What are ways to promote collaboration and innovation with limited resources?

Almost all of education in China runs on WeChat. With all of the schools I taught in so far and with the professional organization I am a part of we simply connect through the program that defines a large portion of our lives. The person who changed my entire Advanced Placement History strategy, my new mentee, and all of my mentors? I talk with all of these people through WeChat. Slack, Whatsapp, Telegram, Discord, all can make the same happen for you, no matter where you are and what your organizational needs are. When I taught in the US I once worked in a school where I was told we couldn't use our cell phones to communicate with each other in an emergency and that we had to use an intercom. We live in the present and use the tech of now.

The biggest way to foster a culture of collaboration and innovation with limited resources is to make sure that your daily schedule has room for collaboration built into it. You can't expect people to collaborate if they don't have time. When you build a master schedule that includes time for collaboration and the sharing of ideas you are communicating through your master schedule that collaboration is an expectation. If collaboration is one of your school's core values, then building time into your schedule for teachers to collaborate reinforces your commitment to those values.

Mission statements frequently are not repeatable by members of organizations that have them. A coherent vision comes from connections with people. Cultural is a system built of human connection. Some of the work I've done involved students and faculty and a survey about sleep habits but sometimes you need to be able to just ask and observe. Ask people to tell you their needs and if they trust you they will tell you. Only ask people for ideas if you believe there is some chance that you will use those ideas and credit them appropriately. I never forget when credit for what I did went elsewhere so I try to credit everyone I know who gives me the tools to what I do and make a community a whole one. Platforms possess data but are for talking.

Progressive overload applies to organizations. Apart from injury or disease we can all do better. We also need the time to recover. To rest, to renew, to come back stronger. We don't evolve while we are challenged but when we come back from it. How can you do better? What can you do? How can I help you do it?

When a new teacher very badly wanted curricular support I gave three choices. I support his choice and defend the work he does to make it his own.

One easy way to provide autonomy and choice to your teachers is to let them create the group norms they will follow during collaborative time. You set the expectations for collaboration and they set the conditions that work best for them to collaborate in. Norms are important because they also give the team a way of holding each other accountable for the process. You can provide feedback on a group's norms to make sure they help lead to a desired outcome, but they have to own the process of creating them initially.

Failures? Learning opportunities. Make staff and student resilient when they learn skills. Disciplines and cultures make barriers in schools. Combine them and build a house. Local community is precious. Alumni even more precious. They are the future come to visit. Make them be mentors. Make them give parent workshops. Use every open source educational technology tool you can. I envy every educational leader with an Internet without a firewall. Let teachers change classroom environments whenever possible. Allow people to explore. What professional development is free? What alumni can teach? Can people ask you questions? Can you ask them? How can you solve someone else's problem? How can they solve yours? What can be experiential? Can you?

What you celebrate (or what you consider success) is important here. I love to celebrate failure. I love to celebrate when a team takes a risk, tries a new thing, and fails at it. All I require is that when they fail, they figure out why, make the change, and try again. This is the growth mindset at work. Celebrating the failure tells the group that it is safe to take risks as long as we don't stop when we fail.

Collective and Continuous Refinement: Vet and refine ideas collectively and continuously. The goal is for only the best ideas to survive. This process involves clear, commonly understood guidelines by which to judge proposed innovations.