Learn the steps needed to create an innovative environment in your building or classroom.

1. What Everyone Needs to Know About
http://bit.ly/21jXgeK

2. What Holds Us Back?

3. What Holds Us Back?

4. Why Aren’t We More Innovative?
• Fear of Failure
• “I’m just not creative”
• “I don’t know what we need”
• “Everything is fine in our school. We don’t need
to add anything new”
• “No one asked me for anything”
• “We don’t have the resources to do that”
• “No one supports me around here”
• “Everyone in my department says we can’t do it”

5. This Is What I Think

6. Why Aren’t We More Innovative?
• Fear of Failure
• “I’m just not creative”
• “I don’t know what we need”
• “Everything is fine in our school. We don’t need
to add anything new”
• “No one asked me for anything”
• “We don’t have the resources to do that”
• “No one supports me around here”
• “Everyone in my department says we can’t do it”

8. We Make Excuses

10. “You Should Take Baby Steps”
• Innovation, creativity, improvements, or
change consist of following steps.
• Focus on Process first – Results follow

11. 1. Take a Creative Mindset
• Take Risks
• Take from others
• Take action with consistency
• Take a look back at what you have done

12. Use Your 4 C’s to Create the Mindset

13. When you Connect
• Connect with others to create unlimited
boundaries for the possibility of innovation.
• The importance of connecting with educators
and innovators from around the world is
crucial – Its your beginning!
• Connecting with others leads to collaborating
with others on creativity and change.
• Use Social Media to drive your Connecting
– https://tackk.com/ald75r

14. Collaborate
• Building leaders and teacher create a culture of
collaboration where everyone in the building
grows and feeds off others ideas and thoughts.
• Innovation and collaboration go hand-in-hand to
create educational opportunities for schools and
communities
• Connecting and collaborating leads to becoming
more confident in going through with new ideas
and generating new ideas

15. Confidence
• Having the confidence to take risks and try new things
helps build a strong culture throughout a building and
classroom.
• Staff and students feed off of confident people in their
learning environments.
• How many great things come from negative people who
always are looking for excuses?
• People who fail, but do it with confidence and persistence,
are held in a higher regards than people who make excuses.
• Building a culture based on confidence creates a learning
environment where everyone looks to try different things
for the best interest of students.

16. Creativity
• Create the environment in your school and
classroom
• Administrators and teachers needs to create a
culture that allows learners to be innovative.
• Once the 3 factors above are in place,
innovation and creativity will flow throughout
the building.

17. Create the Mindset

18. Step 1
Establish Creative Culture
• Create a Creative Mindset by:
– Connecting with others (see what other schools
are doing and find out how they did it)
– Collaborate with others (work with staff and
students to start something new)
– Develop Confidence throughout the building and
classroom (Confidence starts with you!)
– Encourage Creativity (develop committees, set
out time during the day in your schedule/master
schedule)
– Ideas? Let’s hear them – write them down!

19. 2. Create the Environment to Innovate
• The most important part of teaching is the
classroom environment.
• It is the same with innovation & creativity
– You need to let people believe
– You need to let people see change happening

20. Successful Environments are a Habit
• Create the environment that allows others to
take risks
– Let teachers gain PD differently
– Let students learn differently
• Make changes and improvements a habit, not
a coincidence.

21. Step 2
Create the Innovative Environment
• Create an environment built on “Yes!”
– Encourage people to do things differently.
– Do things differently yourself (change your class,
change the way you do meetings AND explain why you
changed)
– Pick 1 thing to do differently, not 5.
• The Creative Mindset will build the Creative
Environment
• Ex) Staff meetings, formative assessments
• Ideas? Let’s hear them – write them down!

22. 3. You Win With People

23. Your Building and Classroom
• Only hire people with the Creative Mindset
– No exceptions!
• Acknowledge and reward your staff and
students with the Creative Mindset
– Staff meetings, weekly newsletter, blog – share
their success and let EVERYONE know it is
important
• Have conversations with staff and students
about progress and risk/reward

24. Relationships Matter in Creative Environments

25. Step 3
How Will You Build Relationships?
• Build relationships
– Find out what staff and students really want and want
to do.
– Get better at building relationships if you’re not very
good (personal notes, attend events, conversations)
• Expose creativity in your students and staff
– When you see them do something
innovative/creative/different, share it
• Ideas? Let’s hear them – write them down!

26. 4. Become a Victor, not a Victim

27. Provide Resources Anyway You Can
• Find a way to provide resources for your staff and
students.
• Its not easy and not always practical, but find a
way.
– From Computer Networking and Web Design to
Engineering. From Engineering to Fab Lab.
• Staff and students need to know they have the
freedom to ASK for resources.
– Don’t ever forget about the COMMUNITY for
resources

28. Step 4
Provide Resources
• Create a vision of what you want to do.
– Get the appropriate parties/people involved
– For example, create a Community Advisory Board
• Find out what type of equipment/tools you need.
– Get used equipment from others
• Search/write grants, ask for donations, raise
money different ways
– Search the Internet for different ways to raise money
• Try to be self-sustaining to make it last and get
support from district administration
• Ideas? Let’s hear them – write them down!

29. 5. Open Leadership

30. Everyone Can Lead If You Let Them
• Allow your leaders to develop
• Teachers and students can lead innovative
projects. They need the culture to succeed in.
• Develop yourself as a flexible leader and let
your staff and students embrace the culture to
develop themselves

31. Step 5
Let Them Lead!
• Set your staff and students up for success
– Allow them to lead as independent contractors
– Support them and provide them with feedback
• Hands off leadership focused on support
• Ex) Allow teachers to create their schedule
• Ex) Allow teachers to use different forms of
assessment to show student mastery
• It comes easier when there is a Creative
Mindset Environment established.
• Ideas? Let’s hear them – write them down!

32. Where to Gain Insight

49. Let’s Take A Look At Our Results
• Use Padlet to get input from your staff or your
students.

50. CLICK HERE

51. Email: doddb@gjps.org
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obby-Dodd/100007881709222
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