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Change--or the pressure to change--is in the air in our educational systems. Whatever decisions are made (and electing not to choose is itself a decision), the effects will touch everyone at all levels from national governments to students. What can the stakeholders at each of these levels do--and what should they do--when they choose to become involved, to have a voice in their future? What does it mean at each of these levels to become an agent for--or against--a particular change effort? Where do each of these stakeholder groups now stand, in characteristics related to disposition toward educational change, and what strengths, limitations, or potential biases do these starting points imply? How are the answers to these questions for each of the groups involved different from one another? How might they be similar?
The environment, in many ways, is ready for--even clamoring for--educational change. Many of the conditions that facilitate change already exist. Dissatisfaction with the status quo is heightened with each report criticizing our graduates' readiness for information-based society. Our levels of knowledge and skill in understanding and enhancing human learning have never been higher, and in many institutions we are reaching a "critical mass" of technology-savvy educators and students. Resources are being offered through grants--sometimes in millions of dollars--from public- and private-sector agencies.
What can you do to bolster these and the other conditions, and employ them in support of effective, meaningful educational change? What can you do to weaken the conditions to prevent hasty adoption of unnecessary or ineffective change? Having weighed an innovation's characteristics and decided which you are facing, how should you respond to each? Answering these questions, and attending to their implications, requires a focus on the change agent and the effect of his position within the system on his influence in the overall change effort.
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