Reframing the Concept of Innovation in Higher Education

This session will examine the process of transformative academic change and how framing change can have an impact on its outcome. Innovation is often touted as the holy grail of educational change (Christensen and Eyring, 2011, Doss 2014). However, focusing on innovation for its own sake can lead to unrealizable expectations and feelings of failure even when important change occurs. In this session, you will be given an opportunity to review several cases of academic transformation through this lens and to reflect on your own institutional context.

Outcomes: Articulate a personal definition of innovation relevant to your own context *Reflect on the usefulness of distinguishing between innovation and evolution in supporting large-scale campus change *Analyze one of your current or planned change initiatives using the proposed framework