Educators: Innovators or Researchers?

Do you consider yourself an innovator?
Do you consider yourself a researcher?

In my last post, I mentioned three conditions that are necessary for educators to embrace innovation:

• Educators must claim their role as researchers, because research is the foundation of innovation.
• Educators must refocus on the basics of solid lesson design, because increasing impact drives innovation.
• Leaders must expect transparent innovation from everyone, because innovation loves company.

I want to expand on all three in separate posts.  First, teachers need to recognize and honor their role as researchers.  The research cycle happens so quickly in a classroom that it often goes unnoticed, especially by the teacher him/herself. Here's what it looks like in slow motion:

Step 1 - The teacher is curious as to why a group of students did/thought _________.  
     Perhaps a group of students performed beyond expectations; or maybe a group did poorly.
     No matter what, the teacher is curious about performance and how to improve it.
     Innovation starts with curiosity.
Step 2 - The teacher gathers some background knowledge.
     The teacher talks to the students about their performance.
     The teacher talks to other teachers (including online PLC's) or does some reading.
Step 3 - The teacher creates a hypothesis.
     The teachers makes a guess as to what will improve this group's achievement.
     This is where innovation starts to come into play.
Step 4 - The teacher tries something different with the students.
     This would be called an "application".   But there is no control group, because
     it would be unethical to withhold help from a group of students that could benefit.
Step 5 - Look at the results.
     The teacher takes a step back and assesses.  Was the hypothesis valid?
     Did the application work?  Or do we need to cycle back and try something else?
Step 6 - Report the results.
     Reflect with the students on what happened.  Reflect with other teachers, coaches, and
     leaders about what happened.  Blog online.
     No matter if it worked or not - help others learn!

A professional educator goes through this cycle every day, and sometimes even "mini cycles" several times within a lesson.  Constantly listening to students, making a guess, applying a new strategy, measuring the response, over and over.

When we talk about improving practice - making practice better - it is a result of research and reflection.
This is why I believe the most important professional development that educators do is the daily interaction they have with students.  Research, reflection, and innovation become the daily norm for educators who use their classroom as a laboratory to study students. Professional development is no longer a stand-alone event; it becomes the norm.  Those half-days or whole days once a month become a time to consult the experts or do some deeper analysis with colleagues.

And it doesn't stop there:
Teachers study students.
Principals study schools.
Superintendents study districts.

So if an educator says "I'm not an innovator" I would ask, "Are you a researcher?" because one flows from the other.

   

Better

"Perfect is the enemy of good" - or - Instead of waiting for the miracle cure, what if we focused on consistent improvements in our daily practice?

This is the problem Atul Gawande presents in Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance.  There are so many times in the book when you could substitute "educator" for "doctor".  Medicine, like education, is ultimately a system of human contact and human decisions, and every decision makes an impact on the life of another.  Two professions that have become increasingly standardized, filled with bureaucracy, and influenced by profits.  Yet both are still practiced at a personal level - doctor to patient - teacher to student - with traditions and knowledge handed down over centuries to make the next generation ... better.

Gawande presents stories from the world of medicine to illustrate his point that continuously improving our practice can be nearly as effective as seeking the miracle cure.  For example, the clinic that has cystic fibrosis patients living nearly as long as their peers simply by innovating and holding themselves (and their patients) to a higher standard. Or how convincing health care workers in the the mid-1800's to simply wash their hands saved scores of lives.

How many of us in education are seeking the "miracle cure" today?  Flipped classrooms, interactive whiteboards, zero tolerance policies, small class sizes, new standards, experiments in school governance, standardized testing - the list goes on and on.  Gawande's question for us would be "Why throw out everything you've learned as a profession over the years?"  Improvement lies within your own power to control, and you can improve the lives of the people under you right now instead of waiting for the miracle cure to help somebody else down the road.  Improving practice works at the strategy & self levers (Frontier & Rickabaugh) as opposed to so many other innovations that sound better to the public but don't move achievement as far.

The chapter on innovation in childbirth translates well to education.  You've heard of Apgar scores for newborns?  Virginia Apgar's 1952 innovation allowed doctors and entire hospitals to be compared, driving standardization across the nation. Previously, OB's used various techniques to aid in childbirth, such as forceps deliveries, depending on the position of the baby. But since forceps deliveries and these other techniques are difficult to teach young doctors, C-sections became the industry standard.  C-sections are easier to teach, answer nearly every complication that could arise (as opposed to the myriad of techniques OB's had to master), and are convenient to schedule. Likewise, standardized testing in education has given rise to pre-packaged curricula and pacing guides.  Students spending weeks alone on devices drilling math facts.  Students expected to all know the same thing at the same time because their age says they should.

So what is the solution?
1.  Teachers must claim their role as researchers, because curiosity and research lead to innovation.  The most important professional development teachers engage in is their daily work in the classroom.  "I wonder why this group of students thought X?"  Curiosity leads to a theory, an application ("I'll try this intervention"), gathering data to see if it worked, and then reporting the result to help others.  That's research, and teachers do it over and over every day - we need to recognize and honor it because research is the foundation of innovation.

2.  Teachers must refocus on basics of lesson design, because increasing impact is how our practice gets better.  What do I want students to learn?  How will students prove they learned it? What impact did I, as a teacher, have on this lesson?  How do I know? Teaching = effectiveness. Learning = impact.  There's a difference.  (This book by Mike Schmoker and this book by Moss & Brookhart are great resources here.)

3.  Innovation needs to be the norm in school culture.  Administrators should do more than create a culture that merely "supports" pockets of innovation.  A culture that expects transparent innovation as part of professional responsibility is what will set individual schools and systems apart.

It's easy to wait for the miracle cure - mostly because it's somebody else's job to discover it and tell you how to use it effectively.  But getting better is a self-driven process that can make an impact now!