Demystifying Innovation: Strategies for Cutting-Edge Educational Programming

Purpose & objective

Participants will learn about the process of innovation, how it works and what research has been done around it, particularly the Diffusion of Innovation model developed by E.M. Rogers in the 1960s. This model explores the phenomenon of how technological innovations diffuse throughout a system and society. It also defines various stages of the innovation process, including innovators, early adopters, early mainstream and late mainstream.

Additionally, we'll explore the rationale of why innovation is important and examples of how innovations begin, develop and scale within educational settings. I'll share specific examples of how we've done this at the Innovation Center and in St. Vrain Valley Schools, including an exploration of the development of our competitive robotics program.

Outline

1. Innovation at the SVVSD Innovation Center: 5 minutes, video introduction

2. Welcome and Overview: 5 minutes:
- Elbow partner: What caught your attention or made you excited?
- Overview of Innovation Center

3. What is Innovation? 15 minutes
- Overview of E.M. Rogers work
- How this has guided our work at the Innovation Center
- How innovation can benefit everyone

4. Self-Reflection: What does Innovation look like in your context? 10 minutes.
- What innovations are happening in your context? Who is leading them? How did they start?
- What are challenges in offering or developing innovative programming? How might you address them?
- What are your goals for the next three years?

5. Strategies for developing and scaling innovative programs: 10 minutes
- The value of systems thinking
- Start with vision, end with resource
- Who's your team?

6. Q&A: 10 minutes

Supporting research

- https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED501453.pdf
- https://crm.org/articles/diffusion-of-innovations
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ
- https://drive.google.com/drive/search?q=diffusion
- https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NurKoWLIz8HrS4IXdWFS1EO8YP_1uw83yHiorniMUJw/edit#slide=id.g23b8b3b0e1d_0_2