In the first article of this series, we reflected on HOW we talk about education, often using certain metaphors that discourage innovation in the field of education. In this second article, I reflect on WHAT IT IS, what can be considered educational innovation, and how to achieve it. 

When it comes to innovation in a broader sense, there are many definitions, generally focused on the business world. The best known of all is certainly that of one of the founders of modern management, Peter Drucker (1986, p. 45): “Innovation is the act of endowing existing resources (people and processes) within a company with new capabilities to generate wealth.”

From this perspective on innovation, I highlight two central aspects: 1. innovation concerns behavioral change, which Drucker describes as new capabilities; 2. innovation concerns value creation, which Drucker translates as wealth generation. Thus, we can conceptualize innovation as a process of value creation that drives behavioral change. But how does this translate to the field of education, and how can we foster innovation from a pragmatic standpoint?

First, it is clear that we can innovate in all areas of school education: in pedagogical and instructional practices, in management approaches, in dialogue with the school community, in school district assessment strategies, in business models or fundraising methods, and so on. In any of these areas, the first step toward innovation is to identify, describe, and refine the challenge, need, or problem that arises from people’s activities and their relationships. 

Thus, if children are unable to learn fractions, the principal cannot get families to attend school meetings, local business owners are not interested in what is happening at the school, educators feel isolated, or the communities’ requests are never fulfilled due to a lack of resources—all of these are legitimate concerns. 

To address any of these areas from the perspective of innovation, we must first identify a specific problem. For example, do children fail to learn fractions because the content is inappropriate for their cognitive development, or because the activities related to this content don’t make sense to them? Or is it because the teacher’s training did not include mathematical knowledge about fractions, or perhaps due to some other combination of reasons that we need to identify more specifically and in greater detail among the children who are indeed not learning specific aspects of this content?

It is important to remember that the answers to any of these questions stem from consistent observation and research—both in the field and in the literature—in order to gain a true understanding of the nuances of the problem we hope to solve through innovation.

Designing innovative solutions therefore depends on a deep understanding of the problem we are trying to solve. We then move on to the creative process of developing practices, methodologies, services, and/or products capable of addressing the problem, either in whole or in part.

During this ideation phase, people tend to take an intuitive and spontaneous approach, but there are specific and very useful techniques for generating high-value-added solutions, using approaches such as Design Thinking.

Here, I strongly recommend reading and using the ideation and innovation tools offered by Educadigital onthe “Design Thinking for Educators”portal. This material is very comprehensive and also provides practical examples of the ideation process. Equally interesting, it shows how to then test the ideas generated until they are refined into solutions that are feasible (materially plausible), viable (economically sustainable), and desirable (our target audience will want to use the solution).

As we can see, innovation is a way of solving problems, involving an altruistic effort to listen to people’s daily challenges and needs, for which we strive to design solutions that provide maximum added value. Doing this in school, as an educator, is difficult and time-consuming, but it is possible and very necessary. To that end, I believe that certain contextual conditions must be established: 

● Innovation is a networked process; therefore, it is best carried out in groups of teachers, preferably in collaboration with school administrators. It is even better to involve teams from different institutions in order to increase the diversity of contexts, people, and ideas; 

● Innovation depends on technical knowledge and a certain degree of creativity, which, in turn, is best fostered in an environment of trust that is open to risk and experimentation; 

● Innovation is a cyclical process, so the same solution may require multiple rounds of testing before it becomes robust: be persistent and learn to use mistakes to gain a better understanding of your users and improve your solutions.

Finally, it is important to remember: what counts as innovation does not necessarily have to involve digital tools or technological innovation. Many of the innovations that have an impact in schools relate to formats of communication and dialogue, methods of learning and interaction among students, the involvement of school administrators in day-to-day school life, and so on. However, when innovation is also technological, we generally see results that generate more data and are more scalable. I’ll explore this topic in the next post in the series—see you then!

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