Supporting innovation and being an innovator are related. The innovator can help themselves by using methods which can be rationalized, justified, and explained; systematic approaches leave a better impression than flailing and are easier to be supported. Support for innovators should also be rational and be supported by solid methods; which can be justified and explained based on science, not just opinions and personal preferences. In this note, we try to provide insights on both: supporting innovation and innovating.

Just because something can be done does not mean that it should be done. This is the big caveat and we do not believe in change for the sake of change, or change that is being done to create a legacy to yourself. We also do not believe in change that is being considered because of the ‘I do not like it’, ‘I have my own ideas’ thinking, or 'we have to do something, do anything, do something' style of management. Change and innovation should not be driven by personal agendas or mere opinions and should always be driven by the desire to make things more effective or more efficient. This can be two-dimensional; the output of whatever process is being considered can be more effective or efficient in the hands of the end recipient (the what), and how this was done can be more effective and more efficient (the how).

We believe in continuous improvement and that there are always opportunities to improve the effectiveness and efficiency related to the “what” and “how”. Nothing is ‘finished’. A course is a ‘process’ and the lessons from process improvement can be applied. The domain evolves, as does the knowledge base about how to learn and teach evolves. Best practice should always keep getting better. The incoming student population evolves. You, yourself evolve. We are never 'done'.

Continuous improvement or innovation in a class needs to be supported by the department, faculty and institution. Improvement is not free. It takes time, energy and various types of resources. Improvement needs drivers, forces, and incentives; why move off the status quo, why not go with homeostasis? Most institutions do not have any explicit incentives or drivers that will encourage and sustain widespread improvement. There are no processes in place that require courses to be adequately reviewed every few years for the match to desired learning outcomes, teaching pedagogy, and assessment methods. If any review is done, it is usually up to the individual instructor to do a self-review, at their own initiation. You might have internal motivation and desire to improve your courses, but without carrots, this is hard to sustain and not all instructors have intrinsic motivation. Some instructors will have the intrinsic motivation, but it is not wise to assume that all instructors do. And, if there are risks or possible bumpy roads, few instructors will bother. An instructor might get some help when developing a new course, but we have rarely seen the situation where ongoing improvements are supported or where a course is regularly (e.g., every 3-4 years) supported through an overhaul to the point of the thinking applied to a new course. This overall situation usually leaves the stick as a motivational device.

The main stick used by most institutions is the student evaluations, connected to merit pay. Not all institutions do this, but enough do. We consider it the norm based on our own experience. An instructor doing ‘ok’, might try to keep things fresh enough to maintain a certain evaluation, minor changes; things that will improve the student experience and their perception of teaching quality, but not enough change to potentially damage the winning recipe. An instructor with marginal evaluations will likely have the incentive to introduce changes that will make the students happier. This will be the focus of most changes; why are the students upset, how can we appease them. We have seen situations where the instructors have made changes and innovations focused on the actual learning and outcomes, but these have been rare individuals. Most innovations we have seen have been about upping the student perception scores. Make them happy. Very happy. If the students are happy, the bosses will be happy with you. When teaching is not really valued or evaluated, there are no drivers or incentives to work harder (student or instructor) and as predicted by Bloom’s group, the focus will be on knowledge that can be reguritated and not on the harder bits of learning – the actual skills.

We need to encourage controlled innovation and risk taking, continuous improvements, and this requires that the instructors are given training in change management, quality improvement, as well as having incentives, time, and resources (human and physical).

Systematic innovation...

• At the end of a course, review how each lecture or learning component contributed to the learning outcomes and identify the lectures with greatest potential for improvement. It is often easier to do this with someone familiar with the course and who might have sat in on a few lectures. You want to be able to identify issues that you can control and those you cannot.
• Identify any common issues across multiple lectures. It might an issue with one topic, one lecture, or it might be a systemic issue.
• Figure out what changes are necessary to address the identified shortcoming. If it is a surgical type change (limited, controlled scope, impact), then it should be reasonably easy to deal with.
• If you do not know how to address the issues, or are uncertain about the pros and cons of different methods, help should be sought from your institution’s Centre for Teaching Excellence (or equivalent).
• If the change is major, it is worth a term (be patient, measure thrice and cut once when dealing with potential victims, uh students) to find someone else and apprentice; see the method in practice, help out, learn the nuances. This will help you be confident when you introduce the methods in your own course.
• If possible, do one change at a time (we know for eager beavers it is tempting to do many at once! Try to resist and prioritize which changes are most important.). Have a baseline so that you can in fact tell if your intervention worked! If you are changing too much and start to flail with impatience, you basically do not know where you are, where you are going, when you might get there, or if indeed you do get there.
• Follow the basic problem-solving steps and adhere to the Plan-Do-Check-Act mantra with a focus on effectiveness first and efficiency second.
• Do not use one sample as the definitive result or claim for improvement (unless it is so obvious that no one could debate the cause and effect relationships – good or bad). That is, do not do it once and then write a paper about it. To that point, avoid relying on papers that ‘claim teaching success’ with only one implementation and no measurements, which is so many papers. In many process situations, four tries are needed to know if you are really nailing it, the first is often a naive, newbie, good faith attempt; the second has a major over-correction factor, trying to fix all of the mistakes from the first; the third is often the happy middle place between the first and second; and the fourth confirms that the middle is the sweet spot and that it can be replicated. If you claim a win before the fourth go, you might be right, but you might also be on thin ice.

