Periodic Reporting for period 1 - iHub4Schools (Accelerating Digital Innovation in Schools through Regional Innovation Hubs and a Whole-School Mentoring Model)
Período documentado: 2021-01-01 hasta 2021-12-31
Today’s educational landscape is expected to address several challenges: a) schools are more and more equipped with new technologies, which should improve the pedagogical practices and support the personalisation of the learning process. In
schools, investments in the technologies have increased rapidly to promote technology-enhanced school innovations, but it is not clear if the change at the system level is happening. Policy level decisions have been made and investments in the ICT and professional development programs have been done, but it does not seem to be enough to force the widespread educational change and innovation needed to transform the majority of schools and teachers. It is well-known that while some schools are engaged in systemic, evidence-based improvement activities that follow a well-developed digital strategy, others keep the traditional way of teaching and learning and are not benefiting from the advantages of
teaching in a technology-enriched learning scenario.
iHub4Schools aims to tackle these challenges through two main objectives:
First, the goal is to establish Regional Innovation Hubs as sites of moderating and multiplying school-to-school mentoring structures to scale up the digital innovation on local, regional, and national level and across the countries and to develop a locally, methodologically and technologically adaptable whole-school mentoring model that embraces both inter- and intra-school levels, and that integrates continuous monitoring methodology including novel evaluation approaches and the Learning Analytics Toolbox. For this purpose, we establish establish co-creation teams and national stakeholder networks to enhance the collaboration between the universities, schools, industry partners and policy stakeholders to address the challenge of bringing rapidly developing technologies to schools and build a knowledge base of evidence-informed pedagogy-grounded technology-enhanced learning strategies and whole-school peer-learning methodologies. As a result, we provide the concept of Regional Innovation Hubs and engagement framework, School mentoring model and monitoring framework and policy recommendations.
schools, investments in the technologies have increased rapidly to promote technology-enhanced school innovations, but it is not clear if the change at the system level is happening. Policy level decisions have been made and investments in the ICT and professional development programs have been done, but it does not seem to be enough to force the widespread educational change and innovation needed to transform the majority of schools and teachers. It is well-known that while some schools are engaged in systemic, evidence-based improvement activities that follow a well-developed digital strategy, others keep the traditional way of teaching and learning and are not benefiting from the advantages of
teaching in a technology-enriched learning scenario.
iHub4Schools aims to tackle these challenges through two main objectives:
First, the goal is to establish Regional Innovation Hubs as sites of moderating and multiplying school-to-school mentoring structures to scale up the digital innovation on local, regional, and national level and across the countries and to develop a locally, methodologically and technologically adaptable whole-school mentoring model that embraces both inter- and intra-school levels, and that integrates continuous monitoring methodology including novel evaluation approaches and the Learning Analytics Toolbox. For this purpose, we establish establish co-creation teams and national stakeholder networks to enhance the collaboration between the universities, schools, industry partners and policy stakeholders to address the challenge of bringing rapidly developing technologies to schools and build a knowledge base of evidence-informed pedagogy-grounded technology-enhanced learning strategies and whole-school peer-learning methodologies. As a result, we provide the concept of Regional Innovation Hubs and engagement framework, School mentoring model and monitoring framework and policy recommendations.
After 12 months from the start of the project, iHub4Schools have reached 4 milestones and 11 Deliverables have been completed. In particular, in addiction to outcomes related to the project management and dissemination (such as the iHub4Schools website, the dissemination and data management plans), we achieved important scientific results reported in the following:
- iHub4Schools have performed systematic analysis of State of the Field in digital innovation in schools, which forms the basis for the whole iHub4Schools concept and addresses the following important aspects: a policy-level approach to digital innovation, the role of leadership in adopting digital innovation, models for describing teachers' pedagogical practices and frameworks for enhancing the adoption of digital innovation at the whole-school level. The report contributes directly to the activities planned in iHub4Schools to define the model of digitally innovative schools in iHub4Schools and evidence-informed approach to monitor the process.
- Characteristics of national stakeholder networks based on existing partnerships and pool of engagement events for different stakeholders have been defined with an initial version for stakeholder engagement with the engagement levels. The first version of sustainable Regional Innovation Hubs has been proposed.
- Consortium has created the first version of the School mentoring model in collaboration with all project partners through workshops, which ended up consisting of three parts: Conceptual model, Dynamic process model and Individual methods for mentoring. To understand the effect of the project to the adoption of digital innovation, the first version of the evaluation framework and the initial version of the evaluation toolbox has been proposed.
- Consortium organised 1st stakeholder engagement event: Online webinar “Covid19 as a Catalyst for Educational Change” to bring together different stakeholders (researchers, policy partners, school leaders and teachers) to discuss the lessons learnt from Covid19 distance learning situation, which could be seen as a catalyst for change to scale up digital innovation in schools.
- iHub4Schools have performed systematic analysis of State of the Field in digital innovation in schools, which forms the basis for the whole iHub4Schools concept and addresses the following important aspects: a policy-level approach to digital innovation, the role of leadership in adopting digital innovation, models for describing teachers' pedagogical practices and frameworks for enhancing the adoption of digital innovation at the whole-school level. The report contributes directly to the activities planned in iHub4Schools to define the model of digitally innovative schools in iHub4Schools and evidence-informed approach to monitor the process.
- Characteristics of national stakeholder networks based on existing partnerships and pool of engagement events for different stakeholders have been defined with an initial version for stakeholder engagement with the engagement levels. The first version of sustainable Regional Innovation Hubs has been proposed.
- Consortium has created the first version of the School mentoring model in collaboration with all project partners through workshops, which ended up consisting of three parts: Conceptual model, Dynamic process model and Individual methods for mentoring. To understand the effect of the project to the adoption of digital innovation, the first version of the evaluation framework and the initial version of the evaluation toolbox has been proposed.
- Consortium organised 1st stakeholder engagement event: Online webinar “Covid19 as a Catalyst for Educational Change” to bring together different stakeholders (researchers, policy partners, school leaders and teachers) to discuss the lessons learnt from Covid19 distance learning situation, which could be seen as a catalyst for change to scale up digital innovation in schools.
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.
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.