INTRODUCTION

Polytechnic institutions have the distinctive capability to meet the challenges faced by our students, communities, and governments. We at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) are grounded in an experiential learning approach defined as a practice orientation. We foreground our relationships with not only industry but also the many organizations that comprise our greater sphere of influence. This close connection generates a multidimensional environment where we collaborate to seek pragmatic solutions to the challenges that impact us all, while allowing students to apply new knowledge to practical applications.

Polytechnics add value to higher education systems by emphasizing knowledge that is current, relational, and renewable. Immersed in their disciplines, faculty members engage in interdisciplinary projects that are enriched through professional advisory committees and student placements. This infuses our experiential learning ethic with real-world, real-time knowledge and currency. The dynamic nature of technological development and the accelerated pace of socio-economic change demand a high level of relationship management. If polytechnics are to maintain their given mandates, they must continually renew their programs, approaches, and external connections. This offers students the best possible chance at finding entry-level positions—and continuing success— in a rapidly moving workforce and career environment.

At KPU, our motto—“Where thought meets action”—reflects this essential role of polytechnics, a role whose importance is now being increasingly reflected by themes such as the European “Third Mission” component for higher education systems (Hazelkorn, 2019, pp. 4–5; Meyer & Sporn, 2019, p. 39). It speaks to a role beyond the mission elements for teaching and for research focused on advancing the general body of knowledge in a domain. Note the emphasis here on systems rather than institutions: we believe in the notion of a globally exemplary higher education system (as opposed to individual “world-class institutions”), where each institution excels at particular elements of the system mission (Hazelkorn, 2013).

We have made the choice to use our collective capacity to focus the practice orientation in both our teaching and our innovation/applied research mission. In teaching, for example, this has entailed integrating practice-oriented learning outcomes, learning and teaching environments, and the learning system infrastructure (including supportive resources, processes, and policies) (Goodman, 2011). Other institutions have made different choices, a decision we respect and encourage as part of creating a globally exemplary higher education system that best serves learners and communities. Now we are tackling the challenge of leveraging the polytechnic mandate to better prepare for the changing world of work and jobs for practice futures.

Chapter Map: In the next section of this chapter, we share our own story as a unique experience that reflects issues faced by all polytechnics. As we navigate our increasingly intertwined relationships with our immediate environs, we all confront similar issues, opportunities, and questions. We offer our narrative as another example of the progressive influence and rising profile of the polytechnic sector.

As a cohesive network of polytechnics, we have similar goals and shared solutions. To prepare graduates for possible futures, we must extend our focus. In the third section of this chapter, we suggest that one way to move forward is to engage with our workplace partners to introduce and nurture specific capabilities that enhance the notion and scope of practice-based education in the context of a dynamic workplace context and the uncertain future of work.

This exploration of a distinctive polytechnic approach seeks to identify what characteristic elements of our workforce preparation need be explored to imbue the student with a value-added, experiential-rich learning experience.

Then, in the fourth section of this chapter, we outline three examples of these individual capabilities and add practical scenarios to illustrate their application in diverse workforce contexts.

Finally, in the concluding section, we move the discussion from institutional goals and learner capabilities to the leadership challenge that many readers of this chapter will need to take on if we are to meet the goals we have set out.

Our approach to these challenges must begin within the value-added learning experience. Practice orientation and innovation—as proven attributes of an enriched polytechnic education—and the concerted action of academic workplace partnerships, relationship management, and developmental evaluation bolster our capacity to stand at the leading edge of the future of work.

TRANSFORMATION AND RENEWAL AT KWANTLEN POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY

We hope some of our readers see themselves in this story. We offer experience-based insights that may assist others in approaching similar scenarios. Our story tells how KPU, a relatively new western Canadian polytechnic partner, is responding to the challenge and consequent opportunity to build adaptable, future-focused capabilities. We will share a poignant example of how this
went at our institution.

