How To Make Your Classroom A Place For Innovation And Learning

AI headsets, virtual reality, and metaverse are some of the words that pop up in our minds when we think about the future of learning. The tech-driven world is about tablets, laptops, and big screens with the perfect display. However, tech-savvy schools may not enhance students’ creativity, especially young minds. Since everything is available on the internet, little minds find it easier to “Google it rather than think.” That limits their ability to think and come up with unique ideas. Ultimately, there is a barrier to innovation. Before it gets too late, the learning environment needs a drastic change. Although technology is the backbone of literally everything these days, it is better to keep it miles away from schools.

Let’s dive a little deeper into how mentors can make classrooms a place for innovation and learning. Here are eight ways to increase creativity in your classes.

1. Open-ended Question System

Rather than bounding students to an answer, start asking open-ended questions and encourage students for whatever they say. These questions are out of the book or course outline, so any answer is acceptable. That will encourage strong collaboration, exciting ideas, entrepreneurial thinking and allow them to unleash their hidden potential.

In the tech-driven era, teachers must look forward to encouraging brainstorming rather than relying on technology. Motivate your students to brainstorm ideas instead of searching everything over the internet. Brainstorming is the key to cultivating ideas, imagination, and innovation.

3. Encourage Leadership in Students

To instill leadership among students, the educator must possess these skills themselves. Often the teachers pursue professional degrees in this domain and wonder whether they can get a Job With A Degree In Educational Leadership? These degrees have a vast scope than one can imagine in the field of education. Such programs help educators implement the planning cycle effectively to improve programs and practices.

Developing an entrepreneurial mindset among young brains is not easy. Create groups and encourage them to lead instead of being a boss. Help them figure out a path for their team and not just themselves. Call entrepreneurs and innovators to discuss their life stories with your students. That will also motivate them to think out of the box and be more productive than anyone else.

4. Problem-finding Over Problem-solving

Problem-solving? Not so much. Help your students look at the world with a different mindset. Tell them to find gaps and then work on a solution to fill those holes. Providing them with a loophole and asking them to think out of the box to overcome the issue may not be as effective as you think it could be. Problem-finding promotes intellectual and imaginative thinking to discover if something’s missing or must be added. It will help students think deeper and rationally, ask questions, and use creative methods to solve them.

5. Employ Flipped Classroom Model 

Are you still following the old-school method for teaching? How about a flipped approach where students do a little homework before coming to class? Well, believe it or not, if students go through the chapter or lecture before class, you and the students have more time for practicals, group discussions, and independent learning. They can interact and share their perspectives on what they’ve learned with the rest of the class. According to Flipped Learning Network, teachers found a change of attitude in 80% of the students after implementing the flipped classroom model, whereas 71% saw improvement in grades.

6. Let Them Take Risks 

Never prevent your students from taking risks. They might fall, but that is the best way to learn and grow. Later in life, their risk-taking ability will help them overcome bigger obstacles. On the other hand, they will also learn to be more flexible and resilient in life. Taking risks, failing, but never giving up is the quality your students need to be more innovative. They will learn and come up with better ideas in the future.

7. Allow Them to Experiment 

Give your students real-world situations where they are encouraged to experiment with different alternatives for the best possible solution. Do not prevent them from experimenting with their ideas. Several attempts and failures will give them the confidence to develop a different approach. You can make sure they are open to risks, failure, and experimenting with all possibilities for the desired output.

8. Teach them Design-thinking Approach 

Identifying challenges, gathering related information, generating viable solutions, and testing the alternatives is referred to as a design-thinking approach. The approach has five stages; discovery, interpretation, creativity, experimentation, and evolution. It will help students be more optimistic and solve complex problems easily. How do you teach design thinking? Here are some simple examples to address all five stages and teach your students to do the same:

• I have a problem. How to solve it?
• I have learned a new technique. How to interpret it?
• There’s a possibility. How to address it?
• I have an idea. How to implement it?
• I have tested something. How to evolve it?

Key Takeaways 

Given the rapid technological advancements, the learning environment is changing into a more digitized version. However, this tech-driven world can limit the thinking ability of students. Teachers need a more dynamic atmosphere for kids to ensure enhanced creativity before the digital world limits their inventiveness. Letting the young brains experiment and test their skills is what they need. Teachers must ask open-ended questions without any prejudice to the answers they get. Furthermore, mentors must encourage problem-finding over problem-solving in their students. Your students will be on their merry way to an innovative life ahead with a design-thinking approach and risk-taking ability.

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