Innovation and Building R&D Capacity in Schools - A Conversation with Jennifer Groff

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

You know, thankfully it's not a cookie-cutter type approach. You really cannot bring in a model and say this works. We have a lot of research that shows what does work, but the real work and the work that we do is really crafting that with them and modifying and adjusting it for the context and the community that we're working with.

Welcome. Thanks for joining us again on the Future Learning Design Podcast. This week, I'm really happy to be talking with Jennifer Groff, who's an educational engineer, designer, and researcher focusing on redesigning learning environments and systems. Currently, Jen is the Innovation Fellow at the WISE Qatar Foundation, where she's leading the development of their Global Innovation Hub, a platform helping schools to build their capacity to transform. Previously, Jen was the Chief Learning Officer for Lumiar Education, a network of innovative redesigned schools. She has spent much of her career doing leading-edge work at MIT on new learning pedagogies and game-based assessment, and recently earned her PhD from the MIT Media Lab. Jen was co-founder of the Center for Curriculum Redesign, an international NGO dedicated to redesigning the general curricula for the 21st century. She was also the Vice President of Learning and Program Development for the Learning Games Network, and served as the technology expert on the OECD Innovative Learning Environments project. She was a Fulbright scholar to the UK at the FutureLab Education in Bristol, and as a former K-12 educator, Jen was named one of the 12 Microsoft Innovative Teacher Leaders in 2005 and one of the top 100 influencers in edtech 2017-18. Please do connect with Jen on Twitter @jsgroff, or on LinkedIn.

Hey Tim.

Hey Jen. Hi, how are you? Nice to meet you.

Yeah, nice to meet you too. How are you doing?

Awesome. Yeah, I'm good, I'm good. So yeah, I would just love to hear a little bit more about the WISE Innovation Hub.

Yeah, so that's actually my role this entire year. So I'm the first fellow at WISE, uh, research and focused on innovation there, which has been really great. And so We are in the developing phase. We launched this summer the WISE Innovation Hub, which is essentially meant to be a platform to be a resource and facilitator of deep change for schools that are looking to do that deep change. So our work actually started before COVID We started in January. And so a lot of our work is about how to set up an individual innovation lab inside of a school to act as an engine of R&D, essentially, for them to identify problems or gaps or directions that they want to move into, and then to work work with us to study that problem, quickly build prototypes, try them out, pilot them, collect feedback, what's working and what's not, to innovate their way to where they want to go. And so the schools that we currently work with are schools that are already very redesigned in their model, and they're looking to continue to engineer their way to where they want to get to and make sure that's working well, or schools that are a bit more on the traditional side but are trying to do what I call the chasm jump, which is moving from the traditional model to competency-based or mastery-based, which really is like trying to replumb a house because in order to do that, you have to redo all of the foundational structures that we use in school. And so those are the schools we work with now. And then of course COVID came along and this year has been hard in so many ways. But I have to say, for me, who's worked in this space for 20 years, to see the movement in the field has been outstanding because, you know, we are very conservative as a field and don't take a lot of risk. And it's just been great to see the changes that have happened.

That's interesting. What you just said about innovation is like the last thing on the list often, right? And I've had that a lot this year with schools and school leadership where in a way you just can't even talk about it because there's just responding and dealing with the current situation. And so that's just made me think a lot about the place of innovation. So I guess that kind of leads to the obvious question within those structures and those requirements and demands of the day-to-day work, How can we raise up the feeling of the need for innovation and as well as allowing it to be easier to do, I guess, right?

