What Does Innovation Look Like?

"We need to move beyond the idea that an education is something that is provided for us and toward the idea that an education is something we create ourselves."
Stephen Downes

Traits of an Innovative Classroom

• Voice - student collaboration
• Choice - student ownership
• Self Assessment/Reflection
• Opportunity - authentic and meaningful
• Critical Thinkers - challenge what you see
• Problem finding/solving - student led
• Connected Learning -learn from experts

What does an innovative classroom look/sound like?

An innovative classroom is student led, collaborative, and full of choices.

In an innovative classroom, students are confident, open to criticism, and persevere through their struggles

In an innovative classroom, the teacher is a guide on the side, looking for teachable moments among the fast paced and seemingly chaotic nature of the classroom.

I use 3 Act Lessons weekly in my classroom. I've included one of my favorites in the following slides and I'll give short explanations of how to do this one.

How I Showcase Innovation

What do you see?
What are all the parts of the image?

What do you see?
What changed?
What stayed the same?

What changed?
What stayed the same?

What do you want to know about this picture?

The question we eventually arrive at is "how much does it cost?". That is what the students will find out in this lesson.

Knowing the question we're trying to solve, students need to verbalize what information they need to solve this problem and how they would use that information.

As a teacher, it's all about asking questions. What if you weren't given that piece of information? What if you were given this instead of that? Etc.

This is the only piece of information students are given.

In-N-Out's menu is based on a linear function so no further information is necessary. Students don't know this, but they'll soon figure it out...

The answer is finally revealed to them, but they're not done.

Students have to create a method of calculating the cost of any number of patties (linear function) and then we test them for their accuracy.

Students work in pods, but with different students each day. I use notecards to assign their daily seats which also doubles as an exit ticket for them.

I try to incorporate as many learning activities like this into my lessons each week. Some are spontaneously created by students, most are found from other teachers/websites.

"The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious"
John Scully