Innovation Readiness: Shared Values & Beliefs

“No high performing educational system has been able to improve its performance as a whole system without the support and ownership of the reform agenda by teachers.”

-Michael Fullan in Coherence: The Right Drivers in Actions for Schools, Districts, and Systems

Pedagogical innovation in schools can only take place if educators are willing to embrace some fundamental structural changes to the student-teacher relationship. Yet, innovation initiatives are often top-down decisions and school vision and mission statements are often formulated by administrators. As a result, teachers often resist initiatives that they perceive to be acts of coercion and not collaboration.

As Michael Fullan outlines in Coherence, effective school leaders who foster a shared moral purpose can mobilize teachers to action. Effective school leaders who nurture a collective vision of desired learning, one that is co-constructed and shared by both administration and staff, create the foundation for guiding an entire community on a coordinated path towards a commonly agreed goal. In the end, any innovation initiative will only succeed if it integrates the knowledge, skills, and experiences of educators from all levels.

Fortunately, many school administrators and teachers already share a moral purpose — a deep commitment to the education of all students in the community. As such, administration and faculty share a broad moral imperative. But school leaders need to identify teacher beliefs and values about education in order to shape a collective vision of how student learning should be designed. More specifically, administrators need to know if teachers believe in “innovative” pedagogy, such as enhancing student agency and unleashing student creativity. In addition, administrators need to know whether faculty beliefs around learning actually align with their own.

With the “Innovation Readiness and Pathways” program I use a range of diagnostic elements to reveal qualitative information about school administration and faculty beliefs around “innovative learning.” These include surveys of administrators, faculty, and students, onsite individual and small group interviews of administrators, faculty, and students (and other school community stakeholders), as well as classroom and school community observations.

Here is an example of a survey question for administrators and faculty:

Creativity is the highest expression of student cognition.

• Strongly agree

• Agree

• Neutral

• Disagree

• Strongly disagree

One of the ways I use the data is to identify areas of alignment across key pedagogical values. The fundamental premise is that if a strong alignment of beliefs exists around important educational values then there is a higher probability that pedagogical innovation will occur around these issues (than around others where a gap exists). So, for instance, if administrators and faculty widely agree that creativity is an important expression of student cognition then both groups are disposed to work towards the goal of enhancing student creativity. Teachers are also more likely to embrace a “new” or “higher level” pedagogical initiative, such as a Problem Based Learning framework for their courses, because is aligned with their belief in the importance of student creativity.

Of course, there are invariably some value gaps between administrators and teachers on certain issues and it’s important to identify if any of these gaps are “wide-width”. (And whether wide belief gaps exist within the faculty, such as between departments or grade levels.) In other words, if administrators and faculty starkly disagree on the importance of, say, student agency in learning design then it would be naive to initiate a “high-level” pedagogical innovation around enhancing student agency and expect a quick and successful pedagogical transformation. Even if a faculty were to wholeheartedly embrace enhancing student agency in theory, faculty implementation of new pedagogical practices to enhance student agency might be tepid and uneven without a committed administration to support them.

Which brings up a crucial, final element - trust. When teachers believe they can trust their administrators they are more willing to innovate and take risks. School leaders who set a high priority on integrating the ideas of their teachers in the pursuit of educating all students earn that trust. With it, teachers are more willing to build a commitment towards shared goals. The school that builds a collective vision of desired learning, co-constructed and shared by administrators, teachers, and students together lays down a foundation for school-wide innovation readiness.