Accelerating Digital Innovation in Schools through Regional Innovation Hubs and a Whole-School Mentoring Model

Project Information

iHub4Schools

Grant agreement ID: 101004676

DOI

10.3030/101004676

Project closed

EC signature date 9 November 2020

Start date 1 January 2021

End date 30 June 2023

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Europe In A Changing World - Inclusive, Innovative And Reflective Societies

Total cost

€ 995 875,00

EU contribution

€ 995 875,00

Coordinated by

TALLINN UNIVERSITY
Estonia

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - iHub4Schools (Accelerating Digital Innovation in Schools through Regional Innovation Hubs and a Whole-School Mentoring Model)

Reporting period: 2022-01-01 to 2023-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Te modern educational landscape is undergoing a significant shift, driven by the rapid integration of technology into classrooms. Schools are investing heavily in these technological advances to strengthen educational innovations. However, there's a dichotomy in progress. Despite policy decisions and substantial investments in digital infrastructure and professional training, an extensive educational transformation remains elusive. Some schools are thriving, using well-established strategies, while others remain rooted in traditional pedagogy, missing out on the advantages of technology-enhanced learning.

iHub4Schools is poised to bridge this gap. The project's objectives are twofold:
1) Creation of Regional Innovation Hubs: These hubs act as pivotal centers to spread digital innovation at various scales: local, regional, national, and even cross-border. A school mentoring model was designed and implemented through the hubs to cater intra and inter-school and wider community dynamics.
2) Enhancement of networks: By forming co-creation teams and national stakeholder networks, iHub4Schools aims to foster collaboration among universities, schools, industries, and policymakers. This synergy will streamline the introduction of cutting-edge technology-enhanced practices into schools.

From iHub4Schools' initiatives, five Regional Innovation Hubs have been developed, complemented with support mechanisms, School mentoring model and methods, and policy guidelines. Our project underscores the importance of strong policy and leadership for sustainable adaptation and acceleration of digital innovation. Moreover, fostering teacher collaboration, integrating digital maturity in school development plans, and ensuring motivation and incentives are crucial for a widespread shift in the educational paradigm.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

iHub4Schools established five hubs in Estonia, Finland, Georgia, and Lithuania promoting school-to-school mentoring structures. These hubs unified approximately 600 teachers, 16 industry partners, and various institutional/administrative units to foster the acceleration of digital innovation. Integrated within its five Regional Innovation Hubs, iHub4Schools laid the foundation for networks that encouraged collaboration between educational institutions, industry partners, and policymakers. This was geared toward streamlining the adoption of emergent technologies in schools.
The project targeted the creation of a knowledge base, blending evidence-based pedagogy-grounded strategies for technology-enhanced learning and whole-school peer-learning methodologies, more than 1500 learning scenarios and tasks were created by the teachers for variety of school levels and subjects to foster the development of students' digital competence.
iHub4Schools designed a adaptive school mentoring model addressing both inter and intra-school dynamics, which was piloted with more than 600 teachers. An incentive scheme was co-created to strengthen the roles of teachers and schools as mentors and mentees.
Consolidating project outcomes, iHub4Schools introduced a policy recommendation package, which was rooted in project work and was collaboratively developed with policy professionals and experts. It provides an insightful guide on establishing Regional Innovation Hubs and deploying school-to-school mentoring models, considering the diverse educational settings across different countries.

The potential for disseminating and leveraging these results is large. Our findings present a concise roadmap for educators, policymakers, and various stakeholders to drive meaningful change in education, emphasising the interplay between pedagogy and technology. The school mentoring model and related methods serve as invaluable resources for teacher trainers and mentors to support teachers to integrate technology into practice. Furthermore, the toolkit empowers a range of stakeholders to evaluate the uptake of innovations, while the support mechanisms provide a framework for mentoring program developers to establish sustainable professional communities.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The fulfilment of iHub4Schools main goal is the availability of a methodology and approach to support the acceleration of digital innovation through Regional Innovation Hubs. iHub4Schools aims to define the preconditions for the emergence of Regional Innovation Hubs and to understand and support their functioning mechanisms. Multi-stakeholder networks, bringing together different actors (practitioners, researchers, educators, policy makers and business representatives), will enable the creation and sharing of a knowledge base on what makes digital innovation sustainable and scalable. Schools piloting the innovation, will be integrated to the Regional Innovation Hubs as innovation agents who are sharing their best practices through the local mechanisms proposed by national stakeholder networks (regional training events, national conferences, integration of the practices to the teacher education programs and involving practitioners to the teacher
training etc). The major focus of the project is on supporting the schools to become innovation agents to spread the innovative practices on digital innovation. Through such an approach, it is possible to propose solutions on how to engage less active teachers and schools in embracing digital innovation, and how to support mentor teachers, which in turn supports the idea that all learners can be part of a learning process that supports the development of future skills.

School mentoring model proposed by iHub4Schools