Lesson 19 — Enhancing Creativity « Wisdom 101 Being deeply involved in creative activity is one of the most enjoyable experiences we human beings can have. What’s more, it allows us to put something back into the pot of life, to give something of value to others. For many people, though, creativity seems mysterious and out of reach — a gift given to some people and not to others. The truth is that it is not a rare gift, but a quite understandable process — one that any of us can use to enhance our enjoyment of life. Different writers have different views about what creativity is, and about how the creative process works. One is production-related creativity: the production of something novel or unique that has value.The other is discovery-related creativity: the discovery, through human insight, of some new fact, law, or feature of the world. By production-related creativity I don’t mean just novel inventions and product designs, though that is part of it. Discovery-related creativity is a little harder to pin down. Preparation.
On assessing for creativity: yes you can, and yes you should I tweeted yesterday an interesting news item in Erik Robelen’s blog in Education Week that a few states (Oklahoma, California, Massachusetts) are seriously looking into some sort of assessment of creative thinking as part of the whole 21st century skills/entrepreneurship movement. I think it is a great idea, with a lot of potential for leveraging change. Now, of course, the naysayers are quick to say that you cannot measure creative thinking. This is silly: here is a rubric for doing so: Creative. We can and do measure anything: critical and creative thinking, wine quality, doctors, meals, athletic potential, etc. (A plug, once again for You Can Measure Anything.) In Bloom’s Taxonomy – designed to categorize and guide the design of measures – Synthesis was the level of thinking for such creativity, as Bloom makes clear in defining it: Synthesis is here defined as the putting together of elements and parts so as to form a whole. Ditto and underscored for student oral presentations.
Engineering Groups Engineering in the Middle School Classroom! IDEAS is the result of a project funded by The Engineering Foundation and organized by two of the worlds major engineering societies, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Our goal when soliciting project activities was to identify low-cost, "hands-on" engineering projects for use in middle schools math, science and technology classes. The announcement attracted over 60 entries from teachers, engineers, and concerned educational and professional groups. Each project concept has three levels of activity – exploratory, intermediate, and advanced. "IDEAS" is not an isolated effort. In 1998 ASME published "Engineers Solve Problems," a collection of seven hands-on experimental problems developed in cooperation with the Salt Lake City school system, with the support of the National Science Foundation. ASME continues to help students when they reach the high-school level.
The 8 Types Of Imagination It has been said that imagination is more important than knowledge, and for any experienced classroom teacher it is easy to see daily evidence of this. In the June issue of Edudemic Magazine for iPad , we’re going to take a look at the role of imagination (and curiosity) in the learning process, and strategies for leveraging each. In doing research, I happened across an article published over at the international news blog IntoEastAfrica on the different types of imagination, and it occurred to me that though I often think of intelligence and understanding as fluid and diverse, I hadn’t thought of imagination that way. Our Imaginations In the blog post, Dr. “Imagination is a manifestation of our memory and enables us to scrutinize our past and construct hypothetical future scenarios that do not yet, but could exist. 8 Types of Imagination 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. More Info Requisite Carl Sagan And no mention of imagination would be complete without Carl Sagan.
Assessment FOR Creativity: What Would It Look Like? | creativiteach Assessment is front and center in just about every educational venue today. Whatever we want to develop in schools, we need to think about how it relates to assessment. To me, one of the most important concepts in assessment is Stiggins’ differentiation of assessment OF learning and assessment FOR learning. Assessment OF learning, of course, is assessment mainly focused on evaluation, letting us know how much students have learned. I have said before that the distinction Stiggins made has caused me to contemplate a parallel relationship between assessment and creativity. Assessment FOR creativity considers how we can assess the content we teach in ways that are supportive of creativity. Assessment FOR creativity builds intrinsic motivation through a sense of increasing competence. Over the next few weeks I’ll think about these three characteristics and how they might play out in classrooms. Like this: Like Loading...
Teachers Manuel to A Paperless Classroom So how about having a paperless classroom ? Some say this is over-hyped at best, an outright fad at worse. Well let's get down to it and see what it all takes to do it. 1- Have a Classroom Blog /Websites/Wiki/Portal We can not talk about going paperless without first setting up a virtual space for our class. 3- Use web tools to increase productivity Here are some examples : Use and encourage your students to use presentations using these tools such as : Google Presentations, Prezi, or this collection of other presentation making toolsUse and get students to use visualizations and infographics to represent key concepts and demonstrate their learning. 4- Grading online Gone are the days when teachers would rely only on traditional gradebooks to record both their teaching progress and their students achievements.
