by Gemie C. Densing
August 7, 2019, Wednesday — Miriam College with its partner HEIs conducted a 3-day interactive workshop program with the theme: Equipping Business Administration Faculty with 21st Century Pedagogical Skills and Competencies in Teaching Creativity and Innovation at HRM Lab Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology.
The workshop focuses on 21st century skills of creativity and innovation, which are encouraged to be applied in the classroom to help learners thrive in today’s world. As the learners in our schools nowadays are more exposed to information and equipped with so much technological changes.
Ms. Shiela Dingcong, one of the facilitators, expresses the importance of creativity specifically in Business Education with regards to innovative teaching. As she said “we need to come up with better ideas and learn the art of generating in order for our learners to be entertained…”. Challenging traditional teaching and engage innovation and creativity for it is an individual activity. It is about having ideas in new and different ways to come up with innovative solutions.
Four hats of creativity: Explorer, Artists, Judge, and Warrior
You have to put your knowledge into something creative. Dr. Dingcong emphasizes that educators should connect with minds, other greats, rebels and environment. To encourage creativity, at times we have to disconnect with laws, existing forms, same ideas and self. As the saying goes, “Creativity is connecting and rearranging of knowledge in the minds of persons who allow themselves to think flexibly to generate new, often surprising ideas that other persons consider useful.”
Guiding your business educational ecosystem
Moreover, 21st century teaching includes understanding the context of business environment where institution live. It is important in structuring the business ecosystem to know who are the “actors” and players. Dr. Elaine Boquiren, emphasizes “coopetition” or cooperation and competition, which means evolving together as an ecosystem of education.
Different perspective, coming together of different ideas is the intersection of innovation
On Modern Pedagogy topic, Dr. Boquiren tackles its different methods; the crossover learning, learning through argumentation, context based learning, learning by doing, computational thinking; that aims to develop the skills and knowledge students need in real world.
It is the role of the facilitator to help the students to develop, to clarify their goals, to be innovate so they can face challenges and not dominate them, not just infuse learning but also educating the heart.
Furthermore, Sir Allan Paul Tang discusses the concept of design thinking – an idea of disconnecting oneself to understand others. He gave different challenges and activities to the participants such as making the perfect table from the perspective of the user and the inspiration behind it.
Overall, the best way to educate 21st century learners is to encapsulate them in a safe environment where thinking, creativity, and being innovative is embraced. Learners should used different areas of their mind and their creativity to innovate. As the world evolves, technology is also evolving. Robots can do and memorize millions of words and numbers, but the only thing it can’t do is to think creatively. We all have significant role in shaping the future. It depends on how creative and innovate you are. Whatever happens will have an impact to the society.