When Are You No Longer Innovative? #EdChat

I've been thinking about the concept of innovation and being innovative as an educator. At times, I think I have been innovative in different approaches to teaching and helping students learn. Whether that is through large projects like 20 Time that led to hosting TEDx Events or The Epic Romeo and Juliet Project or smaller changes to my every day instruction like increased wait time and how I ask questions. These big or little changes can have an impact on the students in class and pushes me to continually evolve as an educator. Despite these changes, and others over the years, I started to wonder at what point does an innovative strategy cross into the realm of traditional and no longer innovative. 

Right now, there is great work being done around brain science and what it can do to help teachers. An article from ASCD, Every Educator Needs to Know How The Brain Learns, does a wonderful job explaining the why of brain science for teachers. SEL is also very important in the classroom. I would argue that teachers have been concerned about Social Emotional Learning long before it was a buzzword in education. Where those teachers innovative in the fact that they were addressing something that was not considered mainstream yet? Once it became mainstream, is it no longer innovative?

Using a television in the classroom was considered extremely innovative at one time. Reading Rainbow and Sesame Street were considered so far ahead of their time. Using television, and visual media in general, was considered cutting edge. Those two programs were instrumental in educating tens of thousands of children around the country. It was innovative and impactful. Would you still call those programs innovative today? (Note: This dyslexic child learned to read because of LeVar Burton and Reading Rainbow. Watching that cart with the TV wheel into class gave me so much hope that I would be able to read and be awesome like the kids featured on the show. I was able to meet Mr. Burton in person years ago and thank him with tears in my eyes. I know I wasn't the first or the last person to do that.)

June 2014 ISTE Conference

I have fully embraced Project Based Learning and Maker Education as a way to engage students in the learning process. I want to help students be creators and not just consumers of content. Project Based Learning has been around for a very l long time. Is it really still innovative to allow students to explore topics that are meaningful to them and let them learn through the process of discovery? I don't have the answer to that, but if PBL and MakerEd have transitioned into the realm of traditional pedagogy, does that mean it is time to find the next innovative approach?

I think the scary thing with being innovative as a teacher is the fact that failure is part of the process. Lessons are going to be bad or simply not work out. Being innovative is not easy and it is not something everyone is comfortable being in the classroom. It takes educators who are in the right environment to try the new ideas and see how they go. They document and share and hopefully their innovative idea grows and expands to classrooms all over. However, it is not easy. I imagine so many innovative ideas shrivel on the vine because education is not set up to support innovative teaching. 

As a teacher who advocates for teachers to try the big crazy idea, yells from the rooftop that mental health needs to be talked about for teachers and students, that wants nothing more to find a way to support and nurture other educators looking to take their innovative idea to the next level, I want all educators out there to think about how they can be supportive of innovation in the classroom. Innovation will constantly evolve as technology and research provides more options and answers. My goal moving forward is to continue to support innovative practices, raise up voices that are trying to make education better for everyone, and not give up on finding the best thing for teachers and students, I just hope that every teacher feels that they have the option to try that idea because it could be the one that changes a generation of learners.