Nurturing Young Innovators

Cultivating Creativity in the Classroom, Home and Community

Laura McLaughlin, Stephanie Smith Budhai

• Publisher: International Society for Technology in Education
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781564846358
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Lehrmethoden

This book offers elementary teachers practical tools and ideas to foster risk-taking, curiosity and creative thinking in their students, helping them succeed as lifelong innovators. Today's students need broad skills to help them think creatively, work collaboratively and implement innovations in our complex and global society. These skills must be taught early to ensure success.In Nurturing Young Innovators, PK-5 teachers will learn how to engage families and communities in activities that create environments where creativity, innovation and collaboration are fostered and valued, and where technology is used to redefine learning and promote responsible risk-taking.This book includes:

• Examples of how teachers can collaborate with students, parents and the community to support student success and innovation.
• Practical tools, including sample projects, reflection questions and exercises to drive student learning.
• An action plan to help you track the steps you're taking to facilitate creativity in students, and a Resources section to support the content in each chapter.

Written by two experts who are passionate about supporting early learners through effective uses of technology, this book is a singular source for learning how to encourage innovation and creativity in early learners so they can develop the skills they need to thrive.

1

Incorporating Creativity, Innovation, and Technology Integration in the Early Years

“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious … and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”

—Walt Disney Company

Does everyone have the potential to be creative? Does everyone have the potential to be innovative? We believe the answer to both of these questions is yes. But after working with many adults over the years, we’ve found that when asked if they consider themselves creative, the answer is usually no. And if people don’t think of themselves as creative, it is difficult for them to encourage creativity and innovation in others.

Children are naturally curious and open to learning, but as we reiterate throughout this book, they need the support of adults in their lives who understand this. According to the ISTE Standards for Educators, teachers are called to “establish a learning culture that promotes curiosity and critical examination of online resources and fosters digital literacy and media fluency” (International Society for Technology in Education [ISTE], 2017). In addition, teachers should “model and nurture creativity and creative expression to communicate ideas, knowledge or connections” (ISTE, 2017). Moreover, if we expect teachers and families to encourage creativity and innovation in young children, we need to provide them with tools to foster these skills through the application of “psychological safety, psychological freedom, and social support” (Isenberg & Jalongo, 2010, p. 17).

In this chapter, we provide practical suggestions to help teachers encourage creative thinking and innovation in young learners in the classroom, home, and community. In addition, we provide tips on how to engage families and the community in promoting these critical digital age skills and in empowering early learners to be lifelong learners.

Chapter Overview

This chapter will cover the following:

■ Supporting students as digital citizens and innovative designers

■ Providing teachers and parents opportunities to work collaboratively to support children’s creativity

■ Encouraging possibility thinking, and thinking both inside and outside of the box

■ Developing a mindset toward purposeful technology integration for young learners

■ Partnering with schools and community members to encourage innovation and creativity in young learners

Student as Digital Citizen and Innovative Designer

Throughout this book, we embed the ISTE Standards for Students to remind us all to help students learn these skills so they can become productive and capable digital learners. As indicated, “the standards are designed for use by educators across the curriculum, with every age student, with a goal of cultivating these skills throughout a student’s academic career” (ISTE, 2016). We begin with the Student Standards for digital citizen and innovative designer.

Digital Citizen

“Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical.”

— ISTE Standards for Students, Standard 2: Digital Citizen

Ensuring children’s safety and teaching children to be responsible digital citizens are essential when integrating technology in the classroom and encouraging innovation. To be a digital citizen, it is important to have access to the internet and advocate for internet safety for all children. (We address issues surrounding developmental appropriateness of technology use with young children in the “Using Technology Purposefully” section later in this chapter.) Students must be able to use, manage, and navigate the digital world, without compromising who they are or their integrity. They must be aware of the implications of inappropriate technology use and how to engage in online forums. Even at a young age, students must understand how to show respect online, communicate effectively, and use information appropriately. They must learn what intellectual property is and know about fair use and other applicable laws. At a minimum, teachers should inform students and families about the following:

■ Children’s Internet Protection Act (goo.gl/bIWcOH)

■ Fair Use Index (www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html)

■ Library Services and Technology Act (www.ala.org/advocacy/advleg/federallegislation/lsta)

■ Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization (“TEACH”) Act (S. 487) (https://copyright.gov/docs/regstat031301.html)

Digizen (digizen.org) is an excellent resource for families, schools, and children to use for increasing their awareness and understanding of digital citizenship. Technology use should be supervised and facilitated by a responsible adult who understands digital citizenship. In schools, teachers will provide that support. Figure 1.1 illustrates an example of a Digital Citizens bulletin board created to engage families on the importance of teaching children to be good digital citizens and using the resources from Common Sense Media (commonsensemedia.org). In the home, adult families will provide supervision of children’s technology use. Community members, such as librarians, can serve in the role of ensuring students are using safe practices when they are using computers and the internet at local libraries.

Figure 1.1 This Digital Citizens bulletin board was created by Christine Jones and used to engage families on the importance of teaching children how to be good digital citizens. Photo credit: John Sperduto

The National Cyber Security Alliance (2017) has provided the following tips for developing good digital citizens on its website (https://StaySafeOnline.org):

■ Remain aware and engaged in what children are doing online.

■ Support good choices.

■ Keep the computer clean of viruses, protected with antivirus software and updated.

■ Use the safety features provided by most software and Internet Service Providers to help you protect children from harm—these include setting up pre-approved websites children can visit and allowing you to set limits on the time children spend online.

■ Check and monitor the privacy settings on the software and devices children are using.

■ Encourage critical thinking and teach children that good digital citizens respect the privacy of others; teach children not to share anything that would be embarrassing or hurtful to someone else.

■ Act as digital citizen leaders by keeping the lines of communication open with children so they feel they can tell you if something is wrong. Also, encourage children to seek help if a friend is making unsafe choices.

Innovative Designer

“Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions.”

— ISTE Standards for Students, Standard 4: Innovative Designer

Young children become innovative designers when they have opportunities to think creatively and to solve and think through open-ended problems. In this chapter, we discuss ways to provide these opportunities both through a design process and through open-ended activities and exploration. We also believe that in order for young learners to be innovative and creative, they need adults in their lives who are innovative designers.

Innovative, Who Me?

The more time we all provide our students to be creative and innovative, the more they will realize that everyone can be innovative. Yes, even you can be innovative. For example, woodworking has been used in early learning centers for many years. When young children are exposed to real materials and tools, like hammers, nails, and a saw, they can learn how to use them effectively. Of course, the children must be supervised and provided with direct instruction on how to use the tools safely. If adults have not had experience with this kind of activity, they may be hesitant to integrate it into their classroom or home environment.

As teacher educators, we have found the best way to teach our students how to nurture creativity and innovation with their own students is to give them hands-on opportunities to be creative and innovative. For this reason, we provided our students, who will be future teachers, with opportunities to collaborate, saw, hammer, and create in one of their methods courses. The students used resources that were available to t...