Focus area
Mark’s research centres on how school leaders can best support a community’s transition into Innovative Learning 
Environments. For many people the shift to a different teaching environment represent a dramatic step-change in practice, which needs to be carefully supported by school leadership. Mark’s research aims to answer the question:
What leadership practices are most likely to lead to the successful implementation of an innovative learning environment?
This short video provides an overview of the project in October 2019.
Background
Mark is the director of an educational consultancy in New Zealand, and has been a teacher, school leader and consultant for more than 20 years. He works nationally and internationally in future-focused education, innovative learning environments and educational leadership. Prior to becoming a consultant, Mark was on the foundation leadership team at Albany Senior High School in Auckland, New Zealand.
As a practitioner researcher, Mark is in a unique position to research the process of implementing an Innovative Learning Environment from the perspective of those undertaking it. His membership of a community of school leaders who are implementing significant change means he can employ qualitative, subjective methods in order to capture and analyse the experiences of this community, and his research employs auto-ethnicity as a methodology to do so.
Publications:
Osborne, M. (2016). How can innovative learning environments promote the diffusion of innovation? Teachers and Curriculum, 16(2).
Osborne, M. (2015). Developing Readiness for Change. Professional Educator, 8–11.
Osborne, M. (2014). Changing Practice When Spaces Change. In W. Imms, B. Cleveland, & K. Fisher (Eds.), What Works? Melbourne, Victoria: University of Melbourne.
Osborne, M. (2014). Inviting innovation: Leading meaningful change in schools. SET Research Information for Teachers, 2, 3–8.