Innovation Pedagogy and the Beckoning Threshold of Community Applause for Research and Education

Professor Brendan Bartlett

Australian Catholic University

Abstract

I would like to present in this paper the concept of innovation pedagogy as an energy for change around management of knowledge and affective domains as they might apply in the grand challenges that Steve has asked us to consider and extend in the agendas opening with ACU’s move to a research intensification status. Innovation pedagogy looks like a term vested in education. Of course it is, but its reach is far broader. The scope for innovation pedagogy is as wide as community commitment to building, transforming and developing. It covers not only the traditional focus of its school and post-school education systems, but also the learning theatres of home, work, play and other informal spaces and times within which people and communities grow, change and develop. It applies to all situations where research and change action come together in the interests of what individuals or communities of people know as problematic and where timely, viable and workable solutions are the major priority.

For me the concept is grounded in the context of action research and action learning models of change-for-the-better. The intended beneficiary (e.g. a student, a client, a patient, groups of these, a community) is intentionally generative – sometimes with various degrees of scaffolding and always with support – primarily in outlining the future, but importantly also in the analysis, action and evaluative reflection that make that future a better one. The evaluation step to the inventive march of innovative pedagogy is a feature of action research modeling (Bartlett & Piggot-Irvine, 2010) and underpins the timeliness, viability and workability of solutions - reminding us that the “good fit” of today’s solution, and the knowledge and feelings of how we got there collaboratively in a timely, viable and workable way, are often convenient triggers for further improvement tomorrow.

For teachers and teacher-educators, innovative pedagogy is a liberating realization of what needs-based learning can mean. It supports systematic approaches to corporate action in identifying, analyzing, designing, acting on and evaluating things - such as aspirations and goals, learning needs and the agentive balance as these things operate for all stakeholders in any issue of achieving or preparing, of learning or recovering, or of development or repair. The framing needs to account for “timeliness”, “viability” and “workability” phenomena as lively and co-constructed. Such needs and perceptions traverse the many transitions that we make from cradle to tomb, and the realities of inclusivity that characterise social systems such as our schools and hospitals. Some of our institutions are doing it well as seen in BoysTown’s innovative pedagogy through social enterprises that is helping significantly in reconnecting disaffected youth (Bartlett, Mafi & Dalgleish, 2013). Their work in promoting change for the better has stepped beyond the traditional. There are others as we know. The threshold beckons to us.

Bartlett, B. J., Mafi, S. & Dalgleish, J. (2013). When Decision-Making Becomes More Socially-Responsible: Personal and National Gains through Greater Sustainability in Jobs and Wellbeing amongst Once-Disaffected Youth. In J. Zelger, J. Müller, S. Plangger (Eds.): GABEK VI. Socially responsible decision-making processes (pp. 175-206). Studienverlag (Innsbruck/Wien/Bozen).

Bartlett, B. J., & Piggot-Irvine, E. (2008). What Is Evaluating Action Research? In E. Piggot-Irvine, & B. J. Bartlett, (Eds.). Evaluating Action Research. New Zealand Research Council: Auckland.NZ.