Capacity building as a driver for innovation and change: Different contexts, different pathways

Abstract

Singapore is a centralized–decentralized education system which recognizes that learning needs to integrate content–disciplinary understandings with twenty-first-century orientations and outcomes. Schools are given autonomy for innovations. One such initiative is FutureSchools. FutureSchools are exemplar schools with successes in technology-mediated pedagogical innovations and work with other schools to spread twenty-first-century learning practices. This chapter aims to understand how lessons learnt from FutureSchools inform the ways schools implement innovations and how context shapes innovation pathways. Lessons learnt suggest that changing practices is a social process requiring tight-loose couplings. Capacity building is key so teachers understand, enact, and adapt practices for their contexts. This chapter describes two case studies and implementation tenets for building teacher capacity to drive innovations and change practices towards inquiry: (1) creating consensus and tailoring innovation for school’s context; (2) forming communities and building capacity through lesson designs; and (3) deepening understandings through in situ enactment and refinement. Tight-loose couplings are unpacked by discussing commonalities enabling two schools to form partnerships and how context shapes adaptations and pathways. Findings are discussed to show how tight-loose couplings between and beyond schools involve multiple stakeholders from the education ecology to create leverages for innovation and change. Capacity building situated within practice enables teachers take ownership, reflect, and refine changed practices as part of everyday work.