What does redesigning schools and schooling through innovation mean in practice? How might it be brought about? These questions have inspired an influential international reflection on “Innovative Learning Environments” (ILE) led by the OECD. This reflection has already resulted in publications on core design principles and frameworks and on learning leadership. Now the focus extends from exceptional examples towards wider initiatives and system transformation. The report draws as core material on analyses of initiatives specially submitted by some 25 countries, regions and networks. It describes common strengths around a series of Cs: Culture change, Clarifying focus, Capacity creation, Collaboration & Co-operation, Communication technologies & platforms, and Change agents. It suggests that growing innovative learning at scale needs approaches rooted in the complexity of 21st century society and “learning eco-systems”. It argues that a flourishing middle level of change around networks and learning communities provides the platform on which broader transformation can be built. This report is not a compendium of “best practices” but a succinct analysis presenting original concepts and approaches, illustrated by concrete cases from around the world. It will be especially useful for those designing, researching or engaging in educational change, whether in schools, policy, communities or wider networks.

1. Schooling Redesigned
Towards Innovative
Learning Systems
OECD, Paris
22 October 2015

2. 0 20 40 60 80 100
If I am more innovative in my
teaching, I will be rewarded
Innovative practices will be
considered in appraisal with high or
moderate importance
Average
Mean mathematics performance, by school location, after acc
ounting for socio-economic status
Fig II.3.3
22 What do teachers say about innovation at school?
Percentage of lower secondary teachers
%

3. “Schools need to drive a shift from a
world where knowledge that is stacked
up somewhere depreciating rapidly in
value towards a world in which the
enriching power of communication and
collaborative flows is increasing”
Schooling Redesigned: Foreword 3
The need to innovate learning environments

4. • “Learning Research”
(The Nature of Learning: Using Research to
Inspire Practice, 2010)
• “Innovative Cases”
(Innovative Learning Environments, 2013)
• “Implementation and Change”
(Leadership for 21st century Learning, 2013, Schooling
Redesigned: Towards Innovative Learning Systems, 2015)
4
ILE – an OECD project in three strands

5. The ILE Principles – learning environments
and systems should:
• Make learning central, encourage engagement, and be where
learners come to understand themselves as learners
• Ensure that learning is social and often collaborative
• Be highly attuned to learners’ motivations and the importance
of emotions
• Be acutely sensitive to individual differences including in prior
knowledge
• Be demanding for each learner but without excessive overload
• Use assessments consistent with its aims, with strong
emphasis on formative feedback
• Promote horizontal connectedness across activities and
subjects, in-and out-of-school 5

6. 1. The challenge of transformation towards innovative
learning systems
2. Conditions and signposts in generalising innovative
learning environments
3. Promising strategies for spreading innovative
learning environments
4. Growing innovative learning through meso-level
networking
5. Transformation and leadership in complex learning
systems
6
“Schooling Redesigned: Towards Innovative
Learning Systems” – 5 Chapters

7. Indicators of success
• High learning activity and
motivation levels
• Prominent learner agency
and voice
• Educators actively discuss
learning strategies and
practice collaboration
• Educators are highly
knowledgeable about
learning
• Mixed, personalised
pedagogical practices
• Inter-disciplinarity,
curriculum development
and new learning materials
• Widespread innovative
applications of digital
resources and social media
• Cultures of using learning
evidence and evaluation
• Sophisticated information
systems and individual
portfolios
• New evaluation and
assessment metrics
• Diverse partners highly
visible
• A thriving, vibrant meso
level
• Dense global connections
7

8. Strategies and initiatives submitted to OECD
Australia: The South Australian Department for Education
and Child Development (DECD) innovation initiative
Australia: System reform in the Western Metropolitan
Region (WMR), Victoria
Austria: “New Secondary School” (NMS) reform
Belgium (French community): Décolâge! early years
strategy
Canada (Alberta): Canadian Rockies Public Schools
District initiative “Inspiring Hearts and Minds”.
Canada (BC): Three networks (Performance Based Schools,
Aboriginal Enhancement, and Healthy Schools)
Chile: Chile’s initiatives to innovate learning
Finland: “Schools on the Move”, action strategy on learning
and well-being
France: RESPIRE national platform for teachers
Germany (Baden-Württemberg): Innovation in the
Gemeinschaftsschule
Germany (Thuringia): “Development of Inclusive and
Innovative Learning Environments” in ministry strategy
Israel: Experiments and Entrepreneurship (Ministry of
Education) on innovative schools
Korea: Centre for Multicultural Education
Mexico (Conafe): Itinerant Pedagogical Advisors
Mexico (UNETE): Business People in Educational
Technology, integration of ICT into schooling
New Zealand: Learning and Change Networks
Norway: The National Advisory Team
Peru: Innova Schools Network
Peru (Lego Education): Programme on play, learning
and materials
Slovenia: Renovation through School Development
Teams
South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal): The ICT in Education
(ICT-Ed) project
Spain: “Curricular Integration of Key Competences”
initiative
Sweden: Mother Tongue platform
Switzerland (Ticino): The School Improvement Advisor
(SIA) initiative
UNICEF (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia): In-
service Teacher Education Programme on Early
Numeracy and Literacy
United Kingdom (England): Whole Education Network.8

9. • Culture change: Several emphasise culture change in
schools (but stubbornly difficult)
• Clarifying focus: Focus & prioritising, not “letting
1000 flowers bloom”
• Capacity creation: widespread professional &
community learning
• Collaboration & co-operation: Collaborative
professionalism and networks & professional learning
communities
• Communication technologies & platforms:
Platforms & digital communications now common basis
• Change agents: Some strategies create specific change
agents, who may be supported by specialist institutes
9
Common characteristics of the strategies

10. Many strategies make changes happen at the middle,
‘meso’ level – not right across the board all at once
Analysis of strategies through three lenses:
• How learning focused? (Is learning front and
centre – why and what?)
• How horizontally spread, the non-formal as well
as the school system? (who?)
• How do they connect and diffuse? (The methods
used to spread innovation – how? how well?)
10
Growing innovative learning through
meso-level networking

11. “The complex nature of educational governance,
involving myriad layers and actors, can be an
overwhelming problem with no clear entry point for
policy makers. Traditional approaches, which often
focus on questions of top-down versus bottom-up
initiatives or levels of decentralisation, are too narrow to
effectively address the rapidly evolving and sprawling
ecosystems that are modern educational systems.”
“The simple, the complicated, and the complex:
educational reform through the lens of complexity
theory”, OECD Education Working Papers, No. 96,
11
Transformation in complex systems?

12. 12
System-level transformation through the
accumulation of meso level changes
Formal education
units (classes,
schools, districts,
systems)
Hybrid learning
environments
Non-formal
education units
Degree of formality
High Low
ConnectednessLowHigh
Formal education
units (classes,
schools, districts,
systems)
Hybrid learning
environments
Non-formal
education units
Connectedness
LowHigh
Degree of formalityHigh Low
ILE Strategies

13. • Key role of knowledge, including…
…evaluation and learning evidence
• Theories of change and narratives…
…to connect actions, strategies and policies with the
intended beneficial results
• System leadership, including…
…government leadership - stimulating, legitimising,
regulating, incentivising, & accelerating.
13
Factors in system-level change (Chapter 5)

14. • A handbook on innovative learning
environments
• Governance of Complex Education
Systems
• New work on Creativity and on
Innovative Pedagogies
• Education 2030 .
14
Where next?