Innovation in Alternative Learning Environments

Head in the celling by Liv French

As I worked through creating definitions for teaching, learning, innovation and creativity this past week I stumbled upon an alternative school in my area that has taken an innovative approach to the curriculum. The school is called Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry (PSII-https://learningstorm.org/) .

 

“Learning is not something that comes from the outside, it’s something that is inside of us and needs to be nurtured” (Hopkins,2014, 0:33).

This is a quote from Jeff Hopkins, an educator and founder of PSII. Jeff believes that adolescents need inquiry and emergent learning opportunities to be successful. He says that in education now, we are not giving students the opportunity to learn in this way and that we must change the way we are teaching (Hopkins, 2014). Jeff has taken the steps needed to innovate his teaching and in doing so he has opened an alternative learning school, here on Vancouver Island.

In the article Enhancing Creativity and Innovation in Engineering Education it states “In entrepreneurship and technopreneurship..., innovation and creativity are highly associated with ‘the process of uncovering and developing an opportunity to create value through innovation” (Badran, 2007, p. 575). I think this can be said for education as well. I believe what Jeff has done is innovated his practice thus creating a valuable learning opportunity for students.

With the world constantly changing, as teacher’s, we “are expected to innovate the theory and practice of teaching and learning, as well as all other aspects of this complex organization to ensure quality preparation of all students to life and work” (Serdykov, 2017). No pressure! Haha. But seriously, how are we suppose to keep up? There are many reasons that there are teacher shortages in Canada, one of them being teacher burn out. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the contributing factors leading to burn out is the sheer amount of professional development and extra learning, we are all doing to try and keep up with the pace of the world.

So, with all that being said, is there a way to innovate your own practice without overwhelming yourself? I think the answer is yes. Don’t stress about making some crazy changes in your class, make a small change that hold value to you and/or your class, and let it grow. Here is a great resource I discovered if you’d like to learn more: https://www.innovationunit.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/10-Ideas-for-21st-Century-Education.pdf

 References:

Badran, I (2007), "Enhancing creativity and innovation in engineering education", European Journal of Engineering Education, 32:5, 573-585, DOI: 10.1080/03043790701433061

Hopkins, J. (2014) Education as if people mattered. TEDxVictoria. [video] https://youtu.be/5O5PK6LsymM

Serdyukov, P. (2017), "Innovation in education: what works, what doesn’t, and what to do about it?", Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching & Learning, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 4-33. https://doi.org/10.1108/JRIT-10-2016-0007