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activities-for-in-the-interactive-classroom

Innovation in education involves constant collaboration with colleagues -- a

total last-minute redo of a teacher's lesson plan because there was
something else out there that he or she just had to try, a change in the
direction of a class because the students are driving the instruction," stated
Jennifer Hesseltine, middle school U.S. history teacher from New York.

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Why Innovation Absolutely Matters in

Education

Published On:  January 08, 2018

What is innovation in education? The TED-Ed Blog posed that question to

educators from all around the world. Here are three responses:
"I think of the expression 'Don't put new wine into old bottles' when talking
about innovation in education," said Hyuk Jang, a languages teacher from
South Korea. "The world is changing. However, people still teach and learn
in a way that was invented in the Industrial Revolution. It doesn't work
anymore."
"Innovation in education involves constant collaboration with colleagues --
a total last-minute redo of a teacher's lesson plan because there was
something else out there that he or she just had to try, a change in the
direction of a class because the students are driving the instruction," stated
Jennifer Hesseltine, middle school U.S. history teacher from New York.
"Innovation in education is about more than just technology. It's about how
you can use technology to empower students to become lifelong learners
who are agents of change," said Steven Sutantro, teacher in Jakarta Barat,
Indonesia.
There is no single definition of innovation in education. One thing is for
sure: Innovation has a very important place in education. 
Learning experiences could be redesigned to be far more relevant to
student interests and career paths, personalized to their aptitudes and
abilities, and responsive to their culture and identities," he writes.
Innovation in education encourages teachers and students to explore,
research and use all the tools to uncover something new. It involves a
different way of looking at problems and solving them. The thinking
process that goes into it will help students develop their creativity and their
problem solving skills.
Innovation does not mean creating something from nothing. Just like with
any good science project, it relies on researching existing solutions to
come up with a new hypothesis to test.
Technology ushers in fundamental structural changes that can be integral to achieving
significant improvements in productivity. Used to support both teaching and learning,
technology infuses classrooms with digital learning tools, such as computers and hand held
devices; expands course offerings, experiences, and learning materials; supports learning 24
hours a day, 7 days a week; builds 21st century skills; increases student engagement and
motivation; and accelerates learning. Technology also has the power to transform teaching
by ushering in a new model of connected teaching. This model links teachers to their
students and to professional content, resources, and systems to help them improve their own
instruction and personalize learning.
Online learning opportunities and the use of open educational resources and other
technologies can increase educational productivity by accelerating the rate of learning;
reducing costs associated with instructional materials or program delivery; and better utilizing
teacher time.
Blended learning opportunities incorporate both face-to-face and online learning
opportunities. The degree to which online learning takes place, and the way it is integrated
into the curriculum, can vary across schools. The strategy of blending online learning with
school-based instruction is often utilized to accommodate students’ diverse learning styles
and to enable them to work before or after school in ways that are not possible with full-time
conventional classroom instruction. Online learning has the potential to improve educational
productivity by accelerating the rate of learning, taking advantage of learning time outside of
school hours, reducing the cost of instructional materials, and better utilizing teacher time.
These strategies can be particularly useful in rural areas where blended or online learning
can help teachers and students in remote areas overcome distance.
his innovation replaces an office-building’s worth of
administrators, teaching assistants, file cabinets, and paperwork.
Virtual leaning environments (VLE) such as Blackboard, Canvas,
and Renweb extend both the classroom and the administrator’s
office. Blackboard at once handles teaching duties such as
gradebooks, auto-scoring, and attendance sheets, and
administrative duties, such as enrollment, updating class lists,
auto-sending emails for absent students, notifying people of
unpaid bills, and tracking payroll and accounting information.

Blackboard is also user-friendly. Along with good technical support

from its publisher, if your school uses Blackboard, there’s
probably a technology or IT department you can call whenever
you need help. The bad news: if you have any fundamental dislike
for Blackboard, tough luck. Most every school uses it these days.
As a student, it’s important that you get familiar with your
school’s virtual learning environment. Typically, students have
their own personalized account within the system. You should
access your account often, at least during the early part of your
school semester, so you can make sure you receive every email,
every assignment posting, and can follow everything students and
teachers are posting on discussion boards.

2. Flipped Classroom
Ever labored on homework, late on a school night, only to get
stuck on one problem? You can’t finish your homework because
the next ten questions are just like that one. You wrestle and
struggle, but the solution eludes you. Frustrated, you pack it in.
The next morning you awake to a headache, bags under your eyes,
and your homework largely unfinished. This phenomenon is
common in traditional classrooms. The flipped classroom aims to
resolve this problem.

The flipped classroom turns everything around, switching the time

devoted to homework and class lectures. You’ll complete
assignments in the classroom instead of at home. This means that
whey you get stuck on a problem, the teacher is right there to
coach you along. Meanwhile, classwork and lesson plans can be
done at home through video lectures and on-screen tutorials.
Many math and science classrooms have adopted this model,
made famous by the highly acclaimed Khan Academy.
or many online students, isolation can be a serious challenge.
They may drift collectively through their studies as strangers who
never truly engage one another. Fortunately, schools and teachers
are increasingly keen to this concern. A growing effort implements
collaborative online learning strategies to confront this challenge.

Collaborative learning — sometimes known as “learning

communities” or “cooperative learning” — refers to the
commonsense notion that we often learn best by working with
others as a group. Collaborative learning applies a deliberate goal-
oriented focus to these exercises so students are not just working
together on an activity, but are also actively learning from each
other, through each other, and about each other, all while
completing assignments together.

In online education, collaborative learning is powered by a wide

range of social media technologies including videoconferencing,
texting, email, teleconferencing, and workflow programs such
as Trello and Slack. Each of these applications has helped to
make the world a smaller place for students, making global
collaboration a real possibility.
Real innovation means so much more than adopting the
newest teaching technology, tricks or trends. It means staying relevant
even though you know many of the skills students learn in the
classroom may be obsolete ten years from now.