The evolution of KPU from a university college to a polytechnic university began with our new provincial designation in 2008. The institution—that evolution of the collective identity of its employees and the culture catalyzed by a search for identity—is now in its tenth year, and is still an ongoing and engaging process. Nevertheless, we have learned many lessons that can be applied from this transformative exercise to the discussion of the unique role of the polytechnic institution within the national scene. For example, we wish to explore how one can guide the transformation of a culture to reframe conversations on how a polytechnic education can add lasting value to an industry or organization while contributing to their mutual and continuous improvement.

We want to explore how we can reshape our agency and our identity to animate and serve our goals. We believe our journey coincides with a federal policy shift toward innovation and skills capacity to which we can apply our lessons and propose purposeful contributions. This quest aligns well with industry and community needs; our applied research/practice-based educational model represents an improvement cycle where research informs industry and community innovation that in turn drives our applied research problem-solving to new levels of renewal.

Nurturing a reciprocal dialogue with our internal and external communities is something we consider essential to polytechnic outreach, and enriches both sides of the workplace equation. Cultivating an ongoing ethic of renewal and reflection feeds an ever richer cycle of interdependence, integration, and systemic thinking.

Academic leaders interested in focusing on the advantage of the polytechnic ethos must be continually attuned to the rapid wave of contemporary socioeconomic and cultural transformation. As leaders, we play a role in bringing together diverse areas of expertise and previously unconnected industry/ community constituencies in the service of a more adept and agile workforce. At the same time, we must encourage and support the experts within (faculty) and those outside (industry, community) in developing methodologies and test assumptions on innovative strategies that will enhance the future workforce’s ability to thrive in a rapidly evolving and unstable economic environment.

Why innovation right now at KPU? As the institution embarks on a new mandate for the next five years, we do so in the midst of highly engaged consultations and discussions around a new strategic plan, a new academic plan, new governments, and aggressive targets on the innovation and skills-building fronts. As dynamic agents essential to the economic engine of this nation, we are compelled to dispense with incremental development and make a leap of faith in the face of exponential external change. We serve our learners best through the selective and carefully mentored deployment of their imaginations.

Key to developing strategies that support transformation are well-established core principles that speak to our values and direct our attention to the “why” behind the “what.” One proven approach to enable transformation is to build or selectively deploy sentinel documents assembled and approved by the internal community and educational governance bodies. Strategic plans, education/academic plans, operational plans, and other institute-wide planning documents can serve as effective means to enable and validate transformation and buy-in. Once approved internally, these documents have the ability to direct collective energies toward the achievement of select strategies. They are essential to reinforcing and consolidating a polytechnic university’s mindset and identity and are critical to laying the ideological foundation of how the institution’s actors—the faculty, staff, administrators, and students—see their role in the national narrative on innovation socioeconomic development.

Other significant factors also play into our institution’s ability to rise to the national challenge ahead. Prominent among those are the limitations or interpretations of collective agreements, institutional policies, government policy shifts, and an ever-evolving curriculum. Many institutions—especially those like KPU—are often constrained by policy and governance frameworks that are at odds with contemporary realities.

Whereas there has been expansive development in some areas, the development of structural frameworks to readily support present expectations has not been as robust. Institutional leaders must navigate traditional or established perspectives that profoundly influence culture and collective agreements.

Our opportunity to play a significant role in the nation’s skill-building agenda is vast. The bold determination to work collaboratively to arrive at a nimble and high-functioning educational/training system will be our legacy. We can effectively unleash the true potential inherent in our distinctive polytechnic value by becoming change agents, diplomats, advocates, and provocateurs. We seek to clearly communicate the advantages of innovative pursuits while pointing out the perils of complacency and lost opportunity.

Our own transformation should mirror that which we wish to see in our learners. We embrace a type of value-shaping, one that allows us to formulate an ethic of learning and working. To succeed in any complex and interrelated economic-education-social environment, we must think outside our practice domain to higher, societal-level thinking.

We draw upon our fundamental ideology—that inclination toward practice orientation—to connect purpose to practice, to connect “why” to “how.”

Managing a workable transformation to realize our polytechnic advantage requires us to strategically follow the lead of our provincial and federal governments. We have to align ourselves to macro-economic priorities in order to enable progress and gain influence.

