“Innovation” has become a buzzword used to make virtually anything look like a revolutionary breakthrough. Innovation is said to be disruptive, groundbreaking, transformative, and industry-changing, not just something new and original. It is acclaimed as a silver bullet, a panacea.

But of course, more often than not, “innovation” is just another word for puff, hype, and flim flam.

Innovation has many characteristics. There are sustainable innovations, incremental innovations, and disruptive innovations. There are innovations to improve performance, increase efficiency, create new markets or expand existing ones. There are also organizational innovations, marketing innovations, and technological innovations.

Innovation typically occurs in one of three dimensions.

• Process innovation (think automobile assembly lines) is the drastic redesign of practices, methods, or procedures to reduce costs while increasing efficiency and output.
• Product innovations include introducing new products and services, improving, redesigning or adding features to existing products and services, or changing the user experience.
• Then there are business model innovations that seek to enhance revenue or profit through strategic changes, such as entering new markets, marketing in new ways, adding new services or product lines, or changing organizational structures. Recent examples include bundling and unbundling services, offering software as a service, and adopting fee-per-service or subscription revenue models.

The education sector is as vulnerable to the lure of innovation as the commercial sector of the economy. Ultimately, we too are desperate to find ways to reduce costs and improve efficiency while increasing the number and quality of applicants, improving learning and hiring outcomes, and increasing equity.

In recent years, higher education has embraced variations in the types of process, product, and business model innovations found in business. Colleges and universities are deploying new software tools to streamline their business processes, at great expense, and increasing their numbers.

• ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning – Software for managing business activities such as accounting, procurement, project management, risk management, compliance and supply chain operations.
• CRM – Customer Relationship Management – software for contacting and managing relationships with alumni, applicants, faculty and students, collecting and analyzing data about future and current students and donors.
• Data analysis tools for monitoring enrollment trends, grades and completion rates at the program and course level, identifying struggling students, and tracking facility usage.
• A next-generation student information system that supports partial credit enables students to receive certificate program credits, a skills transcript that clearly identifies the competencies the student has acquired, and a portfolio of student work.

At the same time, faculty numbers continue to grow (albeit inadequately), adopting new teaching and assessment tools to make learning more active and grading more efficient. For example:

• Annotation collaboration, text mining and visualization applications as well as physics, chemistry, mathematics, geosciences and biology.
• A student response system that makes large lecture classes more interactive.
• Interactive courseware. Includes the most sophisticated variety, with embedded tutorials to support personalized adaptive learning through a variety of paces, content, and learning trajectories.
• Artificial intelligence-assisted feedback and assessment tools, such as Gradescope, that reduce the time and effort spent on grading, automatically grade certain types of assignments, and provide statistical insight into student performance.

New business models are also emerging. From the most radical subscription and flat-rate models (like Western Governors, which allow students to complete as many courses as possible in a semester at no additional cost), to rapid-goal approaches, new A business model is born. Increase the number of transfer students and master’s degree students. Other examples are:

• A competency-based model that substitutes seated time for demonstrated learning outcomes.
• An acquisition learning model that awards credit for paid internships, co-education and apprenticeships.
• Work-oriented certificate and credential programs that allow you to stack your degrees.

I would argue that the innovations most likely to improve student learning and growth, and post-graduation employment outcomes, have to do with the learning experience itself.

1. Innovation at instructor and staff level:

   I discovered firsthand how completely disconnected undergraduates can feel when I take courses as a part-time commuter student. The instructors made no effort to foster a sense of belonging, connection, or even engagement with the topic.

   Don’t leave your students behind. Students need more meaningful interactions with faculty and staff. Don’t let it flutter easily. Whether you’re a faculty member, full-time or part-time, rethink your role: reach out. serve as a mentor. Personalize your relationship with your students whenever possible. Support and encouragement. At the institutional level, we fund faculty and student lunches and coffees, breakout sections, learning communities, and student interest groups.

2. Innovation at course level:

   We need to move beyond the current educational triad of lectures, seminars and labs. Students need a variety of learning opportunities, including studio courses, practicums, research experiences, and project-based learning opportunities. This also means more active learning and more experiential learning, expanding access to supervised internships, placements, field-based learning, mentored research and services, and community-based learning. increase.

