Innovation and Learning

Process Should Be:

• Innovation should encourage students and teachers to explore new ways to use tools
• The process should include teachers, administrators and students.
• The process of innovation should be continuous and evolutinary

Teacher Should:

• Move from projects to project based learning
• Teach concepts, not facts
• Distinguish concepts from critical information
• Form teams, not groups

Teachers should:

• Make skills as important as knowledge
• Reward discovery
• Make reflection part of the lesson

Concepts, Not Facts

• Concept-based instruction overcomes the fact-based, rote-oriented nature of standardized curriculum. If the teachers curriculum is not organized conceptually, they should use their own knowledge and resources to teach ideas and deep understanding, not test items.

Form Teams, Not Groups

• Innovation now emerges from teams and networks—and we can teach students to work collectively and become better collective thinkers. Group work is common, but team work is rare.

Students Should:

• Ask lots of questions
• hands on learning
• use multiple tools and supplies
• make own choices and have confidence in decisions
• collborate with each other

Why ask questions?

• For students, posing questions is a first step towards filling the gaps they may have in knowledge and resolving puzzlement.
• It helps them articulate their current understanding of the topic, it allows them to make connections to other ideas and it allows them to become aware of what they know and do not know.

Shapes Museum

• Example of PBL activity geared for primary grades
• In this project, students learn about the different geometric shapes in the world around them (e.g., rectangles, squares, trapezoids, etc.). They conduct observations, both at home and in their school environment, of everyday items and structures to identify how shapes exist in our world.

Goal Setting

• An example of a skills that can be taught to students is goal setting. Having the students set small goals, both academic and personal, I believe gives them ownership in their learning

Self Reflection

• It also important to teach students about self reflection. This ties into goal setting. A great way to have student self-reflect is to have them reflect on their goal. Did they met it? If they did, why? If they didn't, why? What could they changed? What helped them reach it?

Sources

• Education, B. I. (2020). Projects for Remote Learning. Retrieved from PBL Works: https://www.pblworks.org/pbl-projects-remote-learning
• Mindshift. (2013, April 1). 10 Ways to Teach Innovation . Retrieved from KQED Inform.Inspire.Involve: https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/27765/10-ways-to-teach-innovation