ith advances in technology catalyzing a global shift in the skills that both the workforce and society will require, there is a fundamental need for a move away from traditional models of education that emphasize knowledge acquisition to a more future-oriented model with personalized learning at its core. In order to understand how to better facilitate this shift, WISE recently released a report addressing the challenges of preparing today’s education for the 21st century and provided insight into how innovation labs embedded within schools can act as an engine for deep change.
Beginning in February 2020, WISE launched the WISE Innovation Hub as a platform and research initiative to help support schools in creating their own “innovation labs.” Defined as a sort of R&D platform with embedded structures and processes to drive forward innovation within schools, the Innovation Lab is a means to address critical issues with teaching, learning, and curriculum. Over the course of a year and a half, WISE ran a pilot program supporting three different schools with varying challenges and goals in creating a designated team of teachers and leaders who could then direct the creation of practices and processes to design, test, and implement innovative solutions unique to their schools. The report posits that in this way, WISE was able to embed innovation labs unique to each school that could empower the learning environments to re-evaluate current education models and explore how to make the necessary shift towards more future-oriented models.
While the outcomes of the innovation labs in each school differed, the report ultimately argues that through continued effort, the creation of adaptable design-based methods that can cater to the unique needs and goals of each individual school—as well as strong school leadership open to risk-taking and continued support from the WISE Innovation Hub and other stakeholders—has the ability to drive forward innovation and transformation at the school level and ultimately lead to the redesign of modern education.
The Need for Deep Innovation
With a rapidly shifting global landscape, it is becoming apparent that it is not simply reform that is needed but rather a total redesign of educational approaches towards more meaningful personalized learning that will be necessary to keep up with this change. As stated in the WISE report, the drivers for this deep educational change include “global shifts in workforce skills and societal demands, mounting evidence on the science of learning and what environmental factors most effectively support learning, as well as the impact of emerging technologies which are revolutionizing the field with their ability to offer more personalized approaches to teaching and learning.” In short, we are not simply containers for knowledge, but rather unique individuals with our own understandings and varying abilities and capabilities, and that education should focus more on competencies and learner-driven personalized learning rather than the content-standards model most schools use today.
However, with a deep disconnect existing between the idea of personalized learning and the ability to actually implement real educational policy innovation, there comes a need to shift schools away from their traditional role as vehicles of enacting top-down external policies set by districts and governments. There is a need for schools to become wholistic ‘learning organizations’ where continuous and systematic growth, learning, and change is encouraged not only in students, but also in school leaders, teachers, parents, and the community.
The Innovation Hub and Innovation Labs
Indeed, as the WISE report states, “supporting schools as collaborative learning organizations to build capacity at all levels to enact and implement change and innovation is at the core of this research initiative and the innovation lab and Innovation Hub model as a whole,” and therefore the innovation lab model will play a key part in implementing these deep innovations. As an ‘engine’ of innovation, research, and design practices, the innovation lab is intended to conduct research, leverage innovation cycles, design, and test innovations, develop leadership and emphasize teacher learning in order to drive deep change in schools. Indeed, through this change, innovation labs can help learning environments set a vision for the future; research, design, and support them to innovate towards that vision; and be able to flexibly adjust direction to keep up with global shifts.
More broadly, the innovation lab is connected to WISE’s Innovation Hub, a platform dedicated to understanding the needs, goals, and innovations related to learning environments and providing support for schools through the provision of thought leadership, delivering materials, training, and coaching to school leaders, and creating partnerships. On a larger scale, they also aim to help change global learning models by disseminating and advocating insights, findings, and innovations created through the hub so that the global education community can benefit from this work. Together, the WISE Innovation Hub and each individual schools’ innovation lab can work together to build capacity for the entire school community—and the global community as a whole.
Themes and Outcomes
Through the work at the pilot schools outlined in this report, several themes and outcomes were highlighted:
• First, in order to succeed, it was necessary for the innovation lab structure to be adaptable to each school’s unique needs, goals and variables.
• Second, in each school’s journey, the nature of the vision and goals they created before starting the project evolved during the work.
• Third, the report found that having a third-party to provide a neutral perspective helped shape innovation in schools and led to deeper inquiries.
• Fourth, to be effective, the Innovation Hub’s work must be at the core of school practice.
• And fifth, the report found that vulnerable, courageous leadership that can spearhead risk-taking and innovation in schools is critical to enact deep transformations.
Implications and Recommendations for Establishing an Innovation Lab
Based on the findings and outcomes in the report, WISE provided several suggestions for practitioners, researchers, and policymakers on how to implement innovation labs in schools. In terms of research, the report suggested continued investment in educational research, as well as shifting teacher skillsets towards more modern learning models that emphasize competencies over knowledge in addition to building the knowledge base of bottom-up transformation. The report outlined implications for policy centered around developing better procedures conducive to capacity-building and future change. Lastly, it provided several suggestions for practitioners as well, largely reflecting the key themes found in the paper regarding the need for teacher learning, collaborative work, and the importance of school leadership in the innovation lab model.
Ultimately, through the work WISE has done with the Innovation Hub and innovation labs in various learning environments, the ability of the innovation lab model to work as a potential engine of change for learning gives hope to both current learning environments and the future of education, and highlights potential pathways to a world where more dynamic and personalized models of learning become the norm.
a global affairs media network
Innovation Labs as Engines for Change in Schools
Image by Matt Ridley via Unsplash.