The Engineering Design Process The engineering design process is a series of steps that engineering teams use to guide them as they solve problems. Anyone can do it! To determine how to build something (skyscraper, amusement park ride, bicycle, music player), engineers gather information and conduct research to understand the needs of the challenge to be addressed. Engineers design and build all types of structures, systems and products that are important in our everyday lives. Understand the need: What is the problem? Engineers use their science and math knowledge to explore all possible options and compare many design ideas. The use of prototypes, or early versions of the design (or a model or mock-up) helps move the design process forward by improving your team's understanding of the problem, identifying missing requirements, evaluating design objectives and product features, and getting feedback from others. Using the engineering design process with your students
Reframing Failure as Iteration Allows Students to Thrive Boy: A Rube Goldberg machine is complicated for a simple task. Girl: Boss Level is a week where we work with our home base to complete a project by the end of the week. And we also don't have homework or any other of our usual classes. Teacher: You walk into a Boss Level classroom, you're not seeing really a classroom. Boy: We could do something like this, if we had a hole. Boy: How about this one? Girl: They're tiny. Boy: No, we already have a marble. Girl: I know. Boy: Yeah, I fixed them here. Boy: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Teacher: My favorite part about Boss Level is the actual building phase. Girl: Failure is really bad, but I guess if you have a good attitude, then you can always make it what you wanted it to be and not to get frustrated. Boy: Failure reframed as iteration means when you fail, just try again. Kids: Yeeeahhh!!! What?! Teacher: Students really take a lot of ownership for the machines that they create. Girl: Home base is...
Ten Steps to Better Student Engagement Tristan de Frondeville As a teacher, my goal was to go home at the end of each day with more energy than I had at the beginning of the day. Seriously. Now, as I travel the country coaching teachers on how to successfully use project learning, my goal remains the same. A teacher in one of my workshops said, "When my students and I are in the flow, then I don't feel like I have to work as hard." Project-based classrooms with an active-learning environment make such in-the-flow moments more common. The good news is that the strategies for creating and managing high-quality project-learning environments are productive in any classroom, whether project learning is a central part of the curriculum or not. Create an Emotionally Safe Classroom Students who have been shamed or belittled by the teacher or another student will not effectively engage in challenging tasks. Create an Intellectually Safe Classroom Begin every activity with a task that 95 percent of the class can do without your help.
30 Things You Can Do To Promote Creativity in Your Classroom - InformED Strategy List: 35 Dimensions of Critical Thought S-1 Thinking Independently Principle: Critical thinking is independent thinking, thinking for oneself. Many of our beliefs are acquired at an early age, when we have a strong tendency to form beliefs for irrational reasons (because we want to believe, because we are praised or rewarded for believing). Critical thinkers use critical skills and insights to reveal and reject beliefs that are irrational. In forming new beliefs, critical thinkers do not passively accept the beliefs of others; rather, they try to figure things out for themselves, reject unjustified authorities, and recognize the contributions of genuine authorities. They thoughtfully form principles of thought and action; they do not mindlessly accept those presented to them. If they find that a set of categories or distinctions is more appropriate than that used by another, they will use it. Independent thinkers strive to incorporate all known relevant knowledge and insight into their thought and behavior. Go to top
Mimi Ito on Learning in Social Media Spaces (Big Thinkers Series) Mimi: So my question is this, why do we assume that kids' socializing and play is not a side of learning? And on the flip side, why do we assume that schools can't have a spirit of entertainment and play as part of what they're doing? Mimi: Last year I wrapped up a three-year study with a large team of researchers where we were looking at a lot of different examples of kids' new-media practice, ranging from sort of everyday hanging-out behavior on sites like Myspace and Facebook with text messaging, IM to what we were calling more "geeked-out" kinds of participation, like making YouTube videos, remixing videos, creating podcasts, engaging in fan fiction, and other forms of fan production. Mimi: I think our most important top-level finding was that there was tremendous diversity in what kids were doing online and what kids were learning online. Mimi: There really is a gap in perception and understanding between generations about the value of engagement with online activities.
Six Strategies for Differentiated Instruction in Project-Based Learning Project-based learning (PBL) naturally lends itself to differentiated instruction. By design, it is student-centered, student-driven, and gives space for teachers to meet the needs of students in a variety of ways. PBL can allow for effective differentiation in assessment as well as daily management and instruction. 1. We all know that heterogeneous grouping works, but sometimes homogenous grouping can be an effective way to differentiate in a project. 2. Reflection is an essential component of PBL. 3. This is probably one of my favorites. 4. Another essential component of PBL is student voice and choice, both in terms of what students produce and how they use their time. 5. Formative assessments can look the same for all students. 6. Teamwork and collaboration occur regularly in a PBL project. As you master the PBL process in your classroom, you will intuitively find ways to differentiate instruction for your students. Please share some of your successful strategies with us!
Brainstorming What this handout is about This handout discusses techniques that will help you start writing a paper and continue writing through the challenges of the revising process. Brainstorming can help you choose a topic, develop an approach to a topic, or deepen your understanding of the topic’s potential. Introduction If you consciously take advantage of your natural thinking processes by gathering your brain’s energies into a “storm,” you can transform these energies into written words or diagrams that will lead to lively, vibrant writing. Below you will find a brief discussion of what brainstorming is, why you might brainstorm, and suggestions for how you might brainstorm. Whether you are starting with too much information or not enough, brainstorming can help you to put a new writing task in motion or revive a project that hasn’t reached completion. When you’ve got too much: There are times when you have too much chaos in your brain and need to bring in some conscious order. Freewriting Cubing