{"id":2444,"date":"2019-11-19T19:36:38","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T19:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/?p=2444"},"modified":"2024-10-15T22:02:06","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T22:02:06","slug":"needle-in-a-haystack-school-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/2019\/11\/19\/needle-in-a-haystack-school-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Needle in a Haystack: School Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

According to Chelsea White of the Christensen Institute, <\/em>there\u2019s a dearth of information about\ninnovation in schools across the country. In short, the \u201cinnovations schools\nare pursuing never makes it beyond the district office\u2014and when it does, it\u2019s\nnot reliably or consistently documented, shared, or promoted.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a project they call the Canopy, the institute is doing\nsomething about that. As stated in A VIEW\nFROM THE CANOPY: Building\nCollective Knowledge on School Innovation<\/a><\/em>, \u201cThe Canopy is a\ncollaborative effort to surface a more diverse set of innovative schools, and\ndevelop an index of approaches linked to student-centered learning.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Encouragingly, they\nfound<\/a> that traditional public schools which represents 67% of their dataset\nare \u201cwork[ing] towards student-centered learning regardless of governance model\nor circumstance.\u201d But they note that many schools of innovation are operating\n\u201cunder the radar.\u201d Rather than having a broad set of data on school innovation,\nthey conclude that instead there is an \u201cecho chamber\u201d surrounding K-12 school\ninnovation in which a \u201climited sampling is\u2026circulated word of mouth.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on their data, they were able to hypothesize on six\nkey questions: Approaches to implementation of learner agency are not being\ndocumented; Rural schools are struggling when it comes to innovation, whether\nit be implementation or recognition; Schools with a higher population of Black\nstudents may not have the same opportunities as others; Experiential learning,\nlearning from doing, have trouble scaling in schools of low income; Redefining\nstudent success can turn out to be different in marginalized communities; Lower-poverty\nschools may not meet the needs of marginalized groups of students.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the ACTE, we believe what is needed is for widespread innovation in our schools is a movement for change as opposed to a top-down dictum. The appropriate level to implement change is the state level because it is hard to find an urban district that has been able to execute a long-term plan of school improvement. Policies passed and leadership hired by one school board can easily be changed by the next. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Canopy <\/em>is an admirable project to gain insights about school innovations across the country.  The Christensen Institute should be applauded for \u201coffer[ing] a glimpse into important questions about how school innovation is evolving\u2026[and] that the education field should investigate further to ensure that student-centered approaches take root and grow.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to Chelsea White of the Christensen Institute, there\u2019s a dearth of information about innovation in schools across the country. In short, the \u201cinnovations schools are pursuing never makes it beyond the district office\u2014and when it does, it\u2019s not reliably or consistently documented, shared, or promoted.\u201d In a project they call the Canopy, the institute is doing something about that. As stated in A VIEW FROM THE CANOPY: Building Collective Knowledge on School Innovation, \u201cThe Canopy is a collaborative effort to surface a more diverse set of innovative schools, and develop an index of approaches linked to student-centered learning.\u201d  Encouragingly, they found that traditional public schools which represents 67% of their dataset are \u201cwork[ing] towards student-centered learning regardless of governance Read More ›<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":343,"featured_media":2445,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1062],"class_list":["post-2444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-innovation"],"acf":[],"author_names":["Bailey Takacs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/343"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2444"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2444"}],"wp:action-assign-author":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post\/2444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}