related paper - Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE, CULTURE AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT, VOLUME 6
tional innovation identified by Westera (2004: 508-
510): substitution and transformation. The substitution
strategy is an incremental approach whereas the
transformational strategy proposes a “dramatic
jump”. Each would ascribe different roles to the way
in which technology-induced innovation has to be
understood. Westera overcomes this simplistic dichotomy
by applying Borgmann’s devices paradigm
(making apparent the relationship between a commodity
and its machinery, for instance, in any device
or educational aid) and the concept of “focal practices”—activities
that call for intrinsic involvement
and strengthen the existential relationship of humans
with the world (Borgmann 1984). He lists four principles
that technology-based educational innovation
can use: ensuring transparent and interactive devices;
stressing products as carriers of meaning; going
beyond efficiency; and paying attention to political
meaning—“life demands a mixed mode of developing
new ideas and preserving former achievements”
(Westera 2004: 516). It is these principles, especially
the last one, that provide the rationale for building
on what the grassroots teacher-craftsmen know, by
using alternative modes of communication in the
diffusion and implementation episodic stages. An
understanding of these principles would also help
administrators integrate teacher workshops with
multiple modes of diffusion—printed matter and
website-based communication, for instance.
Key administrators also need to be involved in all
three episodes since, as Ramesh (2005) points out,
while discussing innovation in bureaucratic systems,
the genesis phase of innovation has not received as
much attention as the implementation phase among
bureaucrats working in public systems. He identifies
‘framing’ an issue (what will be focused on) as important
in understanding innovation in public systems,
and suggests that the innovation should reach
“a wider circle at the genesis or conceptual stage itself
to gain acceptability” (ibid.: 47). Thus, the involvement
of as many administrators as possible at
the invention episode stage would help them frame
the issue of valorising local innovations and knowledge
in the context of wider diffusion and implementation.
It would also help administrators move into
the role of “policy entrepreneurs” (Mintrom and
Vergari 1998), who as actors embedded in policy
networks, will be able to direct the diffusion of innovations
through their “direct and indirect contact
with one another” (ibid.: 128). Playing this role is
essential if bureaucrats committed to change are to
develop a teacher network space and a culture supportive
of decentralized professional development
within their own departments.
This paper has focused on developing a culture
that values a “learner-focused perspective” (in contrast
to a training-focused perspective) and promotes
a “network space for teacher development” in public
educational systems responsible for professional
growth. The “Educational Innovation Bank” (EI
Bank) described here builds on the concept of a
clearinghouse and links the knowledge and innovations
of outstanding teachers with networks that draw
into them potential users of the Bank and other
stakeholders. The implied valorisation of teachers’
knowledge and innovations means that educational
administrators have to learn to ‘learn from the
grassroots’. The paper has drawn on processual theories
of innovation which identify specific types of
networks for the three “episodes” of design and development,
diffusion and implementation, to illustrate
the kinds of knowledge transformation called for.
The establishment of the EI Bank combines the social
construction of knowledge among loose decentralized
networks with knowledge objectification in the diffusion
episode, through a process of screening and
validating innovations, and converting them into
user-friendly products. A second task for administrators
is to link the innovations through broader networks
that involve fellow professionals and nonteacher
experts, so that the design and diffusion
episodes take root. The use of the EI Bank calls for
a return to local networks, but networks of users, in
order to appropriate the legitimised knowledge and
objectified ideas in new contexts. Educational administrators
have to play the role of policy entrepreneurs
during these episodes of extended diffusion and implementation.
These three tasks—developing an appreciation
of a learner-focused perspective, converting
validated local knowledge into ‘products’ through
appropriate networks, and undertaking “policy entrepreneurship”—are
crucial if administrators are to
develop a culture of decentralized professional development.
Acknowledgements
The project on which this paper draws upon was
funded by a grant from the Sir Ratan Tata Trust,
Mumbai, India. The author thanks Ms. Geeta Amin-
Choudhury for coordinating the identification of
teachers and validation of their work.
References
Borgmann, A. 1984. Technology and the character of contemporary life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.