Tag: innovation

  • The Big Ideas in Education and STEAM

      How do we plan for STEAM? We start with the Big Ideas.   Attached is a chart I created to link the Big Ideas in Education with S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math). Big Ideas in Education STEAM This chart is specifically geared toward the Ministry of Ontario curricula that address STEAM subjects, and specifically…

  • Innovation for New Pedagogies and Education Spaces

    Innovation for New Pedagogies and Education Spaces

    I have been thinking a lot lately about the deeper ‘why’ behind the need for innovation in education. The deeper WHY behind the need for new spaces and also new initiatives including, but not limited to, makerspaces and genius hour. While I have led initiatives like these before, and believe in them, I wanted to…

  • Socially Transforming the Classroom

    Socially Transforming the Classroom

    What does it mean to be normal? How can we tell if new and innovative tasks and pedagogies are truly authentic – or just considered authentic because it fits into our privileged views of what normal is? Innovation. New Pedagogies. Digital literacies. 21st Century Learning Skills. How do we make sure we are not just…

  • The impact of Innovation on Power & Privilege

    The impact of Innovation on Power & Privilege

    Innovation is truly an evolution of ideas. It is so much more than the great ideas that spring from our ‘aha’ moments. I think that we are in the midst of an evolution of old ways of doing things in the library, toward new models of meeting new demands, exploring new ways of allowing ideas…

  • The Innovation Narrative & the Learning Commons

    The Innovation Narrative & the Learning Commons

      Our libraries and Learning Commons are key to supporting innovation. Therefore, Librarians are at the heart of the innovation narrative that takes place in our schools. Librarians are facilitators of learning and knowledge building. Sometimes this is about technology, sometimes it is about other resources, but it is always about people. We don’t make…

  • Teacher Moderation & Assessment in the age of Knowledge and Innovation

    Teacher Moderation & Assessment in the age of Knowledge and Innovation

    I think it behooves us to ask ourselves whether collaborative assessment practices including moderation, is different now that we are headed into 2016 – versus what it looked like in 2006? The process of grading and assessing students is very subjective, and it always has been – but with so much information, technology, globalization, opportunities…

  • 5 Questions for Innovation: From What to How

    5 Questions for Innovation: From What to How

    As educators we are very clear about WHAT we would like to do in terms of innovation. However, are we clear on HOW we are going to do it?  Very often in our PLN’s, we are sharing great ideas about ‘WHAT‘ to do. The WHAT is often shared in the form of a new technology…

  • To Benefit Student Learning: Facilitating New Opportunities for Collaborative Inquiry, Action Research, Innovation

    Today, it is imperative that we make changes to our traditional school paradigms to meet the learning needs of our students for today and their futures. We need to reimagine how we structure our schools to promote ongoing daily collaboration opportunities for teachers for the purposes of planning, with the explicit goal of improving student…