Insights into Innovative Classroom Practices with ICT: Identifying the Impetus for Change

This paper draws on the literature of transformational leadership and learning organisation with a concern to foster innovative changes in classroom practices. Based on the understanding that effective use of ICT has to be construed in the pedagogical and organisational context, this study focuses on the impact of the relevant contextual factors on teaching and learning, and how these factors interact with each other, in particular the relationship between technological innovations and pedagogical innovations. By adopting a qualitative case study approach to examining the impetus for change, four different types of ICT implementation strategies have emerged from a sample of eight schools in Hong Kong and Singapore, the technologically driven type, the pedagogically driven type, the balanced type, and the uncoupled type. Those schools which have realized changes in classroom practices are characterised by ICT-pedagogical innovations. To make this happen, pedagogical innovations must be rooted in teachers’ experiences of moving away from a teacher-centred approach to one that is more student-centred. Leadership and the climate for collaboration and experimentation are fundamental to the integration of technology into pedagogical innovations. However, other factors such as region, school level, and type of school do not seem to account for the differences.