 Commentary by Praveen Gupta Subscribe via Email or RSS |  Biography |
January 10, 2010
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Teaching Innovation - Part II |
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About two years ago, I wrote a commentary on teaching innovation as it has been my passion to pursue, source of inspiration, and reason to develop teachable innovation methods. About the same time I also started teaching Business Innovation. Students have loved learning about innovation. Among all the commentaries I have written during 2007- 08 at RealInnovation, the Teaching Innovation has been the most active one. . Many inquiries were received for emailing the course syllabus that I teach at Illinois Institute of Technology. Having fulfilled all requests, I have yet to hear from most of the people who asked for the information. I have no idea what happened after they received the syllabus. Has anyone started teaching innovation? Are there any challenges experienced in teaching innovation? I would be very interested in learning more about various programs initiated or designed for teaching innovation. I believe all of us would benefit from our collective wisdom. Continuing my work on teaching innovation, IIT has developed an innovation certification program. Maybe, we should create a group on RealInnovation to raise awareness to teaching innovation. I believe new jobs can only be created, or standards of living be raised by creating new businesses based on new discoveries. To achieve these objectives we need to prepare a larger pool of innovators that can only be accomplished by teaching innovation. What do you think? I need to hear more voices about teaching innovation besides hearing myself. |
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Comments [7] | Permalink |
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| Categories: Strategy | |
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| posted by Praveen Gupta [ http://www.accelper.com ] | January 11, 2010 at 12:13 pm |
Hello Kishor, Life is an ever evolving and innovating system. In a philosophical sense universe is expanding and world is growing. We are unable to define or see its inevitable end or the infinity. The perfectly sustainable world is yet to be defined. Focusing on a dimension or two may not be the solution. My thoughts about sustainability are captured into the following column: http://www.qualitymag.com/Articles/Column/BNP_GUID_9-5-2006_A_10000000000000689783. I believe the nature will find its point of diminishing return or equilibrium at some point. However, we need to continue to discover unknowns as best we can, and make it easier for the ecosystem, including people. Visit RealInnovation.com more frequently! Best, praveen |
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| posted by Ellen Domb [ http://www.trizpqrgroup.com ] | January 18, 2010 at 10:41 am |
"Is Training & Coaching the overlooked Innovation imperative?" is a discussion thread in the Sustainable Innovation "Group" on LinkedIn. So far it looks like consultants promoting their own teaching, but there may be a possibility of expanding the discussion to the very good fundamental issues that you are raising. Ellen |
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| posted by Hardik Vachhrajani [ http://www.amrita.edu/asb/faculty/faculty-24.php ] | January 19, 2010 at 3:27 am |
Hello. Its an interesting discussion. I have been an innovation researcher. I am developing a PhD level course on role of grounded theory in researching innovation for my university. If one looks at innovation in an organization, every organization undergoes a unique process / activity before it innovates. It means that to study innovation in an organization, we have to study every organization case by case as a unique entity. Govindarajan and Trimble (2005) say that management of innovation is a rich and complex problem. Statistical studies can point only in a few broad directions. They can tell us something about which management decisions co-relate with success, but little about why. Truly understanding what works and why, requires multi-year, qualitative, interpretive studies. This led me to study grounded theory for my doctoral research and now I am creating a course on the same. Hardik |
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| posted by Praveen Gupta [ http://www.accelper.com ] | January 19, 2010 at 5:45 am |
Ellen, I agree with you that there is a fundamental issue of education in innovation, if innovation is to become a matured field of work in knowledge age. Hardik, To have a Ph.D. level course in innovation does not mean to teach a complex course. At that level someone must be really able to simplify a subject with its most comprehensive understanding. Innovation is not about solving complexity, it is about creating something new and useful, in my opinion. Here is a link to our college level course http://www.iit.edu/cpd/news/BusinessInnovationCertification.shtml I am interested in developing a course to teach innovation at High School level so that we can make students more curious when they attend college, and get most out of their investment in education. We do not enough dialogue about education in innovation. We are setting up a Center for Business Innovation and Cognition Sciences. Collaboration is welcome. If you would like to have our syllabus, please let me know. Thanks, Praveen |
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| posted by Ellen Domb [ http://www.trizpqrgroup.com ] | January 19, 2010 at 4:54 pm |
For your high school course, see the TRIZ Journal articles about the TETRIS project, or visit http://www.tetrisproject.org. This is an EU-sponsored project for teaching innovation at all school levels (the cartoons for young children are great, and available in 8 languages 6 from the original project and 2 added later.) The downloadable textbook has a small amount about teaching, and is the core for a "train-the-teachers" program being started this month in Italy. |
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| posted by Mdroslyn | February 15, 2010 at 10:41 pm |
Thx for the great dialogue. Can you please send the syllabus for your Center for Business Innovation and Cognition Sciences to mdroslyn@yahoo.com? Thx! |
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