The Learning Curve of Innovation

After attending the #MACUL17 conference last week, my head was filled with ideas and tools to share with our teachers to implement human-centered design, project-based learning, student-centered classrooms, GSuite integration, and other learning initiatives that abound at an educational technology conference. My hope is that teachers will begin using at least one of the ideas and/or tools that I introduce during upcoming staff PD. However, after reading a blog post by John Spencer, I have to remind myself to allow the teachers the time to become comfortable and competent in their use of these tools and ideas. I also want to remind our teachers, as they strive for innovative teaching, to give themselves and their students that time as well. As the title of John’s blog post indicates, we need to allow learners to ...Develop Creative Fluency. You can’t quit after the first attempt when you are still on that steep learning curve. It took me days to write my first blog post, but now I’m down to about an hour. The words flow more quickly and I’ve discovered that sometimes you just have to stop editing and hit post. The first time you try something new, it feels awkward, you have to question what you’re doing or figure out a new tool or piece of equipment. Your students are the same. Contrary to what many imagine, they don’t emerge from the womb with the knowledge of how to use technology or how to use it to learn. What they do have, however, is a sense of wonder and curiosity along with the willingness to try out that which is new. So, let your student’s natural curiosity lead, learn alongside them and if something doesn’t work out, ask them for feedback. How can we make this better next time? Then give them that “next time.” Build on your skills and soon creating videos or writing blog posts, or whatever technique or new idea you’re implementing becomes second nature. Pretty soon yours will the classroom that others peek into to show them how it’s done!