Originally published in eSchool News
"How to turn your classroom into a hotbed of creativity and innovation"
By Mark Gura
Classrooms do not promote nearly enough creativity and innovation. Here’s how they can start
Ed. note: Innovation In Action is a monthly column from the International Society of Technology in Education focused on exemplary practices in education.
Establishing a classroom that guides and supports students in
developing their abilities to innovate and create is not often covered
in teacher education or in-service professional development.
Nor does learning about creativity or the skills that are drawn on in
the creative act figure strongly in commonly implemented curricula or
standards.
On the other hand, our society looks to innovation and creativity as
essential avenues that will contribute to its future prosperity and well
being. Our policy makers, including those who shape school and
education, allude to them often, and the public agrees strongly.
True, vestiges of arts education remain in some schools. But while
the arts are closely associated with the notion of student creativity,
they cover many other things and hardly fill this gap. Further, it’s
essential that student creativity and innovation be integrated across
the curriculum. We need creative and innovative souls in the STEM,
communications, and business areas, as well as in the arts.
Clearly there’s a crucial disconnect. But there’s good news. Being
creative and innovative is a natural part of being human. And while
schools commonly ignore it in favor of developing other aspects of
thinking and learning, avoiding the looming creativity crisis is
eminently do-able. Importantly, our society’s shift toward a technology
dominant workplace and intellectual environment also offers answers to
satisfying this unmet need.
Fostering creativity and innovation
Moving into a style of teaching that fosters creativity and
innovation need not seem like an overwhelmingly out of reach destination
for teachers who haven’t begun that journey. It can and should
integrate nicely with the rest of what’s taught and learned in school.
After all, the figures we want to hold up to our students as examples
and models of creative thinking and behavior are participants in the
world, not outsiders.
