The Routledge International Handbook of Innovation Education

Larisa V. Shavinina

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136698088
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The Routledge International Handbook of Innovation Education is the international reference work on innovation education and potentially opens an entirely new direction in education. The overall goal of the handbook is to address the question of how to develop innovators in general and how to develop the innovative potential of today's young people

Part I
Introduction

1
Innovation education
The emergence of a new discipline

Larisa V. Shavinina

UNIVERSITÈ DU QUÈBEC EN OUTAOUAIS, CANADA

Summary: This chapter provides a general introduction to the handbook thus creating a broad picture on what to expect in the chapters that follow. Specifically, it presents a short overview of a new, emerging field: innovation education. Its multifaceted and multidimensional nature is discussed via a short description of chapters included in this handbook. The uniqueness and novelty of the handbook are pointed out. The main contents of each chapter are summarized and approaches taken by chapter authors are briefly outlined.

Key words: Innovation education, innovation, new emerging field of innovation education, approaches to understanding innovation education.

We have to find a new view of the world. … If you can find any other view of the world which agrees over the entire range where things have already been observed, but disagrees somewhere else, you have made a great discovery. It is very nearly impossible, but not quite.

(Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate)

This handbook is about a great discovery: innovation education, which refers to a wide range of educational interventions aimed at identifying, developing, and transforming child talent into adult innovation. These are those societal actions aimed at preparing children to become adult innovators. Such educational interventions should include, but should not be limited to, those elements discussed in the chapters included in this handbook. Its mission is an extraordinary one: to provide a comprehensive, deep insight into how to develop innovators. In order to fulfill this mission, the content of the handbook is unique in a number of ways.

First of all, it is the first handbook on innovation education, which marks the beginning of a new, emerging discipline: innovation education. The science of innovation education will originate from this handbook. This is the first book that directly and comprehensively addresses the above-described universal need in knowing how to develop innovators. The handbook will not only improve education in many ways; it has significant economic implications as well and greatly contributes to the resolution of important social problems. Taking into account today’s increasing demand on innovative ideas, solutions, products, and services, the handbook will answer educators’ and governments’ concerns related to the best development of innovators.

Second, the handbook is devoted to the multidisciplinary and multifaceted nature of innovation education, its foundations and main components, the current state of research and practice, as well as future developments. The purpose of the handbook is to present the existing knowledge on this multidimensional phenomenon—innovation education—from the viewpoints of various scientific disciplines: mainly innovation, gifted education, science education, psychology of high ability and talent, entrepreneurship, innovation management, business, and technology.

This is thus a truly innovative and unique handbook. All these facets of its novelty convincingly demonstrate that the handbook is a much needed endeavor. It lays out the foundations of a new field: innovation education. The aim of bringing a wide range of experts together in this handbook was to present a comprehensive picture of contemporary research on and practice of innovation education.

In selecting chapter authors, I was especially interested in their contributions to the emerging discipline of innovation education and/or in their challenging ideas, which will advance the field in the near future. My deepest belief is that any handbook on any scientific topic should not only report the current findings in the field, but must also move forward that field by introducing thought-provoking novel ideas. In one way or another, each chapter in the handbook brings something new to our understanding of innovation education. This is one of the key merits of this handbook.

The chapter contributors take a number of different approaches, reflecting a variety of perspectives on innovation education and related concepts such as innovation, creativity, entrepreneurial giftedness, enterprise education, and others. Sometimes even the interpretations of a key concept of the handbook—innovation education—differ. However, this is quite normal at the current stage in the development of the field of innovation education, when it is just at its infancy. I will briefly mention the main ideas of chapters below. The descriptions of each chapter are intentionally short in order to entice readers to seek further details contained within chapters.

The handbook is divided into 12 (XII) parts. Part I comprises Chapter 1, Innovation education: the emergence of a new discipline, which sets the stage for understanding innovation education by providing a general introduction to a variety of issues discussed in the chapters that follow.

Parts II to XII, consisting of 44 chapters, represent distinctive, although definitely overlapping, approaches to innovation education. Specifically, Part II of the handbook describes the nature of innovation education, its basic mechanisms, and its various facets. This part includes six chapters.