Yeah, so I agree. And just to say that, you know, I think it's totally understandable that schools have that perspective. And I spent enough time in schools as a teacher and then as some form of support person in terms of instructional strategist or innovation specialist, whatever it was, to understand that and to know why that is. You know, I think the platform is burning and I really do believe that the old model of education is burning down. And not to be too hyperbolic, but there's just so much about the old model that doesn't work and hasn't worked for quite some time. And by work, I really mean that there isn't research to support it. In fact, there's a lot of research to support that many of the common structures we just assume are fine, and because we've done them for so long, for so many decades, are actually really problematic. And not only that, but then on the flip side, where kids need to go, where the world that they're entering into, the world they're in now, requires such a different education than we have, you know, largely structured for them. And so I think that's our work, and that is the work of the field at the moment, is to help create that burning platform that really makes that front and center and clear, and to help mitigate some of the concern of risk, all the stigma that comes with innovation, especially in education, right? That these are children's lives and this is their education and we can't mess with that. But we're not just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. We're bringing into schools often long-studied structures and practices and pedagogies Some tools and methods are newer, but even those are largely studied and supported at this point. And so I don't think that the risk is near there as much. So, so that's part of it. And the other piece, you know, and this is really the ethos of the hub and the work that I do broadly is really working to embed that structure and those methods into the school itself so that it cannot be teased out. It's so embedded in the structure and that takes usually a couple of years to get to that point, but that you so embed it in not only the operating structures, of the school, but in the practices of how you organize teaching and learning and assess it, that it cannot be pulled out. So that's really the subversive, not so subversive agenda of this work, is to really help schools get to that place. Because our goal is never to come in and just say, oh, you need the walls painted. So the painters came, we're here to help change the color, and now you're good to go. You know, and by, you know, I'm using paint as a metaphor for curriculum or assessment tools or whatever it might be. And we can do that, and I have done that. But for me, that's not the ultimate goal. Because I mean, where we're going in the next 20 to 40 years on the planet is going to have massive impacts on all of our lives, but especially in education, because of the shifts in workforce that will be required and the skills that will be required. We already see it now in the adult workforce. So education is going to always need to be nimble and navigating its own course to figure out how to best serve their populations. And so for me, I almost feel that that is the fundamental skill of education at at this point, that it has to be about that, about navigating those dynamics. And that's just a totally different mindset shift for most people.

Yeah, no, absolutely. But it's so interesting. I put out a post relatively recently about that idea of kind of trying to innovate and kind of get agile within the box, because it's always about, you know, thinking outside the box and bringing something totally new in from the side. But actually, as you said, there's something about trying to embed innovation and just ways of working into the structures of the school that seems to be absolutely necessary. Otherwise it is just this add-on, this extra that is something you can put down to the bottom of the list when there's a global pandemic on. So maybe could you talk through an example of, of kind of embedding those kinds of approaches into the structure? And yeah, for sure, it takes time to do that, but for people to have just kind of a practical idea of what that means.

Sure. So a big part of this work is helping to just build the skills and capacity in the team members at the school to do that work. So having more skills or awareness in how to do, you know, quick data collection. So what's working now? What is working for the learners? And then being able to quickly design and pilot something based on what new direction you want to take it in. Or it may even come from the outside. They may not even collect data on what's happening in the school in the first place. They may say, we know we need to get to moving to competencies. We really don't target these broader competencies that are talked about so much in in the field today. And so we know we need to get there. How do we even begin to bring those in? And so part of this work is helping them just become familiar and feel comfortable with those quick cycles, often called agile, but helping them look at how to be inventive themselves, look at how to pull prototypes, examples from the world that they want to work with, how to tweak them based on their visions, their view on it, on their contexts and parameters. Because as we know, part of the challenge in education is, you know, thankfully it's not a, cookie-cutter type approach. You really cannot bring in a model and say this works. We have a lot of research to show things, what does work, but the real work and the work that we do is really crafting that with them and modifying and adjusting it for the context in the community that we're working with. And so the more that the team that we're working with in the school has the capacity to do that work, the farther and faster it can go, and the more it can become then embedded in classroom instruction. And so whereas before, you know, units of instruction in some schools get planned out years in advance, or at least a year in advance, or the curriculum for next year, you know, that is not adaptive and responsive. And so, you know, giving those tools and skills and, and the space and support to then take the risk and try those new things, then when they are doing a new project that they normally would do, it just is instinct to then look at what worked about that, what didn't, do a quick AAR or Scrum afterwards and look at what worked about that and what they want to take going forward and what modifications they would make next time. And so that, that's a big piece of this work is just, just those skills and capacities that, you know, most teachers are not exposed to. I certainly wasn't when I spent time in schools. I was exposed to it at other places and organizations that, that led those skills. So, so that's, that's a big piece of it. And then the other piece, I would say, sort of goes hand in hand with the direction we're advocating for schools to go in, which really is about student agency. It really is about getting the kids' hands on the wheel and them driving the bus, which is really scary for a lot of schools, I think whether they might use that language or not is to be debated, but, you know, at the end of the day, it's not typically what's been done. But also, we know that's what has to happen, that if we're not doing that, we're literally sending them out into this complex world without the agency and the self-direction with how to navigate it. And so thankfully, because if, you know, if a school is willing to really embrace that direction, then you almost have to be constantly embracing these sort of innovation strategies because it's a new world. It's a whole different direction, and the whole point is that you create a much more flexible environment so that kids kids have the ability to navigate towards where they need to go and to build those skills and capacities.

