Friday, January 20, 2017

Embracing the excitement and discomfort of innovation

I first met Tom Barrett at the Google Teacher Academy in London in 2010.   We stayed in touch via Twitter when both of us realized it was time to move on from our current jobs to new challenges (me in India and him in Australia) and recently I've enjoyed reading his Friday newsletters from Dialogic Learning.  This week he shared a document from the Australian Department of Employment about their innovation framework.  The document is about putting ideas into practice and calls upon employees to:
  • show courage to engage with new ideas
  • seek insight and be forward looking
  • collaborate openly
  • take calculated risks and experiment
The document also includes a great visual of the innovation process from discovery through to live (click on the diagram below to enlarge it).  Although this is a process aimed at employment and work places, I felt it was a good process to consider for schools as well.  As teachers we also want to inspire others with innovative ideas and we also recognize that good ideas come from collaborating with others.  Hopefully in schools we also embrace new ideas and people who want to drive change, and great school leaders also motive their staff to innovate by supporting, implementing and celebrating change.

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