I posted this simple question on Twitter, and I’m reposting it here, too:
Please share your thoughts!
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"Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana."
-Bill Gates
Innovation and education?
2 Responses to Innovation and education?
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I’ve been receiving quite a few responses, but not from the EF comments section…! Here are the items I collected from Twitter and Facebook:
From @Soy_Donna: @moravec Education should be built on PASSION… both students’ and teachers’ passion. There’ll be much more room for excellence that way.
From Griffin Gardner: Personally, I am happy to see more educators striving to teach real life applications of their subjects. During my entire elementary and secondary school years I would ask, “…and why do we need to know this?!” The answer I was given was, “Because it’ll be on the test tomorrow.” That attitude is shifting, thank goodness.
From Andie Auchmoody: The single most innovative? I would say it’s Howard Gardner’s recognition of multiple intelligences. I’m glad someone finally recognized that readin’ and writin’ weren’t the only valuable skills a person could develop and I’m glad curriculum designers began to incorporate opportunities for children to develop other skills.
From John Moravec: Personally, I think I’d have to go with Comenius’ 1657 publication of Orbis Sensualium Pictus. It actually had an impact on the world by spawning the massification of education.
From Bill Glass: You must at least bring shoes to school between Thanksgiving and Easter, wearing them is still optional.
From Brady Allen King: From my perspective, it would be the recognition and diagnosis of learning disorders and the means to provide methods of accommodation. Prior to this, many dyslexic kids, autism spectrum kids, ADD kids, etc. were just labeled dumb, lazy defiant, and so forth. I can now use assistive software with my students that enables them to produce work on a par with “normal” kids.
@Andie Auchmoody – Howard Gardner, oddly, is great in practice but lousy in theory. I use Multiple Intelligence in the classroom to create differentiated and personalized learning opportunities, but I still have issues with Multiple Intelligences as a theory because the learning categories can be so infinitely broad. Cooks are my favourite examples; there are so many “intelligences” going on when you make a meal.
@Griffin Gardner – I would agree that authentic learning is a major step forward in the education world from when I was young.
My newest intrigue is “brain based learning”. Neuroscience has a palpable, practical function that the lay person can latch on to. Because it’s data driven, hopefully it can avoid a lot of the politics that have latched on to a lot of the learning practices in the past (such as whole language learning vs phonics).