Exploring challenges to and success factors for innovations in education in your groups. Reflect on issues, then upload group and individual reflections to your Group Blog. You may want to do this with reference to Joyce Wycoff's comments discussed earlier.
Innovation at schools can be defined/introduced in many ways but should be aligned to the overall strategic aims of the school.
At ISF, like many schools, it is difficult to foster innovation among fellow teachers, especially when the school does not promote a clear technology vision. Technology should be an enabler to the overall school objectives but the bridging the gap should be done in phases.
Current dilemma:
For example, as the I.T. coordinator at my school, I feel that my job is to meet with teachers and try to give suggestions on how technology could be integrated in a particular unit. However, the dual language structure at my school makes it difficult for any English teachers to incorporate technology components because 1) this means they will have to revamp their unit in a way that allows for such integration and 2) they have a limited amount of sessions with their class and as they are trying to fit in the curriculum, there is often little time to explore the possible integration of technology. Although the school will be shortly rolling out Google apps for Grade 3- 5 students, the school has only expressed the desire for teachers to “try it out” rather to set more concrete short-term goals. With some Chinese teachers who are more inclined to cling to old classroom practices and few English teachers who are ambitious to try out new things, it is difficult for both myself and the school to ensure that the use of technology is implemented appropriately. I feel that by making certain basic technology applications mandatory, teachers would at least be compelled to make use of the resources available. The next step would be then to identify the issues teachers have in their planning /teaching, and to examine ways in which they could be resolved using technology. After all, teachers should see that technology is a valuable tool that can expand the scope of the curriculum in many innovative ways, and at the same time improve efficiency in operational areas of the school system. However, this could not be done without clear implementation timelines on what and when teachers reach the short-term target.
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Janet(Zhenzhen Xia)
9/23/2013 11:48:57 pm
Hey Claudia,
Thank you for uploading the reading material for us! And I am very impressed by your working experience!
And you know what? I just came back from ISF at cyberport this afternoon as an teaching assistant in LEGO education team! It was awesome to see all those 4 and 5 grades students working together with LEGO bricks.
However, since I don't have that much teaching experience as you do, when I had the job interviews with other local Hongkongnese the other day, I just found that all of them were being very critical about the innovation in Hong Kong's education.
From what I have seen, I think a lot of the school here are taking their first step towards innovation. But just as you said, I think the big challenges are the existing teaching systems which is so hard to be reversed in a short time as well as the educational support which includes the professional training and the provision of the ICT infrastructure.
Also, when I try to think about other challenges to innovation in education, I just start getting so confused about the definition of "Innovation in Education". What exactly is that? I would love to hear your opinions since I think you are really a experienced and passionate teacher:)
-Janet
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Claudia
9/24/2013 10:36:37 am
Hi Janet, thank you for your feedback. I'm glad you were involved in the LEGO education team at ISF! Are you going to be back next week? I think though sometimes teachers are a bit too ambitious about being innovative at their school, and they get disappointed when their ideas get dismissed or do not get realised. It is too easy to be critical about innovations in education, but when you consider all the different needs at a school, being "innovative" doesn't always get top priority!
Claudia
9/24/2013 11:37:21 am
To me, "innovation in education," could mean the way in which the curriculum is delivered such as through technology. It could also include the development of creative curriculum or the use of existing (old!) resources in new ways!
Janet(Zhenzhen Xia)
9/24/2013 03:29:43 pm
Hey Claudia,
I agree with your definition of "innovation in education". And I think sometimes people are just putting too much emphasis on technology as a key component of innovation and forget the development of the existing resources. And that may be the reason why some teachers are reluctant to innovation and think it is very hard.
I will come to ISF every tuesday afternoon and since next tuesday is the national day I will come the next next tuesday:) I really love the kids there and they are like little men and little ladies hahah. Super adorable! Can't wait to catch up with you in our next class;D
Molly
9/24/2013 02:36:03 am
Hi Claudia,
I can't agree more with you that it's difficult to foster innovation among teachers if there have no specific goals and strong promotions. As we all know, all the innovation should be finally practiced by teachers, that is means, teachers is the finally implementers to take innovation into practice for students' benefits. "Try it out" shouldn't be a slogan among teachers, they should have a strong responsibility for not only the students but also the schools' leaders and governors. Some course are required to build this concept of innovation to the teachers.
