The Innovative District: How Schools Can Lead with the Four C’s
How can we infuse the work we do as a school district with the Four C’s? Examine 12 ways school districts can face the future with this time-tested technology framework.
When I took the leap to leave the music classroom and work as a makerspace teacher and technology coordinator, I wanted to learn everything I could. How are robots made? How do I create safety standards for students in a wood shop? How on earth will I leverage my formal training in music education and instead teach kids about 3D printing?
I found I needed to embrace the many aspects of my life and career to fold them into my classroom. My love of games; my career as a journalist and composer; my geeky disposition as a “maker.” Shortly into the tenure of my new work, I was giddy when I discovered the Four C’s for myself.
Communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking are used as a framework for technology integration in the 21st century classroom. In my work as an innovation coach for White Bear Lake Area Schools, I have the opportunity to work with teachers every day, incorporating the Four C’s into their classrooms. But what would a district look like if it embraced these principles not only with students, but with staff, the community and leaders as well? How can we change students’ lives by employing the Four C’s into the very core of what we do as an educational institution?
Communication
The innovative district acts on community feedback. Feedback not only from instructional staff, but from students and their families as well. Families are integral partners in the education of their children. Many businesses do a fine job of communicating outward with their clients and customers, but creating conversation is difficult. It’s also critical.
When robust and meaningful conversation between a district and families takes place, our students are the winners. The method is important, but what matters most is that families feel as if they’re being heard and that action in the best interest of their child is being taken. This can only happen through intentional and genuine community conversation. Methods like the Design Thinking process can be transformative in building empathy with students and families, garnering trust and building a future with those stakeholders firmly in mind.
The innovative district uses every communication tool at their disposal. It’s so much more than email. It’s a robust, accessible website designed for all users. The innovative district’s website is intentionally translated and captioned with full support for screen readers so that non-English speakers and users with vision or hearing impairments can access it fully. They also maintain a robust social media presence that provides video and text resources for families that includes live streams of important events that are archived for future viewing.
The innovative district also employs interactive communication tools like website- or SMS-embedded chatbots to save time and money. Chat is intuitive for users (especially younger demographics) and guiding them through answers to their questions can be more effective than relying only on a website.
The innovative district looks toward the future and guides the community there. It is critical to build organizational capacity. With technological breakthroughs happening daily, the pace is difficult to match. But the innovative district keeps an eye on trends and critically reviews what could work well for their students and families, then creates pathways to robust and thoughtful implementation.
Maintaining a strong and flexible leadership team that is practiced in the skill of distilling important information is critical to this end. Imagine an instructional coach cohort that has built norms around attending training and workshops that then reports back to the team and the wider district. As a professional community of learners, schools should lead the way in sharing back information for critique and further investigation. If it proves fruitful, leadership should then utilize communication tools and design frameworks to ensure the community is supported through ongoing implementation.
Collaboration
The innovative district provides mentorship for a diverse community. Teaching is difficult work. It takes a social and emotional toll each day. Students and teachers alike need support. The innovative district realizes the urgent need for deep, meaningful connections built through a unified purpose. This cuts across cultural lines, embracing every community member with humility and respect.
Students must not only grow academically, but socially and emotionally as well. Collaboration is often accomplished in teams of peers, but more vertical collaboration is needed in schools. High school students building connections with elementary school students; teachers mentoring students over multiple grades; coaches and veteran teachers coaching younger colleagues. Intentional vertical collaboration can transform a culture, especially when there are better opportunities for mentees to see themselves in their mentors.
The innovative district partners with content creators. Education is good for all of us. It extends into the future and far beyond the few students we each have the privilege to teach. Schools must foster community engagement and partnerships. Businesses and creative firms are eager to work with schools. Districts can take advantage of this by leveraging their expertise in the educational space while helping to expand access to learning opportunities for their students.
Imagine a school district that notices some math standards weren’t being met with fidelity. In addition to coaching teachers, they contact a game design company to create a video game that helps students practice skills related to these standards. The game designers provide some pro bono work for a tax deductible donation, the district can license the game for purchase by other districts and the students have fun while strengthening their learning. The connections between schools and local creative firms can strengthen learning and a sense of community.
The innovative district builds norms for professional learning communities. The power of the professional learning community can transform a grade level, school or district. A central component to effective PLCs is group-created norms. When teams know how to work together and have a voice in guiding this work, they accomplish more with less ambiguity. An organization that emphasizes the creation of norms in classrooms, grade level instructional teams and district leadership will see improved collegiality and effective problem solving at every level.
