Tomorrow's Innovators: Essential Skills for a Changing World

(Paperback)

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Profound societal changes in the economic, technological, social, and educational fronts pose challenges for educators in their ability to equip young students with the skills and capabilities needed to navigate a digitally connected and complex world. Tomorrows Innovators: Essential Skills For A Changing World focuses on approaches and methods to help teachers infuse their basic subject matter lessons with creativity, innovation, and adaptability. On a broader scale, we provide elementary and middle school educators with insights into current educational issues and suggestions for converting new ideas into practical classroom applications.

Teachers need to transform the classroom or school into a contemporary learning environment by paying attention to consistent classroom routines, using assessment data for improvement, and having a coherent organizational structure. The old foundations of reading, writing, and mathematics and the new basics of science, technology, and the arts will be at the core of schooling. More than ever, thinking about curriculum and instruction has to occur as the traditional boundaries between politics, technology, culture, education, and ecology disappear.

Reviews

Tomorrow's Innovators is a highly informative book for teachers, administrators, and involved parents. This book recognizes the fact that new research, standards, and technologies challenge the teacher to generate new ways of thinking, learning, and interacting with students. Dennis Adams and Mary Hamm also provide teachers with ideas and strategies that will help with the curriculum changes required in a digitalized and innovation-based world. -- Cindy Mazoch, teacher, Stevens Point, Wisconsin
Adams and Hamm provide insight and a new dream for creating a culture for twenty-first-century learning. Tomorrow's Innovators provides a framework for helping teachers transform the fundamental elements in today's experiences that awaken creativity and energy. A must read for developing essential skills in a changing world, this book gives us a view of global competition and of the revitalization of the nation's schools. -- Donna Frenzel, Wisconsin teacher and university lecturer
Tomorrow's Innovators offers fresh insight to educators through useful activities which convey critical skills. Collaborative learning is followed to ignite student learning, enhancing their imagination to follow up on individual curiosity. Since knowledge is rarely constructed in isolation, this publication takes in years of experience and presents it in a easy to use format. -- James L. Ring, Teacher, New Brunswick, Canada
Tomorrow's Innovators provides a comprehensive overview of current trends in education. It is especially useful for teachers who want a clear idea of where things are going. The book highlights the value of collaborative teaching and provides strategies suited to the modern classroom. The authors draw connections between traditional subjects, today's essential skills, and the evolving technology of tomorrow. -- Meaghan Storey, Teacher, New Brunkswick, Canada
Tomorrow's Innovators is a great tool for teachers dealing with a rapidly changing, innovation based world. It highlights how technology can be used effectively for the advantage of teachers and students in developing 21st century skills. It provides teachers with a clean framework to foster creativity and critical thought in the classroom. Overall, an important read for teachers of all students. -- James Strickland, Teacher, Newfoundland, Canada

Tomorrows Innovators presents an interesting, innovative and well-planned approach to collaborative teaching in all areas of the curriculum which is easily modified to accommodate student learning at all grade and skill levels. Adams and Hamm examine how learning in a small group setting improves cooperation, responsibility, group member respect, and individual self-esteem that is well defined and detailed. They point out that technological innovation in education requires that changes be made in instructional concepts, their presentation, and student involvement in order to be congruent in todays technological age. Before using technology in the classroom, they suggest that teachers ask whether or not it will do a better job than paper, math manipulatives or clay. The book also suggests strategies for effective collaborative instruction in the basic skills areas --- reading, writing, math, science, technology,
and the arts.

-- J. Bird, teacher,special needs children, Sacramento, CA
The slightly prophetic tone of the title aptly reflects the contents of Adams and Hamms detailed and stimulating exploration of the challenges and rewards facing teachers in the immediate and more distant future. This is a book with a clear philosophical and ideological agenda, which argues unapologetically that a radical change needs to take place in pedagogical practice nationwide in order to prevent the education sector stagnating and falling out of step with the demands of the post-secondary world. But the authors are not prophets of doom: on the contrary, theirs is a message of hope, and the book digresses in some detail on the various strategies for incorporating new and emerging technologies into the classroom that the authors have identified as most effective and efficient. The book is therefore both a philosophical and a practical manual for teachers and educational theorists, and its lively, engaging tone encourages readers to appreciate the benefits derived from these new modes of learning, rather than the detriments. * Teachers College Record *
Adams (McGill Univ., Canada) and Hamm (San Francisco State Univ.) identify dealing with "the convergence of thinking and technological tools" as fundamental to successful education in this book's introductory chapter. This thesis is partially developed for the intended readers, presumably elementary school teachers and teachers-in-preparation, in two of the remaining six chapters: "Thinking and Learning in a Technologically Intensive World" and "Communication Technologies." Chapters include insightful lesson plans and activities, as well as a list of references. Useful ideas for teaching and learning are presented throughout. Summing Up: Recommended. * Choice Reviews *

Author Bio

Dennis Adams, Ph.D., is a Canadian educational consultant who has taught classes at McGill University in Montreal. He is author of more than 12 books and a hundred journal articles on various educational topics.


Mary Hamm is a Professor at San Francisco State University. Her specialties are science and mathematics. She has worked on both science and math standards project and has published more than 10 books and 80 journal articles on these topics.