What does Innovation look like?
By: Jessica Leonard

Current issue:
Teachers are not given growth opportunities, which keeps the students at a level of complacency too!

Solution: Bring innovation to the classroom!

What it takes to be innovative:

• Maintain an innovative culture
• Keep ALL students engaged
• Provide students with innovative tools

The classroom culture MUST include innovative learning

Essential Principles of Innovative Learning

• Student centered learning
• Learning can’t happen alone
• Emotions are acknowledged
• Differences in learners are addressed
• Students need to be pushed to potential
• Assessment should be for learning, not of learning

How an innovative classroom should look:

• Group work/sitting in pods
• Solving a real-world issue
• Ideas shared between groups
• Meaningful discussion
• Teacher walking around listening and adding to conversations

All students need to be engaged

How to keep students engaged:

• Allow and encourage creativity
• Invite innovators into the classroom
• Challenge students at their current abilities
• Promote self-discovery

How student engagement should look:

• Student creating something as an assessment
• A guest speaker in-person or on Ted Talk
• Groups with various abilities dispersed
• Student-led activities

Provide Students with Innovative Tools

Tools for Student Innovation

• Technology
• Problem-solving opportunities
• Material that requires critical thinking

What tools I expect to see:

• Activites that require problem-finders
• Technology used to enhance learning and creativity (padlet, Adobe Spark, etc)
• Students self-reflecting in journals or online platform
• Use The Design-Thinking Process

Untitled Slide

Sources:

• https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/26755/7-essential-principles-of-innovative-l...
• https://eu-acerforeducation.acer.com/learning-skills/why-are-critical-think...
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/robynshulman/2018/11/19/10-ways-educators-can-...
• https://resilienteducator.com/classroom-resources/educational-innovations-r...