INNOVATION IN EDUCATION
By: Madhu Bala B
Tags: Creativity, Innovation In Education, Innovation, Integration, Education

Education is a social institution serving the needs of society .It is indispensable for society to survive and thrive. It should be not only comprehensive and sustainable but must continuously evolve to meet the challenges of the fast-changing and unpredictable globalized world. As 21st century is the century of Innovations, the world is changing and modern Technology has already become an intrinsic part of peoples’ lives today but educational Sphere remains constant at the same level. In this case, there is a Need for innovating it.

“Nothing changes if nothing changes.” Well if nothing changes, we stay the same. We don’t grow. We don’t evolve. We don’t get better. And that’s not going to work — not for you, and not for the world. We need positive change. We need new ideas. We need progress.

Education is closely related to schools and colleges and when people talk about school, they usually remember examinations, home works, or uninteresting classes. We realize that the actual pace of educational innovations and their implementation is too slow as shown by the learning outcomes of both school and college graduates, which are far from what is needed in today’s world.Lack of innovation can have profound economic and social repercussions.

What is interesting here is that while we are still indecisive of what to do with our struggling schools and universities and how to integrate our advanced inventions. Other nations in a short time successfully built world-class education systems.There is even an “Office of Innovation and Improvement” in the US Department of Education, which is intended to drive education innovation by both seeding new strategies and bringing proven approaches to scale.

TWO big questions arise: What interferes with creating and especially implementing transformative and much-needed innovations across schools and colleges in this country? How can we grow, support, and disseminate worthy innovations effectively so that our students succeed in both school and university and achieve the best learning outcomes that will adequately prepare them for life and work?

Let us first take a look at what is an educational innovation.

EDUCATIONAL INNOVATION:

“ Ideas are the source of innovation, innovation is the vital spark of all human change, improvement and progress .”

The purpose of any invention, therefore, is to create something different from what we have been doing, be it in quality or quantity or both.

To produce a considerable, transformative effect, the innovation must be put to work, which requires large-scale implementation. Innovation requires three major steps: an idea, its implementation, and the outcome from the execution of the idea and produces a change. In education, innovation can appear as a methodological approach, teaching technique, instructional tool, learning process, or institutional structure when implemented, produces a significant change in teaching and learning. So, innovations in education are intended to raise productivity and efficiency of learning and/or improve learning quality.A national education system is commonly the product of set of political, social, cultural, and economic effects.

A few examples of innovations in some areas that made a drastic impact on the whole educational system are:

Political (NCLB (No Child Left Behind Act), Race to the Top);

Social (Equal Opportunities Act, Affirmative action policy, Indivuals with Disabilities Education Act);

Cultural (Moral education, Multiculturalism, Blingual education);

Though these innovations left a significant mark on education, which of them helped in improving productivity and quality of learning?

EFFECTS:

Technology has always served as both a driving force and instrument of innovation in any area of human activity.

Just remember when video recorders, TV, educational films, overhead projectors, and multimedia first appeared in school. They brought so much excitement and hope into our classrooms!. Visuals brought reality and liveliness into the classrooms.

Information and computer technology offered more ways to retrieve information and develop skills. With captivating communication tools (iPhones, iPads, Skype, FaceTime), we can communicate with anybody around the world in real time, visually, and on the go. Today we are excited about online learning, mobile learning, social networking learning, technology tools (laptops, iPads, smart phones) or technology-based learning systems and materials,e.g. educational software, and web-based resources ,MOOCs, virtual reality. But can we say all this is helping to produce better learning?

Are we actually using these to make a difference in education and increase learning output?Has use of devices in schools led to better jobs? These are the basic questions I ask. The answers to these questions are ‘no’ and ‘probably not.

Innovative technology may bring performance enhancement in some ways but does not necessarily produce a direct benefit to education .

B ARRIERS TO INNOVATION:

There are reasons for the discrepancy between the drive for educational innovations of recent times and the daily reality of the education system.

First, If the society supports innovations in education, its educational system will continuously evolve and progress. If it does not ,education will stagnate and produce mediocre outcomes.Other harmful social and cultural trends exert a powerful influence. These include monetization of education, entitlement and egotism, which destroy education in general and the development of innovative spirit of students in particular.

Second, it is well known that higher education has been historically slow to adopt innovations for various reasons.Innovation is difficult to spread across school and academia because it disrupts the established routine and pushes implementers out of their comfort zone.Pockets of innovation give hope but we need a total, massive support for innovations across society.

Third, even when an innovation comes to life, it is of little worth without implementation . Innovation is not about talking the talk but walking the walk. Moreover, an innovation can make a significant difference only when it is used on a wide scale. To create innovations is not enough, they need to be spread and used across schools and universities, a more difficult task.

Last but not least, innovations grow in a favorable environment which is cultivated by an educational system .The ultimate question is, what innovations do we really need, and what innovations might we not need?

WHAT TO DO ?

To create innovations, we need innovators, and many of them.

When the invention is created, it must fall into a fertile ground like a seed and be cultivated to grow and bring fruit.

“Creative ideas vanish unless there is a receptive audience to record and implement them .”

When we try to innovate education, we often leave students out of the equation. We do not innovate in students’ learning, their mind, attitudes, behaviors, character and work ethics enough. Yet, we try everything we can to improve teaching (delivery), while what we actually need is to improve learning. In education, nothing works if the students do not.

CONCLUSION

Education desperately needs effective innovations that can produce high quality learning outcomes for all students. We can start by intensifying our integration of successful international learning models and creating conditions in our schools and colleges that foster and support innovators.

“I nnovation is one of those things that society looks at and says, if we make this part of the way we live and work, it will change the way we live and work”