Saturday, February 6, 2016

Innovation is Personal

It took me a long time to come up with that title! I was thinking for a few days about the role and importance of innovation in my own life, but at the same time I encountered several groups of educators in different settings.
Some had problems that needed a solution, some were interested in a new app for creating exciting learning opportunities in their classrooms. Others were having trouble with a new reporting system. Still others were inspiring me with their learning, that had gone beyond my own and was challenging for me to think about.
This got me thinking back to our school’s TLLP, many years ago, making bonds between technology and literacy for the first time at the school, and personally, for several participants. The request was would I please be “nice and patient, and not go too fast.”
Also at this time, like may others I am sure, I have been working on our board’s CODE project. When we look system-wide at a CI-style question, huge disparities appear among participants. I think it is important to meet each person at their own “optimal” place of learning and innovation. And of course this is what we hope to do for each of our students as well.

I think it is useful to recognize and reward innovation at each step of the way. One person is not necessarily more innovative than another. Innovation involves more than technology, of course. I think that as long as growth is involved, and we are open to new ideas, innovation in some form will occur.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I like the idea that "Innovation is Personal", but I like to think it "becomes" personal after you achieve a buy in from colleagues. I'd love to know the magic formula to get teachers to innovate and see the huge rewards they can get from doing this. Once they start they can personalize to their hearts content and make the experiences their students get hugely rewarding and meaningful.