Howick College – The Innovation Stream 

What is the Innovation Stream? 

Howick College's The Innovation Stream is an integrated curriculum designed to develop learners, leaders, and change-makers who use knowledge meaningfully across the core subjects of English, maths, science, and social studies. It focuses on the development of six innovation capabilities: 

• Character – building resilience, leadership, and initiative 
• Citizenship – understanding different viewpoints and ways of thinking 
• Communication – developing strong oral, written, visual, and digital literacy 
• Collaboration – working in teams to learn with and from others 
• Creativity - developing qualities like entrepreneurship, flexibility, and curiosity 
• Critical thinking – applying critical and analytical thought processes to address a range of real-world applications of problem solving.

This new programme introduces four cross-curricular "subjects" – future studies, community action, creative design, and problem solving that students study instead of the traditional core subjects of English, mathematics, science, and social studies. 

A successful application for the Teacher-led Innovation Fund (TLIF) in 2017 enabled teachers to examine the effectiveness of the overall course in accelerating learning alongside the development of twenty-first century capabilities: citizenship, character, communication, collaboration, and creative and critical thinking (Fullan, Langworthy & Barber, 2014). Part of this enquiry investigated how The New Zealand Curriculum principles of coherence and future focus might be used to construct, design, and review a secondary school curriculum.

What led to the development of the Innovation Stream? 

In observing senior student presentations, Louise felt that further opportunities to develop the key skills of communication and collaboration could be provided. She wanted to get the students excited and engaged in real-life situations, so she looked at how this could be done in a traditional school environment.

She thought about the need to prepare students for the "exponential age" and twenty-first century learning. Today’s students are entering a different world from that of their parents and teachers, with new job and learning opportunities. These opportunities need students who can think deeply about issues, solve problems creatively, communicate clearly in a variety of media, learn ever-changing technologies, and deal with multiple sources of information. The rapid changes in the world require students to be flexible, to take the initiative and lead when appropriate, to collaborate with others with a range of expertise, and to create new and useful products and processes.

"Doing things the way we’ve always done them won’t change anything." - Louise Addison, Associate Principal

It made sense to start with a small group of year 9 students, so it didn’t require massive changes for staff and students. They invited voluntary applications and wrote a brochure to explain the Innovation Stream to students and whānau. Louise presented this information at a parents’ evening and at feeder schools. Angela was appointed director of the Innovation Stream to oversee the development and implementation of the programme.

Many applications came in — far more than they could take. Louise and Angela were looking for a certain student in the first instance — those who were motivated and "pioneers", not necessarily the high achievers academically. They found it fascinating to discover the range of students’ passions as part of this application process.

They presented their idea to the rest of the staff and asked those who may be interested to attend a meeting. They had 30 percent attendance, which was more than expected. It seemed like a risk for teachers at first, as it requires a shift in mindset from traditional single-cell teaching. Team teaching is not common in secondary schools.

In 2017, eight staff were involved, and in 2018, more got on board, so now there were 17 teachers, 54 year 9 students, and 30 students in year 10. The year 10 cohort included 28 students from the year 9 class of 2017. Two students from the original cohort moved to another region, which allowed a place for two new students.

Getting started 

Angela and Louise worked with teachers interested in the programme and with timetablers to finalise the first teaching team of eight staff. In 2017, this team taught the Innovation Stream class in a prefab, with two teachers working together. The programme did require significant commitment from these teachers, as they met to plan together on a weekly basis as well as being part of the wider innovation team.

Angela, whose subject is English, taught with a science teacher in future studies. She reported that it gave them regular opportunities to talk about the students, something that doesn’t generally happen between teachers in different subject areas at secondary level.

"Teachers are learning to be more flexible. It took a term at the beginning of last year to get the balance right. It’s hard not to focus on coverage rather than on rich tasks. Co-teaching is so new to everyone. We could have left the class for one to teach on their own, but actually both teachers ended up staying in the classroom the whole time. A lot of the planning happened in the room. We’ve really grown an appreciation for what our colleagues can do across the learning areas — what’s specific to subjects. And it helps to have someone from senior management involved."
- Louise Addison, Associate Principal

How is it structured? 

The diagram below shows how the four subject areas from The New Zealand Curriculum are incorporated into the four Innovation Stream courses. As this is an integrated approach, aspects of the health and PE, languages, business, the arts, and technology curricula are also used to support meaningful learning.

The names of the courses helped to shift mindsets for students, whānau, and teachers as more focus is on authentic contexts for "problem solving" or "designing" and less on "covering year 9 content". 

The diagram is set out in four panels:

Community Action  

Students will be engaged in moving from idea to action, creating change, and making a positive impact in our community. Topics for 2017 could include leadership, entrepreneurship, health, big data, democracy, global warming, and adventure tourism. This course will highlight collaboration and citizenship deep learning competencies. Its curriculum focus will be on the statistics and social studies learning areas.

Creative Design 

Students will be developing, creating, and innovating in a range of contexts. Topics for 2017 could include 3D printing, architecture, street art, media studies, upcycling, zines, and storytelling. This course will highlight the creativity and character deep learning competencies. Its curriculum focus will be on the social studies and English learning areas.

Problem Solving 

Students will be engaged in thinking creatively and critically to solve problems and model situations. Topics for 2017 could include argumentation and proof, philosophy, gaming, the scientific method, psychology, and rocket science. This course will highlight the critical thinking and character deep learning competencies. Its curriculum focus will be on the science and mathematics learning areas.

