Student engagement is a topic of many education blogs, op-eds, and industry articles. Many point to providing opportunities to involve students in their learning rather than teaching to students. Opportunities for choice. Opportunities to ask questions. Opportunities to build relationships.

“From standardized tests to one-size-fits-all curriculum, public education often leaves little room for creativity,” says EdNews Daily founder Robyn D. Shulman. “This puts many schools out of sync with both global demand and societal needs, leaving students poorly prepared for future success.”

Embedding innovation and entrepreneurship in your classroom enables you to create those opportunities. Innovation and entrepreneurship also foster a classroom culture that fully engages students’ natural creativity and encourages them to collaborate through experiential projects.

According to the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), making creativity a priority leads to domino effect in student development in the following ways:

• Motivates kids to learn,
• Develops higher-order cognitive skills—problem solving, critical thinking, making connections between subjects, 
• Spurs emotional development,
• Ignites those hard-to-reach students, and
• Develops an essential job skill.

Cornell Center for Teaching Innovation research also shows that educational experiences that are active, social, contextual, engaging, and student-owned lead to deeper learning. Among the benefits associated with collaborative learning are:

• Higher-level thinking, oral communication, self-management, and leadership skills,
• Exposure to and an increase in understanding of diverse perspectives,
• Increase in student attendance, self-esteem, and responsibility.

Below we outline a few methods to help foster creativity and collaboration in your classroom.

Innovation Challenges

Innovation challenges are designed as group activities, with structure and support to encourage collaboration. These types of small group projects are built around the concept of iteration which naturally provides a framework for create-discuss-improve. This process provides a collaborative environment where students practice the sharing of ideas and the respectful giving and receiving of feedback. 

Centering Lessons on Student Interests

What better ways to get to know your students than by learning about their ideas and letting them show you how their minds work. Open-ended innovation prompts encourage students to show you - and their classmates - what's important to them. Using innovation prompts throughout the year will uncover what elements of a science or social studies topic students find particularly engaging. Their ideas and creativity will energize you and your classroom.

Help Students See Value in Their Ideas

Students’ ideas are important—they need to know that. Working on innovation prompts and having a place to document and nurture their ideas is a great way to help students connect with and see value in what they bring to the learning table. Innovation challenges and prompts provide an authentic platform where students can share their ideas. It also allows them to tap into their creativity, explore topics more deeply, and collaborate with peers to apply what they are learning to real-life challenges and issues. 

Education is often heralded as an opportunity to advance oneself. But that opportunity is made much harder if classrooms are engaging only part of the learner. Every new school year brings a new classroom of students with different lived experiences, ideas, and passions. Embrace the natural creativity and curiosity of elementary students through collaborative opportunities that innovation and entrepreneurship easily provide.

While the strategies outlined above can be implemented with tools already in your classroom, the CreositySpace Makerspace Packs provide a variety of lessons and projects that can be used to include innovation and entrepreneurship in your classroom.

Our next newsletter, on May 30th, will explore how you can use innovation and entrepreneurship to integrate more STEM into your common core lessons.

Check out the full 3 Ways to Use Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Classroom series HERE.

Join the CreositySpace Club to get 50% off your first Book of Ideas Class Pack

Club membership includes:

• No cost to join and we never sell or give away your information
• 50% off your first Book of Ideas Class Pack
• 10% CreositySpace shop credit on all referral sales
• Exclusive access to the CreositySpace Collaborative Cohort program
• Discounts and promotions for CreositySpace science and engineering kits and curriculum

CreositySpace | www.CreositySpace.com