Laura K Spencer, Ed.D.

Tag: education leadership

  • Adoption Isn’t Impact: The Quiet Failure of Learning Innovation

    Adoption Isn’t Impact: The Quiet Failure of Learning Innovation

    I keep seeing the same pattern across schools, organizations, and learning platforms.

    The tools keep getting better.
    The outcomes… not so much.

    AI is more capable. XR is more immersive. Platforms are more polished than ever. And still, leaders feel it. That quiet, nagging sense that learning isn’t actually working the way it was promised.

    Engagement spikes. Pilots multiply. Dashboards fill up.
    Clarity about impact stays frustratingly out of reach.

    This isn’t a technology problem.
    It’s a design problem.

    Most learning systems were never built to absorb this level of change. New tools get layered onto old structures. Innovation gets bolted onto workflows designed for stability, not adaptability.

    The result is fragmentation.
    Good intentions. Scattered execution.

    I hear versions of this all the time:
    “We’ve adopted the platform.”
    “We’ve rolled out the tool.”

    What’s missing is the harder question:
    What is this actually changing about how people learn, think, and make decisions?

    Adoption is visible.
    Impact is not.

    Impact only shows up when there’s alignment. Between learning strategy, leadership expectations, culture, and the realities of day-to-day work. Without that, even the most advanced tools struggle to matter.

    Another common miss is over-indexing on features instead of purpose.

    Yes, AI can personalize learning paths.
    Yes, XR can simulate environments.
    Yes, analytics can surface patterns.

    None of that answers the real questions:
    What capabilities are we trying to build?
    What skills matter here?
    What should change when the tool is no longer new?

    When those questions go unanswered, technology defaults to efficiency, not meaning.

    I also see responsibility for learning outcomes get diffused. Innovation teams experiment. IT enables. Designers design. Leaders cheer from a distance.

    No one owns coherence.
    No one is accountable for the system as a system.

    Learning doesn’t break down because people aren’t trying.
    It breaks down because no one is tasked with connecting the dots.

    The organizations making real progress look different.

    They slow down before they scale.
    They clarify what learning is for before deciding what to buy.
    They treat technology as a lever, not a strategy.

    Most importantly, they treat learning as a leadership function, not a procurement decision.

    Leaders are involved early. They set priorities. They make tradeoffs. They resist the urge to pilot everything and instead commit to a few things done well.

    Learning stops being something that happens “over there.”
    It becomes part of how the organization thinks and operates.

    This shift isn’t flashy. It doesn’t generate big announcements.
    But it creates durability.

    What’s encouraging is that more leaders are starting to feel this gap. In conversations with superintendents and edtech leaders, I hear the same frustration surfaces again and again.

    Money is being spent.
    Capability isn’t always following.

    There’s a growing recognition that more tools aren’t the answer.

    The path forward isn’t about rejecting technology.
    It’s about designing systems that can actually hold it.

    That means:

    • treating learning as a connected ecosystem, not a collection of initiatives
    • aligning leadership expectations with learning goals
    • designing for judgment, adaptability, and human skill, not just completion and compliance

    When learning is designed this way, technology amplifies it.
    When it isn’t, technology just accelerates confusion.

    The future of learning won’t be decided by the next platform or algorithm.

    It will be decided by whether organizations are willing to do the harder work of design. Clarifying purpose. Creating coherence. Building systems that support how people actually learn and grow.

    The organizations that get this right aren’t chasing better tools.
    They’re designing better systems.

    Everything else follows.

  • Designing Belonging: What a Pizza Box Taught Me About Connection

    Designing Belonging: What a Pizza Box Taught Me About Connection

    I’ve written before about the time I ordered a pizza to reconnect my ex-husband to the outside world. No car. No phone. No internet. A disconnection, both literal and emotional. We used Domino’s delivery notes as our 21st-century carrier pigeon. It worked, but only because someone made the effort to reach out, to bridge the gap, to make belonging possible when the system failed.

    I was thinking about that moment when I read Design for Belonging by Susie Wise.

    “The work of belonging is to counteract [othering]. It is to open up spaces and places so that all people regardless of their backgrounds can join in and contribute.”

    I can’t stop thinking about how often we overlook the micro-moments where belonging breaks, and how many more we ignore where it could be rebuilt.

    That pizza box moment was belonging by design, even if I didn’t have a name for it then. It was messy. Unconventional. A little ridiculous. But it worked.

    And maybe that’s the real design challenge: how do we notice when belonging is fractured? And more importantly, what do we do next?

    When Wise talks about the “design levers” of rituals, roles, spaces, systems, it isn’t just a nice framework for planners and strategists. It’s a lifeline for educators, leaders, and humans trying to hold fragmented communities together. Especially when those communities are separated by distance, devices, and distraction.

    I’ve seen this in classrooms. In Zoom faculty meetings. In Twitter (“X”) threads that start with good intentions and devolve into ego matches. And I’ve felt it in the silence after someone says something unintentionally harmful, followed by… nothing.

    That’s where the work is.

    We talk a lot about invitation. How do we invite students into learning? Colleagues into collaboration? Families into school systems that weren’t built with them in mind?

    But Wise pushes us further. She explains that invitation isn’t just about showing up. It’s about showing up in a space that sees you. Hears you. Values your perspective.

    That only happens with intention.

    I think about how many times I’ve created systems that worked “in theory” but didn’t feel like belonging in practice. The school-wide email that no one read. The virtual office hours that no one joined. The peer feedback protocol that favored the loudest voices. None of those were belonging, even if they were well-designed.

    Because belonging isn’t the form. It’s the feeling.

    Wise also talks about dissent and repair—two words we don’t sit with enough in schools.

    We love our norms and expectations and “we’re all in this together” mantras. But what happens when someone pushes back? When they say, “This space doesn’t feel safe for me,” or “That comment hurt”?

    Too often, we go straight to defense. Or worse—silence.

    But real belonging means we stay. We sit in the discomfort. We acknowledge the impact even if it wasn’t our intent. We ask what repair could look like—and then we act.

    Sometimes that action is a redesign.
    Sometimes it’s an apology.
    Sometimes it’s a damn pizza box with a handwritten message to reboot the phone so messages arrive. haha

    I don’t have a neat ending here. Belonging is squiggly like that. It’s a process, not a product. But what I’m learning from Susie Wise, and remembering from my own messy, human moments, is this:

    We can design for belonging in every space we touch.
    Even the ones that feel too big, too broken, too remote.
    Even the ones held together by pizza and Post-it notes.
    Especially those.