And with the Innovation Hub, you are then a partner in that process with the school, right? So, so you were talking about the pilot schools there. Have there been successes for those schools in the pilot in which they've got to a moment where they're like, oh, okay, you know, now we get it, now we can fly with it, or, you know, as you support them to have a bit of their own agency as a school to, you know, run with it, I guess.

Yeah. So we, that's exactly what we do. We partner with a school to help do that capacity building within their school and to help do some of the co-design and navigating, you know, because we're not in schools full-time, we have the time and space to really then become the experts in all of the other parts that we bring into this work. So we get to spend a lot of time then looking at the research and current tools and models and resources that the school can use, things that schools just don't have time to dig into. And so we bring all that to the table and we work with them and they what's coming up for them, where do they want to go? And we co-design that together and coach them to build that capacity. You know, I haven't asked them yet, you know, so do you feel like we can walk away? You ready to go? But my sense, I mean, we've been really amazed at the work that they've done already since summer was when we first started with our first two schools. It's really been outstanding. And you know, that's what humans are great at. We're really resilient and adaptive. And when you just give the right space and support to do so. And so we've been really happy and pleased with seeing the progress that the schools have made. And it has been challenging. Part of the hard work of this type of work is getting to that tipping point where people start to get it, right? They can start to, oh, okay. Like I can understand now where we're going with this, or, or that we don't have a full map mapped out for the next 5 years yet. You know, that's fundamentally not what we're trying to do. And that's not always comfortable for some people, but that's all they've known. And so if you're taking out that model and not giving them something immediately in place, it's scary and it's unclear. But what we are giving them in place are tools to begin to navigate that. And once those click in, then you start to see that they get it. They get that now they're driving the bus from the road, not from top-down visioning what it should be. And then they can do so much. So, you know, our goal is not to be with these schools for 10 years, although we would love to. The goal really is to be, you know, building their capacity so that they only need touchpoints, so to speak, after maybe a year or two of working with us of supports here and there, but they're largely driving these processes going forward.

Brilliant. Yeah, no, that's great. And you mentioned then some of the work of the OECD and within the global context, you know, you've got these larger organizations, nodes in the network who are, you know, are significant in terms of their influence. And to be quite frank, there's quite mixed messages, I would say, coming from, for example, the OECD, you know, you've obviously got a real focus on PISA test scores and standardization. Measurement at the same time as really interesting frameworks like the Learning Compass. So yeah, I would love to then just ask you about maybe a sense of where it came from and some of the discussions that you had in the development of that as it grew.

