Why I need to Reinvent the Wheel.
Every time I've thought about improving my craft as an educator, learner, and leader, I find myself worrying that I am "reinventing the wheel". Why do we say "reinvent the wheel"? According to dictionary.com, it's defined as slang "To go laboriously and unnecessarily through elementary stages in some process or enterprise; waste time on tediously obvious fundamentals" The inspiration for this metaphor lies in the fact that the wheel must be the archetype of human ingenuity which allows it to underlie much if not all of modern technology. As I delve further into this saying, I have found that it's good to "reinvent the wheel" depending on the reasoning, purpose, and mindset of the learner. Maybe we should first consider the learning mindset . When it comes to learning, by re-inventing, we learn how solutions map to problems ( backward design, backward mapping ) and get a deeper understanding of how those solutions work ( See