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The Innovation Collaborative: Networking Arts, Sciences, and Humanities Education

The Innovation Collaborative serves as a national forum to foster creativity, innovation, and lifelong learning. It identifies and disseminates information about the many ways that effective integration of the arts, sciences, humanities, engineering, and the use of technology reinforces teaching and incorporates lifelong learning in both in-school (formal) and out-of-school (informal) settings. Goals: The Innovation Collaborative promotes creativity and innovation in audiences of all ages and demographics, including underrepresented populations (gender; geographic, socioeconomic, and ethnic diversity; special needs; gifted and talented). It advances knowledge and positively shapes education practice by creating platforms for advancing collaborations among the arts, sciences, and humanities through the following goals.

• Goal 1: Research: To discover, build on, and disseminate important research about the reciprocal connections across the arts, sciences, humanities, and learning; the brain and cognition; and creativity, empathy, and innovation. Strategies:

o Share existing research and promote new investigations into these interdisciplinary connections in learning.

o Explore and document the ways in which scientific processes, design thinking, and artistic processes — as well as engineering processes and the use of technology — can inform teaching and learning practice across the disciplines.

o Demonstrate the impact and implications of this research for learning within both formal and informal environments.

• Goal 2: Effective Practices: To identify model collaborative efforts and effective practices that are informed by research and to report widely on their effectiveness.

Strategies: o Identify model formal and informal collaborative efforts in the arts,

sciences, and humanities, and share news about model demonstration projects.

o Develop criteria and a template for project directors to submit their programs and curricula for consideration as effective practices for dissemination through a peer review process.

o Create and disseminate evaluation mechanisms for model formal and informal collaborative efforts in the arts, sciences, and humanities.

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o Promote the adoption of effective practices in the inclusion of art and design into STEM teaching and learning nationwide that demonstrate how integrating art and design with STEM are mutually reinforcing and promote long-term success.

• Goal 3: Policy: To identify and promote opportunities for sharing information that supports intersections of arts, sciences, humanities, engineering, and the use of technology in both formal and informal education settings and in related research regarding learning, the brain, cognition, creativity, and innovation.

Strategies: o Make the case for the mutually reinforcing effects of arts/

sciences/humanities in education, including the ways in which scientific processes, design thinking, and artistic processes inform teaching and learning practice across the disciplines.

o Disseminate information to stakeholders about programs that use these intersections to promote student engagement in learning and foster students’ innovative problem-solving skills.

o Build the case that creativity and innovation are the 21st-century workforce competencies.

• Goal 4: Convening: To convene forums for ground-breaking researchers and practitioners in these disciplines in ways that explore and support the mission, goals, and strategies of The Innovation Collaborative.

Strategies: o Support opportunities for major researchers and practitioners working in

the areas of creativity, innovation, brain research, and teaching and learning to convene to discuss issues, share their work, and contribute to the Collaborative’s efforts.

o Support opportunities for researchers, national leaders, and practitioners interested in this work to convene to learn about research and to share effective practices.

o Provide various ways to convene and promote meaningful conversations that connect theory and practice.

The Innovation Collaborative focuses on the dissemination of research and effective practices in the intersections of art and design, science, humanities, and engineering, use of technology, and creativity, cognition, and learning in both Pre-K-12 and informal settings. It is an outcome of the NSF-funded SEAD network which grew out of convenings co-organized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities: http://seadnetwork.wordpress.com/about/.

Join us: Help us build capacity in support of teaching and learning in the arts, the sciences, and the humanities. To learn more, contact Lucinda Presley, Chair, The Innovation Collaborative, at info@innovationcollaborative.org.