Chapter 2, Innovation education: defining the phenomenon, by Rósa Gunnarsdóttir, describes the beginnings and achievements of innovation education in Iceland. This small country is probably the only in the world where innovation education is the mandatory subject in school curriculum. Dr. Gunnarsdóttir is one of a few pioneers of innovation education in Iceland. In her chapter she defines the phenomenon of innovation education and analyzes its developmental essence and conceptual basis.

In Chapter 3, The fundamentals of innovation education, Larisa V. Shavinina discusses the bases of innovation education, which are associated with the 11 interrelated components. These include: gifted education programs; science and technology education; new programs aiming to develop entrepreneurial giftedness that is closely related to innovation; programs for fostering children’s metacognitive abilities or abilities to implement things: the so-called executive talent; new programs based on recent progress in the study of scientific talent of Nobel laureates; programs that incorporate the essentials of research on polymaths; new programs for nurturing applied wisdom and moral responsibility; programs aiming to develop managerial talent; the fundamentals of deadline management; the foundations of innovation science; and courage-related issues, because courage is mandatory for innovators.

Chapter 4, How advances in gifted education contribute to innovation education, and vice versa by David Yun Dai, examines how achievements in the field of gifted education and related areas contribute to shaping a new discipline of innovation education. Dr. Dai identifies various phases in the development of gifted education and describes its impact on innovation education. The author concludes his deep analysis by calling for a number of imperatives vital for innovation education such as the curriculum, pedagogical, capacity building, and assessment imperatives.

In Chapter 5, Innovation education meets conceptual change research: conceptual analysis and instructional implications, Stella Vosniadou and Panagiotis Kampylis discuss innovation in science and mathematics, namely the role of conceptual change in scientific and mathematical discovery. The authors argue that teaching science and mathematics from the perspective of a conceptual change develops the skills for the gradual but intentional restructuring of students’ prior knowledge. This is one of the best ways to cultivate future innovators in STEM disciplines.

Chapter 6, New brain-imaging studies indicate how prototyping is related to entrepreneurial giftedness and innovation education in children, by Larry R. Vandervert and Kimberly J. Vandervert-Weathers, is the only chapter in the handbook, which offers an interesting insight into how an innovator’s brain functions. The authors thus explain the neuro-scientific basis of innovation education. However, this is not the whole story. They also present a range of exciting educational options aimed at developing children’s innovative abilities such as, for example, Camp Invention in the USA.

In Chapter 7, How can scientific innovators—geniuses be developed?: the case of Albert Einstein, Larisa V. Shavinina explicates the developmental foundation of individual innovation that is related to a child’s sensitive periods–periods of heightened and selective responsiveness to everything that is going on around him or her. Specifically, the chapter focuses on the developmental basis of innovation in the case of Albert Einstein. It was found that a number of overlapping sensitive periods characterized a trajectory of Einstein’s educational development and this is why his scientific genius emerged. The implications for innovation education are discussed.

Part III of the Handbook, Creativity as a foundation of innovation education, concentrates on creativity as the first step in innovation process and emphasizes a need to develop creative abilities as an essential facet of innovation education. This Part includes three chapters.

Chapter 8, From creativity education to innovation education: what will it take? by Joyce VanTassel-Baska, traces the development of creativity in giftedness research and links it to innovation education. The author highlights distinctions between creativity education and innovation education, as well as analyzes similarities, using examples of work in curriculum, instruction, and assessment to illustrate key points. Dr. VanTassel-Baska considers creativity as associated with new ideas and methodologies that break from the past, while innovation represents an attempt to synthesize past efforts and render them pragmatic in a given field of endeavor.

In Chapter 9, The three-ring conception of innovation and a triad of processes for developing creative productivity in young people, Marcia A. B. Delcourt and Joseph S. Renzulli discuss components of innovative process and types of educational services for promoting innovation in young people. These services include exposing students to areas of potential interest and task commitment, providing them with the methodological skills to pursue their interests in a professionally authentic manner, and providing the opportunities, resources, and encouragement to see their ideas through to fruition.

