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Time to Innovate…Our Innovation Day

7/17/2012

7 Comments

 
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EdCamp Atlanta is honored to have Alabama Sweet Sixteen Educator, Julie D Ramsay, as a Guest Blogger.

Julie D. Ramsay, NBCT
Fultondale Elementary School
Fultondale, Alabama
http://juliedramsay.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/juliedramsay
Author: Can We Skip Lunch and Keep Writing? Collaborating in Class and Online Grades 3-8 



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What is Innovation Day? Innovation Day was born in the business world and originally called a FedEx Day (because it’s delivered in 24 hours or less). Anyone who has read Daniel Pink’s book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, is familiar with this concept which increases productivity and motivation among their employees while fostering creative thinking and problem solving. The employees are given employees the time to explore new and creative ideas during the regular work day. These ideas made their way into the innovative classrooms of Josh Stumpenhorst and Pernille Ripp (and into my Google Reader).

An activity that gives students the ability to drive their own learning and fosters creative thinking and problem solving is an opportunity that I really want to provide to my students. They would be given one day to learn about any subject that interested them...one that we didn't study in school. I knew this concept was new to everyone involved…administrators, parents, and students. Because we are a nontraditional classroom, I knew my students would be the easiest to prepare for this activity, but as we know, often other adults are the last ones to try a new idea. I went to our new administrator and explained the Innovation Day concept with the proposed learning outcomes. I asked if we could have one day out of strict schedule to try this out. Thankfully, she agreed. Thanks to Pernille, I adapted her pre-planning sheet to send home to the parents. I also sent an email explaining the concepts and my learning objective to the parents. Every parent supported our day and returned the pre-planning sheets signed.

Now it was time to prepare the students. As with so many activities in the classroom, I knew that the success of this day really depended on how well the students had prepared before the actual day. About two weeks before our Innovation Day, we began readingMistakes that Worked by Charlotte Foltz Jones. This fascinating book includes a host of daily items that we enjoy daily that were created by accident. They are organized into short stories which worked well with our schedule. This book fostered some amazing, deep discussion about creativity, pursuing your passion, and thinking outside of the box. 


7 Comments
Bo Adams link
7/17/2012 06:48:09 am

While my former school used FedEx days with faculty, we did not venture into such with students. I LOVE it! I cannot wait to learn with you at EdCampAtl and hear more about this experience. You've definitely whetted my appetite. This concept and implementation works well with Synergy - a course that Jill Gough (@jgough) and I co-facilitated for two years with 8th grade on community issues problem solving. In some ways it was an extended "Innovation Day" that lasted a semester for each term it was offered. There is good cross-over here to discuss and experiment with.

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Carol McLaughlin @missmac100 link
7/19/2012 01:35:48 am

I love this idea and I would love to see the pre-planning sheet you created. Is it copyright protected or is on a site to download?

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1/28/2013 06:48:17 pm

Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.

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2/1/2013 04:00:34 pm

The idea is great to innovate something and the name of book you mention "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" i am definatelly gonna read that book.

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I am really impressed the way you teach your student and prepare for the future.

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