A Self-Organizing Network of Schools that Transform Teacher and Student Learning through Socio-Technical Co-evolution

Abstract

Scaling up educational innovations through networks has attracted much interest in diverse research and education policy communities. Literature on scaling are often associated with top-down or partnership models of change, and the goals, resources and technology tools used are generally defined and developed by stakeholders outside of schools. This paper reports on the sustained efforts of a self-organizing network of special needs schools in Hong Kong that has worked together for more than a decade to realize the vision of providing the same educational opportunities to children with various degrees of learning disability. The analysis focuses on how their engagement in the development of a collaborative platform for teacher learning started a journey of socio-technical co-evolution that resulted in exponential scaling of the innovation both qualitatively and quantitatively. The evolution trajectory of this network shows characteristics and susceptibilities similar to those in the socio-technical innovation literature.