Innovator's Mindset

Another takeaway I had from George Couros' Leading Innovative Change session (@gcouros) was the belief that the biggest game changer in education is teachers that thinks of themselves as innovators.  When looking at the definition of innovator, we see a person who introduces new methods, ideas, or practices.

At times, educators have a hard time grasping this, as their day is packed with teaching, grading, and meetings; however, if we look at any other professional practice, we know we need to stay on top of new methods, ideas, and practices. If we would go to a doctor who was treating his patients the same way he did fifty years ago, it would be medical malpractice; however, many of today's schools look the same as they did fifty years ago. Desks area aligned in rows with the teacher disseminating information with students regurgitating the answers. We need to move away from education malpractice.

Teachers are busy, I get that. So, how do we make those changes with the little time we have available? We need to take on an innovator's mindset. We can't continue doing the same things as we have always done and then try to add on something new. We don't have time to do it all, so we need to replace something old with something new.

At conferences and even district wide professional development, teachers are flooded with new practices and ideas. (Feeling the guilt, as I do this to our staff). As an educator, take one thing from a session/conference and implement it into your classroom. Start small and only tackle one new thing at a time. With this approach, having an innovator's mindset is doable.

Asking the Right Questions

Wow!  It has been awhile since I have taken the time to sit down and formally reflect on my blog....over three months to be exact.

This past week, I was at a conference in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and connected with an amazing speaker and educator, George Couros.  The focus of his presentation was leading innovative change in education.  I could blog about many of the topics he presented, but I'll start with one that really resonated with me.

"If you ask students to put away devices, you are losing students' trust and their way of learning." 

- George Couros

In my role, obviously I encourage integrating technology into the content areas and it burns me when I hear comments from educators or see posters in schools that say something to the effect of no technology allowed in this classroom. Technology is an extension of our students these days; the worst technology device a kindergartener knows is an iPad 2. They have always had technology as part of their lives. They use devices to connect, to create, to communicate, and believe it or not even to learn.

When teachers direct them to disconnect, in essence they are taking away a huge part of the way they know how to learn. Students do know how to think and communicate without their devices, but why would we want to limit them to only the tools and people in the four walls of the classroom? Parents trust that as educators we are going to allow their students to use the tools so they can learn. Students need to be empowered to use the tools to connect, collaborate, think critically, create, and solve real world problems.

I had a teacher ask me if we could disable Google during tests because kids were looking up the answers to their tests. If kids are Googling the answer, we as educators are asking the wrong questions! As the sign in my office reads....