Some Ideas For Your Innovation Lecture Notes
A warm welcome to some ideas for your innovation lecture notes.
I got hooked on innovation whilst undertaking my MBA and I’m guessing that’s in part to do with a great lecturer and great lecture notes.
To help you get started, here are some lecture notes that I put together for an introductory lecture on the topic of innovation.
Lecture Title:
An Introduction to Innovation
Lecture Objective:
To understand the concept of innovation, its importance, and how to foster innovative thinking.
Duration:
1 hour
Materials Needed:
Pen, paper, and a laptop or tablet for research.
Lesson Plan:
Introduction (10 minutes)
To begin, discuss the general topic of innovation and why it is important.
Discuss how innovation has helped to change the world that we live in today and how it contributes to both progress and growth.
Get participation by asking your students to share their understanding of innovation and what they might hope to learn from a lecture on innovation.
Understanding Innovation (20 minutes)
Explain some of the different types of innovation with some emphasis on the difference between incremental and radical innovations.
Give some examples of companies that have been successful due to innovation. For example 3M, Apple, Google and Tesla.
Discuss with examples, how innovation is not limited to just technology, but that it can also be applied to other fields like healthcare, education, and social issues.
Techniques to Foster Innovative Thinking (20 minutes)
Discuss techniques such as brainstorming, brainwriting, mind mapping, and lateral thinking.
Set a problem or challenge for your students to solve, and get them to use the techniques that you discussed to help them come up with new and innovative solutions.
Encourage them to think outside the box and be creative in their approach.
Overcoming Barriers to Innovation (10 minutes)
Discuss common barriers to creativity and innovation such as fear of failure, resistance to change, and lack of resources, with strategies to overcome these barriers such as taking calculated risks, embracing failure as a way of actually learning, and seeking collaboration and support from others.
Conclusion and Reflection (10 minutes)
Review the key points you have discussed in your lecture. Ask your students to reflect on what they have learned.
Try an encourage them to apply the techniques and strategies discussed to other areas of their personal and student lives.
It’s always a good idea to additionally ask how your lecture could be improved. What might they want to learn more about? What was really interesting and informative? What not so?
By the end of the lecture, your students should have a basic understanding of innovation along with a knowledge of how to foster creative thinking and strategies to overcome any barriers to creativity/innovation.
The lecture may also serve to reinforce your own understanding of the topic of innovation and may identify areas for improvement in your own knowledge and delivery of the topic. It may have highlighted areas that you may want to delve into further with your own research.
Additional topics
Other things you might want to consider including in your lecture or might want to discuss in follow-up lectures include:
Providing a reading list in the form of a handout. List all the books that inspired you as you developed your knowledge for innovation.
I also think it’s important to accompany lectures with a set of printed journal articles or web links to further material that the student should reference.
Understand exactly what innovation is and how it differs from creativity. See a definition of innovation and also a definition of creativity.
A successful innovation must meet four criteria: It must be 1) important, 2) unique, 3) sustainable and 4) marketable
It is key for your students to understand the whys of innovation – why it is so important to innovate to remain competitive and stay ahead of the game.
It is also important to demonstrate how an innovation spreads across a social network in terms of people adopting or accepting the innovation for information on that please refer to diffusion of innovation and for further details, you can explain how the natural rate of adoption follows an ‘S’ curve for details see adoption curve or diffusion curve.