Yeah, so I think that tension or dichotomy in a way, you know, OECD is aware of that and they, and Andreas has talked about that for a long time in, in looking to how to innovate in the PISA, and that's why every time it's offered there is a section that is the, you know, the innovation end of it, where I think the last one was collaborative problem solving was the dimension that they were looking at measuring. So they're aware of that. And I would say, you know, I think what the OECD is really incredible at and well positioned for is doing these massive global sort of initiatives to bring everyone onto the same workspace around a major global question or problem. And they did that brilliantly with the Education 2030 work. That work was building working on a project, I think it was in 2003 called DeSecco. It was about what are, what are the modern skills and competencies that should be in the curriculum as well, which was actually quite progressive for 2003. And so this project, I think it started in 2015 or '16, was really looking at updating that and saying, we need to revisit this. You know, the world has shifted dramatically since 2003. What should that new framework look like? And so they brought over 30 countries together and conducted years of research and analysis to answer that question. And what What makes the framework that came out of this project, the Learning 2030 Compass, so brilliant is that it's not prescriptive, which the OECD knows that it can't get too prescriptive or it won't get adopted because they don't want to get in the business of telling schools what they should teach, but it has to be organizing enough so that it gives some guiding direction on what to do. Right. And so I do think there actually does need to be work, more work done on the actual skills and competencies under the hood, getting a bit more granular. And I think that they're doing that now. We had begun that work during the initial phase of the project before the Compass was launched. And so the Compass really is beautiful at helping to paint this picture. And it also thankfully embeds into it some pedagogy as well. So student agency is on the Compass. Well-being is not necessarily a pedagogical dimension other than if your learning environment is not organizing itself towards learner well-being, then that's a big problem. And so I really appreciate that they embedded that into the framework because rightly so, as the research supports, you simply cannot help a learner cultivate these broader competencies in an environment that does not give them agency to do so. You can't tell someone to passively learn about leadership, right? Or you can't tell them to sit there while you teach them about ethical thinking. You really have to be an active participant taking control of your own learning with this. And so the Compass is great at that. I think where the Compass stopped, and I think, you know, where we stepped in and others like yourself doing this transformation work in schools is bringing that to life then. It's still a big leap to ask a school or a school system to then use this beautiful Compass is to guide them and still get up the mountain, right? And I really, I use the Sherpa metaphor a lot for our work because Sherpas help, you know, they've been up the mountain, they're conditioned to go up the mountain, they know what you need, they know when you don't have enough oxygen and you need to sit down, you know, they've been there before and they're guiding it, but you're the one going up the mountain. They're really there in service of you. And so we use that metaphor a lot with the schools. And I think the OECD, I know that they're doing some work still in this direction, but it's just not what there is set up to do. And I think it's that translational research piece. It's how do you take this stuff and now apply it into the real world and hopefully have a feedback mechanism that goes back. So that's largely— we use the compass a lot with the schools that we work with as a guiding North Star.

That's brilliant. One of the things I really like about it is the simplicity of it, actually, because I think everybody for the last however many decades has been overwhelmed with different lists of competencies and skills. And everyone's got their own specific list that they they prefer, whether it's the IB Learner Profile or whatever. But actually when you boil it down in the Compass, it really cuts to the heart, I think, of things, you know, those 3 transformative competencies, right? Taking responsibility, creating value, and reconciling tensions and dilemmas. Like, that's good. They don't even need to say student agency 'cause it's just built into the DNA of that. And the other thing I think I really like about it and goes back to what you were saying earlier about the cyclical nature and that iterative process is the anticipate, act, and reflect cycle around the edge. And it's, you know, there's really a lot of untapped potential, I think, in that. I mean, for me, it goes way beyond just a nice graphic and a big headline. I'm glad to hear that you guys are using it more and it's resonating with schools a bit.

