How is creativity viewed by students?

                As I progress throughout my masters course work I am constantly thinking about ways to better incorporate technology into my lessons and projects.  Yet, I am left wondering how effective is this use of technology and do the kids even want more technology in the classroom?  This use of technology allows for the students to present their knowledge in ways that are more creative than what was ever possible before.  Again though, do the students want more creativity in the classroom?  With that in mind I decided to ask some of my students how they felt about technology and creativity in the classroom.

                To understand this I first asked some students what they value in my classroom.  After assuring them that I was not trying to trick them and was genuinely interested in their opinions a few students really started to open up.  In regards to the first question that I asked them, student R responded that they liked how creative I allowed the students to be in regards to their projects and that assignments were not always the same thing over and over again.  This allowed this student to demonstrate their understanding in a way that was comfortable to them and not just in a specific mold that was forced upon them by me, the teacher.  While everyone had an opinion on this particular topic, most students mirrored the response of student R.  It was the next question that I asked that got the students truly interested in sharing.

                The second question I asked was what they would change about their learning environment when it comes to digital media and technology supporting creativity.  The most passionate response was from student M who stated, “Creativity is important but there needs to be structure in the project.  Not just do anything, but a little bit of guidance.”  This comes from a recent presentation that the students had just been asked to complete.  The guidelines were simple, make a 5 minute presentation about a lesser known civil rights leader that is creative and uses technology.  However, a PowerPoint presentation will not allow you to receive an A because it is not creative.  The freedom that I provided the students was apparently too much as most of the struggled to come up with ideas that were creative and also helped with the classes understanding of their civil rights leader.  Another student stated, “Creativity needs to be included in the class, but it must be structured in a way to provide some guidance.”

                After hearing these responses from my students I was struck by a saying from a superhero movie that I had recently watched with my son, “With great power comes great responsibility.”  While technology is ever present in these students’ lives and provides them the opportunity to be creative and passionate about whatever they are interested in, it is too much of a good thing.  Creativity needs to be encouraged in the classroom but it must be structured and have guidelines around it.  Without these guidelines the students are left feeling overwhelmed with possibilities and lost in the creativity potentials allowed to them.  However, as a teacher I want them to feel a bit of stress and see what they produce when they have all the possibilities of their creative mind available to them.  Taking into consideration what my students said, I will definitely try to provide more guidance as to what is expected of them during projects, but it will definitely be a balancing act of providing guidelines for the students while also allowing them the flexibility to be creative in their work.

Creativity in the Classroom

                I recently watched a TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson in which he discusses the role of creativity in our schools today.  The basic premise of the talk was that our educational system today is built in a way that kills creativity.  This assessment of education is built on a few fundamental principles that are universal regardless of where you grew up or even when you grew up.  The main idea being that education was started during the industrial revolution in order to educate people for the jobs back then.  These jobs emphasized math and language while downplaying the arts, a structure that is seen today in all schools.  Just look at the standardized tests that students have to pass to graduate, they revolve around math, English and science.  Yet as Sir Robinson points out, these same qualities that were so vital during the industrial revolution, are not what is valued today in the workforce.  Simple routine tasks are being outsourced to other countries or replaced by computers or machines.  In today’s work place, it is the creative mind that is valued and paid, the exact opposite of what is valued in schools and universities. 

                So, do schools kill creativity?  The simple answer is yes, and they are highly effective at it.  However, the blame cannot be placed squarely on the teachers and administrators of the different districts.  If it was there fault, surely by dumb luck some school district would think outside of the box and emphasize the arts or do something different than all the other districts.  No, the true fault lies with the states and federal governments that create graduation requirements tied to disciplines that are no longer valued outside of academia.  I am not advocating that math, science and English are not valuable because they are incredibly.  Yet, how can a five year old be referred for special ed three months into kindergarten because they can’t read?  The reason, student’s today need to complete so much schooling and work by the time they arrive in high school to be prepared to take a test that will determine if they can graduate that will assess them on two things.  The some of the intelligence of a person is not two things, yet that is how we determine the quality of their education.

                How then can this be fixed?  Sir Robinson states it quiet simply by saying we need to educate the whole child.  To accomplish this we must remember that education is diverse, dynamic and distinct in all people.  What one student excels at, the next struggles with it more than anything and has learned throughout their schooling to hate.  As teachers we need to encourage the creativity in our students, by exposing them to different media and ideas.  I implore you to allow students the freedom to present information in different ways and to allow students to be themselves and use the technology that they have grown up with to be a part of their education.  By allowing the use of digital media, teachers are allowing those truly creative students the ability to express their knowledge in a way that is truly them and not in the mold of everyone else.  While crafting a good essay will get you far in school, how far will that take you in the workforce?

Bringing It All Together

                With all of the great resources that are available online today there needs to be a way to organize them, and provide this information to other people.  With this in mind I found a website called eduClipper that does just this.  Below is the page that I created for a unit on World War 1.  What is great about this particular site is the fact that you can search there extensive database of other peoples pages and add content that they have already found, which is how I stumbled across the two images of boot camp.  You can also upload your own content, like the PowerPoint presentation, or link to videos or other websites that you find.  Once you have created the page, you simply need to share the page you have created.  Once you have shared your page anyone else can then add content, making this a dynamic experience in which multiple people are working together creating a resource that will benefit everyone. 

                This World War 1 page was created to provide students with background information and as a resource for students who might have misunderstandings of what was covered that day in class.  By no means is this a comprehensive coverage of the war, yet it would be able to give students an overview of the entire war so that students could determine how the days lessons fit in overall.  I believe this resource could be very valuable to some students who struggle fitting all of the pieces together for units.  Besides, who doesn’t like to take some time off and watch some videos?

