Context: Innovation and Action Research in Alberta Schools

Social Innovation in Alberta’s education sector is not a foreign concept. In fact, the Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI) which ran from 2000-2008, resulted in a dramatic shift in public education across the province and catapulted Alberta’s education system to become one of the best in the world. The goal of AISI was to “improve student learning and enhance student engagement and performance,” and it achieved this by giving teachers the opportunity to be in charge of their own professional learning through the creation of locally developed Action Research projects (Hargreaves et al. 2009, p. 96). AISI housed a central hub for all of the Action Research projects and fostered an opportunity for teachers from across Alberta to learn from one another and collaborate, which in turn spawned additional Action Research projects. According to Hargreaves et al. (2009), AISI is an example of a “world-class and world-leading” system-wide education innovation that “seeds new, research-informed practices within local communities then spreads them across districts and schools” (p. 91).

Unfortunately, AISI was short-lived and Alberta Education is again in desperate need of a systemic shift. Top-down, neoliberal policies have resulted in a system-wide obsession with accountability measures within Alberta schools, which may not actually be measuring education quality (Evers & Kneyber 2016).

Fortunately, there are emerging promising practices that are designed specifically to confront complex challenges and aim to produce systemic change; Social Innovation Labs are an example of one such practice. A Social Innovation Lab is defined as a hybrid experimental model that combines systems and design approaches to innovate system interventions to confront complex challenges (Cahill & Spitz, 2017). In Edmonton alone, Social Innovation Labs have converged around questions of how best to tackle poverty, racism, youth unemployment, and improving services for citizens with disabilities (Weinlick & Velji, 2019). These labs have produced promising prototypes and pilot initiatives, and even more has been learned in the process. Much of the learning that happens during these labs occurs during the human centered design prototyping and testing phases, which are remarkably similar to Kurt Lewin’s Action Research Cycle of plan, act, observe, reflect (Bradbury-Huang, 2010). Regardless of the fact that Social Innovation Lab processes have not yet been formally dubbed in academic literature as a form of Action Research, it is possible that future studies will conclude that these processes are in fact a method of Action Research.

The action research cycle (image from https://extensionaus.com.au/extension-practice/continuous-business-improvement-model/action-research-imagre/).

The human-centred lab process (image from Edmonton Shift Lab).

Bringing Social Innovation Labs to Argyll Centre

The Process

Recently, an alternative Edmonton Public School, Argyll Centre, embarked on a journey to use Social Innovation Labs processes as a method of Action Research to affect change. Argyll Centre staff and students had an incredible year learning from some of Alberta’s leading Social Innovation lab practitioners, Ben Weinlick, Roya Damabi, and Annand Ollivierre [2] [3] [4] . Although we are only in the beginning phases of our Social Innovation Lab journey, our lab processes have generated intriguing and promising results thus far.

Our journey began with an introduction session led by Ben Weinlick with all of Argyll Centre’s staff, students, parents, and critical friends to introduce our education community to the potential of using Social Innovation Lab processes. This introduction session resulted in students, parents, and staff requesting the facilitation of future Social Innovation Labs on topics they felt were a priority. It is critically important to Argyll Centre’s leadership team to ensure that our vibrant learning community has a voice in setting the direction of the areas they would like to further explore or create change within.

This year, Argyll Centre facilitated (with the help from esteemed facilitators mentioned above) Social Innovation Labs on the topics of:

creating a progressive and sustainable high school studio program,
exploring online mental health supports for students,
creating a vibrant and connected home education community, and
a student leadership summit on youth co-creating an engaging course driven by their passions.

Each of these interactive sessions resulted in participants generating individual or collective Action Research projects to begin the process of creating change in their learning community context. Argyll Centre staff plan to continue to check in and host update gatherings where participants can update others on their findings thus far and be uplifted by a community of support willing to give positive and constructive feedback to the ongoing Action Research projects.

See what this looked like in the following short video.

What we Learned

Using Social Innovation Lab processes within the education sector helped us, as passionate change-makers within the system, learn and re-learn some key lessons:

Social Innovation Lab processes create opportunities for school leadership to be responsive and accountable to learning community needs

The Argyll Centre leadership team is most excited and intrigued by the way that Social Innovation Lab processes open space for a diversity of voices to feel equally engaged. The feedback we received after each session we facilitated this year was always the same: “thank you for providing us the opportunity to come together, co-create, and deeply listen to one another.” For schools to be accountable to the learning community they are situated within, it is critical that opportunities exist to listen to one another, build relationships and trust, and challenge deep-rooted assumptions. Social Innovation Lab processes have allowed the Argyll Centre leadership team to be responsive and co-create initiatives based on the needs that are being identified by the learning community themselves.

