week 9

This week we had the opportunity to go back to Stengardskolen to complete our teaching innovation lesson. This was a part of the program I had been most looking forward to and felt would be of much benefit to me as a future teacher myself as I was going to be able to adapt and use the model we had previously been working with in class and use it to teach children to be innovative themselves. This opportunity would therefore allow me to gain experience of teaching this concept to children should I want to use it back in my home country.

Feel Phase- collecting evidence from toilets!

My group was assigned a year 9 class consisting of around 12 pupils and initially I had fears about this as I am training to be a primary teacher at home to teach children up to the age of 11 and teaching 16 year olds is not something I am overaly confident or used to teaching. However with my group by my side I gained the boost in confidence that I needed and dividing up the lesson between the four of us meant that we could rotate roles throughout. Indeed, it was nice to see how the format and ideas we had planned for in our teaching plan were workable enough that we could use but also flexible enough that we could extend and adapt such as during the 'do' phase when they were making their prototypes. Indeed, this shows not only our professional abilities as teachers but also our ability to be innovative and decisive to know when and where to extend and adapt parts of the lesson you had planned.

Imagine phase- recording ideas

My best moment in the day was during the 'imagine' phase of the 4 step design thinking model which we had included in our innovation lesson. It was my favourite because the children we were working with were most engaged during this part of the lesson and you could see from their engagement and concentration that they were enthusiastic and wanted to get involved. As well as this I found it to be the best moment because the productivity from the children at this stage was very successful. Children quickly latched onto the idea of thinking outside the box by imagining how different characters and celebrities would think of solutions to the problem. The fast paced nature encouraged children to think of the first thing that sprang to their minds and helped keep their ideas flowing. indeed it proved very beneficial to have chosen characters that the children themselves could relate to as this meant that the children could identify with these characters easier and help them come up with solutions.

Sorting ideas using grid framework

Verbal feedback from the lesson discovered that the children found this part of the lesson most enjoyable and they appreciated the format of how we introduced and guided them through the imagine phase using characters that they could relate to. Indeed, it was clear to see not only from their verbal feedback that they enjoyed the lesson but also from their invovlement both individually and working working within their groups. As well as this children were immediately engaged and curious when we arrived together in our science lab coats! (A great addition which added to our lesson and concept and helped add more authentic feel.) Involvement was also visible in their engagement with us group members when we were interacting with them and asking questions as well as being visible when they were working together as groups making their prototypes.


Deadlines worked very well as it helped us to time and forced the children to work well under time constraints, encouraging maximum and continual input from the children. One thing I would change if we were to do this innovation lesson next time with children would be to check prior to coming whether or not the class had anything else on that day because whilst we were teaching throughout the lesson there were children constantly coming and going due to tests being on and this caused some minor disruptions to the general flow of the lesson as those who came and left early couldn't finish what they started and those who left before and came during the middle of the process didn't have a firm understanding and grasp of what was going on and found it harder to integrate themselves into the process with the other children. However, I know that this was something out of our groups control and we worked with the children ensuring a smooth a transition as possible.

Presenting prototyes

In the previous week my group had also decided it might be a good idea to do an experiment by dividing the pupils into a male, female and mixed group to see if this had any impact on how involved they were or the prototypes they came up with. Unfortunately in the class we were assigned we did not have enough boys to make a mixed group which resulted in having 1 male group and 2 female groups. However, it was interesting to obverse the involvement and interaction between the males and females. At the start the males were less focused on the task than the girls and often used humour and were quite talkative, however this changed when as the continued through the process and the remained involved and engaged at a similar level to the girls who remained constant throughout. Regarding the prototypes it was interesting to note that a male and female group came up with a similar prototype or designing and putting up posters in the school to promote and encourage hygiene. However the surprising thing was that the male group focused on punishment and using sanctions in their posters if the other pupils didn't keep the toilets clean whilst the females focused on rewards and bribes pupils could get if they kept the toilets clean. An interesting insight into the minds of boys and girls!

Discussing and giving feedback

Overall, I believe the lesson was very successful as ultimately the children achieved the success criteria which my group had devised in the previous week which was to realise the importance of hygiene, come up with an innovative idea of how to solve the problem of hygiene, communicate with each other and work together in groups.  Ultimately, the children were innovative in their solutions they came up with and some groups even were able to come up with such innovative and creative ideas that we ourselves hadn't even thought of when we were doing it!

Great Interaction with the kids!

Getting into our theme!