Why Creativity Now?

via ASCD Inservice: Why Creativity Now?

In “Why Creativity Now?” creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson dispels the myth that giving precedence to creativity in education will result in unstructured curriculum or initiatives targeted to a select content or students.

I like how the article emphasizes that creativity is about DOING, not just thinking.

Sylvia

Deliberate Tinkering

Presentation Zen: 10 Tips on how to think like a designer.

Design in the real world is often a process of deliberate tinkering. Sometimes the goal may be clear, with timelines, budgets, and constraints. Or the goal may be less clear, as you struggle to come up with something “better” even though no one quite knows what that means. Sometimes you work for days or weeks, making small incremental steps, sometimes things come in a flash of brilliance.

Yet in school, there is often a rigid “design process” with stages that imply a linear progression from start to finish. Whether teaching writing, video production, the “scientific method”, or programming, it often seems most efficient to provide students with step-by-step assistance, tools, and tricks to organize their thoughts and get to a finished product.

However, this well-intentioned support may in fact have the effect of stifling creativity and forcing students into creating products that simply mirror the cookbook they have been given. In fact, some students, having been well-trained to follow directions, will simply march through the steps with little thought at all. On the other hand, students need some kind of support and structure, right?

So how do you combine the benefits of tinkering (creative chaos, brainstorming, time to reflect) with getting something done. I believe the answer lies in looking at the design process in the creative world – such as graphic artists and designers.

Presentation Zen is a website devoted to simplicity in design and a recent article provides some great direction for classroom projects: Presentation Zen: 10 Tips on how to think like a designer.

Here are the tips from the article:

(1) Embrace constraints. (2) Practice restraint. (3) Adopt the beginner’s mind. (4) Check your ego at the door. (5) Focus on the experience of the design. (6) Become a master storyteller. (7) Think communication not decoration. (8) Obsess about ideas not tools. (9) Clarify your intention. (10) Sharpen your vision & curiosity and learn from the lessons around you. (11) Learn all the “rules” and know when and why to break them.

I hope you read this article; it provides much food for thought.

Sylvia

Back to School – What do students want from teachers

Educational Leadership:Giving Students Ownership of Learning:What Students Want from Teachers

Back to school time is here – and I’m going through the files to find inspiring, practical ideas for nurturing student leadership, creativity, and lifelong learning.

This is a great article from Ed Leadership (ASCD) for back to school. What do students want from teachers? What makes them feel in charge of their learning? Students said:

  • Take me seriously
  • Challenge me to think
  • Nurture my self-respect
  • Show me I can make a difference
  • Let me do it my way
  • Point me toward my goals
  • Make me feel important
  • Build on my interests
  • Tap my creativity
  • Bring out my best self

There are more details in the article, but aren’t these some great reflection starters for the school year?

Sylvia

Constructivist Celebration @ NECC 2009

Constructivist Celebration logoThe third annual Constructivist Celebration @ NECC 2009 in Washington DC is now open for registration!

Join colleagues in a daylong celebration of creativity, computing & constructivist learning on June 28th, 2009. This is the day before the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in Washington, DC starts.

The Constructivist Celebration is an opportunity for you to let your creativity run free with the world’s best open-ended software tools in a great setting with enthusiastic colleagues who share your commitment to children, computing, creativity and constructivism. You might think of this stimulating event as a spa day for your mind and soul!

The day kicks off with a keynote, by Gary Stager “What Makes a Great Project?,” and a presentation by Melinda Kolk on unleashing student creativity.

Then you will enjoy five hours of creativity on your own laptop using software provided by consortium members FableVision, Inspiration, LCSI, and Tech4Learning. Representatives of SchooKiT and Generation YES will also be on-hand to assist.

The day ends with an inspirational talk by best-selling author, illustrator, animator and software developer, Peter Reynolds and an opportunity to reflect on the day.

The Constructivist Celebration is an incredibly affordable event for you and your colleagues. $35 gets you hundreds of dollars worth of open-ended creativity software, a great lunch and the day’s activities.

The Constructivist Celebration @ NECC
June 28, 2009, 9:00 – 4:00 PM
Sidwell Friends School
Washington, DC

Find out more and register today at:

http://www.constructivistconsortium.org

Register today! Space is extremely limited and this event was completely sold out last year.

Sylvia

Only a few seats left for Northwest Constructivist Celebration

If you are located in the Seattle area and want to spend a day learning about creativity, constructivism, and technology, be sure to check out The Pacific Northwest Constructivist Celebration.

Pacific Northwest Constructivist Celebration
Saturday May 16, 2009
Puget Sound ESD (Renton, WA – Seattle area)

Participants will enjoy the day’s activities, complimentary creativity software and a hearty lunch all for just $55. This event is a joint effort between the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), the Northwest Council for Computer Education (NCCE), and the Constructivist Consortium.

Dr. Dennis Harper, founder of Generation YES will be there too!

Go to www.constructivistconsortium.org for more information and to register. There are only a few seats left so don’t delay!

Sylvia

Part 2: What Makes a Good Project

Creative Educator magazine has Part 2 of the article series What Makes a Good Project by Gary Stager.

