As part of our school district leadership team's annual professional development retreat, we spent some time in focused conversations on the book The Innovator's Mindset, by George Couros. As would be expected, the book almost reads like a collection of essays or blog posts. Since George Couros began his writing process with blogging, this should be no surprise. It lends a fair amount of readability to the text, making this an easy read, especially for an educator enjoying their summer break. The book provides a number of ideas that most educators will find easily agreeable, and some others that might push some practice and thinking in ways that will likely get many to the growing edge without too much discomfort.
In the book Couros lays out 8 key characteristics of an Innovator: 1. Empathetic 2. Problem Finders/Solvers 3. Risk Takers 4. Networked 5. Observant 6. Creators 7. Resilient 8. Reflective.
While many of these are familiar (tired?) tropes (another book encouraging you to be a risk taker...) there are a few interesting gems here. In particular I enjoyed Couros' nod to Ewan McIntosh's thoughts on creating Problem Finders. The idea being that it's not enough for our students to simply solve the problems that we place in front of them. To truly engage (and empower) our students, we need to give them the skills to find problems before someone presents them.
I also liked his take on being networked. While the importance of networking within the greater professional world has always been important, Couros points out the ease with which we can engage professional networks since the advent of social media platforms and blogging. In particular he points to an article from WIRED, Why Even the Worst Bloggers are Making Us Smarter. This article is a great piece on the power of having an audience, and how networks of individuals can progress an idea faster and more efficiently together.
Here in lies the best part of Couros' book - his own curated networks of ideas. Throughout the book Couros references blogs, magazines, tweets, and youtube videos. The end notes of each chapter show Couros' appetite for seeking new information from new and diverse sources - everything from food blogs to the Harvard Review. This book is a compendium Couros' influences, and if you find anything interesting as you read, there is sure to be something in the end notes to push your thinking further on the topic.
Selected quotes:
Pg 19 - "Innovation is a way of thinking that creates something new and better. Innovation can come from either "invention" (something totally new) or "iteration" (a change of something that already exists), but if it does not meet the idea of "new and better," it is not innovative.
Pg 50 - "Currently the world's education systems are crazy about problem-based learning, but they're obsessed with the wrong bit of it. While everyone looks at how we could help young people become better problem solvers, we're not thinking how we could create a generation of problem finders."
Pg 53 - "Having an audience can enhance learning... Innovation (and enjoyment) flourishes when teachers collaborate to learn and practice new strategies. Isolation is often the enemy of innovation."
Pg 96 - "Bill Ferriter separates the idea of engagement and empowerment nicely. He states, 'Engaging students means getting kids excited about our content, interests and curricula.' Empowering students, 'means giving kids the knowledge and skills to pursue their passions, interests, and future.'"
Pg 158 - "In all aspects of education, what we learn is not as important as what we create from what we learn. A focus on doing less allows us the time to actually go beyond surface-level learning and to really explore, so we can build a knowledge that enables us to move forward and innovate."
Pg 220 - "People challenge others to think 'outside the box,' when we really need to think about how we can become innovative inside the box."
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