{"id":7052,"date":"2015-02-23T22:01:27","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T22:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eltchat.org\/wordpress\/?p=7052"},"modified":"2015-02-23T22:01:27","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T22:01:27","slug":"how-do-you-support-teaching-and-learning-innovation-where-you-work-eltchat-summary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/2015\/02\/23\/how-do-you-support-teaching-and-learning-innovation-where-you-work-eltchat-summary\/","title":{"rendered":"How do you Support Teaching and Learning Innovation where you Work? #ELTchat Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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by Lucy Blakemore<\/p>\n

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\u2018Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results\u2019 <\/em>(Albert Einstein)I was pretty excited to see my topic chosen for #ELTchat this week. Learning and teaching innovation is my job and my passion (lucky me!) and it’s incredibly useful to be able to listen in to what teachers all over the world think, if only for an hour. In my experience, teachers are naturally a very innovative bunch, so I was looking forward to hearing how creativity and ideas are captured and supported in different contexts.<\/p>\n

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I (accidentally) didn’t take part in the chat itself, which turned out well as it meant I couldn’t steer the conversation to fit my assumptions or influence emerging themes. Having pored over the Twitter transcript a couple of times, the summary below attempts to bring together some of the key themes for those interested in exploring more about this fascinating subject.<\/p>\n

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What does innovation mean for us?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Participants were quick to get to the crux of articulating innovation in ELT – and it’s definitely not just shiny new technology, even if that\u2019s what tends to grab headlines. Definitions were beautifully simple:<\/p>\n

‘it\u2019s any novel way of trying to improve methods and outcomes’<\/em> @ELTchat
\n\u2018the fact that you’re always trying what works best and motivating students with up-to-date courses\u2019<\/em>@SusanaCBermejo
\n‘practice of fresh ideas to challenge or support old ones\u2019<\/em> @ITLegge<\/p>\n

Some pointed out that innovation is always relative, or as @theteacherjames said, \u2018What\u2019s innovative in one place is nothing new somewhere else\u2019<\/em>. Methodologies taken for granted in one context (e.g. the communicative approach, or student-centred learning) may be a revelation for those who have taught or learned in very different environments.<\/p>\n

Whatever the context, innovation was considered here from a number of perspectives:<\/p>\n