Monday, February 01, 2010

Educon 2.2

The day after the Educon 2.2 weekend, the session that continues to swirl around in my head is the session titled SpeedGeek Learning: A Platform for Disruptive Inspiration. The session was moderated by Ben Wilkoff and focused on the question: What is your innovation?

As I shared during the session, it seemed to me that the discussion was focused on what I’ll call micro-innovations - small-scale innovations, mostly hatched in one’s classroom. What was missing from much of the thinking in the room were macro-innovations. In no way do I intend to lessen or discredit the micro-innovations. These are important! However, the changes we are talking about in education should eventually be seen on a large scale. One of our main struggles is pockets of innovation that never get beyond a single classroom in a school building. Some of the questions I am pondering: Is it the macro-innovations that change the system? How do we turn micro-innovations into macro-innovations? Should we be taking our micro-innovations and nurturing them into macro-innovations. Is this the change that education needs? If it isn’t, are we just cogs? Or, should we strive to be the linchpin (as Seth Godin suggests in his latest book)? Basically, I’m talking about scaling up here - moving from pockets of change to systemic change.

As someone who’s interests focus on educational leadership in a technology-rich, networked world, I think the key to scaling up the micro-innovations is leadership. I still think this is a misunderstood piece in the conversation. In fact, it’s often not a piece in the conversation. In my assessment, many of the conversations this past weekend focused on teaching and learning - and that is great. We must have those conversations. However, leaders must be able to speak as part of those conversations. From the work that I’ve been doing related to my dissertation, our leaders, in large part, don’t know how to have the kinds of conversations that were going on at Educon. If we don’t address the leadership piece, the conversations will continue to take place at the level of teaching and learning, and we will continue to have pockets of innovation - the micro-innovations. There are many reasons why SLA is successful. I believe leadership is a big reason for the successful outcome. If the leaders can’t have the conversations - lead the conversations - the change will never happen. This is leadership at all levels - teacher leadership, principals, central office, state and federal leadership. I want to keep the conversation going at the student and teacher level, but I want to expand that conversation at other levels. I know from my own experience, this is not an easy task. But it is crucial if we are to ever bring about changes in the larger system.

Related to the question - What is your innovation? - I would ask school leaders: What is your innovation? I think we would get some interesting responses. Later this week, I’ll write about how I define innovation and share what I think my innovation is. I’ll also be writing about some of the findings from my research that relate to leadership, innovation and scale.

Posted by Randy on 02/01 at 05:41 PM
Educon 2.2 • Innovation • Leadership • Scale • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
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