We know there are certain skill sets that will serve students well in whatever types of future paths they take. We often refer to them as 21st century skills, which include a mix of hard and soft skills, like creativity, persistence, collaboration, and communication. Hard skills, like coding and engineering, are important too but, for this post, we’re focusing on a particular soft skill—inventiveness. Inventiveness, if you ask us, goes hand in hand with problem solving and creativity but, despite how it enables educators to challenge students creatively, it's oftentimes overlooked. Luckily, inventiveness is key to STEM education and something students can work on as soon as they enter the classroom.
Tying Inventiveness with Problem Solving for Young Students
In today’s educational landscape, learning resources tend to be tough to come by in many situations. Applying a maker mindset and using any available resource to invent and create, however, students have become somewhat accustomed to not wasting materials and looking in unlikely places to find them. This is also definitely true when it comes to student inventions. A lot of the time, there are old materials in schools, like fabrics, electronics, and more just lying around. Students have all sorts of projects they need to complete, however, for both their classes and afterschool clubs. Using them as resources rather than forgetting about them is something that they've really started to embrace. Whether they’re looking for props for a play or designing a costume, chances are they'll find something relevant to repurpose into something useful.
Looking in different places for the best solution or, at least, a solution that works is an approach students can then translate into other aspects of their lives and education. Knowing that they can make some atypical resources work is something that helps boost their confidence and tends to help them recognize that they can replicate this whenever needed. At the same time, students know one of today's biggest problems is global warming, meaning conservation and recycling are crucial. When challenged to maximize materials, this helps kids become resourceful and understand why it makes their work easier. Plus, it's a lot of fun for students to think creatively and then invent creatively as they really start to put what they’ve learned about using all resources into practice when inventing something or designing a new project.
Inventiveness is very beneficial and, as students develop it, they’re also exercising critical thinking, collaboration, and communication skills. Being inventive means being resourceful and showing kids the importance of using everything available to them (both physical and digital) in problem solving is important. Teachers can focus on inventiveness in all classes—not just in hands-on STEM classes or in afterschool makerspaces. By encouraging kids to employ the same inventive mindset, they can start to look at things, like math equations or the development of a plot line, differently and apply what they’ve learned. A lot of times, the best solution for building something or solving a problem might be clearcut but, as they grow older, these solutions my become less obvious. Employing an inventor’s mindset helps students as they search for solutions that align with their resources, skills, and objectives—and introducing this early on is key.
Encouraging Young Inventors in School
Kids are always coming up with ideas for how things should work and creative approaches for accomplishing new things. It doesn’t take much to spark this creativity either, especially in a school full of supplies. They can use things like cardboard boxes, paper towel tubes, and sheets of paper to invent devices that actually serve a purpose. When students actively seek out opportunities to invent, chances are they may begin developing that inventor’s mindset we like highlighting. Students' minds are very active and their imaginations store a lot of creativity. Plus, the fact that many schools now have makerspaces only increases their knack for creating—and not just creating any old things—meaningful things they can build, evaluate, and then enhance using various materials. And, this is how a lot of the most inventive students tend to start down this path.
Aside from the actual experiences students have with inventing, though, how else can parents and teachers encourage inventiveness? One of the best ways is to encourage experimenting outside of school. Of course, afterschool clubs could be a good place to start, but parents can also encourage this at home. Even if kids aren’t constantly physically inventing things and working with their hands, parents can still help them foster an inventive mindset by regularly asking tough questions and steering them towards creative solutions. Teachers can also have students research famous inventors and inventions to help inspire them a bit more. Chances are they know famous ones, like Thomas Edison, but there are so many other gifted people who have created some of the world’s most useful tools, too. Perhaps researching the invention of the keyboard, the hot air balloon, or the elevator will help boost their creativity.
One of the reasons famous inventors get to where they are is because they ask questions. They want to determine why the current way of doing something doesn’t work and how to improve it. In this age of inquiry-based learning, encouraging kids to question how and why things work or don’t work is a great way to help them flex their creativity. There's also the option of in-school, traditional, or virtual field trips to show kids some of the latest tech innovations and how they're used in the real world. Or, students can enter STEM competitions to showcase their inventiveness after teaming up with some classmates to invent something. Maybe they could even create their own school-wide or town-wide competition! Whatever they like, there's a way to tie invention to it and that’s something that could wind up helping them bolster their creative skills for future success.
Helping Kids Become Lifelong Inventors
If kids go through school with opportunities to invent new tools and solutions, they’ll become nicely positioned for the future. This is largely due to how future challenges will reward those who are creative in solving the most difficult problems. Inventors, for example, rely on ingenuity and creativity to give people an easier or more affordable way of doing something. That is typically their chief goal when designing a new item or product. It seems oversimplified, but helping students realize this might be helpful as they take on challenges that require being inventive. In schools and classrooms around the world, kids are becoming bolder than ever and offering up solutions to their problems. We think that, as time goes on and the problems get a little more complex, these students will really need to know how to be inventive.
