Embedding Innovation - case studies and key findings of the research

Embedding innovation - case studies and key findings of the research

ARTICLE | Maret Staron, Manager, TAFE NSW ICVET

Third in a series of articles highlighting the findings of the research report by Marie Jasinski, Innovate and Integrate: Embedding innovative practices (2006). The research was funded by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. For full research report (243 pages) go to the Innovate and integrate home page

The focus of this third article on Marie Jasinski’s research into Embedding Innovation is on the eight key findings of the research and on the three case studies –an organisation, GIPPS TAFE; an innovator, Michael Coghlan; and an innovation, digital storytelling from the perspective of Carole McCulloch.

These case studies provide a range of perspectives on e-learning innovation diffusion within the VET sector. They informed the development of the Jasinski and Miller embedding strategy - which will be featured in the next and final part of the series.

An organisational perspective – getting down to business

Case study 1: Gipps TAFE

Peter Whitley GIPPS TAFE (Central Gippsland Institue of TAFE) has developed a business approach to embedding innovative practice. The case study identifies the key organisational factors that have progressed its vision of becoming the best quality provider of flexible learning solutions in Australia. The core is a clear vision shared by all.

The key organisational enablers for Gipps TAFE are:

Flexible learning is the vision and it is shared by all: Gipps TAFE aims to be the best quality provider of flexible learning solutions in Australia
A CEO who drives the vision
An e-learning champion at senior levels
An experienced and talented innovation team dedicated to the task
A business approach to building capability
Committed and supportive senior managers.

The ten top tips from Gipps TAFE for successfully embedding innovative e-learning are:

Ask four key questions for embedding new practice and achieving results

Do I have the right teacher?
Are the resources available?
How am I going to market this?
Is the learner group or the market ready?

Personalise your stories for different stakeholder groups to increase your strike rate and your reach

CEO – a numbers story
Politicians – heart stories
Managers – achieving business goal stories
Teachers – stories about better work/life benefits for them as teachers, the offshoot is that there may be benefits for your students

Have a senior champion to advocate
Focus on utilising rather than developing products
Think about the bigger picture and long term sustainability
Have a specialisation
Use multiple strategies
Integrate development and utilisation as a parallel process
Have a distributed and ‘embedding’ model
Use an investment model.

An innovator – there’s something special about Michael

Case study 2: Mapping an innovator’s journey

This case study mapped Michael Coghlan’s jouney as a pioneer of online voice tools in VET. The aim was to provide insight into the role and contribution of an innovator in VET and to capture the essence of what is required to utilise their unique talents.

Michael Coghlan is an Advance Skills Lecturer in TAFE – South Australia. Marie Jasinski extracted ten key issues from the interview with Michael and she suggests you use them as conversation starters about the role of innovators in your organisation.

An innovative practice is often initiated and developed outside a work context and there is a time lag before the work place is ready to embrace it
An innovative practice is often initiated through personal interest and motivation and out-of-hours investment on the part of the innovator
Active networks are critical to sustaining the innovative practice and motivation
Often champions see the potential before the innovator does
Catalyst opportunities can propel the innovation and innovator into the spotlight
There is a difference between interest in innovation and interest in change processes – innovators may not skilled at or interested in leading the implementation of an innoation
Innovators look for opportunities to ‘buy’ their autonomy
Organisations can be passive or active supporters of innovators
There is an uneasy relationship between innovators and workplace
Organisational restructuring destabilises innovation.

An innovation – embedding digital storytelling

Case study 3: Carole McCulloch

Carole McCulloch Digital storytelling is an e-learning innovation that is being successfully embedded across the VET sector. This case study maps the development of digital storytelling from Carole McCulloch’s perspective, a pioneer of digital storytelling in VET and facilitator of the Digital Storytelling Network.

Carole’s case study highlights the complex range of factors that have been catalysts and enablers of digital storytelling across the VET sector.

The following ten points are the key issues extracted from the interview with Carole.

