Play, Passion, Purpose, and Project Based Learning: Thoughts on Tony Wagner’s new book, Creating Innovators:
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This book, like Dr. Wagner’s previous one, has many different audiences; it is not a book exclusively for K-12 educators, and includes among its targets parents of young and school-age children, post-secondary educators, and, more generally, those many general nonfiction readers who have been influenced by Thomas Friedman to recognize that the “World is [Now] Flat” and it is essential that we confront the changing demands of our fast-changing times. Frankly, there are times at which as a reader who is an educator I feel a little cheated that there isn’t more attention to and more information about what we should and can do to strengthen educating for innovation in K-12 learning, but that doesn’t mean I don’t recommend this book: I do recommend this book, wholeheartedly.
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“Increasingly in 21st c., what you know is far less important than what you can do with what you know.”
“Academic content is not very useful in and of itself. It is knowing how to apply it in new situations or to new problems that matters most in the world of innovation.”
“Transforming classroom experience at every level essential to develop capacities to become innovators.”
“Collaborative, project-based, interdisciplinary approaches to learning have a profound effect on the development of young persons [to become innovators].”
There are three essential interrelated elements: Play, Passion, and Purpose. ”Whether, and to what extent, parents, teachers, and employers, encourage these qualities makes an enormous difference in the lives of young innovators.”
“High Tech High and New Tech Network provide outstanding examples of educating students to develop innovation skills… Together, High Tech High and Olin College provide an outline of 8 years of educating for innovation.”
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This book, like Dr. Wagner’s previous one, has many different audiences; it is not a book exclusively for K-12 educators, and includes among its targets parents of young and school-age children, post-secondary educators, and, more generally, those many general nonfiction readers who have been influenced by Thomas Friedman to recognize that the “World is [Now] Flat” and it is essential that we confront the changing demands of our fast-changing times. Frankly, there are times at which as a reader who is an educator I feel a little cheated that there isn’t more attention to and more information about what we should and can do to strengthen educating for innovation in K-12 learning, but that doesn’t mean I don’t recommend this book: I do recommend this book, wholeheartedly.
Read more ...