Let’s Talk About Innovation: Are We Really Innovating?

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In his book Innovación y cambio en las instituciones educativas (Innovation and Change in Educational Institutions), Miguel A. Zabalza Beraza writes, “If there is something about educating and training, it is that they are processes that necessarily look to the future.” It is true, especially when instructing the next generations.

Even so, in recent years, many efforts to “innovate” in education have come to nothing or do not work. The word innovative seems to be reduced to just one more adjective.

Professor Zabalza wrote in his book that “we are installed in the culture of survival, of filling gaps as best we can. It is difficult to jump into a culture of change and improvement.” This could not be more evident than at the time of the pandemic when all schools had to close, and they had to “fill gaps” to continue training their students.

Innovations require a “theoretical reference that serves as a basis. If not, you are continually blindfolding yourself and moving, sometimes, at significant personal and institutional cost, towards nowhere,” says Zabalza. “Innovations that are born and/or developed without the sufficient critical capacity to subject the innovation to a constant process of modification and adjustments do not have a good prognosis. Sometimes innovations arise from mere slogans or diffuse ideas but progressively require more and more doctrinal and theoretical load to subsist consciously.”

For true innovation to indeed exist, “innovative processes must be introduced that establish practices that improve the quality of what is being done,” says Zabalza. But this requires time for those part of it to learn to manage and take advantage of the change. Unfortunately, there is not always the time or willingness to let things settle and tangible improvements to be seen. Furthermore, innovation is often the result of successive small changes. Many expect it to be something big and striking, so they abandon new projects or ideas when they do not see tremendous results, opting for an “all or nothing” position.

A severe problem with innovation in education in recent years is that this word is taken as a synonym for something good; An “innovative” teacher, program, or institution is good, and a more traditional one is bad. If a teacher is reluctant to change, either because he is happy with his current job because he is pressured to “innovate” and does not see the purpose of doing so clearly or does not see improvement, he wants to wait to see how things turn out before trying; you feel that the new initiative is too much effort for the result or any other reason, you run the risk of being branded as a lousy teacher.

“They prefer to do the things they know how to do well rather than doing them differently,” says the author. He adds that “sometimes, although we find the renewal proposed to us interesting and we would love to participate in it, we realize that, realistically, we are not, at that moment, in a position to participate for all the reasons mentioned above.”. Tec de Monterrey experienced this when he proposed his Tec21 model since several professors did not want to be part of the change.

But then, what is innovation, and what is it not? Why has it become synonymous with something good in recent years?

What is NOT innovation

Although this term is often related to what is new and different, innovation is not just about making things divergent; it is about improving things. The book’s author warns that “it is not uncommon for changes to be introduced without any sense or, at least, without any well-founded reason. “Many motivations but little weight.”

Educational innovation should not be about “changing for the sake of change.” It is about “introducing innovative processes that establish practices that improve the quality of what is being done,” says Zabalza. But it seems that many times, in many educational institutions, there is a particular obsession with change, with doing things differently being disruptive.

Regarding this, the book talks about how many times institutions and individuals are forced, either by the Ministry of Education or another important actor within their organization, to introduce innovations in their procedures or practices, which results in “innovations” that do not substantially improve nothing, they are pure image. In the case of institutions, the author mentions them as bureaucratic innovations since they belong to the formal sphere, that is, “changes in the structure or formal procedures of the school organization (emergence of new bodies, creation of new departments or services, formalization of meetings or commissions of various types and with different purposes, etc.) […] What is important is not its substance and the commitments that the institution assumes through it. The important thing is that we had to have an educational project and already have it,” says Zabalza.

The goal is not to present solutions because, many times, they do not even know if there is a problem to solve, but they have to “innovate” because they are asked to; it is mandatory. This demand often comes from fashion, politics, bureaucratic decisions, a good social image, a desire to stand out, or “just because,” not for a well-founded reason that seeks actual change.

What IS innovation?

The word innovation is made up of three components: in-nova-tion. The first component, “in,” helps maintain a certain pragmatism in the proposals; the second, nova, means new. The author describes the set of “in” and “nova” as “something new that we were referring to, we are going to introduce into what we already have,” and finally, there is the “tion” component that involves action.

“We can say, therefore, that when we talk about innovation, we are referring to a process that consists of introducing new elements (NOVA) into what we have already been doing (lN-) through actions (-ClÓN) that will take time to complete. and that requires a certain continuity and effort.” Therefore, innovation “is much more than having brilliant ideas; it is more than discussing what would be convenient. With this, we would only be building the part of the nova.” From the definition of innovation, the author highlights change, novelty, creativity, improvement, intentionality, effort, complexity, etc., as core factors.

It is essential to focus on the quality of the change. Just because something is different, you can’t say that it is innovative or that it improved things; It is vital that it has some justification or purpose. If it is not known why it was introduced and based on what criteria, the innovation may fail.

Knowing where innovation comes from is crucial to determining the development of the entire change process; how it starts influences the whole process. Innovations can come from political decisions, institutional contexts, or individual initiatives. Many times, the person seeking to launch the project is the educational administration, a central committee of a union, directors of an association, or the highest authorities of a religious congregation, which can have a significant impact on implementation and success than if proposed by a teacher within their institution.

As mentioned above, teachers or educational institutions are often pressured to do things differently because they were proposed by their authorities, which does not mean merely innovating. Zabalza points out, “Innovation goes beyond mere change because it is a more deliberate process. It does not usually occur spontaneously but, on the contrary, requires prior planning and perseverance in its development.