So what I was thinking is that there is reasonable to establish something like department of innovation promotions in educational institutions. The experts of educational innovation could develop, modify, enlarge and advance innovation into every schools.
What's more, thank you for what you done for our group!
Molly
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Judy (Zhu Dan)
9/24/2013 01:37:03 pm
Hi Claudia, I really appreciate that you’ve uploaded the article of Joyce Wycoff for us. Thanks a lot!
I have similar experiences. As the Senior Teaching Operation Manager in our school, I am actually the one who should be able to push forward all the innovative actions. After reading your article and Joyce Wycoff’s, I reflected on my past experiences. I found that I indeed did something that keep teaching innovation system alive, but something I missed resulted in the system works not as well as I expected.
Our business is teaching English online 24*7 everyday, so we recruited hundreds of English teachers around the world to cover all the hours. Following is good points I accomplished that indeed are helpful for innovation:
1. I create an environment that is flexible, empowering, welcomes ideas, fosters respect and encourages fun for teachers through giving awards to those providing constructive suggestions to teaching innovation, never making judgment to teachers’ feedbacks, promote thoughtful teachers to the head teacher or teacher trainer, and making meetings fun.
2. I teach teachers and teacher trainers to scan the environment for new trends, technologies and changes in customer mindsets through encouraging teachers to try new technology tools in their classes, integrate videos and audios into online teaching, and giving customers’ feedbacks and expectations to teachers so that they can adjust their teaching in a innovative way regularly.
3. I teach teachers and teacher trainers the critical importance of diversity of thinking styles, experience, perspectives and expertise through adopting ideas from teachers with different backgrounds. Every teacher with different teaching experiences holds something valuable for others. I encourage such diversity in all activities related to teaching innovation.
4. I realize the difference between the innovation team and regular project team very early, which is the most successful part in the whole management system. I always have a meeting with the innovation team members before I talk to the regular project team. There are only less than 10 team members in innovation team. However, there are hundreds of regular teaching members. Different tools, trainings, and requirements are given to them to ensure that they can be successful.
Just like what I’ve said, I missed many important things at the same time.
1. The criteria made by me are too restrictive some times, which is positive to standardize the behaviors of most teachers but stifles ideation in some degree.
2. Making innovation part of the performance review system for everyone is missing. I only asked teachers what they will create or improve in the coming year but I did not track their process. Due to this, teachers did not get enough coaching and support from me.
3. The looseness built into the system is not enough for teachers and team members to explore new possibilities and collaborate with others inside and outside the organization. The innovation team is not empowered enough. Innovation is stifled by restrictive structures and regulations as well as incentive systems that reward only individual efforts.
After exploring challenges to and success factors for innovations in education with you guys, I believe the possibility of success in educational innovation will be bigger for me in the future. Thank you, guys!
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Janet(Zhenzhen Xia)
9/24/2013 03:33:37 pm
Hi Judy,
It is very nice and generous of you always sharing your working experience with us!
In your comment, you have mentioned yourself as the factor of the innovation of your company. But I was wondering as a mainland educational company, is there any political legislation that might impede the innovation of your company?
Claudia
10/27/2013 04:36:48 pm
It states that innovative teaching practices are more likely to thrive when particular supportive conditions are in place. My school currently lacks some of these conditions.
The first one is teacher collaboration that focuses on peer support. Teachers do not often share their teaching practices, but focuses more on content area teaching rather than on ICT integration. The use of ICT in the classroom tends to be neglected because, again, teachers feel that it is more urgent to plan what to teach and not necessarily how to teach it using technology.
The second condition is professional development that involves engagement of teachers. Although my school has already had a Google training session with the teachers, there is no mandate that teachers must use Google apps in their classroom. I mentioned this issue in an earlier post.
