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Session 1. How Innovations Spread: Adoption Curves in Plain Words
Objective. Read how an innovation is likely to spread in your school using the adoption curve, five attributes of an innovation and stages of concern, and plan the first 30 days of a spread.
Every school has a colleague who tries everything first and a colleague who says 'show me the results first', and both are doing something reasonable. A school-level innovation succeeds only when it reaches the large middle of the staff, and that depends on the idea, on the people around it and on what leaders do in the first month. In this session you learn to read that picture before you launch, so that you spend your effort where it changes the outcome.
Key ideas
The adoption curve in plain words
- Everett Rogers studied how new ideas spread through a group over time. People do not take up an idea on the same day. He described five groups: innovators (try almost anything), early adopters (respected colleagues whom others watch), early majority (adopt once they see it work), late majority (wait until most colleagues have done it) and laggards (last, often with reasons of their own).
- The two middle groups together are about two thirds of any staff, so an innovation that stays with innovators has not spread. The curve describes behaviour towards one innovation, not a person's character: the same teacher can be first for one idea and last for another.
- The curve is a description, not a promise. Some ideas should not spread because the evidence is weak. Your job is to help good ideas spread and to stop weak ones early, not to push every idea to 100 percent of staff.
Five attributes of an innovation
- How fast an idea spreads depends partly on the idea itself. Rogers named five attributes: RELATIVE ADVANTAGE (is it clearly better than what we do now?), COMPATIBILITY (does it fit our timetable, values and textbooks?), COMPLEXITY (is it easy to understand and use?), TRIALABILITY (can a teacher try it on a small scale?) and OBSERVABILITY (can colleagues see the results?).
- Leaders often blame people when an idea stalls. Check the attributes first: a design with a high score on complexity and a low score on trialability will stall in any school. Improve the innovation (shorter, one lesson to start, a sample plan) before you try to improve the staff.
- Observability is the cheapest accelerator: a colleague who sees a Grade 5 pupil retell a text, or sees two tidy exercise books, learns more than from a staff-meeting talk. Plan how the results will be visible without exposing any pupil.
Stages of concern: what people are really asking
- The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (Hall and Hord) describes seven stages of concern: awareness (I have not heard much), informational (what is it?), personal (what does it mean for me and my workload?), management (how do I fit it into 45 minutes?), consequence (does it help my pupils?), collaboration (how can we work on it together?) and refocusing (can it be better?).
- Answer the concern that is actually asked. A teacher at the personal stage who hears a talk about pupil results (consequence stage) feels unheard. A teacher at the management stage needs a sample timetable and a ready worksheet, not more inspiration.
- A quick way to find the stage is one open sentence: 'When you think about this change, what worries or interests you most?' Collect answers on paper without names and sort them. Ten minutes of listening saves weeks of misdirected persuasion.
Leader's moves that speed up honest spread
- Start with early adopters who are respected, not only enthusiasts. A very keen innovator is admired but not copied; a calm, trusted colleague in the early-adopter group is watched and copied. Ask two or three such colleagues to try the idea first, with your help.
- Never label people 'laggards' in public. Critics point out that the word judges the person; late adopters often hold useful doubts about workload or pupils' needs. Ask them what would make a trial safe and use their answer to improve the design.
- Set the pace by evidence, not by the calendar. Move from 2 or 3 classes to a whole subject team only if the pilot gate (session 2) is passed. Spreading a weak idea quickly is worse than spreading a good idea slowly.
Five groups on the adoption curve
Who people ask: the real map of influence
Rogers found that people usually decide about a new idea after talking to peers who are like them, not after hearing an expert. In a school this means that the formal chart (head, deputy, methodist) is not always the map of influence. A teacher with ten years' experience in the Grade 5 corridor may be the person that six colleagues quietly ask before changing their lessons.
A simple way to find these people is to ask each teacher on paper, without names on the form for others: 'When you want to try something new in your lessons, whom do you ask?' Count the names. The two or three most named are your real early adopters, even if they are not your keenest innovators. Invite them first, give them the simplest version, and let their classes be the ones colleagues visit.
