Professional Learning Community:  Opal School Online

My response to Susan Harris MacKay on Looking for Invention

​

Susan's Question:  What is foundational in an environment that supports invention in the elementary years?

            While observing children's play and interactions in our school learning environment, it is apparent that collaborative inquiry contributes to more possibilities for ideation and invention.  Children's natural inclination to wonder and inquire often leads to new understandings as they experiment with materials and ideas to improve their understandings. In exploring these wonders, it is often through interaction with others and building on each other's knowledge that new ideas are formed.

            In my current practice, seven year olds have been playing with a robotics program, and as I observe the interactions between students in collaborative groups, they listen, encourage, and contribute to their friends' ideas.  "Let's try it this way!" one student suggests.  "OK, look what I discovered!" another pipes in.  "We can repeat the sound using this command!" "Cool!  Hey Sarah, did you know that Dash can do the same thing over and over if you use the repeat command?" It is not a competitive environment, but rather one that sees tremendous joy in discovery and sharing of knowledge.  If a non-competitive, risk-taking, and often spontaneous or flexible learning culture is established, there is a positivity about knowledge building and this pushes student learning forward.  Student strengths complement each other and knowledge can be shared, developed, and applied (Donohoo, p.34).  In fact, there is research to support the relationship between positivity and effectiveness in ideation in learning cultures (Nijs, p.12).  Instead of creating as an obligation to complete a task, we want students to be inspired to create in a collaborative learning environment.

          Children are genuinely curious, and as adults, we need to provide the space, time, and materials for them to explore in order for invention to occur.  As Opal's online course, An Introduction to Playful Inquiry, explains, play "sculps the brain" giving students high challenge and low risk which inspires curiosity and quality of learning.  By having less structured instruction, but still guided inquiry, students have more opportunity to take their learning to a higher level because they are engaged and there is room for questioning.  When we provide the big questions and begin to experiment, children often add on from their newfound discoveries because they are curious.  For example, when we were exploring Physical and Chemical Changes in Science, we were conducting an experiment with the classic mixing of baking soda and vinegar in a bottle to create carbon which blew up an attached balloon.  As we were discussing the results, students began to develop their own inquiry and wondered what would happen if they added new substances to the solution, or how long the balloon would stay inflated, or why the balloon did not pop.  If I had given them more space and time, and facilitated these questions (with safety in mind), more discoveries could have been made.  As a teacher, I have to be willing to be flexible and spontaneous and honour the wonders of children.

          An environment of collaboration and inquiry are conducive to invention, and it is also important for teachers to model these concepts among each other.  Together, we need to be curious, to explore, and to be able to model mistake-making and trial and error as we seek to gain understanding.  We need to be life-long learners, engaged in our practice and be able to work together to find new understandings to support student learning. 

Sources:

Donohoo, Jennifer.  Learning Forward Ontario's Collaborative Inquiry: A Facilitator's Guide.

Nijs, D. (2015). The complexity-inspired design approach of Imagineering. World Futures. 71., 8-25.

​

https://learning.opalschool.org/learn/course/an-introduction-to-playful-inquiry/introduction/welcome-and-introduction (Retrieved on March 10, 2018).