Monday, March 06, 2017

The Originals - what makes original thinkers

Had a quick look through this TEd talk by Adam Grant - who is a professor at Wharton. The talk summarise Grant's book - The Originals. There is a summary / review at the following Forbes site.

The overall premise of Grant's work, as summarised in the Ted Talks is how to recognise the difference between innovators and followers.

In short:

- innovators may be slow to get off the ground. They are the ultimate procrastinators.Procrastination may be used to mull over ideas and come to better solutions.

- innovators may not be the first or the best. They make mistakes and learn from them.

- There may have to be many bad ideas before good ones come along!

- therefore resilience and ability to learn are also important.

Perhaps deep pockets, ability to garner funds, high social / economic capital to start with which translates to access to 'angel' funding are also important!

Education, in particular summative assessments whereby students attain a final grade are therefore not a good measure of entrepreneurship or innovation as the learner is penalised (marked down) for mistakes! We perhaps need to make overt to students, the subjects or topics which are important towards attainment of foundational knowledge and skills, the canon of the discipline. Then the courses whereby project work, portfolios etc. are the mechanisms for assist 'learning by making mistakes', allowing for reflection and review to inform the next stages of learning.


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