Elements of Successful Innovation - Part 2 - Time and Focus

This is the second post in a series of thoughts on the elements required to innovate in the classroom.  Last week's post was on the importance of leadership and acknowledgment.  This week, we look at the next features of Jon Bergman's list - Time and Focus.

Time - Everyone wants to innovate.  It is in our nature as human beings.  We don't want to repeat the same things over and over, whether or not they work, as the world changes around us.  We want to take advantage of new research and technology.  The reason we often do not is that doing what we have always done doesn't take any time, and doing something new does.  We have discussed various innovative ideas in our school many times.  We made progress as individuals, but doing it on a large scale takes a lot of committed time, particularly if you want to implement things in a cross-curricular fashion.  It requires discussion with other teachers, writing instructions, constructing rubrics, and figuring out how to answer questions from students and parents, etc.  One of the things we found helpful this year was a series of brainstorming meetings.  A teacher would present a project that needed help or an idea for something new and allowed other teachers across different disciplines to give their input.  For some, it led to joint work between teachers.  For others, it just brought a set of fresh ideas for how to improve.  I enjoyed being part of these meetings both for my own work and as the input person for others.  The side benefit is that you have a better idea of what is happening in your school as a whole and can talk to your students about the things happening in other classes.

Focus - In Bergman's original post, he describes a school-wide focus this way. "The change is a focus of the school, and the school does not have many (if any) competing programs."  I would say this depends on the size of your innovation.  If it is for one unit or only affects a few classrooms or one department, you can have several innovations at once.  If you are doing something big, like implementing a one to one program or trying to create a flipping culture, you should focus on it for at least one year before adding anything else.  No one wants to be a mile wide and an inch deep.  To keep that from happening, there must be time to focus on the best ways to incorporate the innovative idea without competition from other tools.

Next time - Embedded Support and Community