Systemic Change and Educational Technology

External Environment

All school systems exist within an environment. The environment provides financial, technical, human, and information resources. The environment also has stakeholders.

[Page 698]People

School systems are staffed by people who have individual needs, interests, abilities, and expectations for their career. Those human variables (needs, interests, and so on) create a complex web of relationships in a school system that is profoundly affected by system dynamics.

Organization Culture

Just as individuals have personalities, school systems have cultures. Organization culture has a powerful influence on how people think and behave. The culture is a systemwide mental model for how a school district should function, about how educators should do their work, and about how children should be educated. The culture also significantly shapes the internal social infrastructure of a school system (i.e., the reward system, communication processes, among others).

Organization Structures

Organization structures are created to guide human behavior in systems. Structures include policies, handbooks, job descriptions, information management systems, and the physical layout of buildings. These structures are also part of a system’s internal social infrastructure referred to in the prior section.

Dominant Coalition

All school systems have a small group of people with significant influence on how the system functions, on how and what decisions are made, and on what is valued or not valued within the system. Dominant coalition members are the enforcers of the system’s culture. They have a significant influence on the system’s internal social infrastructure. They also use sociopolitical skills to advance their agenda for the system. The coalition can either support or hinder any effort to create and sustain systemic change.

Human Outputs

System dynamics (that is, the relationships between and among the components described earlier) create psychological and emotional consequences for educators that include motivation, job satisfaction, clarity of goals, and commitment to the organization. If the system dynamics are positive, then those consequences should be positive (e.g., high motivation, high job satisfaction). If the dynamics are negative, then those consequences will likely be negative (e.g., low motivation, low job satisfaction).

Organizational Outcomes

School systems provide educational services to children. Children are expected to leave school systems with attitudes, concepts, and skills that will help them lead successful lives. If the educational outcomes are evaluated by external stakeholders as being below expectations, then the system will be evaluated as being in need of improvement. If external stakeholders evaluate the outcomes as meeting or exceeding expectations, then the system will be evaluated as a high-performing system.

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