Future Studies 

Students will engage in analysing global issues facing our world now and in the future. Topics for 2017 could include the future of food, disappearing languages, travel in time and space, identity theft, virtual reality, robotics, neurotechnology, and happiness. This course will highlight the communication and citizenship deep learning competencies. Its curriculum focus will be on the English and science learning areas.

What changes has the Innovation Stream brought to a school day for students? 

Innovation Stream year 9 and 10 students are together for 15 out of 25 hours per week. During that time, they remain in their room while teachers come to them.  

The nature of what they’re doing is different from normal subject classes. For example: 

• there are fewer written tasks 
• there is a greater need to collaborate 
• there is a big focus on the six capabilities 
• togetherness is a strong feature 
• having two or three teachers in the classroom at the same time 
• getting more exposure to different technologies, for example, 3D printer, virtual reality (coming up), robotics, drone software.   

Year 9 has 54 students in one big room with three teachers who do all their planning together. The room is timetabled as either two large interconnected classrooms or a classroom and a lab for science mix courses. That means higher staffing which we could do with TLIF funding as it pays for teacher release and professional development. 

What have the benefits been so far for the teachers? 

• PLD support 
• teachers and learners getting their "spark" back
• being open to learning; the learning comes first
• "Less mucking around" when there are two teachers to share the learning action; they tend to get through work more quickly than initially anticipated
• the pairing of teachers from different subjects provides important learning opportunities. For example, the second teacher in the space unit had never seen 3D printing in action, but feels confident she could now use this technology too
• one teacher said he could "never go back to a traditional class now". He clarified that what he meant was that the ways of working in the Innovation Stream were spilling over into his mainstream classes
• another teacher new to the HOD role said the experiences of working in the Innovation Stream had given her the confidence to think differently about "coverage" in mainstream classes. 

What have been the main challenges for teachers changing their practice? 

• Secondary subject teachers are traditionally not set up to be interdisciplinary, so it’s a lot harder for them to make time to meet outside of the classroom.
• Some teaching pairs didn’t match so well (most did). It’s more about personality than expertise.
• Significantly more guiding from the side/facilitating learning than leading from the front. 
• Giving feedback on the capabilities and not just the curriculum content. 
• Teachers were sometimes pushed beyond the boundaries of their current experiences and found themselves needing to learn with the students as they went, especially when working with exponential technologies and futuristic trends. 
• Thinking differently about assessment. Finding a way to assess capabilities. 

What have been the main challenges for the students? 

The hardest thing was the leap of faith at the start of the programme. The students needed a "pioneer" mentality. Initially, some students struggled with:  

• having to think for themselves
• wanting to move from class to class when they first arrived at secondary school 
• wanting to go back to what they felt more comfortable with 
• taking risks 
• significant amounts of group work and collaboration 
• presenting their findings to the class for critique and feedback from their peers 
• critiquing to help them develop as learners. 

The first few weeks were challenging for students, but once they settled into the class and the less familiar ways of working, they stepped up to meet these challenges.

What have been the benefits for students? 

Teachers reported that the level of persistence students demonstrated was "beyond what we expect of year 9". Students were not expected to sit the traditional end-of-year examination for other year 9 classes, but they wanted to. They were given a mix of half the items other students attempted and some more challenging questions written just for them. This willingness to step up and be challenged reflected the "different attitude" to learning that they had developed during the year.

The Innovation Stream performed significantly above the mainstream across the core areas. They also performed at or above the upper band in all four core subjects.

"Learning with the same small group that is all inspired and with a will to learn. It’s really good to be in an environment that is so welcoming and safe. I'm never embarrassed to ask questions, as I now know that most people are thinking the same thing and the answer will benefit them. I think that if I had been in a mainstream class I would not of been so motivated to learn and I would never have stepped out of my comfort zone and tried new exciting things."
- Year 9 student 

"The innovation stream was an opportunity to learn in a way I had never before, and that is what I love most about it. For once, we engage and love our learning because we don’t just learn English, maths, science, we learn about life and how to apply our learning to our life."
- Year 9 student

"I have enjoyed when we have put together ideas for inventing things and making change in the community, especially the school. For example, after we went to Tiaki Expo, we got into groups and thought about the things we could do to improve the school."
- Year 9 student

What feedback have you had from parents and whānau?

The type of parents who supported their children's involvement in the Innovation Stream were those willing to give it a go. Feedback from the students was shared with whānau. 

"That's great feedback from the students. It's easy to see how much they're enjoying Innovation Stream. I thought it was very interesting that the favourite thing for the majority of them is the collaboration and the friendships they're making. They like having the same people in multiple classes – it makes it more enjoyable to attend class. As a parent, I'm very happy with the life skills the kids are learning and the way everything has been conducted."
- A parent 

"I wish all kids could learn like this. I know my child has gotten so much from the programme and is looking forwards to continuing with it next year." - A parent 

Were there any surprises?

• The demonstrated learning exceeded the teachers’ expectations of year 9 students in more traditional classes. 
• The students’ response to the programme, that is, dealing with uncertainty. 
• The level of agency students exercised in their learning. This is reflected in the willingness of the students to continue their learning beyond class time, and the level of commitment and stretch they are prepared to demonstrate. They are highly motivated. 

How will you expand on this programme?