We must pick the strategies that can survive economic waves and shifting governments, and design unique identities that both align to given government policies, and exist and stand on their own merit. We should promote ideas that are good for all of us because they are fundamentally sound and capable of supporting our core intention: to provide that distinctive polytechnic value-added
education experience.

Among the many areas that could have been the focus of our activity, we chose deliberate practice orientation and innovation because they are singular identity markers of our culture and because they accurately fit who we are as a polytechnic university. Given that our governments have shown a legitimate concern for addressing skills, competencies, and a labour market integration to address economic well-being, we feel that our distinctive value will be most effectively demonstrated by focusing our ideological energies on these two areas. We are, in Pisano’s (2015) words, “innovating to create value” (pp. 44–54).

WHY POLYTECHNICS MUST DEVELOP LEARNER CAPABILITY FOR PRACTICE FUTURES

Economist Dominic Barton, in his presentation to Polytechnics Canada in November 2017, called on institutions to work with government to communicate to the learning/working community that numerous educational and training solutions exist. Barton spoke to the many educational paths well-suited to different industry needs and said we must connect talent to address
impending workforce shortages across Canada in the near future.

There is considerable effort underway by our practice-based-education colleagues to incorporate into our curricula the changes in workplace practice we see appearing in areas such as Industry 4.0, Smart Factories, etc.¹ As important as these are for us in providing practice-ready graduates, we know that many aspects of the workplaces in which our graduates will begin their careers will undergo dynamic change within the first few years of their careers.

In addition to keeping up with the workplace contexts our graduates will encounter in their entry-level positions, we must also prepare them with deeper and broader capabilities to engage with, adapt to, and lead the way on changes we can’t yet anticipate. In the Smart Factory context, for example, others have noted that this requires us to go beyond “training sessions mainly [involving] demonstrations of new technologies” to engaging our learners “to develop their own creative solutions and implement them” (Hulla et al., 2019, pp. 169–74).

Two overarching principles underlie our discussion in the examples below. The first is the necessity to move beyond the language of “21st-century skills” (Lucas, 2019) or competencies. The most helpful language we have found for this has come from the Work-Ready PLUS ideas of Scott and Fullan (2014)—that phrase itself captures the notion of preparing graduates for both current practice (the Work-Ready part) and for practice futures (the PLUS). They note:

the distinction between qualification-assured “Competence” (delivering specific job-specific tasks in relatively predictable circumstances), and “Capability” (responsiveness, creativity and the ability to deal with particular circumstances or unexpected events). The latter … is much more important in almost every work role across the nine professions … studied. (Scott, 2015)

In keeping with the characteristics of a polytechnic education and as a practical matter in terms of development, demonstration and assessment, our working definitions of the capabilities required for practice futures include an experiential element. For example, the workplace innovation capability includes skills, knowledge, mindsets, and experiences² for engaging effectively with innovation in the workplace. The second overarching principle for our discussion in the examples below is the necessity to think in integrative ways about what our practice-based education means for us and for our learners. For us, practice-based education³ manifests itself in multiple ways:

• as a pedagogical promise, i.e., a distinctive commitment seeking to promote the educational development of individuals that intentionally and explicitly encompasses technical, practical, moral, political, and philosophical dimensions;
• as a curriculum, i.e., the sum of students’ experiences as a result of learning while part of our institution, including explicit, implicit, and hidden aspects of the learning program, and incidental experiences that occur alongside the formal curriculum; and
• as a set of pedagogical practices or teaching and learning strategies, including various forms of resource-based, peer-engaged, case-based, simulation-based, and independent or supervised workplace learning.

As we reflect on the collective potential of polytechnic education in the national arena, it is imperative that we maintain a broad perspective on our educational
and training mandates. The contemporary political and economic issues that dominate our attention tend to emphasize the need for educators, from elementary to post-secondary, to prepare aspiring professionals capable of delivering technological and digital solutions to our everyday challenges.

