Innovative learning is the goal of innovation in education today. Usually, innovative and avant-garde approaches are used to reach that goal.
These days, everyone aims to be innovative and bring about innovative solutions without really curing the term innovation. Many people haven’t still understood what it is all about and what innovation means. But it is expected that this word is overused: it is a single word that incorporates a whole lot of principles that are used in any industry, such as being new, innovative, and creative. But what exactly does it mean in education?
ACS – ASOMI College of Sciences is a private college that promotes innovation in higher education. Its highly skilled professional lecturers deploy innovative methods to their teaching programs. Besides, the college organizes internships all over the European Union to allow its students to learn while incrementing their chances of getting a job after graduation.
If a higher education institution is innovative, it can engage students in their learning process and make them even more passionate about what they are learning than ever before.
In a higher education institution, innovation means doing the best for everyone: from teachers to students, from administration staff to sanitary workers. Lessons should have flexible hours, and also the curriculum and the taught lessons should be tailored according to the students’ needs. The latter means that colleges and universities have to consider the academic and theoretical aspects of delivering courses and the practical and more job-oriented perspectives.
So, higher education institutions have to provide their students with the skills and necessary preparation to work and get through in the working world.
Also, professors, coaches and teachers have to be flexible. They have to consider how and what they are teaching. If their method is inadaptable to the college’s criteria, they should reconsider changing it. That is because otherwise, the school will return to the way it has always been with no novelties or innovation whatsoever.
Besides, the students have to feel that the university or college they are going to and the classes they are attending are safe to ask questions and make mistakes; in a few words, students have to feel at their ease.
Moreover, new and innovative ideas and techniques must be deployed to reach this goal: new techniques and ways of learning and teaching must be used to deliver lessons. For instance, new educational apps, programs and online platforms and the use of electronic devices – such as cellphones, tablets or PCs- that almost everyone would be one of the main steps to take to bring about innovative education.
Higher education institutions have to step out of the box by supporting the success of all of the students by not only helping them and mentoring them. But this kind of support also includes the fact that the students’ opinions have to listen to.
Students, especially those learning in higher education, are advanced enough to know what to do and behave. They might sometimes come up with brilliant ideas that may have been “hidden” to the eyes of the rest of the university or college staff. The institutions should tighten the gap between their authority and the students’ needs and beliefs.
Incorporating STEM activities is an essential part of innovation. STEM activities are interactive and VR and AR-based educational activities, which can also be considered innovative. Involving this activity in everyday teaching approaches is undoubtedly a plus representing another step towards innovation.
