Have you built a space for innovation in your school, in your practice, and in the work of your students? I believe that STEAM, STEM, and makerspaces all come from a deep-seated need to raise our children to become innovators. It is a reflexive response to a world of globalization and increasing automation. As robots claim more and more jobs, we're being forced to dive deep in our quest to provide our students with fundamental skills.
With both ideological and physical space for innovation, over the last eight years my visual art students have created games for iPad and Android devices, explored electronics and Arduino, used a 3-D printer to make casting prototypes for jewelry, and used a laser cutter to explore social change and communication. My science students have used a laser cutter to prototype environmentally sustainable housing, and are currently using this technology in a project where they are prototyping space vehicles.
Building a Practice for Innovation
To encourage innovation in your students and yourself, you must first take some key steps.
- Understand creative methodology. Creative thinking isn't an innate skill—it can be learned. Two foundational books that can help are Roger von Oech's Whack on the Side of the Head (1973), and Koberg and Bagnall's Universal Traveller (1974).
- Examine creative models. Models for creative process or engineering design include <LINK URL="http://prof-ed.mit-dev.penzias.com/programs/short-programs/mastering-innovation-design-thinking" LINKTARGET="_blank">MIT's Design Thinking</LINK>, the <LINK URL="https://www.marsdd.com/systems-change/mars-solutions-lab/news/pivoting-education-using-entrepreneurial-thinking-to-drive-new-generation-learning-and-youth-entrepreneurship-in-our-schools/" LINKTARGET="_blank">MaRs Center in Toronto's Entrepreneurial Thinking model</LINK>, the Ontario Ministry of Education's <LINK URL="http://www.rotmanithink.ca/ice" LINKTARGET="_blank">Innovation Creativity Entrepreneurship (ICE)</LINK>, or the Engineering Design Process curriculum developed by the Toronto District School Board's STEM department. Many of these are similar to each other, though some have a greater focus on business. One especially excellent place to look is visual art teaching curricula such as the <LINK URL="http://code.on.ca/resource/creative-process-chart-ontario-curriculum" LINKTARGET="_blank">creative process model</LINK> in the Ontario Curriculum for the Visual Arts, which is often a cycle of ideation, critique, and revision
- De-silo yourself. We all exist in silos, and the school system doesn't help. Teachers are organized into departments. Participants in our education system are locked into their roles in a very well-defined hierarchy. To enable innovation, radical reflection and radical change must be made. Explore learning outside of your subject, your school, and even the field of education. The Macintosh computer would never have become the design powerhouse it is today if Steve Job's hadn't taken a <LINK URL="http://www.businessinsider.com/robert-palladino-calligraphy-class-inspired-steve-jobs-2016-3" LINKTARGET="_blank">calligraphy course</LINK> in his early years.
- Engage flexibility in the classroom. All students have great ideas. How can you make your classroom a place where their ideas are supported? Even within a set curriculum, you can find ways to encourage flexibility and innovation. Invite students to design projects based on their passions, even if they are different from how you initially conceived the work. Create "open frame" projects where the knowledge required to do the project is prescribed but the outcome is not.
Building a Space for Innovation
Makerspaces are excellent places to enable student innovation and accomplishment because they help focus all of that above creative methodology. Often, we think of a makerspace as a room with electronics tools, a 3-D printer, and perhaps a wood shop. But really, there are no hard and fast rules. In our makerspace here at Georges Vanier Secondary School, we have a photo-resin 3-D printer and a Universal VLS 6.60 laser cutter, along with some rudimentary electronics components. With just a few pieces of equipment, our students can create just about anything they can dream of.
Here are some suggestions borne out of experience.
1. Adopt technology that is accessible, readily available, and easy to learn.
- 3-D printers are excellent tools, however, to get meaningful original work from your students.
- Lasercutter technology is initially expensive; however, the materials can be cheap and the software is accessible and easy to learn.
2. Purchase items that are authentic in nature, and have no predetermined outcomes.
- Avoid made-for education kits with predetermined outcomes.
- We use industry-grade equipment which, while expensive upfront, is safe, predictable, and reliable.
- Adolescents have an inescapable hunger for the authentic. Give a student a "school" task and watch them disengage. Give them a "real-world" task and watch them go.
3. Adopt technology that is cross-curricular or trans-curricular.
- Our technology has been used by science students, visual art students, business students, and more.
- Teach your colleagues from different disciplines how to use the tech. Where they go, their students will follow.
Authentic Innovation
Students love opportunities to make their mark on society, which is precisely why it is important to build an environment where they can engage innovation and make new things. But establishing these conditions is difficult because the work requires changes on multiple levels: the teacher, the institution, and the space in which the education occurs. The word innovation is often poorly defined yet widely applied. The wide variety of initiatives and theories about innovation can be reduced to an essential and learnable creative process. To get perspective on what innovation truly is, teachers need to de-silo and look beyond the schoolhouse. Developing spaces where there is accessible, multipurpose technology with support for original student ideas is key to preparing for a better future.