Essential Question 1

ESSENTIAL QUESTION 1: How do we keep our lessons engaging? Does innovation play a part in this? 

When I googled "innovation in the classroom" the entire first page of the results was filled with lists that give ways to bring innovation into the classroom and how to foster creativity and ultimately increase student engagement.

As I reflect on my own classroom, engagement and innovation go hand in hand. My students are certainly most engaged whenever I challenge them with something new and different. I find that at first they struggle and complain, but in the end I have the highest numbers of participation and the best outcomes when we are learning by doing.

James Davis wrote that he learned "from speaking to students that they prefer work where they can have hands-on activities and get to collaborate with their peers. They tend to be less engaged when listening to teacher lectures or doing repetitive tasks and 'busy work'." (AMLE, 2017).  It seems so obvious and yet so difficult to do.

Teach Like A PIRATE by Dave Burgess (2012) describes six ways to create a classroom that engages students: Passion, Immersion, Rapport, Ask and Analyze, Transformation, and Enthusiasm. Some of these I feel like I have down, like Passion and Rapport, while others I will really need to work on!

The last piece that keeps popping in my mind as I am thinking and reading about innovation is letting students take risks and fail (Shulman, 2018). Burgess says "the path to great teaching looks like instructions for washing your hair: Try, fail, adjust, try, fail, adjust...lather, rinse, repeat." (Burgess, 2012, p. 49).  This is one area I think I have done better in the last year or so as a teacher. I allow myself to take risks and plan lessons that do not have a definite outcomes. Sometimes they fail and I learn from my mistakes, but more importantly my students see me fail and try again. Sometimes innovation can just simply be letting go of control and encouraging students to fail successfully.


Resources:
AMLE - Association for Middle Level Education. (2017, November). Innovative Teaching Strategies that Improve Student Engagement. Retrieved May 24, 2019, from https://www.amle.org/BrowsebyTopic/WhatsNew/WNDet/TabId/270/ArtMID/888/ArticleID/876/Innovative-Teaching-Strategies-that-Improve-Student-Engagement.aspx

Burgess, D. (2012). Teach like a PIRATE: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator. San Diego, CA: Dave Burgess Consulting.

Shulman, R. D. (2018, November 20). 10 Ways Educators Can Make Classrooms More Innovative. Retrieved May 24, 2019, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/robynshulman/2018/11/19/10-ways-educators-can-make-classrooms-more-innovative/#162b286d7f87

Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 30, 2019 at 5:00 PM

    I like that idea of failing successfully. If only our students believed in that. Good blog.

    ReplyDelete

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