The last condition for innovative teaching practice is a school culture that offers a common vision of innovation. This common vision cannot be achieved by teachers alone. This collective 21st century vision should be held by stakeholders of the school, and guided by principled and innovative leaders.
Advancing innovation in schools require a supportive platform for all stakeholders in the school, a conducive environment that promulgates technology in the learning curriculum. The level of ICT integration would be a function of the importance the school places on technology in the classroom. This will need to be carefully measured, monitored and fine tuned to ensure it is implemented and gaining "natural" traction. Until then, innovation in school will be limited and its ability to flourish challenged.
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Claudia
11/4/2013 10:00:18 am
The book "Revolutionising Education through Technology" suggests that that school districts (or schools) should integrate teacher use of technology into their overall assessment of teachers, to speed up the adoption of technology as an integral part of the learning process by those teachers who might be reluctant to change. Since technology use is not expected or mandated at my school, this could be one way to ensure teachers are using technology in their classroom.
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Claudia
9/22/2013 01:54:36 pm
Why should school innovate?
As a group, we unanimously believe that schools should “innovate” as staying abreast of technology use in education is critical - a reflection that everything around us is increasing becoming technology-driven.
Innovation can be particularly channeled to promote an increased level of efficiencies and effectiveness in the classrooms.
We are entering a new technology era where we are seeing a transformation in current literacies and literacy practices, and in turn, having a profound impact on in class instructions. Whereas traditional literacy is defined from a print-based world, this type of literacy cannot prepare readers for images, pop-ups, icons and hyperlink. It has come to a point that being digitally enabled is “common sense” for any student. Schools therefore play an important role in equipping students with more sophisticated literacy skills, understanding the various tools and information available to them and educating them to be more discerning of the information they encounter through different forms of technologies.
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Janet (Zhenzhen Xia)
9/24/2013 12:05:08 am
When we are talking about the success factors for innovation in education, I become very suspicious especially after reading the recommended article.
In the article, it says if you want be innovative you should "remove fear from your organization". And one of the success factor they think is like this "If people fear failing, they will not innovate." But as I noticed, this is an article in business. When it comes to education, how can the schools and the whole educational systems afford to taking the risk? If they are really bold and fearless, the students are going to be sacrifices for the failing.
So I don't think being bold or brave is a success factor in the innovation in education. Instead, I think careful plan and assessment is always the key points in a successful educational innovation and it should also be followed by a careful evaluation after implementation.
Anyway, you can never be too careful with the innovation iin education!
However, I did find something very interesting and inspiring about this business article. As it suggests, why don't we just think the students as our customers so we will going to take their welfare at the heart of the innovation. The factor making the innovation successful actually is to put the educational innovators in the students' shoes. That way, we can at least guarantee that the students will not suffer from any planless innovation.
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Judy (Zhu Dan)
9/24/2013 03:56:04 pm
Hi Janet and Molly, your concern about schools being bold and willing to take risk is indeed a factor most people would ignore and disregard. I admire your spirit of suspicion. Currently, some schools have ardent enthusiasm and very high expectations for developing technology innovation in education without taking their current situations into consideration, while some other schools are very conservative and not willing to make changes because of fearing failure. A lot of strategies and goals are set without thinking about the role of technologies, teachers, students, curriculums, and assessments. All of such actions are risky for our future generations. Even though both of you are suspicious of the article of Joyce Wycoff, I still want to point out that in his article, he mentioned, “Context – The World – Nothing happens in a vacuum, particularly innovation. While it is obvious that Customers, Suppliers, Competitors and The Economy affect us daily, we also periodically interact with Government, World Events, Communities and Families. All of these interactions form the context for all business activities, including innovation.” In my opinion, if schools can understand the underlying principles of innovation and figure out ways to stimulate innovation that would work in the specific school, which can help schools develop conscious competence which could prevent making changes to their systems or culture that might adversely affect their ability to innovate.
