st century?

The just released OECD publication Innovative Learning Environments responds to these challenging questions. This publication is based on the detailed analysis of 40 in-depth case studies of powerful 21st century learning environments (schools) that have taken the innovation journey. It presents a new framework for understanding these learning environments and is a valuable addition to the toolbox of those who believe in the value of innovation in education to ensure its central preoccupation – improve learning.

The analysis of these case studies shows that rethinking the four elements of the "pedagogical core" - learners, educators, content and resources - is fundamental to the innovation of any school or learning environment. Regarding content, innovative learning environments often seek to develop 21st century competences, as well as innovating specific knowledge domains or subject areas. Many of these practices go hand-in-hand with a more open and flexible use of space, informed by particular models of how learning should be organised. Here the aim is often to open up and “deprivatise” educational spaces, creating visibility and breaking down the close association between a particular learning space and a single teacher.

Innovating these core elements requires rethinking of the organisational patterns that deeply structure schools – the single teacher, the segmented classroom with that teacher, the familiar timetable structure and bureaucratic classroom units, and traditional approaches to teaching and classroom organisation. Many innovative learning environments for example use time more flexibly than is traditionally the case in schools. This flexibility often goes hand-in-hand with individualised learning plans where each learner may be working on something different, as well as with educational philosophies determined to make schooling less bureaucratic.

A key question for governments to consider therefore is what they can do to enable schools to become innovative learning environments, while meeting the requirements of public accountability. This is one of the key issues being investigated by the Innovative Learning Environment (ILE) project and its sister project Governing Complex Education Systems (GCES), which are activities of the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI).

The analysis of the case studies also shows how learning environments can become “formative organisations” through strong design strategies with corresponding learning leadership, evaluation and feedback, and how opening up to partnerships helps grow social and professional capital, and allows for sustaining renewal and dynamism.

The case studies further confirm and amplify our earlier research findings on learning, and what this means in practice (see The Nature of Learning: Using Research to Inspire Practice). In order to be most effective, learning environments should:
· Make learning and engagement central.
· Ensure that learning is social and often collaborative.
· Be highly attuned to learner motivations and emotions.
· Be acutely sensitive to individual differences.
· Be demanding for each learner but without excessive overload.
· Use assessments consistent with learning aims, with strong emphasis on formative feedback.
Ideally all of these principles should be met, not just a selected few.

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“Much has been written about learning environments, and about innovation but nowhere will you find such a deep and cogent portrayal of the key principles as in the OECD’s report, Innovative Learning Environments. Learners, pedagogical core, learning environments, partnerships, sustainability – it’s all captured in this remarkable volume.”
(Michael Fullan, OC, Professor Emeritus, OISE, University of Toronto)

“Everyone in education is talking about innovation. What is different here is that the best of what we know about learning is at the centre and is richly illustrated with real cases to answer the question, ‘What will this look like?’”
(Helen Timperley, Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Auckland)

Links:

Centre for Educational Research and Innovation CERI
The Nature of Learning:Using Research to Inspire Practice
Innovative Learning Environment project 
Governing Complex Education Systems

Photo credits: Cover © Inmagine LTD.