How the pandemic impacts educational innovation

Hi, I’m Tom Barrett, and this article is from the Dialogic Learning Weekly. A Friday newsletter that explores ideas, inspiration and insight about Leadership, Learning and Innovation.

Which way?

Diverging paths of innovation

The speed that educators adapted to a 100% online teaching and learning experience was incredible. Digital transformation and strategy, originally designed to take years, compressed to weeks, if not days.

I saw first hand in the school partnerships I support in Australia, the rapid problem solving and collective ingenuity. It would be interesting to have seen how other industries would have coped with such a fast-paced practice change.

But it is the differences that I find myself reflecting on the most. The experiences of lockdown and digital transformation have been highly varied, not least between the different states in Australia.

My wife is a Principal of a specialist primary school for children with significant social, emotional and behavioural challenges. They never closed their doors. At one stage, deep into lockdown, her school was the only one open in the state.

The experience of change and innovation, forced, urgent, has been different from school to school, state to state, country to country. This…