Innovation Pedagogy and the Beckoning Threshold of Community
Applause for Research and Education
Professor Brendan Bartlett
Australian Catholic University
Abstract
I would like to present in this paper the concept of innovation pedagogy as an energy for change
around management of knowledge and affective domains as they might apply in the grand
challenges that Steve has asked us to consider and extend in the agendas opening with ACU’s
move to a research intensification status. Innovation pedagogy looks like a term vested in
education. Of course it is, but its reach is far broader. The scope for innovation pedagogy is as wide
as community commitment to building, transforming and developing. It covers not only the traditional
focus of its school and post-school education systems, but also the learning theatres of home, work,
play and other informal spaces and times within which people and communities grow, change and
develop. It applies to all situations where research and change action come together in the interests
of what individuals or communities of people know as problematic and where timely, viable and
workable solutions are the major priority.
For me the concept is grounded in the context of action research and action learning models of
change-for-the-better. The intended beneficiary (e.g. a student, a client, a patient, groups of these, a
community) is intentionally generative – sometimes with various degrees of scaffolding and always
with support – primarily in outlining the future, but importantly also in the analysis, action and
evaluative reflection that make that future a better one. The evaluation step to the inventive march
of innovative pedagogy is a feature of action research modeling (Bartlett & Piggot-Irvine, 2010) and
underpins the timeliness, viability and workability of solutions - reminding us that the “good fit” of
today’s solution, and the knowledge and feelings of how we got there collaboratively in a timely,
viable and workable way, are often convenient triggers for further improvement tomorrow.
For teachers and teacher-educators, innovative pedagogy is a liberating realization of what needsbased learning can mean. It supports systematic approaches to corporate action in identifying,
analyzing, designing, acting on and evaluating things - such as aspirations and goals, learning
needs and the agentive balance as these things operate for all stakeholders in any issue of
achieving or preparing, of learning or recovering, or of development or repair. The framing needs to
account for “timeliness”, “viability” and “workability” phenomena as lively and co-constructed. Such
needs and perceptions traverse the many transitions that we make from cradle to tomb, and the
realities of inclusivity that characterise social systems such as our schools and hospitals. Some of
our institutions are doing it well as seen in BoysTown’s innovative pedagogy through social
enterprises that is helping significantly in reconnecting disaffected youth (Bartlett, Mafi & Dalgleish,
2013). Their work in promoting change for the better has stepped beyond the traditional. There are
others as we know. The threshold beckons to us.
Bartlett, B. J., Mafi, S. & Dalgleish, J. (2013). When Decision-Making Becomes More Socially-Responsible:
Personal and National Gains through Greater Sustainability in Jobs and Wellbeing amongst OnceDisaffected Youth. In J. Zelger, J. Müller, S. Plangger (Eds.): GABEK VI. Socially responsible decisionmaking processes (pp. 175-206). Studienverlag (Innsbruck/Wien/Bozen).
Bartlett, B. J., & Piggot-Irvine, E. (2008). What Is Evaluating Action Research? In E. Piggot-Irvine, & B. J.
Bartlett, (Eds.). Evaluating Action Research. New Zealand Research Council: Auckland.NZ.