DEVELOPING EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS WITH INNOVATION PEDAGOGY

 

Taru Penttilä

Dr., Turku University of Applied Sciences, FINLAND, taru.penttila@turkuamk.fi

 

Abstract

The needs of the working life and the competences required there are under a change, and educational institutions should be able to answer for this need by providing their students with competences needed. This usually requires changes in their own activities as well. The implementation of the change is often problematic even if the tools and methods how to conduct changes were familiar, because the change requires learning both on individual and organizational level, guiding of learning, internal training, and good command of communication and interaction. In this article we will discuss how to make the change – how to develop educational organizations with innovation pedagogy through the process consultation method. Innovation pedagogy is a learning approach focused on the development of innovation competences, defining how knowledge is assimilated, produced and used in a manner that can create innovations. Innovation pedagogy answers for the development needs of most educational organizations, but it is a challenging process to adapt and establish it and it requires that a change process is to be conducted in the organization. Process consultation is a development method for a work community where the personnel participates into the development of their own work, work processes and work community. Process consultation is maybe one of the most workable tools in the development of an expert organization in order to accomplish a real impact and change.

Educational organizations have an emerging need to answer for the demands of the changing world and working life, and innovation pedagogy, originating from the working life needs, answers directly for this demand. Organizations can be changed only ‘from the inside’ by involving the personnel into the implementation of the change, and therefore process consultation can be the tool for accomplishing the change. This article aims to provide new kind of methodological knowledge and tools, which have not earlier been studied and applied in this context. The process consulting methods can provide added value to develop pedagogical knowhow in educational organizations and thus support their internal learning and development. The theoretical framework of the article is put into practice in the description of a real empirical case. The focus in this article will be in higher educational organizations, but the approach is applicable for all level of educational institutions. The managerial outcome of the paper is that in the development of an educational organization process consultation can be most powerful tool in order to conduct a real change and impact. 

Keywords: Educational organizations, innovation pedagogy, innovation competence, process consultation, change