Innovation, Quality, and the School Ecosystem

Innovation, Quality and the

School Ecosystem: Challenges to the

Inspectorate September 13-14, 2012 / Porto, Portugal SICI WORKSHOP – Innovating Inspections to Value Innovative Schools The Standing International Conferences of Inspectorates (SICI)

1. TYPES OF INNOVATION

2. SCHOOLING & QUALITY

3. THE SCHOOL ECHOSYSTEM

5. CONCLUSIONS

4. THE INSPECTORATE




5. CONCLUSIONS

4. THE INSPECTORATE


If we mix them up, innovation rarely happens

incremental innovation disruptive innovation

Two radically different types of innovation:

Incremental innovations build on existing thinking, products, processes,

organizations, or social systems

INCREMENTAL INNOVATION

They can be routine improvements or they can be dramatic breakthroughs

but they apply to what already exists


INCREMENTAL INNOVATION

•  Airplanes that fly farther •  Batteries that last longer

•  Televisions with better images •  Computers that process faster

Examples of incremental innovations:

•  Schools where students learn better by regularly using the Net


Disruptive innovations are addressed to people who do not have any solutions

DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION

They take root in simple, undemanding, applications that are not breakthrough

People are happy to use them, in spite of their limitations, because no other solutions exist

They do not compete with anything


But as they gain strength in the realm of non-competition


they evolve very fast

and end up replacing the traditional solutions



The first personal computers (like the Spectrum and the Apple II) were ridiculously limited,

and completely out of that market.

Example of a disruptive innovation: the personal computer

In the 1970s the professional computer market was occupied by 100,000 € minicomputers produced by Digital

Equipment Corporation (DEC), Data General, and HP.



But they quickly grew up, in that unexplored market

Ten years later, in the early 1990s, they were much more powerful, and starting to erode the minicomputer market Twenty years later, in the early 2000s, the minicomputer

market collapsed in favour of the PC market

They were supposed to be used mainly as toys by children and their parents.

DEC and Data General don’t exist any more





5. CONCLUSIONS

4. THE INSPECTORATE

QUALITY


concept transposed from industry to education in the 20th century

SCHOOLING model transposed from industry to education in the 18th century

SCHOOLING IN THE LAST 200 YEARS

Industrial revolution: fascination with the machine

Pedagogical and organizational processes reproduced the repeatability and accuracy of the machine

industrial era

social era

industrial era


With the generalization of the public schools, the organizational models of industry

were transposed to the schools.

Rows of desks, bells ringing, artificially separated disciplines, learning out of context, instruction of listening and answering, isolation and competition, rigid national curricula, standard tests.

INDUSTRIAL ERA

The industry has changed radically, since then, but education keeps much of the old model.


disciplinary learning

learning as ‘knowledge’ delivery (or ‘content’)

mechanical and industrial vision of learning

predominance of authority and hierarchy

praise of uniformity

primacy of quantity


INDUSTRIAL ERA

SOCIAL ERA

The new forms of socialization provided by communication networks (internet, cell phones) are leading to a multitude of new opportunities

and promising approaches to learning

industrial era

social era social era


multi-, trans- and meta disciplinary learning

learning as transformation

organic and social vision of learning

predominance of leadership and collaboration

praise of difference

primacy of quality (supported by reasonable quantity)

SOCIAL ERA


mechanical and industrial vision of learning

learning as ‘knowledge’ delivery predominance of authority

and hierarchy

organic and social vision of learning learning as transformation predominance of leadership and collaboration

industrial era social era

praise of uniformity praise of difference

disciplinary learning multidisciplinary learning

primacy of quantity praise of quality (quantified)


IN WHICH ERA ARE WE? industrial

era social era

We are building the 21st century with the visions of

the 19th century

Definitely, in the industrial era!

industrial era

http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/


http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/


WHAT SCHOOL SYSTEMS ARE PRODUCING



WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS TODAY

QUALITY IN THE LAST 100 YEARS


THE QUALITY MOVEMENT IN INDUSTRY

Before 1900 Quality as an integral element of the cra7

1900-‐1920 Quality control by foreman

1920-‐1940 Inspec>on-‐based quality-‐control

1940-‐1960 Sta>s>cal process control

1960-‐1980 Quality assurance (quality department)

1980-‐1990 Total quality management (TQM)

1990-‐Present Culture of con>nuous improvement, organiza>on-‐wide TQM

(Adapted from Sallis, E. (1996). Total Quality Management in Education, 2nd Ed. London: Kogan Page)

