What will it take to create educational experiences and education systems that better support the academic, cognitive and socio-emotional development and wellbeing of all children and youth? To answer this question, this project collects and shares examples of the micro-innovations that educators in both Eastern and Western education systems 

are developing that can create more time, space and support for the development of a wide range of competencies and overall wellbeing. Micro-innovations are new developments in educational practices, routines, and structures in different subjects and age levels. 

In order to track the development of these micro-innovations, the project draws on school visits and interviews with educators as well as reviews of educational news  and research in both “higher-” and “lower-“ performing education systems such as those in China, Vietnam, Singapore, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, and the US.  The research looks particularly at micro-innovations in key areas like tutoring, foundational learning, supporting students’ mental health; increasing access to college and careers; sustainability of school facilities and operations; and assessment. 

This project reflects an ongoing effort to apply what we’ve learned about the failures of ambitious reform efforts in the 20th Century to explore how we can transform education in the 21st Century. This work builds on several key principles of school improvement described in The Education We Need for a Future We Can’t Predict:

  • New possibilities for schooling are most likely to take off when their goals, capacity demands, and values fit the common needs, existing capabilities, and prevailing conditions in the schools and communities where they are supposed to work;
  • But the more radical visions for educational reform are, the less likely they are to fit the affordances of conventional schooling and to take hold on a large scale
  • Nonetheless, the demands and pressures of conventional schooling make it easier to bring radical visions to life in particular circumstances and contexts – ecological “niches” of possibility” – rather than across entire school systems.

This “niche” approach suggests a shift away from a focus on creating new educational practices – such as more holistic, personalized or student-centered approaches to learning – that are supposed to work in general, for all subjects and topics, all the time. Instead, a “niche” approach focuses on developing specific “micro-innovations” and adaptations – resources, structures, practices services and activities that are new to the contexts in which they are introduced.  

For more information, contact Thomas Hatch, hatch@tc.edu 

Publications: 

Hatch, T. (2025). The power of condensing the curriculum. Educational Leadership. 83 (4), 22-27.

Hatch, T. (2021). We will now resume our regular programming, Journal of Educational Change, 22 (3), 447–456.

Hatch, T., with Corson, J. & Van den Berg, S. (2021). The education we need for a future we can’t predict. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. 6), 37-41.

Ongoing reflections and reports on the project can also be found at internationalednews.com, including: 

Tags: School Reform and Restructuring Featured Project

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