In Raising our Standards, Developing Projects that Endure, Stager argues that good projects meet higher standards than those found in state mandated lists of curricular objectives.

I suggest that educators plan and evaluate student projects based on a loftier set of goals. Teachers should embrace the aesthetic of an artist or critic and create opportunities for project development that strive to satisfy the following criteria. Is the project:

Beautiful
• Thoughtful
• Personally meaningful
• Sophisticated
• Shareable with a respect for the audience
• Moving
• Enduring

Read the article online here, or download the PDF here.

I recommended Part 1 in this blog post last November, and highlighted the other excellent articles (still free, still online!) found in that issue here.

Constructivist Celebration in the Northwest

The first ever Constructivist Celebration in the Pacific Northwest is an opportunity for you to let your creativity run free with the world’s best open-ended software tools in a collaborative setting with enthusiastic colleagues who share your commitment to children, computing, creativity and constructivism. You might think of this as a spa day for your mind and soul!

Pacific Northwest Constructivist Celebration
Saturday May 16, 2009
Puget Sound ESD (Renton, WA – Seattle area)

Participants will enjoy the day’s activities, complimentary creativity software and a hearty lunch all for just $55. This event is a joint effort between the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), the Northwest Council for Computer Education (NCCE), and the Constructivist Consortium.

Dr. Dennis Harper, founder of Generation YES will be there too!

Go to www.constructivistconsortium.org for more information and to register. Space is limited and past events have sold out quickly.

Sylvia

Tinkering as a mode of knowledge production in a Digital Age

From the “Carnegie Commons” – Tinkering as a Mode of Knowledge Production in a Digital Age.

The MacArthur Foundation brought together educators, “tinkerers,” curators, artists, performers and “makers” to grapple with questions around ensuring that all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully and creatively in public, community, and economic life.

These interviews from five of the participants were produced to provide some insights into the thoughtful and passionate conversations from that convening.

These videos make connections between tinkering, innovative ideas, the idea of making work public as in a studio, creativity and collaboration, the ability to incorporate criticism, and more. Well worth watching!

I posted my own thoughts about students having “tinkering time” with technology a few weeks ago and it’s quickly risen to be one of the most looked at articles on this blog. It’s especially important as educators work hard to figure out how to make education more relevant to students and to connect to the real world.

Seymour Papert, the father of educational computing, often used the French word bricolage to describe the kind of playful attitude both children and scientists use to tinker, build, test, and rebuild their way to solving problems. Bricolage has the additional advantage (besides being cool sounding) of implying that you are using materials that you find around you – a very eco-green idea!

Problem-solving in schools is typically taught as an analytical process with clear plans and steps, like the “scientific method.” But bricolage is clearly closer to the way real scientists, mathematicians and engineers solve problems. Sure, they make plans. But they also follow hunches, iterate, make mistakes, re-think, start over, argue, sleep on it, collaborate, and have a cup of tea. Bricolage encourages making connections, whereas School tends to like “clean” disconnected problems with clear, unambiguous step-by-step solutions.

“For planners, mistakes are steps in the wrong direction; bricoleurs navigate through midcourse corrections. Bricoleurs approach problem-solving by entering into a conversation with their work materials that has more the flavor of a conversation than a monologue. ” – Papert & Turkle

For more on the concept of bricolage and computers, Papert’s book, The Children’s Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer is the one to read. If you want to get a taste, the Math Forum has a nice synopsis of it on their website.

Sylvia

* Note: the Papert & Turkle quote is from their seminal paper, Epistemological pluralism and the revaluation of the concrete. I found this on the Edutech Wiki, hosted by the University of Geneva.

Free – Projects, portfolios and more for creative educators

Last week I mentioned the article What Makes a Good Project? Eight elements to great project design by Gary Stager in the Creative Educator magazine.

I hope you had a chance to look at the whole Creative Educator magazine, because it’s great. It’s published twice a year by Tech4Learning, publisher of creativity software for K-12 schools

The Creative Educator is fully available online, and in addition to the project article, this month’s issue has some great articles.

  • Universal design – tales from a 4th grade classroom about using software that includes ALL students
  • Bloom and Marzano for the 21st century
  • Digital Storytelling
  • Portfolios – and an interview with Helen Barrett, a pioneer and thought-leader of the digital portfolio movement
  • Lessons and ideas from classroom teachers using creativity software to enhance learning

The articles are all online, and every issue can be downloaded as a PDF.

 

Creativity vs. creating

A really big craneThere is a vast difference between being creative and creating something.

  • You can write a creative report about bridge building, or design a bridge that holds weight.
  • You can make a creative video about careers in programming, or write a computer program.
  • You can build a creative website with links to sites about solar heating, or construct a working model of a solar panel.
  • You can blog creatively about saving the environment, or you can start a movement to do it.

Building a real bridge or writing a computer program or constructing a solar panel or committing time to a cause is constructing something real. It is a different educational experience than reporting about something. Both are valuable learning experiences. Both should be present in a well-rounded education.

However, when we talk about Web 2.0, the focus is often on information gathering, sharing and presenting. This short-sighted focus on information and reporting misses the most crucial part of learning — constructing. It is an incomplete picture of what we want students to learn and be able to do.

Life is not a report.

Sylvia