We would be well-advised to maintain a higher-level purpose and be careful to not derail our educational approaches and be distracted from our distinctive approach to building the adaptable, innovative and practice-oriented learner—the central theme of this chapter. We maintain this is a core distinctive value of a polytechnic education and, in the conception that we propose herein, we aim at addressing higher-level thinking and a higher-functioning individual whose DNA will contain an essential strand of deliberate practice informed by an innovative mindset.

EXTENDING PRACTICE ORIENTATION TO EQUIP GRADUATES FOR PRACTICE FUTURES

In this section we will present three examples of the new demands for practice futures our graduates will encounter, and the meta-capabilities required to deal with those changes (not the specifics, which we can’t foretell). These examples include—at increasing levels of scope and impact—taking on new work tasks, crafting new work roles, and engaging with the wider social processes of innovation in their workplaces.

i) Applying new ways of thinking in work tasks: An Industry 4.0 example

Our graduates will need to adapt to working with new knowledge, new knowledge practices and formats, and new work roles and structures. While we can’t anticipate the form and timing of these changes, we can consider some that are already apparent and how our polytechnic education might adapt to better prepare learners for change and innovation.

For example, many of our graduates will need to engage effectively with the changes in work practices resulting from the impact of Industry 4.0/Internet of Things developments. And this is just the initial wave of change for a set of phenomena that has been labelled appropriately as “Industry X.0.” (Schaeffer, 2017). As an expert from a leading German company explained it to us, “Our people have played the decisive role in Industry 4.0. Connected manufacturing is transforming the requirements placed on employees. A lot of investment is going into new occupational training and qualifications designed to equip employees for Industry 4.0” (Carey & Ferreras, 2017).

Our graduates will need more than updated technical skills; they will need to apply new ways of thinking to meet the higher cognitive demands of their new work roles. An example of the new capability required in an Industry 4.0 context—and transferable to other work domains and other roles as community members and global citizens—is systems thinking. Abele et al. (2015) write: “[T]alent-based innovation is the number one driver of manufacturing competitiveness.… [N]ew learning approaches are needed … that boost innovation in manufacturing by improving … systems thinking capability” (pp. 1–6).

The goal of systems thinking is to see a system as “connected components forming a whole, showing properties of the whole, rather than just the components. A system has systemic properties and characteristics used to understand the problem/situation under investigation.”⁴ According to the Universities of the Future (2019) website:

Systems thinking refers to the ability to understand things in a larger context, their impact, and possible applications and implications. In the context of professional work, people will be facing complex dilemmas every day. They need to understand the consequences of their decisions, not only as they affect the company, but also their impact on a larger scale—on society, on the environment, etc. (p. 16)

In response to these new capability requirements, we are seeing the inclusion of systems thinking in polytechnic program outcomes,⁵ the development of systems thinking descriptions (Waters Foundation Center for Systems Thinking, 2018), specifications,⁶ teaching methods (Godfrey et al., 2018, pp. 112–27; Koch et al., 2018, pp. 22–30; McDermott, 2018, pp. 240–44), as well as analyses of the broader policy implications for higher education (Eddington & Eddington, 2011, pp. 255–72; Unwin, 2017, pp. 461–72).

Here’s a practical example of the implications for polytechnic education. Systems thinking as applied to design and diagnosis of mechatronics systems is an element of the curriculum available to member institutions of the Siemens Canada Engineering and Technology Academy (Siemens, n.d.). However, this capability is specifically applied and developed in Level 3 of the curriculum (Siemens, 2019).

Graduates from many current polytechnic programs will only complete the initial levels (Assistant and Associate) and therefore not develop within their programs the higher cognitive “Habits of Mind” to tackle the deeper demands at the Professional level. Without encouragement and support to transfer the systems thinking beyond the mechatronics work domain, even graduates at a Professional level may struggle to apply the capability in other workplace contexts and in their roles beyond work.

If we want to prepare our graduates for the higher cognitive demands of systems thinking as a transferable capability, we’ll have to rethink some of our pedagogical methods: we can’t just add this to the list of learning outcomes to be achieved through our existing approaches. For example, could we adapt new methods such as “Design to Understand,” which has shown promise for “improved capacity of students to respond to imposed cognitive demands inherent within technology design challenges” (Wells, 2017, pp. 325–39; Wells,
2016, pp. 4–20)?

