Week One in Innovation in Teaching & Learning!

It's week one in Innovation in Teaching and Learning! Throughout this course, I hope to explore and expand my own ideas about how creativity can be brought to my own methods and materials in the classroom. My guiding questions are:

What is the ultimate purpose of innovation in the classroom for the teacher?

Is our primary innovative goal to create newness for the sake of originality? To avoid copyright infringement? To engage students (and, similarly, is innovation and newness necessary for engagement or can tried-and-true materials work just as well)? To satisfy job reviews/ assessments from administration?

How can creativity and innovation motivate me as a teacher?

How can I incorporate innovation into my yearly routines and programming to help me stay energized about my subject matter? How can I use creative benchmarks or goal-setting to motivate me to create and explore, even when the job feels too hectic?