Spread changes the idea: core and flexible parts
An idea rarely travels unchanged. Teachers adapt it to their textbook, their timetable and their pupils, and Rogers called this re-invention. Adaptation is not a failure; a Russian-language teacher who fits the reading log to her textbook units may use it longer than a colleague who copies it exactly. The danger is adapting away the part that made it work.
Before the spread begins, write the core on one line (for example 'every pupil writes one line about a text in the last three minutes and the teacher reads five of them') and list what may be changed (the format, the language, the day). Tell colleagues clearly which part is fixed and which is free. When you later compare results, you will know whether you are comparing the same idea.
Examples from the classroom
The advice map in Samarkand
Scene. Nilufar, head of studies in a Samarkand school with 28 teachers, hands out a slip: 'Whom do you ask when you want to try something new?' Of 26 slips returned, 11 name Rustam, a calm Grade 6 teacher, and 7 name Aziz, the keen informatics teacher who started the reading log. Nilufar had planned to launch with Aziz alone. She now asks Rustam to try the shorter version in two classes first.
Insight. Influence follows trust among peers, not job titles or enthusiasm; start where colleagues already look.
Sorting concerns in Fergana
Scene. Gulnora collects 20 anonymous sentences about a planned homework change. She sorts them on the table: 6 ask 'what exactly is it?', 7 ask 'will it double my marking?', 4 ask 'how do I fit it into 45 minutes?', 3 ask 'will pupils really learn more?'. She plans a one-page description, a marking estimate of 15 minutes a week, a sample timetable and, last, the trial numbers.
Insight. Answer the stage of concern that people actually have, in the order they have it.
Fixing the idea, not the staff in Tashkent
Scene. The error-analysis exit ticket in a Tashkent school is used by 5 of 22 maths teachers after a term. The ticket has two pages and takes 12 minutes. Dilnoza cuts it to one page with three questions and 5 minutes, adds a printed sample for each unit, and asks two respected teachers to try it. After four weeks 11 teachers use it.
Insight. When an idea stalls, check complexity and trialability before blaming people.
Common pitfalls
- Launching with the most enthusiastic teacher alone and expecting others to copy.
- Treating a colleague's careful questions as resistance instead of a stage of concern.
- Allowing any change to the idea, or none at all, without naming its core.
- Reading the curve as a target and pushing every idea to the whole staff.
Read the Curve in Your School
- Pairs (15 min): in Table A, place the eight sample colleagues on the adoption curve for the same innovation (a school-wide reading log). Note the behaviour that made you decide. Then say what would change if the innovation were a different one.
- Pairs (15 min): in Table B, score the reading log 1 to 5 on the five attributes using the sample facts. Find the weakest attribute and write one change to the INNOVATION (not to the people) that would raise it.
- Pairs (10 min): in Table C, match six sample teacher statements to a stage of concern and write a one-sentence reply that answers that stage. Check that no reply argues about a different stage.
- Part B, alone (20 min): choose a REAL innovation in your school (current, planned or stalled). In Table D write the five-attribute scores with one fact each, the roles (not names) of 2 or 3 respected early adopters, the likely main concern of each staff group, and a 30-day plan.
- Part B, trios (20 min): present your Table D in 5 minutes each. The others ask: Which attribute is your evidence weakest on? Who might be left out? What would make you stop the spread? Revise one line each.
- Alone (5 min): write your leadership task from the Kit.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which sample colleague was hardest to place, and what did that teach you about judging people from one behaviour?
- Which attribute was the weakest in your real innovation, and is the fix in the innovation or in the people?
- What concern have you been answering with the wrong kind of answer?
Reflect
- Think of an idea that spread fast in your school. Which of the five attributes helped it most?
- Which colleagues do others quietly watch before changing their own lessons?
- Have you ever called a colleague's doubt 'resistance' when it was a useful warning?
Try it tomorrow
- Ask 8 to 10 colleagues on paper: 'Whom do you ask when you want to try something new?' and count the names.
- Write the core of one current school idea on a single line and list three things teachers may change.
- At the next meeting collect one sentence from each person on 'what worries or interests me most about this change' and sort them.
Further reading and links
Ideas spread through people at different speeds; read the attributes and the concerns first, improve the innovation, and let respected colleagues show the results.