We need to join forces in collaborative experimentation to extend our current practice-based education in order to meet emerging workplace needs such as systems thinking capability. “We” in this case includes polytechnic institutions and our workplace partners, who have a similar need in upskilling their current workforce for the Industry 4.0 context.

ii) Capability to craft new personal work roles and tasks

Systems thinking is one example of a Habit of Mind capability that will be of increasing importance in the future of work. Other capabilities will be of major importance and will enable our graduates to shape the nature of work and jobs for the future (not just to carry out the new tasks)such as the ability to craft new personal work roles and tasks) such as the ability to craft new personal work
roles and tasks. Here’s an example that arose from discussions between polytechnic educators and a major union local in BC.⁷ The union’s operating engineer members work in areas such as construction, ports, and transportation to operate and maintain large vehicles and other equipment. The union recognizes that technologies such as automated driving systems will disrupt existing tasks and jobs for its members but will also create new tasks and new jobs (Reinecke, 2018). This new interaction modality is known as a “driver-more” approach (Castellano et al., 2018, p. 1; Heikoop et al., 2018)—rather than “driver-less”—because it is based on mutual support in perception and in action between the driver and the vehicle. The cooperation aims to exploit and make concrete the complementarity of the human and the automation. The union is exploring how to develop its members’ ability to contribute to the new job designs, which will require knowledge about new technologies and skills in envisioning, testing, and adapting new work designs. “Job crafting” is the label used for this employee participation in work redesign. Recognition of this need for enhanced job crafting capability in the future of work is not confined to the workforce whose jobs will be affected. The same thinking appears in leading-edge HR departments. Abatiello et al. (2018) write:

In the near future, human workers and machines will work together seamlessly, each complementing the other’s efforts in a single loop of productivity … intelligent automation solutions may be able to augment human performance by automating certain parts of a task, thus freeing individuals to focus on more “human” aspects.⁸

Such thinking also appears in research studies of sustainable innovation in the workplace. Le Blanc (2018) observes:

Technological innovation is still of vital importance to help organizations survive and gain competitive advantage. However, sustainable innovation and sustainable employability can
only be realized through complementary changes in the social organization of work that enable employees to utilize and develop their skills, knowledge and abilities more effectively.… In this way,
organizations can … add to employee sustainability by enhancing the ability to adapt to the demands that are posed by these environments. (p. 49)

In addition to knowledge about the new possibilities for driver-more approaches and job crafting skills, workforce members will need to develop supportive mindsets. For example, a study of job crafting in health care concluded that the employees involved had to deal with competing desires regarding the specificity of their new job roles:

[They] wanted to remain pioneers while they also wished for more clarity and protection of their role.… [T]hey felt the desire to develop clear-cut descriptions of what their new job is about so that their carefully carved out place could not easily be disrupted.… [O]n the other hand they did not want to over-specify their work in order to position themselves to allow for further development.
(Janssen, 2016)

How can polytechnic educators provide the experiences our graduates need to develop capability for job crafting? Here, from Demerouti (2014), is an example of the research-informed advice being given to organizations around building job crafting capability in their workforce:

Although job crafting is bottom-up and individually driven, organizations can encourage employees to show this behavior. This can be done through the supervisors who motivate employees to craft their jobs, give them the freedom to do so, but also specify what “good” crafting looks like (i.e., the crafting that has positive effects for the employee and the organization). This can be done, for instance, by creating an open climate in which the individual needs are discussed, attention is paid to best practices of crafting behavior, and where the supervisor acts also as a role model with his/her own crafting behavior. (pp. 237–47)

By substituting “learner” for “employee,” “teacher” for “supervisor,” etc., in the previous quotation, we can infer one path forward in polytechnic education to build job crafting capability in our own “workplace for learning”:

Although job crafting is bottom-up and individually driven, polytechnics can encourage learners to develop this behavior. This can be done through the teachers who motivate learners to craft their learning practices, give them the freedom to do so, but also specify what ‘‘good’’ crafting looks like (i.e., the crafting that has positive effects for the learner and the learning). This can be done, for instance, by creating an open climate in which the individual needs are discussed, attention is paid to best practices of crafting learning, and where the teacher acts also as a role model with his/
her own crafting behavior.

iii) Capability to engage with broader social processes of workplace innovation

The job crafting example above relates to new tasks that might be incorporated into personal workplace roles. This is one instance of a larger responsibility for our workforce to engage in employee-driven workplace innovation, which can extend further to include new work practices related to other employees, customers, and clients, and new services or products. It enhances an organization’s mission and the quality of work life.

