Reaction Paper Concerning Defining Educational Innovation, the Importance of Innovation, and Research on Teacher’s Attitude

Reaction Paper
By Jorge Paniagua Vargas

Education should be a part of everyone's life. A high-quality education offers opportunities for all and sundry. Therefore, education is the most outstanding resource citizens have in order to improve and strengthen their lives and humankind as a whole. I do deem that the overall purpose of education is to prepare people for both present and future generations. The world is becoming more technologically advanced each day. Notwithstanding, education is a paramount tool to understand these new conceptions completely. Thus, education is the key to a successful and fulfilling life. Accordingly, educational systems play a preeminent role all over the world. Educational systems define society and the way citizens perceive reality. Nevertheless, educational systems should provide pupils with opportunities to ascertain a sturdy sense of confidence in them and develop a strong sense of creativity, high self-esteem, and a life-long respect for learning. An educator is a professional who helps students learn and progress along their way through life. Educators practice our profession eagerly to be able to give a first-rate education to our students. As a matter of fact, educational systems doubtless have a preeminent role in the development of society, but educators and students have to deal with a lot of problems and there are urgent changes to be made on the way in order to strengthen the teaching-learning process.
Educators, around the whole world, have to deal with many vital functions within the learning process. Assuming that the teaching-learning process is a social task for both present and future times, all of us should not delay our efforts to improve this process. It seems to me that the ultimate purpose of the diverse components of our educational policies is focused on the intellectual development of pupils. Consequently, teachers often develop in students academic expectations based on characteristics that are unrelated to academic progress. These expectations can affect the way educators present themselves toward students, making an alteration in the way our students learn, and thus causing an overall degeneration in the potential growth of students.
Innovation is one of those weighty words that are eagerly bandied around in modern society. The importance of innovation can partly be seen in the fact that educational policies are expected to be innovative rather than simply appropriate. Yet for all its weight, there remain many questions about its substance. What exactly is innovation? Is it the same everywhere? How does it work? You can certainly train people to carry out tasks in a better way, acquire new techniques and skills, and to accumulate new knowledge. But the whole essence of creativity lies in its freshness, its freedom, its newness. Creativity is often unexpected and exciting. It involves seeing things in new ways and breaking rules. Creativity may result in something radically different.
Creativity and innovation are important keys to success in today's rapidly changing world. Creative or innovative thinking is the kind of thinking that leads to new insights, novel approaches, fresh perspectives, and whole new ways of understanding and conceiving of things. The products of creative thought include some obvious things like music, poetry, dance, dramatic literature, inventions, and technical innovations. But there are some not so obvious examples as well, such as ways of putting a question that expand the horizons of possible solutions, or ways of conceiving of relationships that challenge presuppositions and lead one to see the world in imaginative and different ways. So, process improvement, problem solving, recruiting, retaining and motivating pupils and students, decision making, dealing with limited resources, and rapidly changing technology are all examples of educational realities that require creative and innovative solutions. Hence, somewhere along the line, many teachers have forgotten how to use their imagination to think and solve problems out of the box. Accordingly, teachers should make use of innovation which is an effective resource that resides in all people and within all organizations. Thus, some researches have demonstrated that creativity can be nurtured and enhanced through the use of deliberate tools, techniques and strategies.
The great need for educational innovation goes beyond what programs alone can provide. Notwithstanding, I do reckon there is no better economic policy than one that produces more professionals. That’s why reforming education is the responsibility of every citizen, every parent, every teacher, every business leader, every public official, and every student. Likewise, educational innovation is needed for teaching and learning process is not boring. Innovation starts with education can change the pattern of learning. Innovation is a paramount tool which enables students to learn in a better way and efficiently.
In recent years there has been a lot of attention given to the role of the learner in the learning process. The development of learner is widely seen as beneficial in preparing students for lifelong learning. At the same time, it is recognized that most learners need explicit instruction in skills for independent learning before they are able to manage their own learning. Classrooms provide a natural opportunity to develop these skills in learners. Most classrooms use textbooks as their primary source for language and learning information. So it is important to ask to what extent they prepare learners for their future learning.
Innovation is not a new phenomenon. People know about how to innovate but to be able to do it meaningfully for society is a different story. Rate of change in our society, business products, services, and education has created a need for a lot more innovation. Basically innovation is feeding more innovation. It is like an innovation explosion. However, education has not figured out how to exploit innovation systemically. In order to institutionalize innovation, people must be able to learn, and teach. The challenge I see that there is no formal way of teaching innovation.
It has always been difficult to distinguish between tradition and innovation in education, not least because of the absence of clear-cut criteria. Definitions of teaching methods are also loose rather than binding. Nevertheless a trend towards active participation by students is noticeable and very often taken as marking “progressive” teaching. Starting from the basic relationship of method and objective, an attempt is made to further relate cognitive activity of students to specific levels of achievement which are considered as teaching objectives. It is suggested, too, that a loose notion of education can for practical purposes be replaced by a more reliable notion of teaching text whether presented orally or given in written form. Then the problem of innovation in education can be stated a bit more precisely as that of creating a good teaching text.

