Huang Junsong, David

If school diffusion of innovation is viewed as complex adaptive process, how shall we prepare school leaders to be effective diffusion decision makers? Coming from the epistemological belief that knowledge is subjective and embodied, this paper proposes to use Agent Based Modeling (ABM) for learning by focus on learning to “do” diffusion of innovation rather than learning about diffusion of innovation. We therefore recommend to engage school leaders in iterative agent based model development process and to couple it with their interaction in real world diffusion system. With feedback from real world system used for iterative model calibration and validation, the affordances of the agent based model allow school leaders to participate, experience, appropriate, perform and therefore to learn to make effective diffusion decisions in their schools.

Research management is an emerging field of study and its development is significant to the advancement of research enterprise. Developing the science of research management requires investigating social mechanisms involved in research management. Yet, studies on social mechanisms of research management is lacking in the literature. To address this gap, this paper proposes importing methodologies and theories from other social science disciplines to study the social mechanisms of research management and to build the science of research management. The paper first articulates what constitutes the science of research management, then proposes to appropriate Design-Based Research (DBR), a methodology in education research, for building the science of research management while at the same time strengthening the theory-practice nexus. A study of education research is then presented to illustrate how DBR is used to enact the theory of homophily which is imported from sociology. It reveals an opportunity to use social designs to develop social relationships among teachers from different schools for networked learning. Such a research endeavour also has potential to advance theories of relationship-building in sociology. Inferring from the example as an analogue to what is suggested for research management, the paper advocates a way to reciprocally connect research management as an emerging research field with more established social science disciplines at large and to advance both the theory and practice of research management.

This research seeks contemporary understanding of how we can develop teachers' Technological-Pedagogical-Content Knowledge (TPACK) when scaling pedagogical innovation to different contextual situations. Teaching with technology has long been a wicked problem as the nature of technology is ''protean'' (used in versatile ways), ''unstable'' (rapidly changing) and ''opaque'' (elusive backend mechanisms), resulting in multifarious complexities which are exacerbated when its use is scaled and situated within the broader socio-cultural context of diverse learning ecologies. Scaling innovations to new contexts is rarely a mere supplanting of what works at the seeding school to new pedagogic sites with less hospitable conditions. It entails the perpetual marshalling of resources to mitigate the enfolding tensions that can emanate from many incompatibilities at the new site. Herein lies the tensions of diffusion: the conflation between fidelity adherence and localised accommodation. The purpose of this research then is to study how teachers' three knowledge bases - technology, pedagogy and content - can be holistically developed so that the core ingredients of success at the seeding school can be sustained and not ''amputated'' at new innovation sites. Informed by complexity theory, the qualitative case study will employ the complexity constructs of ''distribution'', ''enaction'' and ''emergence'' to examine how teachers' epistemic resources are distributed during the knowledge creation process and how teachers leverage on TPACK to enact co-designed lessons or improvise their lessons in-situ. More importantly, by studying the diffusion process of Seamless Science Learning project from the seeding FutureSchool (ICT prototype school) to another non-affiliated mainstream primary school, the study aims to articulate how teachers' reified TPACK can emerge through feedback loops between components of TPACK and interaction with other actors in an ecological complex adaptive system. The study will also articulate the implications of such interaction on the translations of teachers' professional learning and the conceptual model related to challenges of nurturing readiness. It has the potential to inform policymakers on the theoretical principles of professional learning support which may culminate into ensuing successful uptake of innovations. By inter-meshing three domains: complexity theory, TPACK and scaling, this project can provide novel methodological perspective to how the inter-locking influences underpinning teacher's TPACK can be studied. Through cross-case analysis, the proposed study aims to reify both ''local divergence'' and the ''noncontextually bounded'' theoretical principles about scaling school-based intervention.

This article provides an overview of research in the Learning Sciences from a Design Research perspective, as it has been framed in Singapore by the National Institute of Education (NIE). The initial research agenda is considered in the light of challenges and the subsequent re-casting of objectives, based on the working out of a tripartite relationship between the NIE, the Ministry of Education, and local schools. A conceptual model is proposed as an attempt to provide structure for new research interventions going forward.

To effectively foster innovation diffusion, school leaders need to learn innovation diffusion as Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). In this study, two school leaders formed a dyad to learn both the knowledge about innovation diffusion and the knowledge in fostering innovation diffusion. Agent-based model building, model simulation, game play of a simulation game and reflections were designed as learning activities in this study. In the learning process, the learners developed the following understanding in innovation diffusion: teachers’ adoption decisions are based on limited rationality and local information; teachers have nonlinear influence on each other through social networks; teachers are heterogonous agents; and diffusion is a process of emergence. The learners also learnt to leverage on social networks to foster effective innovation diffusion. While agent-based model building faces challenges for learning CAS in the social science domain, this study shows that engaging learners in reflection activities helps to overcome the challenges.

This symposium proposes a genre of learning designs called Student-Generated Ideas (SGIs), based on designing learning contexts that promote students as critical producers, distributors, and consumers of knowledge. SGIs place students’ ideas at the center of learning designs, considering the learning process as well as the learning goals/outcomes. By soliciting and foregrounding students’ diversified ideas in the classroom and beyond, the learning environment communicates to students that their ideas matter to others and that they have a position of responsibility to their own and their peers’ learning processes. The notion of SGIs is embodied in a repertoire of studies at the Learning Sciences Lab, National Institute of Education, Singapore, that offer varied yet overlapping interpretations of how student ideas can inform the design of learning contexts. In sharing the core design principles for SGIs approaches, this work contributes important components to the learning sciences discipline and changing educational practice.