3. Innovation at the student support level:

   Various forms of support are required. Academic support includes breakout sessions, organized study groups, peer tutoring, supplemental instruction, and data analysis, foreign languages, mathematics and statistics, natural sciences, research, and a variety of programs to assist students with study skills and writing. should include a suitable learning center.

   But recognize that non-academic support is just as important to student success. Advice and careers, financial and psychological counseling, disability, housing, and other support services that focus on students’ financial literacy, learning and research, rather than just transactional or one-off issues Treat it as an opportunity to build skills, metacognitive and social competencies. emotional and interpersonal skills.

4. Innovation at the co-curricular and extracurricular level:

   For university education to be truly developmental and transformative, what happens outside the classroom is almost as important as what happens in the classroom. In fact, many alumni’s memories of college are tied more to extracurricular activities and extracurricular activities than to the classes themselves.

Consider how you can embed enrichment experiences into existing classes. These may include virtual field trips, guest lectures, museum visits and performances.

We live in a society where fake innovation has been normalized. The business world is full of false innovations that fall short of expectations and expectations. We see non-profitable “unicorns” subleasing office space, delivering food, replacing taxis, and detecting diseases with a drop of blood. These companies survive only thanks to massive infusions of venture capital and access to cheap loans.

These days, we tend to associate innovation with technology, 3D printing, 5G networks, robotics, self-driving cars, social media, wearables, and more. This is also true in education. The word “innovation” conjures up visions of artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, the metaverse and of course online learning.

But true innovation is solving real problems, and the problems that plague higher education are only partially amenable to technological fix-ups. Technology tools alone cannot successfully address readiness gaps, equitable access to in-demand majors, lengthening time to degree, unacceptably low graduation rates, or uneven learning outcomes. Improving students’ writing and communication skills, numeracy and statistical literacy, research, analysis, interpretation and discussion skills ultimately requires interaction and feedback from enthusiastic instructors and staff. Ditto for guiding students to the right major and preparing them for success in the job market.

Here are three hard truths about innovation in education.

1. Student success is not about ideas. It’s an implementation issue.

   We know a good deal about the obstacles to student success. For example, remedial courses (as opposed to co-requisite adjustments), credit evaluation delays, course enrollment delays and course unavailability, curriculum complexity, gated or restricted majors, courses with high DFW, declaration of acceptance. delay, etc. A major or a shift in major after the 4th semester. We also know what works: solid onboarding, mindset and study skills training, bridge programs, block scheduling (to help students balance academic, work and family responsibilities). grants, curricula and impact, including seamless transfer policies, curricular relevance, positive interventions, complementary instruction, learning communities and experiential learning opportunities aligned with strategic student career goals great practice.

2. Ensuring student success requires a multi-pronged, multi-pronged, all-encompassing approach. A student’s success cannot be achieved in her one classroom at a time.

   A student’s academic and post-graduation success is the job of the entire campus. We need dedicated staff and faculty who are attentive to the needs, anxieties and aspirations of our students. It requires engaging teaching, courses that students find relevant, meaningful, and regular, substantive and constructive feedback. Moreover, student success initiatives must include more than academics. To increase levels of success, institutions must foster a sense of belonging and connection among students, pay close attention to their basic needs, and pay attention to their psychological and emotional health. Campuses must also provide students with a variety of ways to engage through extracurricular activities, including athletics, whether in class or by developing rapport with classmates and instructors.

3. It doesn’t work in normal business. But the real innovation that higher education institutions need doesn’t come cheap.

   Broad access institutions serving the majority of students should not be complacent. Repetition and graduation rates are too low, degree time to completion is too long, inequality is too wide, learning and employment outcomes are too uncertain, and public support for higher education is too weak. In other words, innovation in education is essential. Still, we must recognize that there is no technical fix, panacea, or panacea for many challenges in higher education. Student success is first and foremost a matter of engagement, motivation, mindset and persistence, requiring professional instructors, purposeful teaching methods and creative instructional design. Ultimately, student success is a people matter and depends on close interaction between students, instructors, advisors, counselors, and many support professionals.

Achieving a more personalized educational experience doesn’t come cheap. But increasing retention and completion rates is the most cost-effective and the only non-exploitative approach to controlling costs and increasing revenue.

Steven Mintz is Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin.