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Creativity and Innovation

Slicing every day in March












Creativity and innovation...

 I've been thinking a lot about both of these topics lately.
Probably because I've been reading George Couros' book, 
The Innovator's Mindset and because +Margaret Simon has nudged some of us to write about this topic today. 

 So far, one of the biggest takeaways from reading this book by +George Couros has been the idea that innovation for innovation's sake is not good enough. 



 We innovate in order to create something NEW and BETTER than what we had before. To create something new that doesn't enhance student learning, is not worth our time. And, of course, an innovation could be a new iteration of an old idea as long as it will do want we want to do, but better. in this case, we want to help students learn better and more effectively.

 Keeping these ideas in mind has really helped me think more clearly about innovation. 

 Although I'm still reading and still thinking, this idea has somehow lodged itself into my brain and won't leave me alone. I think it's because I tend to "innovate" a lot in my classroom, but I wonder how thoroughly I am evaluating whether or not each new innovation is impacting my students' learning in meaningful ways. So, my resolve is to make sure that when I try something new in my class, that I also critically evaluate its impact on students' learning. Although I know I do this intuitively, I think I need to be more critical in my evaluation.

 Creativity and innovation go hand in hand, of course. But, if we are going to be creative and innovative (bring in new ideas or new iterations of old ideas to our teaching) then we need to do a litmus test to make sure that what we're doing is truly NEW and BETTER that what we had before...




  


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