Hannah Stortz

Innovators Mindset Reflection

11/20/2016

In class we read The Innovators Mindset, written by George Couros. Overall I

found this book to be eye opening, and I see it as a future teacher's bible in a sort. I
think every upcoming teacher should have the opportunity to read this book. The
innovator's mindset means to be able to look at something in a different light, to find a
problem, and to imagine in which how you will solve it to get the desired outcome. Being
innovative does not require technology, or the latest and greatest materials, it requires
an able and motivated mindset.
Innovation is important in education, and inside the classroom, both with and
without technology. Many people seem to begin thinking that innovation is only done
using technology, which simply is not true. Being innovative in education allows you to
do things differently, to teach differently, to allow students a different, better, outcome.
Innovation starts with you as a teacher. You can be innovative with technology, or with a
pencil and paper. It is changing your thinking, and guiding your students differently. It is
allowing yourself to transform your classroom to allow students to learn in a way that is
different than the norm. Teaching in a different way must be done with a purpose, you
must find the students needs and change to meet them.
On page 125 of The Innovators Mindset, George said how teachers usually
mimic their own education experiences and teach how they had been taught when they
were in school. This is where I realized that how I was taught, will not cut it in education
any longer. Our students deserve better, as the world changes, we owe it to them and to
our futures. Because of this I would say that this book changed the way I think about my
future profession. It made me see teaching and learning differently, and technology as
well. Not everything has to be cut and dry as we were taught, there are options. Another

big message I got from this book was reflecting. As teachers, I think that we must
always be reflecting on our experiences. We need to ask ourselves what worked about
an assignment, and what needs to be changed and improved upon. This is a normal
thing, we must look at the rights and wrongs to shape the future paths. Without
reflection, you will never grow. Just as if a student fails a test, and never goes back to
learn what they did not understand the first time, they will never grow and learn the
material. A part of being innovative is being able to accept that something did not work,
and find a solution to the problem.
In class, we reflected a lot about what innovation meant, and discussed the
chapters we read in the book. Using this book as a guide allowed us to have productive
conversations about what innovation may look like. It helped us set a foundation for
innovation in our future careers. We dug deeper to understand how we can be
innovative, and what our classrooms may look like by doing so.
This book made me think about what it means to be innovative, but made me
realize that technology implemented in the classroom needs to be more than just
handing a student a chrome book. We talked a lot about how it takes more than a good
app, or typing on a chrome book to make technology in a classroom innovative and
useful. I will have to read this book more, to really get a full understanding and think
about how exactly I want to run my future classroom. I do know that this book has
sparked interest and will help me as a future teacher.