November 15, 2021
With a rapidly shifting global landscape, it is becoming apparent that it is not simply reform but rather a total redesign of learning environments towards more meaningful personalized learning that will be necessary to keep up with this change.
W
ith advances in technology catalyzing a global shift in the skills that both the workforce and society will require, there is a fundamental need for a move away from traditional models of education that emphasize knowledge acquisition to a more future-oriented model with personalized learning at its core. In order to understand how to better facilitate this shift, WISE recently released a report addressing the challenges of preparing today’s education for the 21st century and provided insight into how innovation labs embedded within schools can act as an engine for deep change.
Beginning in February 2020, WISE launched the WISE Innovation Hub as a platform and research initiative to help support schools in creating their own “innovation labs.” Defined as a sort of R&D platform with embedded structures and processes to drive forward innovation within schools, the Innovation Lab is a means to address critical issues with teaching, learning, and curriculum. Over the course of a year and a half, WISE ran a pilot program supporting three different schools with varying challenges and goals in creating a designated team of teachers and leaders who could then direct the creation of practices and processes to design, test, and implement innovative solutions unique to their schools. The report posits that in this way, WISE was able to embed innovation labs unique to each school that could empower the learning environments to re-evaluate current education models and explore how to make the necessary shift towards more future-oriented models.
While the outcomes of the innovation labs in each school differed, the report ultimately argues that through continued effort, the creation of adaptable design-based methods that can cater to the unique needs and goals of each individual school—as well as strong school leadership open to risk-taking and continued support from the WISE Innovation Hub and other stakeholders—has the ability to drive forward innovation and transformation at the school level and ultimately lead to the redesign of modern education.
The Need for Deep Innovation
With a rapidly shifting global landscape, it is becoming apparent that it is not simply reform that is needed but rather a total redesign of educational approaches towards more meaningful personalized learning that will be necessary to keep up with this change. As stated in the WISE report, the drivers for this deep educational change include “global shifts in workforce skills and societal demands, mounting evidence on the science of learning and what environmental factors most effectively support learning, as well as the impact of emerging technologies which are revolutionizing the field with their ability to offer more personalized approaches to teaching and learning.” In short, we are not simply containers for knowledge, but rather unique individuals with our own understandings and varying abilities and capabilities, and that education should focus more on competencies and learner-driven personalized learning rather than the content-standards model most schools use today.
However, with a deep disconnect existing between the idea of personalized learning and the ability to actually implement real educational policy innovation, there comes a need to shift schools away from their traditional role as vehicles of enacting top-down external policies set by districts and governments. There is a need for schools to become wholistic ‘learning organizations’ where continuous and systematic growth, learning, and change is encouraged not only in students, but also in school leaders, teachers, parents, and the community.
The Innovation Hub and Innovation Labs
Indeed, as the WISE report states, “supporting schools as collaborative learning organizations to build capacity at all levels to enact and implement change and innovation is at the core of this research initiative and the innovation lab and Innovation Hub model as a whole,” and therefore the innovation lab model will play a key part in implementing these deep innovations. As an ‘engine’ of innovation, research, and design practices, the innovation lab is intended to conduct research, leverage innovation cycles, design, and test innovations, develop leadership and emphasize teacher learning in order to drive deep change in schools. Indeed, through this change, innovation labs can help learning environments set a vision for the future; research, design, and support them to innovate towards that vision; and be able to flexibly adjust direction to keep up with global shifts.
More broadly, the innovation lab is connected to WISE’s Innovation Hub, a platform dedicated to understanding the needs, goals, and innovations related to learning environments and providing support for schools through the provision of thought leadership, delivering materials, training, and coaching to school leaders, and creating partnerships. On a larger scale, they also aim to help change global learning models by disseminating and advocating insights, findings, and innovations created through the hub so that the global education community can benefit from this work. Together, the WISE Innovation Hub and each individual schools’ innovation lab can work together to build capacity for the entire school community—and the global community as a whole.
Themes and Outcomes
Through the work at the pilot schools outlined in this report, several themes and outcomes were highlighted:
• First, in order to succeed, it was necessary for the innovation lab structure to be adaptable to each school’s unique needs, goals and variables.
• Second, in each school’s journey, the nature of the vision and goals they created before starting the project evolved during the work.
• Third, the report found that having a third-party to provide a neutral perspective helped shape innovation in schools and led to deeper inquiries.
• Fourth, to be effective, the Innovation Hub’s work must be at the core of school practice.
• And fifth, the report found that vulnerable, courageous leadership that can spearhead risk-taking and innovation in schools is critical to enact deep transformations.
Implications and Recommendations for Establishing an Innovation Lab
Based on the findings and outcomes in the report, WISE provided several suggestions for practitioners, researchers, and policymakers on how to implement innovation labs in schools. In terms of research, the report suggested continued investment in educational research, as well as shifting teacher skillsets towards more modern learning models that emphasize competencies over knowledge in addition to building the knowledge base of bottom-up transformation. The report outlined implications for policy centered around developing better procedures conducive to capacity-building and future change. Lastly, it provided several suggestions for practitioners as well, largely reflecting the key themes found in the paper regarding the need for teacher learning, collaborative work, and the importance of school leadership in the innovation lab model.
Ultimately, through the work WISE has done with the Innovation Hub and innovation labs in various learning environments, the ability of the innovation lab model to work as a potential engine of change for learning gives hope to both current learning environments and the future of education, and highlights potential pathways to a world where more dynamic and personalized models of learning become the norm.
