Seeding a Curricular Innovation from One School to Five Schools: A Case Study from Singapore

Abstract

Scaling up curricular innovations is inherently complex. The scaling complexity comes from not only the influences arising from policy imperatives, government, or other top-level support but also the uptake of the practitioners. In the literature, factors that affect the degree of uptake and scale-up of innovations have been frequently discussed. However, evidence is lacking from scaling practices in specific contexts. Few studies have discussed the relationship between the application of scaling strategies and patterns, and the transformation of teaching and learning. This chapter presents a 6-year innovation scaling in one school and the continuous scaling to another five schools in order to paint a picture on how scaling practitioners design and implement the scaling strategies to promote teacher adoption and adaption of the innovation (the Mobilized 5E Science Curriculum, M5ESC). We first review literature that addresses mobile learning in science education, scale-up challenges and perspectives, and evidence-based scaling for framing the scale-up strategies of the innovation. Then we describe the scaling progression of the M5ESC innovation that encompasses intraschool and interschool scaling phases. Finally we draw some implications from the outcomes of the scaling progression at the interschool level.