This week, we discussed the issues in edtech innovation and expanded on some of the content from last week’s class.
We did an activity where, in breakout rooms, we were assigned a topic to focus on, and my group was looking at the concept of strategies to support innovation.
The resource we were assigned was written by Tony Bates, titled “Innovation and on-line and digital learning: five myths, five barriers, and five strategies”. My group specifically focused on the five strategies. This was an interesting topic to look at because it gave insight into what strategies Bates determined were the most effective for working through the issues of edtech innovation.
The five strategies include: think holistically, a need for multiple visions of teaching and learning, strategic goals for teaching and learning, an annual academic planning process that includes innovation in teaching, and funding support for teaching innovation (Bates 2020).
We were then tasked with choosing one of the strategies that stood out to our group, and the one we chose was “think holistically”.
This strategy was described as the need to take into account the full complexity of an organization to succeed. In order to do this, you need the “big picture” to support and expand innovative teaching beyond the individual or instructor (Bates 2020).
We chose this one because of
Part of this discussion looked at whether we had ever experienced this and how we could/should leverage this strategy in our own contexts.
In response to the question about if we have ever experienced this and one of the first responses that came up was that this strategy is ‘easier said than done’ and that the only time any of our group members had ever experienced this was ‘having grade levels come together to make changes to content of courses’. Otherwise, there were not many that have actually experienced this in their careers, but we did feel that this was probably the most important strategy out of the five.
When it came to answering the question of how we could/should leverage this strategy in our own contexts, the main point we came up with was adding regular meetings with colleagues to ensure that there is consistency across our areas of focus. We felt this was the most important way to leverage this strategy because it ensures consistency across all aspects of the area of focus and allows for staff to collaborate more to create an equitable system that benefits all.
This visual was included with the slides for our discussion group and is a great way to represent education innovation.
Class is going well, and I am learning a lot about how education innovation is such a complex and constant system that is always changing as time goes on. I look forward to what we learn next.
References:
Bates, T. (2020, September 3). Innovation and on-line and digital learning: five myths, five barriers, and five strategies. [Web page]. Online Learning and Distance Education Resources. https://www.tonybates.ca/2020/09/03/innovation-and-on-line-and-digital-learning-five-myths-five-barriers-and-five-strategies/
