Systemic Innovations and the Role of Change-Technology: Issues of Sustainability and Generalizability

Abstract

There has been increasing interest in issues of sustainability and scalability concerning educational innovations and reforms. In Singapore, the Ministry of Education in the first IT MasterPlan for Education has equipped all schools with adequate IT infrastructure and teacher training. After seven years into this investment, the “take-up” of technology for learning has been generally at the basic level. Three challenges lie ahead in the effective integration of IT into the curriculum for meaningful student learning: (1) how can schools embrace technology where school practices, curriculum, pedagogy, teachers’ and students’ beliefs are aligned to its effective use; (2) how can the process of change be facilitated systematically in schools such that these changes leverage on IT as a catalyst to enhance learning; and (3) how can policy-wide initiatives be set in place to enable schools, teachers, and teacher-training institutes to be fully aligned in order to enact systemic innovation change? This chapter discusses these issues as part of the research efforts arising from the Learning Sciences Lab (LSL).