ICTlogy

Seminar on innovation in education: making up a hypothetical case of educational innovation
Chairs: Quim Brugué, UAB-IGOP.

In groups of 4-5 people make up a hypothetical case of educational innovation. This is what happened in my group.

Needs

• Autonomy.
• Collaboration.

Deficits, challenges

• Compartmentalization of learning.
• Compartmentalization of the curriculum.
• No work for competences, focus on certification. Assessing content vs. skill-centred processes (not skills).
• Teaching skills, professional identity. Specialization vs. pedagogical skills.
• Excessive focus of the educational system towards the university. Academicist vision.
• Lack of answers for diversity, for flexibility.
• The system focuses on providing answers, not on putting good questions.
• Censorship to critical thinking, servitude to the authority.
• Passiveness, inertia, comfortability.

Conceptual turn

• Lay out questions instead of providing answers.
• Projects instead of subjects. Multidisciplinarity.
• Work teams instead of class groups.
• Oral exposition.
• That the students prepare topics and share what they know. That students can bring in their own knowledge. Learning with a purpose.
• Cotutoring.

Proposals for intervention

• Importance of the role of student. Empowering the student.
• Change of roles of teachers.
• E.g. students leading their own assessment meetings with teaching staff and parents.

Operational turn, organizational changes.

• Changes in the learning environments, that not everything “happens in presence of” the teacher.
• Shift towards personal learning environments (PLEs).
• Spark learning through questions (the teacher puts questions, instead of providing answers).
• Be able to welcome questions (the teacher is able to manage the questions of the students).
• Transform assessment centred in learning (of skills).
• Change schedules to generate a reflective practice of the teaching staff upon what they are doing.

Seminar on innovation in education: defining innovation
Chairs: Quim Brugué, UAB-IGOP.

A group of 40-50 professionals in the field of education, innovation and research reflect on innovation.

Why is there a need for innovation? What is innovation?

• To improve, there are things that just do not work.
• The world changes, and improving is the answer.
• Changes in the context, thus aiming for efficacy.
• Changes in technology, thus aiming for efficiency.
• Adapt to the environment.

• Innovate… or rethink, reflect.
• Explore, find out where are we heading to and where do we want to go.
• Intrinsic to education, it is a part of it, it is part of learning. Fostering change guarantees learning.

• With a goal.
• We need to improve because there’s a need for it, especially when many structures do not innovate.
• BUT, does everyone have to innovate?

• Innovation depends on the context within which it is applied. What we understand by innovation changes depending on the environment.

• Innovation… or improvement? Innovate or review what is being done? Break inertias.
• Product vs. process.
• Creativity.

• Value-centered.
• Generate better learning.
• Learn with emotion.
• Innovate cannot be without equity.

• Improvement vs. change.
• Improvement vs. revolution.

• Why do we have problems?
• Because we fail in solving specific issues.

• A conceptual turn, a substantial turn: not doing things better, but approach them from another point of view.
• A methodological turn, an instrumental turn: be able to provide an answer to the questions that arise from the conceptual turn.

• Science ⇨ Technology ⇨ Application.
• Empowerment vs. governance; products vs. processes; evolution vs. revolution; improvement vs. transformation.

How should we innovate?

• A cartesian approach to everything: questioning everything.
• Be aware of the advancements of science (context) and technology (instruments).
• Open new ways + underpin the new paths.

Innovation should have:

• Environments: hybridization, different approaches within the same space; creative inaccuracy; tolerance to error; role of leadership.
• Engines: superior engine to boost change; lateral engines that help; an inner engine that acknowledges the capital of organizations; and an external engine for collaboration and partnerships.

• Sustainability, innovation has to be maintained.
• Sustainable change vs. the sustainability of change.
• Human resources policies vs. humans policies with resources.

• How innovation happens will depend on the “demand” of the students.

• Trust and accountability.
• Distributed leadership and collaboration.

• Training for innovation.
• Innovation and research should go in parallel.

Imagine an organization you highly and very sincerely respect. Imagine this organization calls you and tells you about their vision and the plans to achieve this vision. Plans about opening research, about making the creation and spread of knowledge very participative and collaborative, about making impact the target and research the instrument put at the service of that impact (instead of research being the goal and impact a casual side-effect). Imagine this organization asking for your opinion and listening to you digress about e-research, personal learning environments, the personal research portal, knowledge management or new ways to use technology and participate in the Information Society.

This happened in September at Fundació Jaume Bofill, a leading non-profit in Catalonia that performs quality research in human sciences in general, and now narrowing its field of action to Education in a very broad sense, with a special focus on inequalities, innovation and social change. And the conversation ended with a would you like to lead the project?.

Since November 1st I am the director of open innovation at Fundació Jaume Bofill, being my general goal to rethink how knowledge is produced and shared all across the organization. To be able to perform my new responsibilities, since January 1st 2014 until February 1st 2015 I will be on partial leave from my current job, full time professor at the Open University of Catalonia. I describe what I think the main background is in Open Social Innovation. On the other hand, what I believe my main guiding lines will be in the following year was presented in December to my new colleagues. What follows are the slides I used (in Catalan):

All of this has mostly been learning by doing, so I just expect my experience not to be too much wrong.

There is a positive side-effect to this already thrilling collaboration. My University and I found that the best way to channel it was through the recently created Open Evidence, a spin-off from my University working in the field of social sciences research, innovation and knowledge transfer. I will thus be working side by side as a researcher and analyst with my friends Francisco Lupiáñez- Villanueva and David Osimo, whom I highly respect. I hope being closer will make it easier to produce some good things together.

Last, but not least, it is worth acknowledging that things do not happen just because. There is plenty of people to be grateful to. First of all, my thanks go to Ismael Palacín (director of the Foundation), Mònica Nadal (director of prospective) and the board of trustees of the Fundació Jaume Bofill (Carles Capdevila among others) for their trust in me; to some friends and “usual suspects” (Jaume Albaigès, Pau Vidal, etc.) for their priceless help and speaking well of me and my work; to Paco Lupiáñez, Agustí Cerrillo, Mireia Riera, José Miguel de la Dehesa and Enric Vinaixa for their support and making things happen; and to María Salido, Amalio Rey, Julen Iturbe and Ana Rodera for their “notes” on how to leave the nest. And, of course, to Mercè, Muriel and (soon) Jofre for their patience.

At this moment I’m both excited and terrified at the perspective of the new year. The project is huge, both a tremendous opportunity of making great things or falling into deep failures. The team I will be working with is gorgeous and an incredible source of learning. The gods be good to us! Come, masters, let’s home. I ever said we were i’ the wrong if we never tried.