An innovative practice is often initiated by a group of enthusiasts who build initial expertise and then influence uptake
Seek alternative sources of funding if one avenue does not work out
The backing of a champion at senior levels cannot be underestimated
Selecting the right level of technology for the user group makes a difference
A catalyst for success in embedding a new practice includes working with a multidisciplinary team who share a common vision
A facilitated and funded network provides an anchor and support for the uptake of an innovation
An innovation that demonstrates immediate benefits, solves a training problem, and is easy to learn, can be embedded very quickly
Sophisticated use of an innovation like digital storytelling can have humble beginning as starting from the personal gives meaning and builds confidence
Interest in digital storytelling can be a catalyst to develop computer skills as people are motivated to learning new skills in order to complete a task
An innovation like digital storytelling that is adaptable to a range of contexts, easy to use, costs little, places small demands on the infrastructure, and demonstrates immediate benefits is a formula for successful embedding.

Some key highlights from Carole’s interview include: passion is the driver; a champion is critical; being core drivers of spreading the innovation; acknowledging different styles; and using networks to influence.

A common and consistent message

Marie Jasinski found that there was a common and consistent message throughout the research - that the embedding process must be based on:

A clear vision for e-learning
Be driven by champions
Explored from multiple perspectives
Involve a range of stakeholders over a period of time
Have committed support
There is no one way to do it.

That is, it’s about systemic change, rather than systematic change.

The eight key findings

Marie's eight findings are based on analysis of case studies, literature review, findings of the RIPPLES survey (see second article in this series), collaboration with international researchers, two of whom became her research advisors (Dr Daniel Surrey and William C Miller), interviews, email, forums, workshops, feedback at conferences, a wiki, conversations with critical readers and an innovation styles assessment.

Marie Jasinski concluded that there were eight key findings.

Available time and competing priorities are limiting factors for engaging with e-learning innovations
There is a shift away from the ‘e’ and back to ‘learning’
There is an organisational readiness chasm
Purposeful use of technology is a core competency in a knowledge society
Targeted support is required to implement an innovative practice
Embedding innovative practice requires diverse strategies and styles
The skewed view of ‘innovators’ limits opportunities to embed innovative practice
A strength-based orientation fosters innovation and builds capability.

1. Available time and competing priorities are limiting factors for engaging with e-learning innovations

Time and competing priorities are a significant barrier to engaging with e-learning. To introduce something new is a time based process. People make decisions about prioritising time including whether or not e-learning is a worthwhile investment
The criteria for making such a decision included several interrelated enablers:

a work culture that embraces and supports innovation
a robust technology infrastructure
technology tools that are appropriate for teaching and learning purposes
a senior champion that drives the process
a willingness to consult and share
supportive managers, peers and support professionals.

The cluster of enablers requires both individual and organisational commitment and provides a signal that e-learning is a desired and valued component of a teaching and learning repertoire and worth the time and effort.

2. There is a shift away from the ‘e’ and back to ‘learning’

To enable embedding of innovative e-learning practice requires a shift in emphasis from exploring technology tools to a better understanding of

e-learning pedagogy
client perspectives
demonstration of good examples of working models in local contexts.

Currently e-learning is a complementary practice and indicates that embedding efforts have been incremental. Greater clarity on what we are aiming to embed is needed – is it new technologies (‘e) or new pedagogies (‘learning’)? They may not be one and the same thing.

3. There is an organisational readiness chasm

Innovative practices are outpacing the readiness of organisational systems and services to provide infrastructure required to support these practices
Individuals have benefited from professional development, but it’s now evident there is a lack of equal and parallel attention to stakeholders, such as educational and IT managers whose ‘buy in’ is required to support the implementation
Of key concern to practitioners:
- technology infrastructure is a significant barrier to progressing an innovative practice, particularly lack of access to Web 2.0 tools
- limited consultation regarding technology-based decisions
- lack of active management support
- Consequently the focus on embedding (the use of an innovation by a critical mass as a routine practice) may be ambitious and premature until the systems are more fully aligned with each other and with practitioner requirements.

4. Purposeful use of technology is a core competency in a knowledge society

Social software needs to move from ‘cool tools’ to ‘core tools’ that are integral to participating in a knowledge society to express, share, collaborate, communicate and co-construct
Another reason why e-learning innovations are important to VET delivery – they support the new competencies required for living, learning and working in a knowledge society. They also need to be supported as legitimate and credible innovations.

