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New Resources to Inspire Inventiveness in the Primary and Early Years Classroom

Savhannah Schulz has contributed to new teaching resources during her research stay abroad

During her recent stay at Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, IMC and Playtrack PhD Fellow Savhannah Schulz joined the Inspiring Agents of Change project in their efforts to produce teaching resources aimed to Inspire Inventiveness in the classroom.

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About the Project

Children come to school ready and eager to learn. Schools could be centers where children identify problems and develop novel responses. Yet, all too often, formal educational experiences, beginning with children’s earliest experiences in schools, stifle children’s natural inclinations to innovate. On the Inspiring Agents of Change project, Opal School, the Portland Children’s Museum Center for Learning, and Project Zero carried out a practice-based study of the learning conditions likely to support inventiveness in early childhood and primary school. The main goals of the project were to: 1) map a framework that invites, sustains, and extends inventive dispositions in schools; and 2) develop related practices, strategies, and examples that illustrate how inspiring inventiveness can be embedded across learning experiences in schools.

As a result of this work, a set of principles, practices, and tools has been developed to support inventive thinking in children ages 3-11.

“A Framework for Inspiring Inventiveness” can be found on the Opal School website.

 

Savhannah Schulz is a PhD Fellow at the Interacting Minds Centre, the Playtrack Research Group, and the Danish School of Education. Her research explores the role of reflection in and for learning, the link between reflection and play, and play centred approaches in education across the globe.