Choosing lab participants is critical and complex

Another key lesson we learned as a team this year was that choosing lab participants matters and is quite complex. During one of our first labs, the facilitation team made the decision to allow the staff that requested the lab to invite the participants whom they felt needed to be part of the lab. We thought that this would honour the integrity of the process of the lab being generated by the learning community, but instead we discovered that this was a critical error. Although the lab did include students, parents, and critical friends, there was a lack of diversity in perspectives. Student voice was consistently co-opted by the other powerful participants with invested interest in the topic at hand. The facilitation team did its best to navigate this tension and create processes to introduce diverse perspectives, but the lab ultimately suffered as a result of this lack of diversity. The leadership team was left reflecting on the dilemma of desiring to be authentic and accountable to the learning community and the complexity of the power dynamics of being in the position to choose lab participants. Who gets to choose who participates? How can we be more accountable in this process without sacrificing the integrity of requiring a diversity of perspectives? How can we do better with this complex process?

Collaborating with other sectors yields promising opportunities

In addition, Argyll Centre learned to not shy away from inviting leaders from other public sectors to participate in our sessions. Alberta Health Services was open to participating in our session exploring online mental health supports for students. This participation resulted in enthusiastic uptake of the processes used and a collaboration to hire qualified mental health professionals to build online e-counselling access for students. This integration of professionals from sectors outside of education meant that we had a broader view of resources, and could better envision connections and gaps in supports for students. Collaborating outside of the education sector was well worth the risk.

Learning from community can be the best curriculum

Lastly, the ethnographic research involved in Social Innovation Labs opens up space for participants to learn from others’ stories, increase empathy and compassion, and broaden individual perspectives. As education professionals, we consider this process to be an excellent example of experiential learning and utilizing the community as curriculum. According to our feedback, some of the most impactful learning experiences students have had in their education have been generated from the dialogue opportunities that have opened as a result of these Social Innovation Lab processes. For education professionals, learning from students, parents, and community, being open to co-creating, and allowing students to lead process, is challenging and rewarding professional development.

Summary

In conclusion, Argyll Centre has found that Social Innovation Labs in education are much more than simply a buzzword. We are committed to continuing to use these processes and learning from the promising results that have been generated thus far in our journey. All of the sessions have yielded ideas to prototype. Next steps for Argyll Centre include assembling working groups for these promising ideas and action research projects, and facilitating gatherings that open space to constructively uplift the difficult work of implementing change. We will continue to be responsive and accountable to our learning community needs and will facilitate future Social Innovation Labs exploring community-directed priorities. It has been an exhilarating journey so far and we are deeply grateful for the Social Innovation community in Alberta for all of their support thus far.

Julia Dalman is the founder and innovator of the Global Café program in Jasper Place High School and is currently living in the city of Edmonton, Alberta, on Treaty 6 territory. Growing up in or close to National Parks her whole life drew her to study an unlikely combination of Biology and International Studies at the University of Alberta. She is also currently completing a Master’s degree in Education Policy Studies at the University of Alberta. Julia dedicates her work to creating community connections. Her art form is community building and she is passionate about encouraging youth voice and space for co-creation in community and education initiatives. Julia has a background working in social and environmental justice movements and is a Next Up Alumni. She was selected as one of Alberta’s top 30 under 30 and she is a founding member of ConsentEd, a group dedicated to eliminating sexual violence. Julia is currently working at the Argyll Centre as a Community Liaison and uses Social Innovation Lab techniques to create more equity in the Edmonton Public School system. She loves to connect with others doing similar work; feel free to reach out to her at Julia.dalman@epsb.ca.

Do you have a story, idea, or insight you’d like to share with the ABSI Connect community? Did this guest blog post spark reflections or ideas you’d like to chat about? Let us know!

References

Cahill, G., & Spitz, K. (2017). Social innovation generation: Fostering a Canadian ecosystem for systems change. Montreal, J.W. McConnell Family Foundation.

Hargreaves, A., Crocker, R., Davis, B., McEwan, L.,Sahlberg, P., Shirley, D., Sumara, D., Hughes, M. (2009). The Learning Mosaic: A Multiple Perspectives Review of the Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI): Edmonton: Alberta Education. Retrieved from https://www-deslibris-ca.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/ID/22237.1

Evers, J., & Kneyber, R. (2016). Flip the System : Changing Education From the Ground Up. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Weinlick, B., Velji,A. (2019). Social Innovation Lab Field Guide. Retrieved from https://thinkjarcollective.com/tools/social-innovation-lab-field-guide/