EduClipper World War 1 Page

A Media-Infused Presentation

                A media-infused presentation allows for the development of a disciplined as well as synthesizing mind by presenting a specific topic in depth, from a variety of different angles.  It is the diversity of the content that allows the student to gain the required depth to create a disciplined mind.  As Gardner (2008) states in 5 Minds for the Future, “In this day of search engines … nearly all required or desired information can be retrieved almost instantaneously.” (p.  37)  As educators it is now imperative that we shift from the old ways of teaching, memorization and repeating back facts, to a focus on synthesizing information.  By providing students with video, music, graphics and facts, they are able to focus on the connections and the “big ideas” more than just on who did what on this day.  To truly target and foster a synthesizing mind, an educator has ask the harder more difficult questions once the information has been presented to the students.  However, Gardner (2008) states that in education teachers often “Fail to invoke explicit standards in judging which connections, which integrations, which syntheses are valid, and in which ways they are (or are not) meritorious.” (p. 68) 

                In the new digital world that students are growing up in, and we are expected to teach in, an emphasis on creating disciplined minds cannot supersede synthesis.  Yet, as our schools have been fashioned these two areas are not the focus.   Schools are still holding the old strategies of memorization and formalistic responses as the standard for assessing achievement.  This is not what is valued in this new modern world.  By having students create a disciplined mind through media-infused presentation on broad topics; the students can then synthesize the information.  This synthesizing is what schools need to focus on to prepare their students for the future work place.  By using media-infused presentations students are able to escape from learning in only one way, and not receiving enough information to make informed decisions.  This purposeful approach to education provides students with the foundation necessary to take the next, and most difficult step, synthesis.  To this end, I encourage you to view my example of a media-infused presentation, created using a web based program called Prezi.

Gardner, H. (2008). Five minds for the future. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School Press.

A Little Motivation

This week I came across a website called Big Huge Labs, which allows the users to create a variety of free resources that can be used in the classroom.  After examining the website I decided to create a motivator, one of those still image posters that have a saying written on them.  Below is my example, which I entitled confidence.  What I find truly great about this website is the ability to use this simple concept for educational purposes.  For instance, by having your students take a picture from their phones or other digital camera, they could easily create an academic motivator that would fit with your current unit of study.  Think of the possibilities that students would have if you gave them the assignment to create a motivator around the topic of civil rights.  While, being serious with a topic like civil rights is a must, these creations do not need to be.  You could just as easily assign your students a topic like study habits and have them create funny saying on how not to prepare for a test.  In both instances the project would serve a very real academic purpose and allow students the ability to express themselves in a new way.  If you have the chance definitely take the time to explore this website and some of the other great free features it offers.

 

Who am I?

In today's society that strives to have everything done as quickly as possible, I have decided to introduce myself to you all using the rules of twitter.  In under 140 characters I will attempt to let you all know something about me.  I used a program called Let Me Tweet That For You, that mimics twitter allowing you to fake tweet things without creating an actual account.  Enjoy this attempt to answer four simple questions.

 

Digital Portfolio

                As I thought about creating a digital portfolio I was filled with quite a bit of trepidation and anxiety.  I have purposefully not wanted a large footprint online because of being a male high school teacher.  Yet, as I examined different hosting sites I began to become truly excited about the possibilities that this type resource could provide.  I have carefully thought about each type of document and resource that I have included on this portfolio to show the best of what I as a teacher have to offer.  I choose to use the website About.Me to host my digital portfolio, because I found it to be very easy to use and provided the information I wanted to include in a clean and simple format.  My page showcases a number of lessons, units and projects that I have created throughout my teaching career.  This page, I hope, will become a digital resume for me as I look towards my future. 

                The first choice I made on my page was to not change the background image.  I experimented with different images of myself, but none of them conveyed the message that I wanted or distracted from my true purpose of the page.  Each of the links that I included was very purposefully chosen to highlight some aspect of my teaching.  Each unit I included, United Nations PBL and World War 1, provide anyone access to all the resources necessary to teach the unit.  These units show the emphasis I place on higher level thinking and the scaffolding that I provide throughout units to allow all my students to achieve to the best of their ability.  I did not provide editing privileges to these documents as I really just wanted people to view what I could bring to an educational team, not change the materials to fit their own classroom. 

                I next included two projects that I differentiated for students in my class.  The first is based on the abilities of the given student, and is the more traditional way to change an assignment for students.  The second project is one that I changed based on the students interests, and where based off of students responses to an interest survey that they took.  I found that with both assignments, the differentiation that I provided allowed for me to more accurately assess the student’s level of understanding and receive a higher level of participation.  The project based on interest provide amazing feedback as students were working around areas that they were really passionate about and put forth more effort than is typical on other types of assessments. 

                Finally, I included two assessments that show the type of work that I expect and how they allow for a genuine overview of students understanding.  The leveled assessment clearly demonstrates how students achieve and demonstrate their knowledge on a traditional test.  The video project was the culminating activity in which the students presented information in an interactive and creative video that was then sent to their parents.  This allowed for what was occurring in the classroom to be shared with others, and contribute to a community of learning.

                At the bottom of the page is the more traditional resume type information that employers or others would already have.  While obviously an important part of this digital portfolio, the main purpose of this site is to showcase my units, lessons and projects that actively engage students in diverse learning situations.  I really appreciated this opportunity to focus on building a dynamic site to showcase more of who I am as an educator.  As districts and companies shift more to Web 2.0, sites like this will perhaps become more common place and expected as people try to distinguish themselves and their abilities.