Having taught in various grades, and spending years as an academic advisor for new teachers, I've had the chance to spend time in various classroom environments. I've seen many different ways educators approach teaching—from the traditional learning model to some of the most innovative and creative classrooms.

Here are some of the most creative and innovative areas I've practiced or have seen over the past decade across classrooms.

The Importance of Creativity

According to the National Education Association, in a piece written by Dawn Dupriest entitled, "Creativity in the Classroom," she claims, "Is there anything more satisfying than making something creative? A quilt, a webpage, a decoration, an invention? As a child, do you remember the pride you felt when you showed your parents a LEGO creation or a fairy house or even a mud pie? Creativity belongs everywhere, not just in childhood games and extracurriculars. It involves all of your senses and creates new knowledge that didn’t exist before. Students of all ages need to learn by creating – it helps to synthesize information and bring joy and meaning into their educational experience."

To create an innovative, open, creative and trustworthy place for students to grow, take risks, and feel comfortable in their own patterns of learning, there are a few key actions teachers can take to create a more innovative and entrepreneurial classroom.

The ability for students to connect, grow and innovate not only with class content, but also with each other, the world around them and with me, was the culture I developed in the classroom.

I view culture as one of the most critical aspects to invite innovation and make the classroom a safe place to create, ask questions, and fail in order to learn.

Teachers create the mood and tone of the room. Positive classroom cultures that invite authentic learning can lead to more opportunities for students to positively connect with content, their peers, and their teacher.

Here are ten ways teachers can create innovative learning spaces.

1. Mindset

A change in mindset, mood, and overall classroom vibe begins with the teacher. The teacher sets the tone of the class from the minute students walk into the building. If educators are excited about their subject matter, students will tend to follow. Educators must have passion for the subjects they're teaching. However, a teacher's mindset regarding how to design and deliver content is critical to the innovative learning process. Most teachers were trained to educate solely from the teacher's point of view. To change this type of delivery and make the classroom more innovative, they need to think about their students as leaders too--acting as guides rather than teaching content and asking students to spill out information on a standardized test.

2. Self-Reflection

Self-reflection in the classroom is a way for educators to look back on their teaching strategies to discover how and why they were teaching in a certain way and how their students responded.

With a profession as challenging as teaching, self-reflection can offer teachers a critical opportunity to see what worked and what failed in their classroom. Educators can use reflective teaching as a way to analyze and evaluate their own teaching practices so they can focus on what works. Effective teachers acknowledge the fact that teaching strategies, delivery and finding success can always be improved.

3. Ask Open-Ended Questions

Open-ended questions are questions without textbook answers. When educators ask open-ended questions, there can be various answers and points of view. Student answers can lead to strong collaboration, exciting conversations, new ideas, as well as encourage leadership skills. This practice can also help students realize potential they never found within themselves. Through open-ended questions, they can also make connections to their own lives, within other stories, or to real-world events.

4. Create Flexible Learning Environments

With various teaching methods, it’s essential for teachers to consider how to use their classroom space. For example, when teachers can move furniture around the class with ease, they can find it is a crucial variable for improving student learning. As teaching has evolved, the classroom space must provide ways for students to work alone, interact with their peers, and provide areas of collaboration. Many classrooms today are still crowded, cluttered, loud spaces that lack the space to move around with ease, cause a gap in communication, and lead to roadblocks when students need to concentrate.

Learning spaces should be fluid and provide flexibility to support one-to-one learning, collaboration, independent thinking, and group discussions.

5. Personality Matters: Create A Place for All Learners 

In Susan Cain's book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, one of the critical differences between introverts and extroverts is that extroverts tend to get their energy from social interaction and introverts gain energy from quiet spaces and a time to think and reflect alone.

Therefore, when a classroom solely focuses on group work-which emphasizes whole group discussions, small groups working together, gathering peer feedback (all which require a great deal of social interaction), extroverts in the classroom can grow and gain energy, while introverted students can find themselves easily drained with a lack of motivation to participate.