5. Targeted support is required to implement an innovative practice

The focus on e-learning has moved from ‘why’ to ‘how’- this orientation needs relevant stakeholders to actively support implementation efforts. The need for better support was a dominant message from the field
Types of support included:

Types of support	Support enablers
Training	time mentoring practical hands-on experience access to networking opportunities and support that was personalised, localised and just-in-time
Technical support	competent, service oriented IT staff access to up-to-date hardware and software reliable robust systems
Pedagogical support	personal qualities and attributes such as motivation, willingness to engage and take responsibility modelling by peers and mentors sharing and collaborating experimenting with different learning models that incorporated technology
Administrative leadership	champions at senior level actively supportive and enthusiastic line managers

Theses enablers align well with Geoghegan’s (1995) early mainstream adopter needs. His observation was that early majority (mainstream) adopters are more concerned about teaching or learning solutions, and the demonstrated benefits and proven application of technology. They require:

shared decision making
peer support in a local context
a focus on teaching and learning
highly adoptable uses of technology.

This has implications for the design of professional development and marketing programs to encourage and support potential early mainstream adopters to engage with e-learning innovators.

6. Embedding innovative practice requires diverse strategies and styles

Diverse strategies are essential for a comprehensive approach to embedding an innovation. Miller (1999) proposes that all people have the capacity to be innovative, they just have different styles, approaches and strategies – these different strategies include:

Strategies	Involving
Exploring	discovering new perspectives assumptions unchartered territory
Visioning	developing a clear sense of long-term purpose with bold, ideal solutions to achieve it
Experimenting	combining and testing existing elements in novel combinations
Modifying	building on and optimising past and present achievements

All four styles represent legitimate and valuable kinds of innovations. All four are important for creating, implementing and embedding process
The strategies point towards a critical issue that impacts on whether innovative e-learning products will be readily adopted by educators and their organisations- does the degree of innovativeness of product or service match the degree of innovativeness sought by the educators and their organisations?
Catering for the diversity and matching innovation to need must be more explicit in planning and implementation processes.

7. The skewed view of ‘innovators’ limits opportunities to embed innovative practice

Managers and peers nominated by their peers as ‘innovators’ tended to have one particular style – Exploring. This focuses on only one of four legitimate approaches to innovation
If this group of practitioners is predominantly perceived to be innovative by their peers and their profile is Exploring, there are several issues to be considered for supporting the embedding of an e-learning innovation:

the perception that innovation is about exploring new territories can be seen as a limiting one
the Exploring profile may not be the most effective for embedding an innovation, yet those with this style are associated with being innovative
raising the profile of other approaches to innovation will be important for embedding as a suite of approaches is important to move an innovation forward
innovators with different approaches and strategies may not be recognised as innovators either by themselves or by their peers
there may be benefit in a greater emphasis on the diverse skill set required for successfully embedding an innovation
there may be different types of support required to meet the learning needs of these diverse approaches.

A conclusion drawn is that there may be great benefit in profiling the suite of different approaches required for creating, adopting, diffusing and embedding e-learning innovations.

8. A strength-based orientation fosters innovation and builds capability

Recent research (Staron et al 2006) on capability development in VET promotes a strength based orientation – this research shares many similarities with the findings from Staron’s research
While this research focuses on embedding innovation and the other on a broader focus on capability development, there is a meeting point – both emphasise that the following are critical to the change process:

rich learning environments
organisational enablers
diverse approaches and
interconnectedness between stakeholders.

Put simply, barriers are deficits, enablers are strengths and embedding anything is fostered by a strength based orientation
The enablers identified in this research align with enablers identified in research on strength based orientation to developing capability for working and learning in the knowledge era:

Resources, including funding
Infrastructure, including teaching, production, communication and student technologies
People and their commitment to innovation
Policies, including innovation, consultation and recruitment policies
Learning, with a refocus on pedagogy and client perspectives
Evaluation of effort, outcomes and customer involvement
Support through training, technical support, pedagogical support and administrative leadership.

An important insight of the research is the suggestion that embedding innovative e-learning practice is really about building individual and organisational capability.

The next and final article in the series will focus on the new Jasinski and Miller model for embedding innovation.

ICVET Promoting Emerging Practice, TAFE NSW International Centre for VET Teaching and Learning

Embedding innovation - case studies and key findings of the research