With so many different priorities to focus on, school systems are often overwhelmed which adds to the stress of teachers. Is there a sustainable way to help schools develop a culture of innovation?
Innovation is such a large topic and encompasses many different factors, which is why sometimes teachers don’t feel that they want to learn more about it. As someone who has been working within the innovation arena in education for over 18 years, it’s taken a while for me to narrow down the key elements that could help progressively lead teachers, students and leaders to start on the journey to developing a culture of innovation.
“If you want your students to be future ready, innovation has to be a priority.”
Through research and a very large number of conversations with like-minded professionals both inside and outside of education, I identified 4 core principles – Knowledge, Creativity, Character and Culture.
4 Core Principles
Knowledge
The understanding of knowledge and having good subject specialists is the starting point of the journey.
Creativity
Inspiring these subject specialists to use inventive and new means to help deliver the content in exciting ways, which includes using ed-tech, maker spaces etc.
Character
Identifying traits in our students that we can nurture which can contribute to developing as 21st century learners and a culture of innovation.
Culture
Developed by leadership they would highlight the key movements of innovation in the school before creating a 3 year and 5 year plan which helps to work towards the goal of holistic culture of innovation.
I hope this has given you some food for thought and provided an innovation model which is easy to understand. I’ll be sharing further insights regarding the 4 core principles over the coming months.
Read more about Innovation X and EdTech in my article featured by Bett Asia.