Innovation in Teaching
Read in this Article;
What is Innovation?
How do people react to innovative behaviour?
Innovation for teachers, worthy or Not?
What is Innovation?
To explore the meaning of innovation we need to go back and look at the biggest picture we can.
Let’s imagine that everything around us is made of squares. Everything we look at are made of squares, so the shape they appear to us is the result of their squares positioning a certain way.
The same idea is applicable to procedures. Every action we take follows a procedure that is a direct result of its squares being organised a certain way.
Most of the procedures are almost routines now as they’ve been repeated the same way over and over again.
Why? because they’ve already proven to get you results!
Let’s look at it in an example; When an English Teacher enters her classroom, she follows a certain routine, greeting, revising homework, setting the context with a warm up activity, presenting the lesson, practice, production, giving next sessions homework, finishing up.
(this is as example and as we all know lesson shapes vary depend on the aim of the lesson)
This is how the squares of a typical english class has been organised based on academic knowledge and Teacher’s personal experience.
Every once in a while, someone comes along that notices new squares in between routine’s squares, or comes up with a new way to sort them. As a result, we might see a different / better outcome, or we might see a better flow in achieving the same goal.
The fact of seeing new squares or discovering new ways to arrange already existing ones is called innovation.
People react to innovative behaviour in different ways.
Some are very resistant to change and they strongly believe the old ways must be preserved as they’re proven to provide results.
Some ore more flexible but suspicious, they welcome change and give it a try, and decide for themselves if it’s worthy or not.
Some get excited over innovations and get inspired to use them or create their own version of it.
All groups are to be respected as long as they also respect the other groups.
To sum up, don’t doubt yourself and your potential as a great teacher if you are discovering new squares, you might just have discovered the next world famous Teaching method. Use your innovative abilities and cherish them. Don’t let the resistive group of people discourage you, or the suspicious ones questions you, their way of judging is just as respectable as yours.
An innovative Teacher is constantly improving as they risk lesser results for the sake of moving forward and hoping for a better outcome.
Lastly, remember, You will Never know how it’d turn out, if you don’t Give it a Shot!
