Creativity and Innovation in Education

1. Creativity and Innovation in Education Valerie Hannon Director – Innovation Unit

4. To drive reform effectively, schools will need to become better at adapting to change – not just reactively to changes in their environment or to changing knowledge about how to improve standards, but proactively in response to new opportunities. This ‘adaptive capacity’ is essentially the ability of a school to learn for itself what is effective in its own context. Teaching and learning will need to become increasingly responsive to the needs and context of individual learners – to engage and motivate learners and make best use of resources. That means being much better informed about how to be effective. As the techniques of teaching and learning and school improvement become more complex it will become increasingly unrealistic to expect individual schools to have the expertise and organisational capacity to stay abreast of this on their own. But in a complex, rapidly changing situation, hierarchical models of control and dissemination are neither effective nor efficient ways of enabling continuous adaptation. By contrast, collaboration with peers can be a very effective way of finding out what works in your situation, spreading specialist knowledge and expertise, generating a culture of innovation and mutual accountability, sharing and building resources such as leadership ability, and creating energy for action and improvement, particularly where the collaborating schools share a strong moral purpose about young people and their development. This same set of processes enable and underpin both the capacity for specific adaptation and improvement and the channels for effective, lateral transfer of knowledge. To drive reform effectively, schools will need to become better at adapting to change – not just reactively to changes in their environment or to changing knowledge about how to improve standards, but proactively in response to new opportunities. This ‘adaptive capacity’ is essentially the ability of a school to learn for itself what is effective in its own context. Teaching and learning will need to become increasingly responsive to the needs and context of individual learners – to engage and motivate learners and make best use of resources. That means being much better informed about how to be effective. As the techniques of teaching and learning and school improvement become more complex it will become increasingly unrealistic to expect individual schools to have the expertise and organisational capacity to stay abreast of this on their own. But in a complex, rapidly changing situation, hierarchical models of control and dissemination are neither effective nor efficient ways of enabling continuous adaptation. By contrast, collaboration with peers can be a very effective way of finding out what works in your situation, spreading specialist knowledge and expertise, generating a culture of innovation and mutual accountability, sharing and building resources such as leadership ability, and creating energy for action and improvement, particularly where the collaborating schools share a strong moral purpose about young people and their development. This same set of processes enable and underpin both the capacity for specific adaptation and improvement and the channels for effective, lateral transfer of knowledge.

5. The democratic definition:  Imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value 4 IDEAS IMAGINATION; (NOT JUST SOLVING PROBS) PLAYFULNESS/FANTASISING - GENERATIVE - PROVIDING AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE EXPECTED CONVENTIONAL OR ROUTINE FASHIONED TO PRODUCE OUTCOMES - PURSUING PURPOSES -GAINING CONTROL OF ONE’S MEDIUM CR. ALWAYS INVOLVES ORIGINALITY IDEA OF VALUE; AUTHENTIC CR INVOLVES NOT JUST A GENERATIVE MODE OF THOUGHT/BEHAVIOUR BUT ALSO AN EVALUATIVE MODE (ORIGINALITY NOT ENOUGH - MAYBE FAULTY/BIZARRE/INAPPROPRIATE TO PURPOSE IN HAND FINAL POINT - RELATION SHIP W CULTURE - NEED TO BE EQUALLY CLEAR ABOUT MEANING OF CULTURE -MANY BOOKS DEVOTED! - BUT WE- IN THINKING ABOUT CULTURAL ED, TOOK THE SOCIAL /ANTHROP DEFN…………. 4 IDEAS IMAGINATION; (NOT JUST SOLVING PROBS) PLAYFULNESS/FANTASISING - GENERATIVE - PROVIDING AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE EXPECTED CONVENTIONAL OR ROUTINE FASHIONED TO PRODUCE OUTCOMES - PURSUING PURPOSES -GAINING CONTROL OF ONE’S MEDIUM CR. ALWAYS INVOLVES ORIGINALITY IDEA OF VALUE; AUTHENTIC CR INVOLVES NOT JUST A GENERATIVE MODE OF THOUGHT/BEHAVIOUR BUT ALSO AN EVALUATIVE MODE (ORIGINALITY NOT ENOUGH - MAYBE FAULTY/BIZARRE/INAPPROPRIATE TO PURPOSE IN HAND FINAL POINT - RELATION SHIP W CULTURE - NEED TO BE EQUALLY CLEAR ABOUT MEANING OF CULTURE -MANY BOOKS DEVOTED! - BUT WE- IN THINKING ABOUT CULTURAL ED, TOOK THE SOCIAL /ANTHROP DEFN………….

10. What do we mean by innovation?  …at least two types of innovation Entirely new ideas Re-working of an old idea or the transferring and embedding of existing ideas in to a new setting

11. ‘a change that creates a new dimension of performance’

15. The education agenda now: what’s needed for transformation? teachers becoming the agents, not the objects, of change a radical advancement in teacher learning teachers having confidence in their freedom to innovate

16. “ transformation cannot be achieved through command-and-control directives … “ “ real innovation cannot be planned for or produced to order - it creeps up when the time and conditions are appropriate………” “ innovation - both incremental and radical - needs to be supported and (in contrast to the 1960s ‘let a thousand flowers bloom’) designed and co-ordinated in a coherent and disciplined way” 

17. “The paradox about innovation and creativity is that to turn your creativity into innovative new products, services and offers, you need a system to be able to manage that creativity. Without structure you simply have the kind of sporadic bright ideas which, at best may yield fruit, but at worst may actually rock your organisation because you have no means of dealing with the internal changes that those creative ideas demand.” 

18. “ Had schooling advanced at the same rate as computers have since 1950, the twelve years of compulsory schooling could be accomplished in ten minutes for three cents….” Mann (1992) School Reform in the US

23. Is the argument that we need more innovation warranted? How can we link teachers’ desire for greater creativity to this agenda for transformation? Do we know how to create ‘disciplined’ innovation? What single thing would you like to see the Innovation Unit do to support you?