Schools 2012 Inspectorate

School Systems Corporate World

Management

Strategy

Quality

classical management: control, repeatability,

people as replaceable parts

modern management: culture, commitment,

people as knowledge workers

analytical, centralized and reactive

projective, collective, and transformative

Education has moved directly from ad hoc management to bureaucratic management

quality management, quality as transformation

(social process)

The corporate world is moving from bureaucratic and mechanistic management to

organic and ecological management and sees people as their most valuable asset

quality control, quality assurance, accountability

(mechanistic process)

Increasingly emphasizes control and forgets people


leadership (10%)

people management

(9%)

policy & strategy

(8%)

resources (9%)

processes (14%)

satisfaction of collaborators

(9%)

satisfaction of students

(20%)

impact on society

(6%)

results of the whole activity

(15%)

ISO 9000 - European Quality Award (EQA), 1992 European Foundation for Quality Management


It is interesting to notice how, as early as 1992, the EFQM proposed the extension of ISO 9000 to Education

leadership (10%)

people management

(9%)

policy & strategy

(8%)

resources (9%)

processes (14%)

satisfaction of collaborators

(9%)

satisfaction of students

(20%)

impact on society

(6%)

results of the whole activity

(15%)


ISO 9000 - European Quality Award (EQA), 1992 European Foundation for Quality Management

It is interesting to notice how, as early as 1992, the EFQM proposed the extension of ISO 9000 to Education




5. CONCLUSIONS

4. THE INSPECTORATE

educational systems are networks of actors

that reinforce each other into stable configurations

From the point of view of the sociology of innovation

These stable configurations tend to prevent change




it is impossible to produce innovations with lasting effects

the inertia of the system dilutes or distorts the innovations

Some experts in innovation claim that in such conservative echosystems

and converts them to the reigning uniformity

It is like pouring water in the desert


Incremental innovation in educational systems has

a high failure rate

but it can be explored

This is not necessarily so dramatic!

if sound innovation strategies are crafted and managed

relying on dependable social theories,

Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005 such as Actor-Network-Theory


However, the promising path to innovation in the educational systems is

through disruptive innovation

that quietly grows in the margins of the system, unobtrusively

until it starts changing it, irreversibly

McGraw-Hill, New York, 2008

Clayton M. Christensen is an inspiring author on this topic


•  Courses provided on-line to a region or a whole country, namely:

•  courses for gifted students •  enrichment classes for

special-needs children •  optional courses in the languages,

arts, humanities, economics •  distant support to homebound

and home-schooled students •  private tutoring

Examples of disruptive innovations in the school systems:


•  Pilot schools trying out new school models

•  Special schools for students wishing to follow project-based learning

•  Experimental schools aimed at changing transformationally the degraded social

communities to which they belong


These are examples of opportunities for disruptive innovation that don’t clash against

the mainstream educational echo-system

In this way, innovation can incubate at leisure until it

matures up to a level where it can be transposed to the

mainstream system




5. CONCLUSIONS

4. THE INSPECTORATE

4. THE INSPECTORATE

The inspectorate is the actor of the school echo-system with the mandate to preserve the quality of the system

Does that mean to preserve the systems as it is?

Does it mean to help create the system as it should be?

Who decides what and how it should be?

Considering the highly conservative character of the school echo-system, how can inspectorates

contribute to school innovation?

•  tolerate school innovation •  encourage school innovation

•  create frameworks for school innovation

Possible degrees of intervention:

4. THE INSPECTORATE

•  through (moderate) incremental innovation •  through disruptive innovation

Two possible alternatives:

If the attempted innovations remain at the margins of the conventional educational echo-system

They may succeed

following a disruptive path

or if they are based on very cautious, strategically

managed, incremental innovation

and produce lasting effects

4. THE INSPECTORATE

Otherwise

they fail

and that’s what we witness most of the time

and leave no lasting effects

HOW CAN WE IMPROVE THIS SCENARIO?

4. THE INSPECTORATE




5. CONCLUSIONS

4. THE INSPECTORATE

“If we teach today’s students as we did yesterday’s, we are robbing them of tomorrow”

John Dewey

We are building the 21st century with the visions of the 19th century

As key actors in the echo-system where this is happening, the inspectorates

can contribute to a much needed change

5. CONCLUSIONS

This implies:

reconsidering the aims and paradigms of the school in today’s world

5. CONCLUSIONS

reflecting on the nature of quality in today’s school echo-systems

and engaging in disruptive (and incremental, when

possible) innovation

Innovation, Quality and the

School Ecosystem: Challenges to the

Inspectorate Porto, Portugal – September 13-14, 2012 SICI WORKSHOP – Innovating Inspections to Value Innovative Schools The Standing International Conferences of Inspectorates (SICI)

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