Learning from ExtremesOECD Education, Public Forum, Paris, November 2010

Charles Leadbeater

Your vantage point determines what you can see…

To see the future of education we all go to Finland

But radical innovation usually comes from the margins, entrepreneurs with few resources meeting huge

need

Everyone believes in education

Education + technology = hope

But lots of people think education is dysfunctional and fails too many

Most reform starts from the supply side

Formal Informal

Sustaining

Disruptive

Location

Innovation Type

Mapping education innovation

Improve

Formal Informal

Sustaining

Disruptive

Location

Innovation Type

Mapping education innovation

Better versions of the schools we have…

Increasing productivity, yield, effectiveness…

Good people teaching, well trained, well motivated and supported in the right conditions, measures,

accountability

Improve is essential but not enough…

Reinvent

Formal Informal

Sustaining

Disruptive

Location

Innovation Type

Mapping education innovation

Creating radically different kinds of school

Learning with and by not to and from

Personalised learning by…

Place,Timing, Pace, Space, Curriculum, Assessment

Big schools that feel smallTeachers as coaches

Pupils as self-reflective protagonists Problem/question oriented learning

Collaborative and real world

Philosophy of learning/shared visionCollaborative culture

Flexible use of resourcesKnowledge and information sharing

Constant learning

But…

There are lots of obstacles and traps on the journey from improve to

reform

And…

Even that may not get all you need because what happens outside

school matters so much

Supplement

Formal Informal

Sustaining

Disruptive

Location

Innovation Type

Mapping education innovation

Schools working in conjunction with parents, families, community

development

Social and emotional pre-conditions for learning

Aspiration and ambitionCultural change in communities

Challenges…Where do you invest?

What people and skills do you need?Are schools the right vehicle?

Transform

Formal Informal

Sustaining

Disruptive

Location

Innovation Type

Mapping education innovation

Learning new things in new ways in new settings…often without

teachers, schools, textbooks …

Pull not push

Motivation is key: extrinsic and intrinsic

Learning through…

Different people, technologies, places for learning

Learning asmaking, doing, earning activity

DiffusionScaling

Spreading

Improve Supplement

Reinvent Transform

Formal Informal

Sustaining

Disruptive

Location

Innovation Type

Competing and complementary strategies

Improve Supplement

Reinvent Transform

Formal Informal

Sustaining

Disruptive

Location

Innovation Type

Competing and complementary strategies

System Change

ManagerDetail

Incremental Total Quality

CollaboratorPartner

NegotiatorCampaigner

VisionaryDesignerAdaptiveChallenger

HackerEntrepreneurMaverickRenegade

Formal Informal

Sustaining

Disruptive

Location

Innovation Type

Leading: four styles, we need all of them

Standard schoolsIncreased enrolments

Improved access

CommunalHomesWork

New kinds of schoolsLearning villagesStudio schools

Real world Railway stations

Cafes

Formal Informal

Sustaining

Disruptive

Location

Innovation Type

Where learning happens

Target DrivenQualified Teachers

ParentsMentorsCoaches

Collaborative teachingTeaching + many other

adultsSome peer learning

Self-organisedLight touch coaching

Peers

Formal Informal

Sustaining

Disruptive

Location

Innovation Type

Who leads learning

ContentKnowledge

National Curriculum

ResilienceEmpathy

Confidence

Capabilities21st Century Skills

Self determiningQuestions not knowledge

Formal Informal

Sustaining

Disruptive

Location

Innovation Type

What is learned

All our efforts go into scaling improvement strategies that

push learning

To meet the really big needs we need transformative innovation

that pulls people to learning because it motivates them and

spreads by word of mouth