Supporting innovation...

There are some core principles when considering a continuous improvement program and when expecting others to engage and practice continuous improvement.

• The leaders or advocates must do it themselves first; before expecting others to. They need to understand the nuances, show that they understand how to do it, how to get results, and how to sustain the results. Do not expect others to follow or take direction if you do not know yourself where you are going and how you are getting there. Leaders need to lead. Teaching champions or senior academics should take the risks and lead the way and then help others to introduce the methods.
• The department, faculty, institution must create a culture of change, innovation; encouraging controlled risk taking, the creating of new 'best practice'. Flailing and uninformed innovation should not be encouraged or condoned, but well thought through evolution and refinement, disruptive or incremental should be.
• Senior leaders should try to avoid the drivers associated with: ‘able to deal with more students’, ‘able to cut number of sections’, ‘less work for the instructor’, etc. until one has dealt with the student side of the equation; make it better for learning, not necessarily better for the institution or yourself.
• Educate instructors about change mangement and continuous improvement. These are the steps usually discussed in the context of change management and each step usually implies different skills and expertise.
• Identify an opportunity

• Understand why it is an opportunity (what is the problem)
• Determine that the opportunity should be addressed (that the problem is worthy of being addressed). This is usually best done in conjunction with a teaching mentor or senior department members.
• Figure out the requirements (what will it take to make it more effective or efficient)
• Figure out the actual steps and mechanics that will make it more effective or efficient
• Figure out how to do the steps
• Acquire the resources, relief time, space, help, whatever. Work together to make it a successful situation from the start, not a situation that is designed to fail and this means capacity, capability, and a mandate.
• Do the steps, do the dance
• Pilot, test the innovation in a controlled way; do not bet the farm on it, all or nothing, this is not wise.
• Assess the change/innovation during and after the change. Involve third party observers, reviewers.
• Reflect upon the outcome, deal with the implications (e.g., another round of changes), share the lessons learned.
• If ready for prime time, roll it out beyond the pilot, else terminate or iterate.
• You need to focus on what you need to do first and be able to do it more than once in a consistent fashion. If you do not do things in this order, with this mindset, you will be working on the wrong thing at the wrong time and it is doubtful that you will actually get any useful improvement.
• You (or your team) needs the various skills, knowledge, expertise, and experience to do the various tasks implied by an innovation or change. Each one of the steps in the point above implies a different skill set and the more complex or innovative the change is, the more skill you will need in each task.
• The newer or more innovative the change is (to you and to the students), the more care and time is needed for the planning and testing. It is usually too ambitious to take a new idea and apply it to the whole course out of the gate. It often takes four tries at something to know if you got the hang of it: the initial mistakes, the second try with over corrections, the third try in the middle, and the fourth to make sure you were just not lucky, that you can replicate the magic, that your third result was by design.
• As noted above, it is important to get the change sanctioned first and approved by the appropriate person with course oversight; do not do risky changes first and then beg forgiveness later. Risky changes are often changes that could harm student learning or could cause harm to your institution’s reputation. For example, the first use of a method such as flipping, blending, or constructive failure in a department is a risky move, especially if this is your first time to use the method and the first time the students will experience it.
• Until the institutional norms change, junior instructors must be very careful with changes. It is our experience that they should not introduce methods or practices into a department. It is a risky business. They should identify methods already used and seek the help of the department ‘expert’ to help introduce the changes in their own course(s). Once they are intermediate or senior, more changes can be considered.
• Last bit of advice, the department, faculty, and institution should provide sufficient support that the instructor can try the innovation out first, in a very small, controlled way and have it reviewed by others. A new method that will significantly change a student's learning or assessment should never be popped out of the oven and served up in all of its glory without the appropriate testing and validation.

Further reading

• Ellis, D. E. (2013). Students' responses to innovative instructional methods: Exploring learning-centred methods and barriers to change. [Doctoral thesis, University of Waterloo]. UWSpace.
• Continuous Improvement https://asq.org/training/continuous-improvement-techniques-vcitasq
• Risk Management https://asq.org/quality-resources/risk-management