Yeah, very much. And I think if nothing else, at least one of the first things it offers is that opening of the door for schools that that maybe have heard about competencies or know that personalized learning is starting to become a very big trend and that they need to be part of that conversation, but don't know where to start. And so to be able to stand on the foundation of, you know, this isn't just me or some other researcher saying what you should do, that it's 30 countries over 4 years did an analysis looking at what modern schools should be embodying is really powerful and really just gets you to a nice starting place to then build that out. That's still a lot of work to go from there, but that I never underestimate underestimate the value that that brings in this work, because at the end of the day, schools are still all over the map in terms of what curriculum they use, how they organize it, what structures they use, what assessment— I mean, it's, it's every ensemble or combination you can imagine. And so this conversation, I'm sure, as you know, is every school is so different and so unique. And that's why we think this type of strategy is so powerful, because it has to be that customized and tailored to these groups of people that come together to build a learning community.

Because ironically, that's one of the things we can't lose is that diversity in the system, right? Because if we go from one standardized model to just a new and different one that, that just has a different set of north stars, if you like, you know, then that's precisely not what we're trying to do.

And again, loads of research that shows that doesn't work, right? I mean, we have decades of education reform research that says that is not an effective approach.

Yeah, yeah. So we have this very real tension between making sure everything's kind of on track and, you know, that we're doing the right thing, at the same time as this dynamic of innovation. And those two things just have to learn how to kind of play together, right? And become somehow symbiotic or, you know, in order to move forward, because neither of them will go away. And we know the platform's burning and we need to innovate. Away, but at the same time, that other tension is not going to go away with those other accountability and certainty metrics and measures.

Yeah, 100% agree. But I would also just say, it's all perceptual. So I could very easily, with a research base the size of a mountain behind me, go look at a traditional school model and say, none of this is working. So we're so afraid to let go of what was, even though there's so much evidence that— I mean, whole departments, not to call out whole system structures are problematic, but they really are, you know, in many ways, not fully, but they have many things that need redesigning and addressing. And there's, like I said, just loads of evidence to support that. And so I think it's just the lens that you're looking at. And, you know, I do think we need more evidence and research base behind these innovative models. That's part of the work of the hub and why WISE is, is, you know, leading this initiative because they, they take on that kind of research. I do think we need more examples of that. When I was at Lumiar as the chief learning officer there, Lumiar is amazing network of innovative schools. It's one of the one of my favorite school models I've ever seen in all my travels around the world. We, we just didn't have enough evidence of the impact, and that, but that's part of the problem is that all of the system structures need rebuilding. So all of the outcomes, the outcomes that we care about in education systems, if we're only looking at test scores by this point in 2021, we must realize that that's a big problem, right? And yet we still do that. And so I think it's a lot of a perceptual shift. So again, more, more we can make that platform burn. Our clear lids burning, I hope helps, but yeah, we, we definitely need more research base as well.

Yeah. Nice.

I mean, and at the end of the day, you know, I really believe that we're ultimately steering the future of education towards the innate sense of how people learn, that teachers already knew when they came into the profession. And if they're, you know, some of the teachers I've worked with over the years have been teaching now for, you know, some almost 40 years. And so I see it as just like some of it, just like layers of effects of the different policies and practices that have been layered on the system and therefore also then on the teachers. And our job is almost like peeling those layers back off and bringing them back to that, to sort of the core, the foundation of what we know of how people learn.

No, it's very interesting, isn't it? And it's trying to cut to the heart again, you know, as we said about the Compass, just cut to the heart of what it is we're trying to do rather than, as you say, so many initiatives, so much kind of jargonistic language or fads or initiatives that have come through And even as you mentioned, personalized learning, you know, sure, right? We know why that's important, but if someone's just presented with this pre-packaged, here you go, transform into this, you know, that's not an authentic development from where they are right now to where we know that they need to be in order to support the learners. So no, it's an interesting problem of change, right?

It's not for the faint of heart. I'll say that.

It's true. It is true.

It's long-haul work, really.

Yeah. But I think it is also also that something has just fundamentally changed about the world, right?

Yes.