Few things are more important in educating a child than motivation. Teachers must be motivated to teach well. Students must be motivated to learn. Motivation is a key element of education and plays a crucial role in the success and enjoyment of the learning process for individual students. In the early years of education, motivation comes easy. Children are naturally inclined to be curious and enthusiastic about learning new things. As childhood turns into adolescence, however motivation wanes. At this point parents and teachers must find ways to keep students engaged in the learning process. Notwithstanding, while some students keep their natural enthusiasm for learning, and are often labeled geeks and ridiculed, most students’ interests shift to socializing and status. Many parents and educators panic when faced with the task of motivating students. Panic leads to less than wise tactics. I have seen money being offered for grades, by schools and parents. I have seen cell phones and other privileges given for good grades. While this may work in the short term, it is my concern that until students understand what a privilege education is, they will never truly be motivated. Motivation needs to come from the heart.
Every educator needs to be concerned about motivation. It is a quality that students, teachers, parents, school administrators, and other members of the community must have if our educational system is to prepare young people adequately for the challenges and demands of the coming century. Of course, the way these various groups of individuals generate and use motivation differs greatly. Students need motivation to learn, parents need it to track the educational progress of their sons and daughters, teachers need it to become better teachers, and school administrators need it to ensure that every facet of the schools they manage continues to improve. Despite much excellent research, there is still a great deal we do not know about motivation. It remains a mystery, because we all have it, but we all exhibit it at different times, in different degrees, in different ways, and in different contexts. One aspect of the school administrator’s job is to discover and nurture motivation among all the different individuals involved in the educational process. Motivation must be rewarded, increased, and sustained at all levels. However, administrators must not forget about their own motivation. Like those around them, they must find ways to remain motivated in the face of obstacles, distractions, and what may sometimes seem like indifference.
In days gone by, before the advent of computers and other forms of technology, classrooms were all about chalkboards and chalk. If the teacher wanted to try and engage their pupils they had only very limited resources and their own confidence and knowledge to do it with. Therefore, today things are very different. Innovation is a dynamic and forward thinking word, but it is necessary to introduce this word into every classroom if we want to give our children the best education possible. Thus, innovation is all about ideas. Ideas must still come from the teachers themselves if we are to create truly engaging lessons that will work on many levels. There is no doubt that by using multimedia and modern technology to help get those messages across, we can achieve better results than we would otherwise. Furthermore, innovation can also help to wipe out the problems experienced by less confident pupils. For instance, not everyone has the confidence to speak up in class for fear of having the wrong answer. With individual handsets that enable children to enter their answer without other pupils knowing what they have put, teachers can get a much better idea of who needs additional help. This is the real power in classroom innovation, the power to gain more knowledge from the pupils as well as leading them to gain more knowledge themselves.
The programs to be developed by teachers are too large and not necessarily respond to what pupils want or need to learn. As a result, both teachers and students work in a heavy atmosphere which is not suitable for either teaching or learning. Accordingly, educators have noticed that most of students “do not learn”. For instance, pupils can memorize or repeat some information; however they will not be able to remember it for a long period. For that reason, educators must apply innovative methods to achieve a proper acquisition of knowledge in each student. They must not continue teaching by means of strict and routine pedagogical practice. Therefore, we as educators are obligated to begin a continuous educational process by taking into consideration new techniques and efficient didactic methods.
The integral transformation of the Costa Rica’s educational system implies changes in aspects such as, curriculum components, educational policies, and budget availability to better respond to the different students’ profiles expected in a globalized world. Educators are expected to reinvent the teaching techniques as well as what students have to study. Hence, teachers have a valuable role as means of change of every single aspect that citizens have to deal with in our society. I do believe that the national teaching staff is able to apply a curriculum and build it as well. Moreover, teachers are geared up for identifying many pedagogic options while we practice our profession, so we have criteria to select information and become the social necessities to basic necessities of learning. Pedagogues are a significant symbol in the concretization and comprehension in all countries around the whole world.