week 10

As we start to work on the final project of this innovation module I cannot believe how far I have come and how much I have learned about innovation, having began this module quite skeptical about what I would actually gain and develop from it. However, as I have went through the different stages and projects, my knowledge and understanding of what innovation is and the skills I have developed from this such as communication, creativity and teamwork have definitely been enhanced and I believe that the module has benefited me both personally and professionally.

Our lesson this week began with our tutor dividing us up into groups according to birthday months. This was a good strategy to use as it was a fair way of dividing up the class and allowed people from different countries to work together and this is definitely something I will use at home as one of the ways of dividing children into groups as it is quick and easy and allows children of different friendship groups and abilities to work together.

Our task was to make the tallest structure and place a marshmallow on top using a variety of different materials such as string, masking tape and spaghetti etc. It allowed us to be innovative and think of ways we could creatively make the tallest structure and also helped to develop our teamwork as we had to listen and communicate to each other our different ideas as to how we thought it would be best to go about the task. I think it was a good introduction to the lesson as it was a fun, engaging activity related to innovation and using skills we have been developing so far. As teachers, I think it is good to have warm up activities like these as it breaks children into the lesson encouraging involvement and engagement from the inset. However for warm up activities like these to be most beneficial I believe they should link naturally to the following work so that children can see the progression as they move from the warm up activity into the lesson.

Our winning structure!

Materials for the marshmallow challenge

Our tutor then explained the final part of the project which was to share knowledge and ideas about innovation. We were allowed to decide which project we would like to work on and I chose to work on the 'home group' which involved sharing knowledge about innovation at our home university. I really wanted to be involved in this group as currently in my home university there is nothing about innovation and I could see the potential for something there and I thought this would be a good chance to take everything which I have learned about innovation so far and apply it back home. I also felt this would be the best area for me as I could use my experiences and in depth knowledge about the consumers at my home university and use this to provide service possible.

As a group we started brainstorming ideas of how we might share innovation at our home university and came up during this with a variety of ideas such as having an intensive week, an extra course, Guest lecturers like Richard Branson or Bill Gates, competitions, the use of videos and online learning. We also looked at things that could go wrong, such as space, materials, time, permission and money etc. However, this did make us aware of the negatives and also helped prepare us for practical things we may come across when hosting our innovation session at our university, therefore we could look into getting grants from our university to host the day session and get materials etc.

Planning our initial ideas

We then decided to boil down our ideas and decided to have a one day session on innovation with the potential for people to sign up for an extra course on how to teach innovation in schools if they liked what they learned about innovation during the day. We choose this format as we realised there would be a challenge to share information both widely and deeply and this would be something that would satisfy both parts. We also decided we wanted the day to be a hands on, practical day as we wanted people actively involved as they learned about innovation as this is how we ourselves felt we most enjoyed and gained the most knowledge and understanding from. We also decided that we didn't just want our session for students but in fact also for lecturers as I thought that having lecturers at our session could increase and maximise the potential of having a module implemented within the university itself dedicated to teaching about innovation and this would have greater power if lecturers understood and saw the potential behind it. Indeed, our ideas hope to fulfil the aims and objectives of this part of the project.

Although, at this stage we only have initial ideas I am really looking forward to the next class where we get to make our framework and any resources we need to implement this within our home university and I hope to be as creative and innovative as possible when planning for this. I am also excited and enthusiastic of the potential of our tutor using our framework and structure of teaching innovation when he goes out to different universities as it gives this more meaning to our work as it could actually used in the future, so watch this space!