Change Matters

Making a difference in education and training

Geoff Scott

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000256444
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildungspsychologie

While many books address the 'what' of change in education, this addresses the 'how'. The pressure for continuous adaptation and innovation in education is relentless, yet there is more failure in implementation of change than success. These failures are damaging to staff and students, as well as costly. Change Matters offers a practical guide to change management for teachers and administrators across all education sectors and for training managers in workplace settings. Change Matters assists educators to develop their abilities to manage their own change projects, and also to help their organisations to manage their overall improvement and innovation activities. Geoff Scott draws on successful experience to create a framework for the educational change process. He shows how to initiate, develop, implement and evaluate a new learning program, and how to manage continuous quality improvement and innovation at the organisational level. The need for leadership is assessed, and the particular circumstances of workplace trainers are discussed. The book is illustrated with case studies and reflective exercises which can be used individually or with other educators.'An eminently readable and practical guide for those who want to make sure that the educational changes they attempt really do make a difference for their students. Highly recommended.' - Professor Michael Fullan, Dean, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, and author of The New Meaning of Educational Change and of the What's Worth Fighting For trilogy with Andy Hargreaves.

1 HOW THE CHANGE PROCESS IN EDUCATION WORKS

You can't be too jar ahead of the march of progress. Wait until you hear the music coming up the corridor and open the door just before it arrives.

J.K. Galbraith

In this chapter you will be asked to reflect on your past experiences with educational change and from this to identify your views on how it works. You will then be invited to compare your conclusions with a summary of research on change dynamics. In doing this, a number of popular change management myths will be exposed.

In this chapter an overview of the key factors that usually trigger a change effort and influence the way it turns out is also given. Key sources of educational change are identified, the main types of change are noted, the way in which the scope and size of the change play a part is illustrated, and the central roles played by motivation, values and evaluation are outlined. These are brought together into an overall picture of how the change process in education operates. It is this conceptual framework that underpins the whole book. In subsequent chapters each component of the framework is explored in detail.

In this chapter you are also given an opportunity to practise using the framework by seeing if it helps you make sense of a change management case study.

THE DYNAMICS OF CHANGE: EDUCATORS' CHANGE ANALOGIES

One of the most useful ways to develop a quick, overall feel for what practitioners' day-to-day experiences of change in education and training entail is to invent a personal analogy which describes them².

onsider the analogies in the following list. They are some of the more common ones developed by practitioners in a wide range of teaching and management roles in education over the years-.³

Educators' Change Analogies

When I am involved in change I feel like I am a:

• guide;
• coach;
• director of a play;
• chef in a restaurant;
• potter;
• surfboard rider on the waves of change;
• person negotiating a swamp;
• skipper on an ocean-going yacht;
• World War II general;
• person having a baby;
• swimmer in a tidal pool;
• mechanic trying to fix a car while it is going 100 kph;
• whitewater rafter;
• father confessor;
• juggler balancing spinning plates on the end of sticks;
• person in an Escher drawing.

The analogies in the above group were given by educational managers; those which follow were given by teachers and trainers:

• crew member;
• member of a chorus line;
• fellow traveller;
• person learning to cook for themselves;
• collector;
• creature in metamorphosis;
• piece of clay being moulded;
• person all at sea;
• bouncing ball;
• person on an icy slide;
• person going up a down escalator.

Now consider the following questions:

1. What, in general terms, are these analogies telling us about the nature of the change process in education?
2. How and why do these analogies vary?
3. Either select the analogy from the list that best matches your current experience of the change process in education or make up a new one.
   1. Briefly write down how your selected analogy works and why it best describes your experience. For example, what does it say about the nature of the change process for someone in your position?
   2. How might your role (for example, as teacher, admin istrator, manager etc.) and the amount of experience you have had in that job influence the sort of analogy chosen?
4. Compare and contrast your results with the summary of research on the nature of the change process in education in the following section.

