Practice: High Tolerance for Ambiguity and Complexity

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Inventors embrace ambiguity and complexity

by building theories, taking risks, and viewing setbacks

as opportunities for learning.

It’s OK, we all make mistakes. The important part is fixing it.

Lydia, age 4


Children will learn to embrace ambiguity and complexity when adults…

  • invite children to create, revisit, and reinvent rules and problem-solving strategies
  • ask children to reflect on experiences and learning processes individually and in groups
  • model and encourage repairing mistakes and taking risks
  • ask unanswerable questions so that children can practice theory-building and risk-taking with ideas

Teachers will learn to embrace ambiguity and complexity when they…

  • have regular opportunities to reflect on setbacks and develop plans to move forward
  • make public documentation that relates learning experiences to practices that inspire inventiveness
  • use the principles of inspiring inventiveness to reflect on classroom experiences and to plan for more
  • develop and share theories of learning based on experiences with children in the classroom

Letters of Intent

Use this tool to support children’s abilities to engage with big questions and to make connections between the known and the unknown.

View PDF

Do-Over

Use this tool when the impact of children’s words or actions does not match their intentions.

View PDF

 

Supporting Children to See Each Other as Resources

Kindergarten and first-grade children struggle to compose together a piece of writing for publication, and come to value each other’s contributions.

Classroom Video

Stuck Machine

When 1st- and 2nd-graders work to invent a machine that will help people when they get stuck, the class finds that it, too, gets stuck and reflects on the experience.

Presentation Video


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This Practice is guided by Principles

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