George Couros, creator of ConnectedPrincipals.com was the Tuesday Keynote at the TIES 2015 Conference talking about "The Innovators Mindset, the title of his latest book."
George's definition of the Innovators Mindset is the belief that abilities, intelligence, and talents are DEVELOPED, leading to the creation of BETTER ideas!
"Transformational leaders don't start by denying the world around them. Instead, they describe a future they'd like to create instead!"
If kids leave school less curious than when they started, we have failed!
Comparing kids at a concert with their cell phones out, and business men on a train in the 1950's with their newspapers out. How are they different?
Then he shared this video:
When we tell students to put their technology away as they enter the room, what does that say about trust and how kids learn? Kids today see technology as more than a tool, that it can be used to allow them to teach, and when we teach, we learn!
Technology will never replace great teachers, but technology in the hands of a great teacher can be transformative.
How are you getting kids to find the good information being shared, and creat good information?
The best person to learn about space from is not a teacher, it's an astronaut. Like this guy:
Think about what other teachers are doing in your subject area: Could lead to students making "Your topic in 60 Seconds" videos like this:
George's definition of the Innovators Mindset is the belief that abilities, intelligence, and talents are DEVELOPED, leading to the creation of BETTER ideas!
How do you leverage strangers? For our wedding photos, we tweeted, "Does anyone know of a good photographer in Edmonton?"
My mom is turning 80 and she's just now learning to read and write, but she's open to learning. She texts him with Emoticons.
His dad came to Canada in his 20's with a 2nd grade education, and raised a family and went from a dishwasher to owning a restaurant, yet we complain about moving from Word to Google Docs!"
"Transformational leaders don't start by denying the world around them. Instead, they describe a future they'd like to create instead!"
-Seth Godin
If kids leave school less curious than when they started, we have failed!
Comparing kids at a concert with their cell phones out, and business men on a train in the 1950's with their newspapers out. How are they different?
Then he shared this video:
When we tell students to put their technology away as they enter the room, what does that say about trust and how kids learn? Kids today see technology as more than a tool, that it can be used to allow them to teach, and when we teach, we learn!
Technology will never replace great teachers, but technology in the hands of a great teacher can be transformative.
How are you getting kids to find the good information being shared, and creat good information?
The best person to learn about space from is not a teacher, it's an astronaut. Like this guy:
We don't give kids a device to standardize, we give it to personalize
Carol Dweck's book on Growth Mindset
It's not about agreeing, it's about continuing to grow.
the Innovators Mindset is the belief that abilities, intelligence, and talents are DEVELOPED, leading to the creation of BETTER ideas!
Empathetic/Problem Finders & Solvers
The Big Question: Would you want to spend the whole day learning in your classroom?Think about what other teachers are doing in your subject area: Could lead to students making "Your topic in 60 Seconds" videos like this:
Ewan McIntosh-We should be focusing on students becoming problem finders rather than problem solvers, like this. How do we make this the norm in our classrooms?
Couros showed "WestHighBros" similar to OsseoNiceThings, where students created Twitter accounts to compliment classmates.
We don't get people innovative around things they hate... Kids can be really resilient if they are passionate about the topic.
We need to understand that failure is a part of learning and how we grow from it!
When kids see themselves as innovators and finding and solving problems, they can do amazing things!
The people who says you can't do something get in the way of those doing it!
Creators/Reflective
We watched TV, they MAKE TV! How can we give kids the space to create? Makerspaces, About.me pages.
Students should leave high school with these 3 things:
1. A Professional Social Network
2. A digital portfolio
3. An about.me page
The shift in education has to move product to process!
Social Media is like water. You can either let us drown, or teach us to swim. -Student
George learned a valuable lesson when inviting 2000 students to tweet out a hashtag, and the three of the students chose to tweet out inappropriate things. He thought about shutting it down, but when he asked kids to focus on the positive, they drowned out the negative voices.
We need to make the positives so loud, that the negatives are drowned out!
What if we had all teachers tweet out one thing that day they did in their classroom, and took 5 minutes to read what others send out?
When kids do it for the teacher, they want it to be "good enough," when they do it for the world, they want it to be good!
To inspire meaningful change, you must make a connection with the heart!
Adults see distraction, kids see opportunity!
What is the biggest game-changer in education?
An educator who sees themselves as an innovator!
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