In some countries, the requirements for technical and technological roles already include competency in workplace innovation. For example, in Australia’s national specification for Units of Competency, the competency elements, performance criteria, and training resources for Contributing to Innovation are required parts of training in fields as diverse as waste management, marina operations and print manufacturing (Australian Government, 2020). A training manual illustrates how this competency can be nurtured in a variety of polytechnic programs (Innovation and Business Skills Australia, 2009).

More recently, the focus has included broader skills (know-how) required for polytechnic graduates to participate in workplace innovation; the knowledge (know-why) about different types, contexts, and roles for innovation in the workplace; the mindsets and management practices underlying successful employee-driven innovation; and the experiences that develop and demonstrate fluent workplace innovation expertise (Walsk, 2015; Lewis, 2019; Tirabeni, Soderquist & Pisano, 2016; Deakin University, n.d.). The implication for polytechnic education is again an expansion of our goals for student development and a reconsideration of the pedagogical approaches we have used to achieve them.

Consider design thinking as an example of one design-based approach we can use to engage our graduates with design of innovative new practices and products. Some polytechnic educators have considered how the incorporation of design thinking into our students’ experiences will require us to move beyond the practice-based and problem-based learning approaches to more design-based pedagogy (Geitz & de Geus, 2019; Van der Hoek, 2015) (note also that integrating design thinking and systems thinking can provide solutions beyond the reach of either approach on its own [Ahearn, 2017]). In our own work to respond to this challenge within KPU, we have begun pilot projects⁹ to explore how our students can use their experiences with innovations in teaching and learning as opportunities to engage with workplace innovation in our own “workplace for learning” (Carey et al., 2018). This is practice-based education reflecting back on itself, to develop meta-cognitive capabilities to engage with innovation and change in future workplaces. In other words, getting to know how to know what’s needed.

We believe this experiential learning, focused on innovation in our polytechnic environment, must be complemented with explicit reflection on how the resulting capabilities can be transferred into the context of other workplaces. For example, in one of our recent pilot studies, students formed interdisciplinary teams to apply design thinking methods in a regional social purpose agency (an Indigenous-run sustainable farm). They then took part in a case study analysis of an industrial-strength design thinking approach—IBM Enterprise Design Thinking¹⁰—to reflect on the areas of strength or those needing improvement in their newly developed capability as applicable in the IBM context (Kwantlen Polytechnic University, 2019).

CONCLUSION: LEADING THROUGH DISTINCTIVE PRACTICE ORIENTATIONS

As institutions immersed in a learning environment that has been—by definition and by need—highly responsive to our external communities, polytechnics are agile organizations in an often not-too-responsive post-secondary education sector. We strive to prepare the job-ready graduate with the best and most current tools to enter into an increasingly hyper-responsive professional or career environment that will test the mettle and the adaptability of the individual.

Beyond job-readiness preparation via core discipline knowledge—in itself a considerable task—we seek to infuse the student’s training through our unique experiential lens. This gives us the comprehensive ability to conceptualize, critique, reflect, and balance the movement between actionable knowledge and knowledgeable action. This is the essence of our value proposition and is the distinctive feature that will allow us to play an ideally suited role in the national economy.

We have outlined above some initial thoughts toward a vision for a polytechnic education that prepares our graduates to engage effectively with both current and future work practices. Billet (2015) also notes the importance of preparing students:

to be effective learners across their working lives, which will largely be driven by their agency and epistemological qualities. Students likely encounter this requirement directly through their practice-based learning experiences … but may also seek assistance to reconcile what they have learnt with what they already know in the absence of direct teaching or reliance upon teachers. (p. 4)

We conclude with three emerging challenges for enhancing polytechnic education to include preparation for the future of work practices. The first emerging challenge is the need to design experiential and work-integrated learning that engages learners in emerging workplace practices. While our institutions have always sought to deliberately engage the experiential, there is now a need to imbue this experience with a more purposeful approach to innovation.

