Title Image credit: markshivers.com
Improvement and innovation need not be an either/or proposition. While most of the education debate is either around improving our current system, or creating a new one, Valerie Hannon, from the Innovation Unit, in her presentation around Balancing Strategic Priorities, argued for a split screen approach — an approach focussed on improving the system of today while simultaneously designing the system of tomorrow.
Hannon argues that almost all jurisdictions have a range of innovative initiatives, often focused around student ownership, and very often spurred by learning technologies. At the same time, given the current reality, school improvement must continue. The challenge, she argues, is the innovator’s and evaluator’s dilemma (slide below) — eventually, the current wave of education results trails off, and we must jump into the next education growth curve.
Clearly, what rings true in so many jurisdictions across North America, is the improvement in literacy and graduation rates over the last 20 years, but we are finding it challenging to move beyond a certain point. In British Columbia, despite all efforts over the past 10 years, graduation rates have plateaued at around 80%. It is evident, we cannot just ‘do more of the same’, we need to look at doing some things differently.
The need then, is for innovation to overlap with a new wave and not just more of the same wave.
In her presentation, Hannon quoted John Kao, “The most important characteristic of an innovative firm is that it has an explicit system of innovation which pervades the whole organisation, which is visible, known about, generates a stream of new ideas, and is seen as vital to creating new value”. It is what I often try to describe as a Culture of Yes, supporting creativity and innovations for learners and teachers.
The perspective of the two curves, of improvement and innovation, resonates with West Vancouver’s story. We continue to perform at very high levels, but still look to improve. Whether it is numeracy, literacy or a host of other skills, we continue our search to improve. This is our absolute responsibility for all students in our schools right now. At the same time, we explore and consider the education systems we will need for the future, ones that further embrace flexibility, choice and offer greater personalization of learning.
In essence, school improvement is tantamount to the important transformation work that occurs on the split screen.
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[…] is an interesting piece from Chris Kennedy’s blog – A Culture of Yes. He highlights some ideas from Valerie Hannon of the Innovation Unit in the UK. Valerie presented at the OECD Innovative […]
I’m confused by the split screen approach. I’m all for innovation, but multi tasking not so much. What is advocated by the cartoon image per se?
Hi Spencer – it is just an attempt on my part for some humour. I agree with you, and also share a concern around multi-tasking and distraction. I was just trying to have some fun with the “split screen” notion in the post.
Got it, sorry for being clueless. I do agree with the idea of trying a bunch of things to see what works. That is certainly what we do in the recording studio or the rehearsal hall. The mark of a good artist is the person who is unafraid to fail the first ten or twenty times, confident the 21st attempt will succeed, and succeed well.
“Despite all efforts over the past 10 years, graduation rates have plateaued at around 80%.” This is an interesting statistic. Do you know if there has been comprehensive research into the reasons why these 20% do not graduate? If we gauge success as high school graduation, it appears that our current approach is working for 80% of the population, but what is it, then, that the remaining 20% need? We have alternative programs, various options and academies, yet these programs are clearly not meeting the needs of the 20%.
Hi Rhonda – we do have some ideas around this. We know we are definitely still not meeting the needs of our Aboriginal learners in B.C. as their graduation rates are much lower than overall rates in the province. When I was in Coquitlam, we were part of a large inquiry project with Maple Ridge, examining students who were leaving school. A key finding of this was that students “faded out” and over time, lost connection to their school. It was really an issue of engagement. Some of these students were very capable, but were not engaged. The challenge is that to reach this 20%, it will likely not be done with large programs, but with personalized learning. I am excited by the discussion around personalized learning, because if we can move closer to this, we will see more students engaged, and more student graduates.
I’m just in the middle of Jim Collins’ Built to Last and the idea of building a culture of “trying a lot of stuff and keeping what works” is identified as key to successful and visionary companies (or in our case schools). It’s impossible for us to predict exactly what solutions will get us over the 80% mark so it’s more important to create a willingness to try things (and sometimes fail) instead of waiting for a “perfect solution” to fall in our lap.
Great comment Rob – we are often quite scared to take risks in education (I guess we call them pilot projects). We have attempt innovations, that won’t have decades of research behind them, as part of the process. We also need to be sure we are careful to only keep what works – I think we are not always good at this in education – we implement programs and then struggle to know if they are solving our challenges. It is an interesting relationship between local innovations and then trying to scale-up the successes.
You have several questions here. First: Not every new idea is a good idea: agreed. There is error in the world. I had a liberal education: Let truth and error struggle. Trial-and-error is OK. Second: The system does need to better at replicating the new ideas that prove to be useful (recognizing that any single idea might not work for every student). I’d suggest: The higher the level at which the decision is made the lower the likelihood that dramatic innovations will be adopted. Leave things loose; let it be a school decision, made in terms of the enrollment the particular school has. Make sense?