Furthermore, for there to be innovation, there must be openness, updating, and monitoring. Taking the pandemic as an example, part of the problem was that, while emergency online education had to be adopted, many institutions stayed put; there were no adjustments or improvements when they were closed. This is where it is essential to have openness since it is linked to flexibility and the ability to adapt. Changes that do not include this element “do not have a good prognosis, especially because they do not generate an innovative culture in the school,” warns Zabalza.

Another severe problem is this paradox in educational innovation where practice precedes evaluation, which means it is difficult to turn back even if it later does not yield positive results. An example of this is the story of Changing Mindset, a project that “builds on Dweck’s implicit theories of intelligence, in which Dweck argued that intelligence is malleable and that teachers can help students develop a better mindset.” of growth, praising their effort and perseverance over their innate intelligence,” as explained on the University of Portsmouth website. This educational model was applied to 5,018 students in 101 different schools, where it was discovered that the students did not progress significantly than those in the control group.

How often have we seen this type of “innovative proposals” that lead nowhere? Projects that, in the worst case, are left half-finished because from the beginning there was no excellent planning in this regard; that the budget, or time, or teacher training was not taken into account, or as in the previous case, they did not wait to see the results to know if it works. Yes, there was a change, but it didn’t lead to anything.

What does it take for an innovation to be truly innovative?

In this section, discussing factors influencing whether an educational innovation will work is essential. Of the resources? Of the will and commitment? Of having models to guide us? Of the training of those who implement the projects? Of the institution? of the leaders of the institution? What depends on whether innovations can progress and create more affluent and more effective learning environments? Zabalza questions. For experts such as economists, sociologists, and politicians, what is important is the national GDP dedicated to education; for others, what is essential is demographic factors and that it reaches everyone. For the author, the key is the commitment to improvement or a culture of change.

There are four basic resources for this culture of change to exist, according to Miguel Zabalza: structure, information, evaluation, and training.

1. Structure. Refers to support structures; look for someone to defend the innovation once it has been launched. According to the author, personal or small group proposals are often more successful because people see it as something of their own instead of an institutional initiative.
2. Information. This refers to informing all the people involved about the implementation of something new. Hold meetings, send emails, advertise, etc. Whatever is necessary so that everyone, even those who are not going to participate, knows what is happening.
3. Assessment. As mentioned above, many times in educational innovation, the idea is implemented before evaluating it. “Only through evaluation are we in a position to have a clear and systematic idea of how things are going,” the author mentions. It is essential to collect information to readjust if necessary or know if you are on the right track.
4. Training. Finally, there is training; “no innovation is possible without training,” writes Zabalza. For him, you must first want to do things and then know how to do them. “In that sense, it would be desirable for every innovation proposal always to include a parallel innovation training proposal.”

A great example of this was the pandemic, with significant changes. Still, many were without these elements due to the immediacy needed at that time, especially in the training field. Many teachers turned to tools such as video conferencing and learning management systems such as Canvas, Blackboard, or Google Classroom, which have been around for over 20 years. Although it is understood that there was no time to train teachers on online teaching due to the emergency, there were no evaluations to see if that format was the best, nor readjustments nor training for teachers.

The significant innovations are those that reach the classroom after a long process. This is the goal that they come to practice and can transform what they do. “That is why the study of innovations (and their evaluation) requires taking into consideration how the sequence from the first to the third level of implementation of an innovation has occurred,” writes Zabalza.

Types of change produced by innovation

The educational innovations that improve the learning process are those that cause a change, which can be minor or very large. First are the differences in instrumental technology, which are the most common since only some of the resources teachers use are modified. Typically, they only affect one class and the teacher’s work. They can also be initiatives such as “changing the textbook, changing the form of evaluation, introducing a new technical resource, etc. When conferences or conferences are held on innovation, they tend to be the experiences that most frequently appear in communications.”

There are also changes in infrastructure or organizational patterns, which have a broader scope than the previous one. They seek to improve “infrastructures and organizational systems, and that allows new options for educational work to be introduced,” writes the author. These do not always seek to change educational practices but rather the institutional image.

Then there is planning and strategy, which refers to modifying the “joint work of the institution, how the teaching-learning processes are developed.” Followed by the change in teacher-student roles, as happens in the competency-based work model. In this, if well applied, it suggests a change in the roles of the teacher and student. Finally, there is a change in the conception of teaching, which should be the goal of any innovation: “to produce changes in thinking, in the way of understanding teaching. […] That the paradigm changes, the way of interpreting the processes carried out and their meaning in fulfilling the institutional mission, in our case, the achievement of a good education for our students.”

In conclusion, innovation in education is an essential process to prepare future generations and improve the quality of teaching. However, in recent years, educational innovation has lost its genuine meaning and has become an overused and often misunderstood term.

Miguel A. Zabalza Beraza, in his book “Innovation and Change in Educational Institutions,” highlights that innovation in education must be based on a solid theoretical reference and not on empty slogans. Furthermore, for an innovation to be truly effective, it must be accompanied by a commitment to continuous improvement and a culture of change.

True educational innovation requires a careful and strategic approach, a commitment to continuous improvement, and an understanding that results are often achieved through gradual, persistent changes rather than quick, flashy solutions.

Translated by Daniel Wetta

This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0