There are actually some simple ways to get kids involved in learning and help activate their inner inventor. One of the best is simply by encouraging hands-on learning. Since so many of today’s jobs are hands-on, this kind of introduction could truly help kids develop an inventive mindset. Within schools, not every teacher still uses traditional classroom lectures but, rather, they allow students more time for STEM learning in makerspaces or innovation labs—something that certainly supports developing invention skills. Another thing teachers (and parents) can do is make invention part of everyday life for kids. Inventions can happen any time and in any place—sometimes even by accident. Just looking around their classroom, library, or home, students will likely notice something they could improve, fix, or enhance. Challenging them to design a new option is a quick and informal but effective way of helping them invent!
Though those examples may seem obvious, they're some solid ways to promote inventiveness in education. Educators could also encourage kids to incorporate things they are passionate about into their learning. This tends to excite and engage them more, which also tends to get them working harder to discover creative solutions. Another strategy is having students come up with many potential solutions for solving a problem before settling on one. This helps them explore all angles of the situation and build skills they can use for future inventing. Finally, one other way to encourage inventiveness and boost invention skills is challenging kids to apply learning to real-world situations. Maybe they're quickly designing a bridge so it can withstand a storm or there's another way to help them access their inventive side. Whatever it is, invention opportunities will help them develop STEM skills to perhaps go on to invent for a living.
Inspiring Teen Inventors
It’s said all the time—and correctly so—that some of the world’s best inventions came about by accident. Inventors often experiment with many different approaches and it's certainly within the realm of possibilities that they wind up creating something completely different than what they intended in the process. Many of them are actually children, including some as young as elementary school and others in high school. Teenagers are constantly applying ingenuity and helping propose solutions for some of society’s toughest problems. Is that because they’re more in touch with the way the world currently works? Or more willing to embrace technology? Perhaps, but we think it's also them being willing to make mistakes and try new approaches. This also ensures they're not remaining committed to a particular approach that might be more outdated.
Since new inventions appear so regularly, they're bound to differ in scope. Some are simply practical while others are world-changing, but they all have one important thing in common. They're often created by a person or a group who had a vision for improving some aspect of everyday life. That is one of the key reasons why students are now turning their own ideas into inventions. They don’t need to have any type of extreme intelligence in order to design something useful. They simply need something they're passionate about and a vision for improving something, which they get through practicing empathy. As teenagers, it’s easy to get caught up in the power of technology, but knowing they have the potential to create something useful is a great feeling. Luckily, inventing doesn’t have a minimum age requirement and some of today’s most ingenious inventors are on the younger side.
The teenage years are the perfect time to work with students and inspire their inventiveness. Working in makerspaces or as part of community projects, there are so many opportunities for students to invent. When you also take into account the fact that they can use tools like educational 3D printers or CNC machines, there are essentially limitless possibilities for students to invent new contraptions and devices to use in school or the community. Through inventing, they may also bolster the culture within their school community and, of course, their own STEM skills. In any case, with all the ways to introduce high school students to inventing, there's no reason not to. For more inspiration and to check out some tools for getting started, be sure to visit our store!
Tools for Promoting Inventiveness in the Classroom
We’ve listed a bunch of reasons why teaching kids to be inventive and think like inventors is beneficial to them. Now, we’re finally going to get into more detail of how educators can help their students make this happen. First and foremost, when discussing this, a lot of inventing that students do is directly related to the tools available. Whether they’re STEM tools, MakerEd tools, or simple, low-tech tools, students need something with which they can invent. It’s these kinds of tools that help students fully move from creativity to innovative design while also discovering inventive and impactful solutions. When kids have freedom to use their creative imaginations, are they more or less likely to design an inventive solution? We’d have to side with more likely.
Invention occurs when students create something new for the first time or when they're first introduced to the creative process. After inventing something, innovation takes over when students reflect on what they’ve created and work to improve it. When these two processes join together consistently, students truly learn to think like inventors. They're also accessing the inventiveness they have within themselves, which allows them to arrive at creative solutions and stay motivated to use inventiveness to help solve a particular problem or improve something within society. To empower students to become inventive, there are some things teachers can do to make their classrooms conducive to inventing. And, there aren’t any of them that are too fare out of reach.
The first is to ensure that the physical classroom environment is filled with flexible resources. If using EdTech or other materials, be sure that kids can use them in a number of different ways—as many as their creativity will allow. Second, teachers should strive to ensure their learning climate is promoting active participation and collaboration. You know the phrase ‘two heads are better than one’ and it is definitely true when inventing. Finally, an inventive classroom is one in which students are engaged, sharing their varying viewpoints, taking risks, reflecting on what they’re experiencing, and taking the time to think creatively as they develop new ideas. If you ask us, this sounds pretty ideal and certainly conducive to inspiring inventive STEM ideas!
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