Vicki Albritton, Georgia, USA
“Innovation in education must include the student voice. Innovation means that risk-taking is OK and that failure isn’t the end. Innovation is often messy — scary and beautiful and nerve-wracking and exhilarating, all at the same time.”
“When talking about creativity and innovation in education, the name of one of my favorite educators — Sir Ken Robinson — always crops up. He says that what we are doing now, or have done in the past, need not determine what we can do next, or in the future. Thus, to me, innovation in education means looking beyond past and current ideas to search for ideas that will work in the future. That is the world in which our learners will live.
“Innovation in education happens when educators ask, ‘How can I make this real, relevant, interesting, student-centric and personalized?’ When we design our learning experiences around these five components, I believe we will begin to create the change and learning we all want to see. If we keep this question in mind, then policies, decision-making, technology use and resource allocation will follow suit. However, I’m beginning to realize that it is actually not hard to make change in the small and safe confines of my classroom. The trick is to go out there into our possible spheres of influence and address the issues we care so deeply about. That will take grit, ingenuity, tenacity, patience and dialogue. We will have to know all the arguments against innovation and counter those arguments with facts and evidence.”
“Innovation in education is about thinking ‘outside of the box’ and giving students and teachers the conditions to do so. It means to me that any question is a legitimate one. It means feeling safe enough to share an idea with colleagues and students, and to ask for their honest opinion. It’s ‘seeing’ the students and researching what they really want and need from us as teachers.”
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