| As the rapid development of science and technology, international competition has faced a new challenge, and how to train and bring up high-quality talents has become the focal point of all the counties during the new century. Out-of-school education, a new way to cultivate innovative talents, which is a kind of education with purposes, plans and organizations, provided for teenagers by institution besides schools, is developing fast. Out-of-school education is characterized of amounts of activities, in which students are able to cultivate their interests, characters and comprehensive qualities. With the rich contents, various forms, objective to develop thinking and exploring abilities, out-of-school education plays an enormous role in cultivation of innovation abilities of adolescents.The paper summarized the conceptions of out-of-school education and innovation ability, along with the theories of cultivation of teenagers’innovation abilities, investigated the current situation of out-of-school education activities in Shanghai, analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of the new way, and put forward proposals with pertinence as well. In the investigation, the paper discussed several questions such as which ways and what kinds of activities students attended in, whether students were satisfied with the present activities, how they wanted to be trained, and the problems they came across during the activities. What’s more, the way teachers in out-of-school education played is also studied in the paper.Through the research, the author found that out-of-school education has some positive significance in the cultivation of teenagers’innovation abilities. It can not only develop students’interests, but open their minds. Besides, when carrying out out-of-school education activities, time, contents and forms ought to be arranged well so as to improve the qualities of activities. The last but not the least, more research on countermeasures to guide students in activities needs to be done so that the role of out-of-school education will be played much better. Although in some respects, out-of-school education has got defects, the prospect is bright. With the intensive studies going on, there is no doubt that out-of-school education will be further developed. |