Musings from Mumbai: Fostering a climate of innovation in the middle and high schools

ASB Unplugged is a 1:1nlaptop conference for international schools, hosted by the American School of Bombay and the Laptop Institute. These are notesnfrom a session I attended on technology-related change at the secondarynlevel…

Andrew Hoover, middle school principal

Devin Pratt, high school principal

Dianna Pratt, middle/high school tech coordinator

nnnnn

nnn

[the educators in this room are from more countries than you probably cannplace on a map!]

Change is not linear
- Expect both bursts and delays

Complacency and resistance come from…
- Being busy
- Maybe being risk adverse
- Perceived (and actual) threats to professional identity

DyKnow software really takes advantagenof the tablet PCs’ functionality, making it worth the tablets’ extra cost

Key implementation stages (from John Kotter)
- Establish a sense of urgency
  - Generate cognitive dissonance!
- Create a guiding coalition
  - The leadership team has to be on board
- Develop a vision and strategy
- Communicate the change vision
  - Repetition of message, vision, goals, etc. is key
  - Lead by example
- Empower educators for broad-based action
  - Lots of just-in-time professional development
  - Ongoing instrucational support
  - Reliable technology and infrastructure
  - Small, frequent, purposeful meetings
- Generate short-term wins
  - Teacher-sponsored demos and highlights, tied into concept of enduringnunderstandings
    - Repetition of this gradually overcomes the resisters
  - Teachers are asked to use DyKnow just once and have the lesson observed tonget feedback
  - There is a curriculum to foster a sense of responsibility amongnstudents
    - Students carry around eggs first; if an egg breaks, the student has to gonthrough a process before she gets another one
    - Later students graduate to laptops but have to leave them at school
    - Finally students get the laptops 24–7
- Consolidate gains and produce further changes
  - “You don’t know how comfortable you are until you start moving on”
  - Keep stressing ‘here’s where we were 2 years ago and look how much progressnwe’ve made’
  - Andrew is using a blog to keep staff, students, and parents informed ofnprogress
  - Work on facilitating dispersed leadership
- Anchor new approaches in the culture of the school
  - Recognize how culture already has changed and build upon it
  - Foster a climate of continuous improvement (kaizen)

Scott’s trip to Mumbai:pics at Flickr, movies atnYouTube.