This will require experimentation and continuous improvement on our part. It will also require that we help our learners to understand the issues of organizational culture, innovation infrastructure, and the dynamic nature of the body of knowledge evolving around workplace innovation.

We are not alone in committing to build up capability for practice futures: fostering a more innovative workforce is a goal we share with our workplace partners. Thus, the second emerging challenge we foresee for polytechnic education is to create new relationships with our workplace partners to enable collaboration on this shared goal.

As noted above, we have focused our distinctive excellence on our practice-based learning experiences and in collaborative applied research projects. As leaders in a growing and diverse field of applied post-secondary education, we have directed our efforts to the deliberate act of providing an extraordinary value-added relationship to realize our educational and applied research missions.

Those relationships include workforce advisory boards who can specify the capabilities needed in their workforce and our applied research projects to address technical challenges in the workplace. Current structures do not match our new requirement to work together on a shared challenge that none of us can fully specify or demonstrate. We have begun to use the phrase “capability innovation networks” to describe new relationships that must emerge, the desired skills, knowledge, mindsets, and experiences to develop the ability to engage effectively with innovation in the workplace.

In collaboration with the new Workplace Innovation Network for Canada, we are testing innovative approaches and activities for these partnerships, such as models for work-integrated learning opportunities, and learning resources that can be adapted for academic and workplace contexts.

Finally, rather than simply preach the value of innovation and practice-based orientation, we must ensure that our own teaching and learning environments are exemplars of the values and capabilities we seek to develop in our graduates. It would make no sense for us to urge our learners to be more innovative in their future workplaces if our own “workplace for learning” is not itself a model of systematic and strategic innovation management. Our intent is to adapt recent advances in strategic innovation management to mobilize innovation in our academic context.¹¹

Perhaps the biggest challenge we face in realizing such a vision is to develop our own capability as academic innovation leaders, as articulated in Scott et al.’s (2008) description of “Learning Leaders in Times of Change”:

What distinguishes the most effective [Learning Leaders] … is their capability … to figure out what is going on in troubling situations, to determine which of the hundreds of problems and unexpected situations they encounter each week are worth attending to and which are not, and then the ability to identify and trace out the consequences of potentially relevant ways of responding to the ones they decide need to be addressed.… While Competencies are often fragmented into discrete parcels or lists, Capability is a much more holistic, integrating, creative, multidimensional and fluid phenomenon. (pp 10-12)

The capability required of academic leaders—and our institutions—to meet this challenge mirrors the individual capability to engage with and shape practice futures that we desire in our graduates. Are we as leaders in polytechnic education sufficiently future-capable to take this on?

Endnotes

^{1  As of the time of writing, some of the interesting recent work includes Tisch et al. (2019); Kohl et al. (2019); and Kanfer & Blivin (2019).}

^{2 For an example of an experience-oriented specification for assessment, see the Deakin University Innovation Credentials.}

^{3 Our understanding here has been shaped by our interactions with and resources from the (former) Education for Practice Institute at Charles Sturt University. For example, see Higgs et al. (2013).}

^{4 Adapted from Beasley (2012). This framing is also used in the Systems Academy’s Systems Thinking introductory video.}

^{5 For example, Knibb & Paci (2016).}

^{6 For example, Buckle (2016).}

^{7 We thank Brian Haugen, Director of Education for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 115, for his continuing interactions to stimulate our thinking in this area.}

^{8 See also Schwartz et al. (2017).}

^{9 We continue to develop programmatic approaches to develop graduate capability in workplace innovation, as a partner in the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada.}

^{10 For more information, see the IBM Enterprise Design Thinking program.}

^{11 For example, our short-term target is to adapt the strategic innovation framework outlined in O’Connor (2018).}

References