The team behind this blog series had the opportunity to create team norms last fall. Graciously hosted by education technology giant Flipgrid in Minneapolis, we spent a significant portion of our day creating norms using professional guidance through the process. We came up with four: model innovation, intentionally collaborate, share leadership and make decisions by consensus. We have been able to point to these norms to help us resolve professional disagreements and guide the work of our blog series and PD offerings while ensuring equity across the many buildings in which we work.
Creativity
The innovative district builds intrapreneurial skills. Intrapreneurship is the attitude of employees in a larger organization acting in an entrepreneurial way — taking risks, creating opportunities and striving to make things better. Teachers are intrapreneurs in their classrooms every day — just look at the success of Teachers Pay Teachers and DonorsChoose. But when intrapreneurship is the norm for teachers and students, students become the primary agent in their own learning.
Students and teachers who are empowered problem solvers will create engaging and challenging lessons in learning environments that enhance educational experiences. Learning will be dynamic and relevant. Students will speak up when they don’t understand a concept and their peers will step in to help them. They will insist on helping make the classroom a fun and interesting place to spend their entire day and teachers will rise to the challenge.
The innovative district creates robust learning resources. Professional development is a critical component in the world of education. It can be difficult to ensure consistent learning across an entire district. Educators can learn from the corporate world and invest in instructional design skills for their teaching and learning leaders.
Imagine a district where coaches and curriculum leaders have the tools and resources to create pedagogically sound learning modules on important subjects in our ever-changing educational landscape. Professional development could be targeted, concise and relevant. Educators would have video-based learning hubs with quick tutorials on learning management systems and learning strategies. Districts may even make the decision to license their resources to other organizations as a revenue stream. Classroom teachers could take advantage of this for independent study courses, flipped classrooms and hybrid courses as well.
The innovative district builds a community that solves problems. The concept of Q comes from Brian Uzzi, a sociologist at Northwestern University. He describes it as a measure of “social intimacy” between people working together. Uzzi finds that the right Q factor helps bridge the gap between disciplines to find creative solutions to problems. If a group is too homogeneous, there isn’t enough collision between ideas and worldviews to most effectively find solutions.
Intentionally inviting non-educators into the education world can help districts solve problems in clever ways. But we must lay the groundwork for courageous collaboration. Centering our work around the success of our students and taking ownership over the need to solve the problems we face is an important first step. Community buy-in for processes like school redesign, strategic planning and technology initiatives can result in amazing insights from invested community members who feel they have a strong, necessary voice in the process of creating meaningful change.
Critical Thinking
The innovative district constantly seeks improvement. Teachers reflecting on their lesson and how to improve it next time. Principals providing effective coaching for their staff. Students telling their teacher they learn best by hands-on application. They belong to a community that values improvement and maintains a critical eye on what can be done to better learning outcomes for their students.
Thinking models like Design Thinking and Computational Thinking can be employed to begin the process of improving a district. Gaining a deep understanding of student and family needs gives districts the insight to solve problems from their perspectives. Decomposition, pattern recognition and abstraction can help logically create step-by-step processes for solving problems moving forward.
The innovative district asks questions to measure efficacy. Are we meeting the needs of our students? If we wanted to change the schedule, who is impacted? Can we prototype this with a small cohort? The innovative district isn’t afraid of discovering what works and what doesn’t while maintaining transparency through the process of improvement.
Imagine a district that employed A/B testing in its communication efforts. Which email title captures the most interest? When is the most effective time to send out district communication? Do our social media hashtags excite and engage our community? If we are constantly measuring what we want to improve, we can confidently move forward with data that supports our efforts at growth.
The innovative district embraces failure. This is difficult when student learning outcomes are at stake. But it’s not about trying things we think will fail and ignoring the consequences. It’s about knowing that some tactics we employ will work better than others. It’s about keeping the things that worked and shelving the rest.
Critical thinking in the educational space is deeply reflective. Critique what you’re doing. Ask the tough questions. No solution is sacrosanct — the problem is what matters and the innovative district has built a team that can either solve it or engage with the creative partner who will. Knowing what went wrong is the first step to fixing it, so don’t shy away from failure. Embrace it.
The Four C’s have worked well in providing a framework for technology integration in the 21st century classroom. But embracing them from an institutional level can help pave the way for transformative approaches to communication, professional development and building effective teams that can prepare students for an ever-changing world. How does your district incorporate the Four C’s into its daily operations? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter or comment below!
