Building on Cultural Capacity for Innovation Through International Collaboration: In Memory of Naomi Miyake

Abstract

This symposium addresses issues of scaling up research-based educational reforms, with focus on the Japanese Knowledge Constructive Jigsaw initiative--a substantial achievement of Naomi Miyake and learning science colleagues in Japan. Scaling up procedures involve small networks of teachers, education leaders and researchers working together to design, practice and reflect lessons across subjects, schools and districts. The set of strategies developed provides a common Knowledge Constructive Jigsaw framework or set of “constraints” to guide the practices of participants for reflection on learning and to expand children’s potential to learn, teachers’ potential to support student learning, and policy makers’ potential to support teacher learning. Building Cultural Capacity for Innovation represents a vision shared by teams in Japan and internationally to transform schools into knowledge creating organizations, to learn from one another, and to—in Naomi’s words--support a science of practice deeply embedded in the learning sciences.