How can change be enabled?

With the digital landscape changing, the learning landscape is also changing, albeit potentially at a different pace. Where the foundational system remains in place a deeper change is needed.

Ownership and buy in

To encourage greater ownership and shared understanding of why change is needed and what will change, a shared understanding of the vision needs to be clearly communicated and each person’s role in its implementation. Cascading messages from the the top of the organsiation whilst encouraging all managers to openly discuss how this will look with their teams is important. Reassuring staff that they are heard and can ask questions and discuss their concerns will help them feel part of what is happening.

Changing hearts and minds

It is important that staff understand what the change is and what is in it for them and for their students. Clarifying how real world and interdisciplainary projects, may engage their students and build the skills, habits and knowledge to help them thrive. Critical thinking and creative problem solving are as much about how a teacher facilitates the class as they are about the specifics of the curricula. It requires a change in mindset. Staff need to know that the changes are consistent and will remain in place going forward, that this change will be sustained.

Top down/ bottom up

Sustained leadership and vision, effectively communicated, are important elements in supporting and building capacity to change. Empowering staff, championing talent, and building teams will help change the culture and system within the organisation. Each person needs to build the capacity to lead themselves, having autonomy over the design and facilitation of interdisciplinary projects and playing an active role in the creation and implementation of change.

Professional Development Support

Developing people through this work is central to unleashing the potential of every teacher, building their capacity to be active participants in building the vision. In effect this is building a tree learning culture as well as the capacity for change.

In response to the needs of industry and the local economy, vocational training in the Basque region of Spain underwent a major redesign in 20132014. Tknika (the Institute for the Innovation of the Vocational and Educational Training System) was established by the Vice-Ministry of Education of the Basque Government to promote innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship in VET centres within the region. One of the core elements upon which the VET Learning Model rests, is collaborative challenge-based learning. Tknika trains VET teachers, designing and evaluating projects that will have impact and generate the outcomes needed, whilst working with centres to develop an entrepreneurial culture. Teachers are allocated time to

be trained in this challenge-based learning approach. Advanced training is provided for teaching teams that are already working within the context of collaborative challenge-based learning and who wish to delve deeper by enhancing the challenges they provide their learners with a more a global perspective. Learning co-ordinators receive training to develop the necessary skills to lead change at their respective centres. This co-ordinated approach reflects the priority and investment the government has placed in changing the culture and skills of teachers and learners within the VET Colleges.

Change requires leadership at all levels

Leading through change means leading during periods of uncertainty and ambiguity whilst helping staff develop the capacity to manage the change and become leaders in the process. Influencing change by allocating increasing autonomy and accountability to staff whilst being relationship orientated, collaborative and creative, rather than driving change using positional power. Some people will lead change from a position of formal power, such as a school principal, whilst others such as a teachers, parents, policymakers, employers or students influence it informally. Some may be able to influence educational change from within the system, others from outside it. A formal position of power or authority is not needed to begin to lead change. There are hundreds of change agents at work both inside and outside the system seeking to see sustainable and meaningful change.