Also, when a project focuses solely on quiet reflection or individual research, the opposite is likely to occur. Introverts can then thrive and blossom, leaving extroverts to feel antsy and lost. They can also become easily annoyed or get in trouble for trying to get attention, talking, sneaking in on social media, and becoming disruptive.

When possible, teachers can offer students options of working in groups or on their own. Extroverts can complete some projects alone, and introverts can choose to collaborate--both of these ways of teaching are critical to meet the needs of different learners.

Teachers who provide activities that best engage, inspire and sustains students' love for learning are more likely to put in their best efforts, enjoy the process and find positive results.

6. Use Problem-Finding

Instead of problem-solving, teachers can help students look at the world by finding gaps to fill using problem-finding. Problem-finding is equivalent to problem discovery. Teachers can use problem-finding as part of a more significant problem process that can include problem-shaping and problem-solving all together. Problem-finding requires an intellectual and imaginative vision to seek out what might be missing or should be added to something important. Using this strategy, teachers can provide students with the opportunity to think deeply, ask critical questions and apply creative ways to solve problems.

7. Let Students Take Risks and Fail

Students need to see that adults in their lives try many things and repeatedly fail but keep on trying. Students need to experience failure to learn.

When teachers provide real-world projects that give students problems to solve, they are offering a platform for students to learn from failure, step up again and again to eventually find success.

In her 2017 paper “Learning from Errors,” psychologist Janet Metcalfe states that avoiding and ignoring mistakes at school is the classic rule in American classrooms. When we don't let students fail, we are most likely holding back not only individual student growth, but we are also holding back the entire education system.

By giving students real-world problems to tackle, fail and try again, we are telling students that their voices matter. We have plenty of issues worth addressing that we can give to students for insight and opinion.

A pedagogy based on discovery and inquiry is so much more exciting than remembering dates, information, and taking tests. Pre-determined answers on an exam in a traditional education setting can hold students back in ways we cannot measure.

8. Consider a Flipped Classroom Model 

When teachers use a flipped classroom model, the traditional order of teaching and classroom events are reversed. Typically, students can view lecture materials, read text, or do research as their homework prior to coming into class. The time spent in class is reserved for activities that can include peer-to-peer learning, group discussions, independent learning, as well as engaging discussions or collaborative work. And, according to the Flipped Learning Network, 71 percent of teachers who flipped their classes claimed an improvement in grades, while 80 percent reported improved student attitudes as a result. Also, 99 percent of teachers who flipped their classes stated they would flip their classes again the following year.

9. Invite Entrepreneurs and Innovators into The Classroom

Using technology as a venue for communication and reach, teachers can invite entrepreneurs into their classrooms in various ways. Educators can reach out to different leaders through social media sites such as LinkedIn or Twitter with a click of a button. Invite these leaders into your classroom either through live-interaction or through virtual means like Skype. Teachers may just be surprised how many creative innovators are looking to give back—and giving back to youth can be one of the most fulfilling ways a successful founder can make a difference.

10. Use the Design-Thinking Process

The design thinking process is a set of structured strategies that identify challenges, gather information, generate potential solutions, refine ideas, and test solutions.

There are five phases to the process: discovery, interpretation, ideation, experimentation, and evolution.

For each phase, students and teachers can follow the following pattern:

• I have a challenge. How do I approach it?
• I learned something. Now, how do I interpret it?
• I see an opportunity. What can I create?
• I have an idea. How can I build it?
• I tried something new. How do I make it evolve?

All of these strategies are ways to form innovation and inspire creativity in the classroom. Teachers can start with one new project to see how things go with their students while revising, learning and building repeatedly. Innovation is a necessary change we need in schools today, and it can begin with you.

About the author

Robyn Shulman is a leading writer and editor in the world of education, but her career began in a 4th-grade classroom. She’s a certified K-9 & ESL educator who transitioned into higher education, writing, and assisting startups with marketing. Her role at NLU opened new doors and skills including communication, creating partnerships, editing, growing community engagement and career advising. Her education site, EdNews Daily, syndicates with other publications, partnerships and social media and currently serves over half a million educators.