My name is David Barrette and I'm what I like to refer to myself as an innovative educator. The title sounds kind of fancy but I often parallel it with my frequent, unsuccessful attempts towards new approaches in my classroom. I'm from Windsor Ontario, Canada and am currently pursuing my Professional Master of Education through Queen's University.
My journey as an educator began 4 years ago as an international teacher just outside of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Initially, moving to Malaysia was a short-term plan in my mind, no more than 1 year, but that plan took a u-turn and I'm still enjoying my time in Southeast Asia while I'm typing this opening blog post.
My intention of this blog is to gain a deeper understanding of innovative approaches to learning and teaching. The main goal is to reflect and expand on my innovative experiences from the classroom, whether successful or unsuccessful, as well as implement new approaches that I come across through research. Secondly, I hope to familiarize myself with successful, unsuccessful, and the in-between of the past innovators of education and technology. Finally, I hope I can present this information in a way that is engaging and appealing to the readers.
Innovation is not an easy task. It takes risk, courage, and creativity. Here's to taking a leap and testing the waters!
Dave
Hi David,
ReplyDeleteI like your title -- and so true, so many times, I have to push myself. This push -- maybe it's SRL driven by self motivation.
In terms of pushing ourselves to task risks -- this is determination, it is a Growth Mindset and sometimes the course is strewn with failures, but this is the way to learn and great to model in teaching. I watched a Ted Talk by Barbara Corocoran entitled Rethinking Failures; in the talk she says "Failure and Innovation are kissing cousins" and goes on to tell of all the times she failed or felt like a failure and not wanting to feel that way was her push.
Keep pushing.
Kay