Recommendations: How to scale up digital innovation at school?

The goal of the research project iHub4Schools was to identify aspects that would contribute to the successful adoption and spread of technology-enabled educational innovation. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, as educational contexts, policies, and the needs and expectations of the individuals involved vary significantly. However, it is evident that with policy level support, funding, and collaborative programs, significant progress can be made.

A crucial aspect of implementing change in schools is cultivating a culture of leadership and garnering the support and willingness of school leaders to embrace innovation. While a few innovative teachers can act as catalysts for change, sustaining and spreading innovation among all teachers is essential for promoting learner-centered teaching practices in classrooms. 

Countries exhibit notable diversity, encompassing disparate educational systems, varying degrees of national wealth available to invest in their respective education systems, and varying levels of maturity in using digital technology in schools. Nonetheless, despite these varieties, numerous shared challenges have been noticed, uneven level of teachers’ digital competences been cited as one of the most important one. Very often on a policy-making level investments in hardware, software, and internet connectivity, are taking priority and the crucial aspect of cultivating digital practices get overlooked. 

Practical work with teachers, and interviews with different stakeholders, however, confirm that to ensure lasting and impactful changes, it is essential for teachers themselves to be motivated and interested in utilizing digital technology. 

Main recommendations that emerged from the research analysis are the following:

• Make improvement of teachers’ digital competences a national level focus and make sure that respective initiatives are meaningful for teachers themselves. It is a complex topic with many interwoven themes such as assessment practices, leadership or availability of digital learning materials. These initiatives need to be embedded in whole-school developmental processes and integrated into subject teaching with emphasis on how digital technology supports the learner’s learning and how to make students ready for the digital society. 
• Make sure that teachers have easy access to professional development programs. Mentoring schemes to support less experienced teachers, opportunities for more experienced teachers to share their experience to scale up best practices, different training schemes to further teachers’ personal as well as school teams’ competences.
• Support teachers’ expert networks for learning and sharing best practices to keep up with the rapidly changing digital world. Led by experts of the field these networks can be sources of inspiration and sharing. Networking events, training and online communities of practice, mentoring and opportunities for school-to-school collaboration, all can be occasions for educators to connect with peers who share similar interests and challenges, exchange ideas, and collaborate with digital projects.
• Prioritise school leadership issues and value school autonomy. Clear vision, common understanding of goals and aims, collaborative culture and skillful management are crucial for sustaining a school innovation. Provide school leaders with education, guidance, and mentoring to understand and manage methods for promoting sustainable digital innovation within their schools.
• Provide tools for evidence-based competence development.  Openness and transparency about competences and practices are very important. Headmasters and teachers should be equipped with the skills to work with assessment tools collaboratively, valuing collective reflection and shared understanding that guides improvement practices. School owners must incorporate assessment information into broader management practices and support improvements through various means.

You can find more on our website: https://www.ihub4schools.eu/

Representatives of the iHub4Schools consortium were invited as speakers by the DIGI ENE Initiative. You can find below links to very interesting presentations:

Digitally-innovative School, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgA8cQxgEtg&t=1s

Mentoring methods as support mechanism to foster digital innovation, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi6PVcTzJmc&t=14s