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Molly Tam
9/24/2013 02:09:48 am
Maybe majority of educators are talking about innovation in education. What are the main factors of successful innovation? After reading the reference, I have got some idea about this. In this article, it points out that the DNA of the innovation is seven operational elements operating on a “culture field” in business. What is the culture in education? As Claudia mentioned, English teachers are more motivated in trying new things than Chinese teachers. I think it’s the matter about “culture” in education because it’s very common in U.S or UK that no matter educators or teachers, they are willing to make change in educations. Only every member is preparing for the innovation could innovation come true. Why Joyce Wycoff thought collaboration was important to innovation? Because every step in innovation is required someone to push or advance the process which might be difficult and take time. Policy from goverments promotion from schools’ leaders, implementation from teachers. All of them are demanded. What’s more, there is something new in the reference, which I thought is very important in innovation. Innovation requires new ways of thinking and new skills which means an efficient system must be set up to break the block in the process. The function of this system is to capture ideas and engages people in developing, modifying, enlarging those ideas.
Since no one could stop the innovation of education, it becomes a big issue in how to keep it alive. Unlike innovation in business, education couldn’t afford a big risk. Once innovation started, every move should be discreet. Make sure that the innovation is well-timed and everyone understand the corporate strategy and innovation teams should be trained or coached. The teams should scan the environment for new trends, technologies and changes in the process of innovation.
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Janet(Zhenzhen Xia)
9/24/2013 03:24:58 pm
Hey Molly,
When you said that innovation is a culture thing comparing the western and chinese cultures, I think it also has something to do with the system and leadership.
As we all have experienced, the students in China always have to go through routines which have been existed for so many many years. And it is really hard for the system to change and innovate overnight. Sometimes I do feel very bad of our chinese teaching system. And I also couldn't think of any better ways to improve it. So sad and devastated:(
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Molly
9/25/2013 02:08:39 am
Hi Janet,
I think it's very sensitive to talk about Chinese “related departments”, but there stills some educators are devoted in developing IT innovation in education such as Shanghai. Shanghai is prominent city in pushing innovation in education and other field. For example, the Chinese College Entrance Examination of Shanghai is regarded as the most innovative one in China. And as I have seen in yesterday, Someplace in Shanghai have been unblocked the Facebook and Twitters.
Your,
Molly
Claudia
10/16/2013 11:08:45 pm
Coming back to this topic after reading several other articles...
According to an article by Zhao & Frank, schools "naturally and necessarily resist changes that will put pressure on existing practices." The article also goes on to to say that schools are "said to have a structure (physical) that prevents widespread use of computers." It is understandable to have these point of views back in 1986 and 1996, but certainly nowadays, schools are increasingly open to new educational trends and practices - in order to equip students with life-long learning abilities and to cope with the challenges of the 21st century, the school itself must adapt in response to the specific and changing contexts in which technology is used.
But this goes not without challenges. Teachers need to be trained with the introduction of various/new technologies and ensuring an effective/efficient integration into the classroom. This requires careful forward looking planning by school visionaries/administrators, a parallel analysis of updating classroom content and delivery that matches 21st century expectations.
Hong Kong launched a 5-year plan on ICT implementation in schools in late 1998, but schools differed in their visions of how ICT should be implemented. The end result is that even with the same policy, some schools are making more efforts in this area than others. Government policies do not have such a huge influence on this as much as the cooperation between teachers and school leadership. The key driver for a school to make progress in integrating ICT in classroom practices is to make sure teachers are confident in using technology. Venesky suggests that sufficient professional development opportunities & support, compensated time off for training and adequate ICT infrastructure are optimal for advancing adoption of ICT by school staff. Moreover, ensuring that teachers are held accountable for the use of ICT technology fosters a stronger desire. For instance, I have observed this in some schools such as Chinese International School where the mesh of technology and delivery of curriculum is central to the school's culture. The end result can be seen in the uptake of students' of technology to enrich their learning of their subject matters
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Peter
12/14/2013 09:00:59 pm
I read this discussion several times because you are all so perceptive about the issue of technology and change in schools ( China and the West!) I wish some Principals could also read your comments and observations