How to become a learning lab for next practice in education

The ideas below were shared by Simon Breakspear in the Wellington regional school leadership conference that was held at Te Papa last week.  

New Zealand needs to look at being a learning lab for next practice globally.
5 key strategies
1. Question in the pursuit of better.

• Smart may have the answers but stupid has all the interesting questions
• Smart has the plans, stupid has the stories.
• Similar outcomes every year means that the system is designed to ensure that outcome.

2. Embrace pemanent beta mode

• Beta - it's never finished / it's always improving.
• The tech world is always in beta.
• The school should always be in beta mode. We are always looking to improve, to make things better.

3. Harness your network

• Most good ideas come from networks.
• RSA presentation on where good ideas come from.
• Great ideas spend a lot of time in the partial hunch mode.
• Hunches in bunches create great ideas. Take hunches from different people to create great ideas.
• Chance favours the connected mind.
• Connectivity now makes it easier to create ideas in conjunction with others.
• Most innovation happens in the networked non market zone.
• Performance pay leads to us keeping ideas to ourselves., therefore stopping the network.
• Creative commons - we can use it, but don't make money of it and acknowledge my work.
• Could Wellington be the Silicon Valey of Educatlon?

4. Develop a bias towards action

• Just get going before it all pans out. Don't let the committee kill progress.
• What are five actions that we could take to get going in the next week? The steps can be very simple.
• Google - launch, learn reiterate.
• Get people out there bold enough to test things.
• The person who started flickr started off wanting to make an online social game. The photo sharing became the focus because this is what people wanted.
• Google puts out the minimal viable product - the MVP.

5. Reframe failure

• Fail fast, fail forwards.
• Getting everyone to the same standard requires different processes for all children. This isn't the same for industry; getting a Coke can to the same standard requires only one system.
• We often need to ensure failure to enjoy success.