Research on the dynamics of change

The change analogies presented above point to many of the key findings from research on the nature of the change process in education (Fullan, 1991, 1993; Scott, 1990, 1996c). They reveal, for example, that the change process:

Is uncertain

Things never go completely as predicted. There will always be that unexpected twist or surprise. No educational change, whether it be a program innovation or a workplace improve ment, ever unfolds exactly as planned. The greater the scope and degree of change the greater the uncertainty.

Operates in phases

There is a time when a need, for change is identified, a time when people start work on figuring out how best to handle it, a time when they start to implement their plan and a time when they seek to consolidate their change.

Is cyclical not linear

Although the change process does involve different phases, it is wrong to assume that these unfold in a 'one-off, linear fashion. No educational change is ever fixed or permanent. The local and external context in which education takes place is too volatile. Because of this the change process is best seen as operating in a cyclical fashion. This means that, with each innovation, it will be necessary to proceed through the various phases of change many times as the context in which the innovation operates alters. Some changes remain relevant for years and require only ongoing enhancement, others may have to be dropped because they cease to be feasible or relevant.

Is composed of a mix of factors beyond and within one's control

Any change effort always involves a mix of factors: those beyond the individual's control (for example, in the yacht analogy, the ocean) and those within one's influence (for example, how much sail to carry or what course to chart). This proposition: 'Denies that we are merely determined as products of our history and development; it also denies that we are entirely free to produce the world and history we desire regardless of the historical circumstances in which we find ourselves' (Kemmis, in Boud, 1985: 148).

As the educators change analogies reveal, the degree of authority and responsibility inherent in the role of individuals affects the extent to which they can actively influence how things turn out or are at the mercy of outside forces. Consider, for example, the difference in this regard between the play director and the bouncing ball analogies.

Is reciprocal

What happens at one point in time will influence how things turn out at a later point. For example, if individuals have a negative experience early on in a change project this helps shape their reactions to it later on. The change process is reciprocal in another way—each new change effort both influences and is influenced by the milieu in which it is attempted. As Parlett and Dearden (1977: 15) found in their studies of change in higher education in the 1970s, 'The introduction of an innovation sets off a chain of repercussions throughout the learning milieu. In turn, these unintended consequences are likely to affect the innovation itself, chang ing its form and moderating its impact.'

Requires educators who can 'read and match'

Given the complex number of factors involved in any change effort and the fact that each of these factors is itself constantly shifting, what any individual does will always depend on being able to 'read' what is going on in each unique situation and 'match' the most appropriate response.That is, what is done must always be contingent on what the unique circumstances of each case dictate is feasible, appropriate and desirable. No decision in educational change management is, therefore, context free. For example, in the surfing analogy above, how one rides the waves of change will always depend on the size of the waves, their breaking characteristics on the day, the number of other surfers in the water and their relative position, the prevailing wind and so on. Of course, the greater the surfer's experience the more accurate the reading and the more skilled the response.

Change management myths

If one reviews the plethora of change management books now on the market and the advice being given by many of the change gurus who now abound, much of what they advocate fails to take account of the context and dynamics outlined above. A number of myths keep cropping u⁷p.They include:

• The knight on a white charger myth All that is necessary is to appoint a dynamic, reform-oriented leader and successful change is assured.
• The consensual myth A proposed change will only work if everyone it affects has approved of it; that is, a 'bottom up' approach to change always works,,
• The lineal' myth Change proceeds in a fixed, one-off, linear fashion from initiation through development, implementa tion and institutionalisation.
• The brute logic myth Change is achieved by brute logic; that is, provided the proponent's argument for a change is compelling, those it affects will automatically adopt it.
• The change event myth Change is an event, like the launch of a new policy or curriculum rather than being a long iterative learning (and unlearning) process for all its par ticipants.
• The silver bullet myth There is a set procedure which, if followed, will guarantee successful change.
• The one size fits all myth All that is necessary is to develop a standardised, 'teacher proof curriculum or procedure and users will implement it fully and exactly as intended in every location ac...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Tables and figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 How the change process in education works
• 2 Managing change in learning programs
• 3 Managing workplace improvement in education
• 4 Workplace research for continuous improvement and innovation
• 5 The effective leader of change
• 6 Looking outwards and forwards in education
• Conclusion
• Glossary
• Notes
• References
• Index