pedagogy and collaborative cultures that build change knowledge and efficacy of results.
Time and again, districts are looking for solutions in the wrong places. When pressure mounts for results, as it has increasingly since No Child Left Behind (NCLB; 2001–2002) in the United States, and when shiny objects grab the attention of leaders and sponsors, it is inevitable that people want tangible solutions. Even though the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA; 2015–2016) replaced NCLB in the United States, there is no indication that the system has learned its lesson. It is becoming very clear that the pedagogical transformation of deep learning requires a cultural foundation that provides for the systemic coherence that is necessary for this work.
In sum, despite the millions of dollars invested and the hundreds of schools embracing digital resources and new instructional practices, there is an absence of models that indicate long-term, improved student outcomes and significant evolution of teaching and learning practices. This book aims to provide such a model of successful transformational change.
Change Knowledge
To say that technology has a limited impact on learning is not to deny the power of technology. Technology works when partnered with a professional capital framework, pedagogy, and change knowledge. Pedagogy is at the heart of learning, and change knowledge deals with motivating and supporting large numbers of people throughout the change process. The solution must focus on the whole system—all schools in a jurisdiction, sound pedagogy, and a link to measurable outcomes. Cutting across these three dimensions is change knowledge. Change knowledge involves what educators need to know to navigate the change process effectively, as a participant or leader, leading to greater ownership and impact.
According to David Cote, the former CEO of Honeywell, the most important thing about leadership is to be right at the end of the meeting, not the beginning (Solomon, 2014). To be right at the end of the meeting means that the group has processed complex ideas—developing clarity, capacity, and commitment in relation to an important goal and figuring out the best way to address that goal throughout the change process. An effective change process is one that shapes and reshapes good ideas as it builds capacity and ownership. There are two components to the definition. First, there is the quality of the idea. Second, there is the quality of the process to build new capacities. Change leadership involves bringing these two aspects together. For educators, integrating good ideas with capacity building is at the heart of our coherence framework solution to system change (Fullan & Quinn, 2016). We have found that when this is done well, the change process becomes voluntary but inevitable, as you will see in the following chapters. For example, although people in MGSD never imposed deep change, it occurred, and virtually everyone in the district came to embrace it.
In a good change process, people value each other and the ideas because they have had a say in the matter and because the ideas work. When the change process fails to attract buy-in from its stakeholders, it is often because the process involves digital dabbling.
Digital Dabbling
Unfortunately, superficial change in technology use, where the devices appear but teaching doesn’t change, seems to be the norm. We have seen district after district purchase tablets using a plan that boiled down to just putting some stuff out there and seeing what happens. In these cases, usually not much happens, or the lack of deep conviction for sustained learning from educators generates messy and incoherent results. We believe educators and districts are increasingly realizing that technology adoption alone is not working. They are worried about the limited impact and lack of results we discussed earlier in this chapter and are seeking new approaches to address these problems. Our goal is to help provide a road map to enable the transition from technology’s false promise to establishing learning as the foundation. Next, we summarize the babble problem and, in subsequent chapters, move toward a systematic solution.
Dabble Babble
Stories abound of digital initiatives in schools that soon fade. Doing the “laptop thing” achieves little, except to tell students that schools are not the places to learn. Students know that mere knowledge acquisition is not learning, and that they can get the content answer to almost any problem with the push of a button. Too much focus on using technology to quickly get easy answers all but guarantees a superficial or inconsequential outcome and manifests among students and staff as a lack of long-term interest in real change.
You can often immediately tell the difference between a well-planned and implemented technology rollout from one that involves dabbling. We have heard these comments from education leaders indicating the dabbling problem.
• “We are focused on a smooth deployment.”
• “Choosing the right device is first and foremost.”
• “We have completed our plan.”
• “We are rolling out carts and can’t wait to see the change.”
• “We are focusing on innovation and fun.”
• “We don’t send the laptops home.”
• “This will make life easier for teachers.”
• “We have a six-year rollout plan.”
• “We are rolling out to everyone in the first year.”
• “We are debating bring your own device (BYOD) and other alternatives.”
These sorts of statements are indicative of reliance on jargon in place of a crafted implementation plan. For example, “We are focusing on innovation and fun” provides no concrete details for how a device rollout will benefit teachers or students. It’s a litany of nonspecific platitudes rather than a plan of concrete processes to achieve results. If your district often communicates in this manner, it is time to stop and consider how to address the dabble deficits in your technology rollout plan.
Dabble Deficits
Devices are essential to the change process but only one part of a long journey, and the other parts are often overlooked. Districts often buy a little bit of this software and a little bit of that, hoping that something good will happen. But dabbling—without commitment to and focus on pedagogy and the culture; without investing in a sense of team and family in the classrooms, schools, and district; and without attention to the following common deficits—will guarantee limited progress.
• Lack of short- and long-term learning goals
• Lack of alignment and coherence
• Leader turnover or lack of leadership
• Goal changes midstream
• Acceptance of mediocrity
• Politics and institutional resistance
• Financial and resource issues
• Lack of human capital
• Lack of social capital
• Lack of decisional capital
• State and federal mixed messages about priorities
• A poor or weak culture
• Lack of collective will
• Lack of momentum
• Lack of communication with stakeholders
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