Chapter 10, New creative education: when creative thinking, entrepreneurial education, and innovative education come together, by Fangqi Xu, introduces the concept of a new creative education, which consists of creative thinking, entrepreneurial education and innovative education. The author analyzes each of these elements and shows that they cannot exist one without the other if one is really concerned with the development of innovators.

Part IV of the Handbook, Assessment and identification related issues of innovation education, is devoted to the exceptionally important concept in the field of innovation education: how to measure innovative abilities. It includes just two chapters, thus reflecting a current state of affair in this area: an almost complete absence of the assessment methods aimed at the identification of innovative talents.

In Chapter 11, Torrance’s innovator meter and the decline of creativity in America, Kyung Hee Kim and Robert A. Pierce describe the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT)—Figural, which is the most widely accepted measure of adaptive creativity, innovative creativity, and creative personality. Research demonstrates that even as intelligence quotient (IQ) scores increased annually, TTCT scores continually decreased in the United States since 1990. A creative and innovative soul is part of what enabled America to ascend to world leader, but if the United States is no longer an environment that fosters creativity and innovation, will it continue to lead the world? The authors provide explanations for and implications of this trend.

Chapter 12, Do not overlook innovators!: discussing the “silent” issues of the assessment of innovative abilities in today’s children—tomorrow’s innovators, by Larisa V. Shavinina, is about a wide range of topics related to the identification of innovation talent. These include the theoretical basis of innovation, why the normal notion of assessment that applies to intelligence testing does not necessarily apply to innovation talent, and how the best measurements can be developed. The chapter also discusses what should be included in the comprehensive approach to the psychological assessment of innovative abilities. It is emphasized that innovative abilities can be identified in the form of what Dr. Vandervert calls “trajectory analysis” or “trajectory assessment.”

Part V of the Handbook, From advances in giftedness and gifted education to innovation education, examines what innovation education can take from giftedness research and gifted education. In other words, it looks at those best practices in the area of high ability aim to develop innovation talent. It contains four chapters.

In Chapter 13, Innovation education: perspectives from research and practice in gifted education, Lynn H. Fox states that research and practice in Gifted and Talented Education can inform efforts to conceptualize and implement programs for innovation education. She reviews some of the major findings and conclusions from over 100 years of research and programming in gifted education. Successes and failures in ways to formulate definitions of giftedness and talent are instructive as educators seek to develop program models and strategies in innovation education. The author specifically looks at findings from 50 years of study of mathematically precocious students and efforts to foster interest and excellence in education for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM Education), which are particularly relevant for the emerging discipline of innovation education.

Chapter 14, An application of the schoolwide enrichment model and high-end learning theory to innovation education, by Ruth E. Lyons and Sally M. Reis, presents the Renzulli Academy, an innovative urban school, in which students were transformed from consumers of information to producers of information, inventors, historians, and scientists. By providing a detailed blueprint for total school innovation, schools that implement the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM) can develop a unique program based on local resources, student populations, school leadership dynamics, and faculty strengths and creativity. The SEM includes numerous opportunities for differentiated instruction and an assessment of students’ interests, learning styles, and product styles. In SEM schools, students access quality, challenging, and engaging curriculum and experience a pedagogy of enrichment and engagement that increases achievement and creates a setting where academic excellence and innovation is expected and creativity is celebrated in all students.

In Chapter 15, Future problem solving as education for innovation, Bonnie L. Cramond and Elizabeth C. Fairweather describe the International Future Problem Solving Program aimed at developing creative thinking and innovative dispositions in students. The brain child of Paul Torrance, this p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Contributors
• Preface: Universal Readiness to Develop Innovators
• Part I Introduction
• Part II The Nature of Innovation Education
• Part III Creativity as a Foundation of Innovation Education
• Part IV Assessment and Identification Related Issues of Innovation Education
• Part V From Advances in Giftedness and Gifted Education to Innovation Education
• Part VI The Role of Teachers, Parents, and Schools in the Development of Innovators
• Part VII Research on Mathematical Talent and Innovations in Math Education for Developing Innovators
• Part VIII Innovations in Science Education for Developing Innovators
• Part IX How does Technology Education Contribute to Innovation Education?
• Part X Innovation Management, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation Education
• Part XI Policy Implications, Institutional, and Government Efforts in Innovation Education
• Part XII Conclusions
• Index