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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE, CULTURE AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT http://www.Management-Journal.com First published in 2006 in Melbourne, Australia by Common Ground Publishing Pty Ltd www.CommonGroundPublishing.com. © 2006 (this paper), the author(s) © 2006 (selection and editorial matter) Common Ground Authors are responsible for the accuracy of citations, quotations, diagrams, tables and maps. All rights reserved. Apart from fair use for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act (Australia), no part of this work may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. For permissions and other inquiries, please contact . ISSN: 1447-9524 Publisher Site: http://www.Management-Journal.com The INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE, CULTURE AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT is a peer refereed journal. Full papers submitted for publication are refereed by Associate Editors through anonymous referee processes. Typeset in Common Ground Markup Language using CGCreator multichannel typesetting system http://www.CommonGroundSoftware.com.
Mainstreaming the Practices of Innovative Teachers Managing Decentralized Professional Development in Public Schooling Vijaya Sherry Chand, Indian Institute of Management, India Abstract: The formal state-run (public) schooling system in developing countries depends on a centrally-driven approach to the professional development of its teacher workforce. The culture which underpins this approach is defined by hierarchy, centralized control of training delivery, an ethos which facilitates a downward ‘cascading’ transmission of expertise by knowledgeable authorities, and an assumed uniformity of training needs. This culture hinders the abstraction and processing of relevant and effective practices from the grassroots, resulting in the system’s inability to learn from the strengths within. An alternative culture that values peer-learning, sharing of experiences, validation of outstanding practices and development of learning material for use by decentralized professional forums will promote key principles like self-learning, applying external practices to one’s own problems and monitoring self-development. This paper has outlined an “educational innovation bank” (EI Bank) initiative, drawing on processual theories of innovation that identify specific types of networks for the three “episodes” of innovation: design and development, diffusion and implementation, and the related knowledge transformation that is called for. The establishment of the EI Bank combines the social construction of knowledge by decentralized networks with knowledge objectification in the diffusion episode, through a process of screening and validating innovations and converting them into user-friendly products like case studies, a curriculum module and an open-access, searchable database of teachers’ practices. The use of the EI Bank calls for a return to local user-networks to adapt the objectified ideas in new contexts. Such an alternative approach demands that educational administrators perform three tasks—develop a learner-focused perspective, convert validated local knowledge into ‘products’ through appropriate networks, and undertake “policy entrepreneurship”—if they are to develop a culture of decentralized professional development. Keywords: Culture of Decentralization, Professional Development, Educational Innovations THE FORMAL STATE-RUN (public) schooling system in developing countries depends on a centrally-driven approach to the professional development of its teacher workforce. The culture which underpins this approach is defined by hierarchy, centralized control of training delivery, an ethos which facilitates a downward ‘cascading’ transmission of expertise by knowledgeable authorities, and an assumed uniformity of training needs. This culture hinders the abstraction and processing of relevant and effective practices from the grassroots, resulting in the system’s inability to learn from the strengths within. An alternative culture that values peer-learning, sharing of experiences, validation of outstanding practices and development of learning material for use by decentralized professional forums will promote key principles like self-learning, applying external practices to one’s own problems and monitoring self-development. This paper has outlined an “educational innovation bank” (EI Bank) initiative, drawing on processual theories of innovation that identify specific types of networks for the three “episodes” of innovation: design and development, diffusion and implementation, and the related knowledge transformation that is called for. The establishment of the EI Bank combines the social construction of knowledge by decentralized networks with knowledge objectification in the diffusion episode, through a process of screening and validating innovations and converting them into user-friendly products like case studies, a curriculum module and an open-access, searchable database of teachers’ practices. The use of the EI Bank calls for a return to local user-networks to adapt the objectified ideas in new contexts. Such an alternative approach demands that educational administrators perform three tasks—develop a learner-focused perspective, convert validated local knowledge into ‘products’ through appropriate networks, and undertake “policy entrepreneurship”—if they are to develop a culture of decentralized professional development. The context for this paper is the professional development of teachers working in large formal staterun (public) schooling systems in developing countries like India. The approach to in-service teacher development in such systems has usually relied on top-down hierarchical delivery of training inputs in a ‘cascade’ mode. Some key assumptions made by such an approach are an assumed uniformity of training needs and a ‘deficit’ reduction model of development which does not recognize the knowledge and practices of the teachers themselves. The cascade model—in spite of its limitations (Shaeffer 1993), INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE, CULTURE AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT, VOLUME 6, NUMBER 5, 2006 http://www.Management-Journal.com, ISSN 1447-9524 © Common Ground, Vijaya Sherry Chand, All Rights Reserved, Permissions: cg-support@commongroundpublishing.com
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