You know, over the past 3, 4 decades, the world has been quite radically changing in the way that it kind of organizes itself. And we have to shift with that.

Yes. That's part of this burning platform that I feel that people, we underestimate the damage that the traditional structures do. And I think that's, to me, is like a bit like boiling a frog where it wasn't a big problem 20 years ago, but it just slowly became a big problem. And I think we just really underestimate because it's so familiar to us. We just assume that's safe and any variance from that may or may not be good. And I just don't see that. I see that there's immense damage being done by our traditional structures because it's disempowering their ability to navigate the world. It's disempowering their world, their ability to see complexity because most of them walk into schools where everything's chopped up into linear bits. You know, having a linear structured curriculum, I think, does damage to kids at this point because you are teaching them— you're literally— it's a— everything has dynamics to it like a game does, right? So a game will teach you, you learn the dynamics of a game. A game is just a model of the world, that's all games are. And so the school, your work, or your church, wherever you spend time, all has dynamics in training you in some way. And when you spend 12 years thinking the world is chopped up into linear bits and there's a right answer that's like that short, if the next page, you know, you're doing immense damage to these kids. They don't know how to handle then the complexity of the world. And we also need to paint a picture and create freedom to get to a better place then. And I think that is happening much more now than I started doing this work. First time, 2007 was the first school I took through a process like this. And so the amount that the world has shifted in that time makes this a lot easier than it was then. But, you know, I still think we have more work to do in the painting the example of of, you know, examples are out there. There are amazing innovative learning environments and they have a long history they're standing on. It's not like, well, I hope it turns out well, it's an interesting experiment. It's like, no, they have lots of outstanding graduates who you can go talk to and see how they're so empowered, you know? And so we do need more data, but—

Yeah, but it's not just a nice to have, right? And that's the thing. It's not like, it's not for a leafy suburb of California that has a load of money and they can just, you know, this is like fundamental life skill for me. Like, it was like this moment that I was like, yeah, like kids need this. Like fundamentally they need it.

I completely agree. And I think that, yeah, the more we can give kids that empowerment at a young age is everything. And when I first would go and talk to Lumiar students where, you know, there is no set curriculum. So they're always having voice and choice over their pathway as themselves and as the community. So that's not just like, it's all about me. They see themselves also as a person in a community and they're navigating, they get to have say over the direction of the school and everything. And those kids at such a young age are so articulate and mindful and self-aware and empowered. And I was on a panel, I don't know, last year or something. And one of the speakers was saying, you know, kids are so disheartened today and they're so freaked out, which is probably true. I don't doubt any of the things he was saying, but I said, not, not our kids at Lumiar. But why was that? You know, and it's because from a young age they've been empowered and they've been supported to navigate their own pathway in the complexity that they could handle at that time. Right. And so it's, you know, it's, I always, it's a trite thing to say. It's like, I've seen the future and it's beautiful. It's like, these schools are outstanding. These kids are outstanding. And I don't fear for them at all. And, you know, we used to get questions, well, cause the school ends at age 14. And so what do the kids do then? Well, they just go to traditional secondary schools. And so parents would always say to us, well, how do they do with that? Like, is that bad? And we had that concern too, but the kids do outstanding because is like navigating then traditional school models is like a sleepwalk, you know? Yeah. And they, and they get bored often, but they know how to fill in the gaps and take it on their own and do whatever they want then, or, you know, and drive their own pathway to college. So seeing 14-year-olds do that is just outstanding. So it's not, again, not like we don't have thankfully lights in the dark to point to, to say we have evidence of what this looks like and how powerful it can be.

Yeah, it's a good way to end, optimistic, not with the burning platform.

Gotta keep that burning platform though, Tim.

We need it, we need it.

But there are lights in the dark, gotta jump into the sea, but the island ahead is fantastic.

Good. Well, I'll meet you there.

Brilliant. Awesome. Perfect.

All right, thank you so much. Have a great day.

Cheers.

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