Shows how something extraordinary can be achieved, provided we have some more time. :-)
Beth Dichter's insight:
How do you teach creativity? This video may not show how but it does let us know that to be creative takes time. In just over 2 minutes see the difference when assigning a task for a short period of time or for a more extended period of time. If we want our students to be creative we need to give them the time to BE creative. The question is, where do we find this time?
"We recently discovered the Bay Area’s Prospect Sierra School’s interesting learning model that prioritizes 6 ideas for learning in the 21st century. There is, of course, no single “best” way to pursue “21st century learning”–nor any learning at all for that matter. But seeing the way other inspired educators pursue the idea can teach each one of us a lot. In this model, we appreciate the inclusion of self-knowledge, as well as moving past the idea of content to true disciplinary knowledge–seeing knowledge in context and application."
Beth Dichter's insight:
This post shares another visual that provides one model of learning in the 21st century. Specifically, it prioritizes six ideas:
* Disciplinary Knowledge - "Build and apply content knowledge to think deeply and act as a practitioner of the discipline"
* Self-Knowledge - "Experiment and create, while embracing failure as an opportunity for growth in order to design new ideas and solutions."
* Innovation Creation - "Recognize one’s emotional, physical, and learning needs, strengths, and challenges to nurture personal growth and resilience"
* Collaboration - "Share knowledge and resources, building on a diversity of ideas and experiences to achieve group goals and interdependence"
* Responsibility - "Understand one’s impact and influence in a local and global community; cultivate compassion, and take positive action"
* Communication - "Express ideas effectively through varied means of presentation; understand one’s audiences, actively listen; and build connection"
Additional information on each of these six ideas is included in the post.
"What insights would you gain if you asked 13 innovators (architects, artists, engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs and a media savvy baker) what they would urge educators and parents to do to best develop the next generation of innovators and creative thinkers?"
Beth Dichter's insight:
This post shares 12 insights from a variety of innovators. What are some of their ideas? (Ideas below quoted from the post)
* Realize that Out of School time tends to be more inspiring and powerful ...
* Provide unique Experiences that surprise and allow children to see things from new perspectives...
* Refining the skill of Asking Questions is the fuel that ignites innovators...
The post includes some sharing of how innovators explored in their own unique ways as children. You will also find one short video of an innovator sharing their story as well as a link to eleven videos from the conference Innovators to Educators. This post may bring some fresh ideas to use with students of all ages.
Race to the Top demands that we prepare learners to be innovative creators. Wouldn't it be fabulous to have this type of training happening in PD and classrooms?
If your goal is to teach 21st century skills you need to define the skills and the decide how to teach them. And if your goal is to use multimedia you have already set some parameters. This post explores one way to organize the skills with the ability to create multimedia. The specific skills are:
"Rethinking Innovation. Does it just come or can we inspire it?"
Beth Dichter's insight:
Does innovation come from within, or are there ways we can help inspire our students? This infographic provides 27 suggestions that you might try in your classroom. Do you have anything that works well for you that is not included? If so please share it!
Interesting that this inforgraphic chose to put thinking "outside of the box" inside boxes, but in general the idea is important for us to remember. When facilitating a class encourage buy in from the students, encourage them to exercise their minds and be creative!
How do you actually ensure students learn while creating and exploring? Here are four different tips from Shawn McCusker that should keep learning rolling along.
Beth Dichter's insight:
As we move to the Common Core and we look at the Depth of Knowledge that will be required for our students it is clear that the need for our students to create is critical. This post starts with the following sentence:
"When was the last time your students said “Wow, that worksheet changed my life”? Can you even remember a similar cookie cutter classroom activity or assignment from your days as a student? Yet they were a popular tool because they were structured and efficient in getting the class to a set finish point."
After presenting "the exploding volcano project" the post turns to four strategies. The short hand version is below. Click through to the post for additional information.
1. Start with your specific learning objective.
2. The idea to be expressed comes before the tool used to express it.
3. Make asking "How will this show mastery of the learning objective?" your classroom mantra.
4. Engage in evaluating the PROCESS of creation and not just grading the finished project.
There is also an example a learning objective and a project that one student submitted.
"One overriding challenge is now coming to the fore in public consciousness: We need to reinvent just about everything. Whether scientific advances, technology breakthroughs, new political and economic structures, environmental solutions, or an updated code of ethics for 21st century life, everything is in flux—and everything demands innovative, out of the box thinking."
Beth Dichter's insight:
What comes to mind when you think of the word innovation? And if we apply innovation in education what are your thoughts? The Common Core informs us that we should be teaching creativity, curiosity, critical thinking, and more. If we look at innovation we meet these criteria. This post provides 10 ideas. Many of the ideas on the post provide links to additional resources.
This post begins "The common understanding is that if students work hard in school they earn "A’s." For many however, there is a much straighter route to that "A." Some of the most creative learners are able to figure out what the course expectations are and do the minimum to meet them, and get the grade they want."
What happens to students that are bored with the curriculum? What would happen if we moved away from grades, and replaced them with badges? It turns out that there is evidence from a July 2012 report called "Do Schools Challenge Our Students?"
This report states "Many schools are not challenging students and large percentages of students report that their work is 'too easy.'"
The post also provides some statistical information.
The final portion looks at badges vs grades. It notes that switching from "traditional letter grades or percentage grades to badges signifying achievement could open up many possibilities for a more fine-grained tracking of student progress, address some of the criticisms regarding schools not teaching concrete skills, and motivate students to learn" (with additional information also included). As the Common Core becomes a driving force behind public education it will be interesting to see how the issue of badges vs grades play out.
Check out this post (and the embedded YouTube video) where a 7 year old (who wants" to study robotics at MIT and become a theoretical theorist") designs a Rube Goldberg machine to trap a monster. His description of a Rube Goldberg machine is "a machine that creates a complicated chain reaction to do a simple task." Using a wide variety of materials, including marbles, tubing, pencils, a toaster, books, balls, a paper roll and more he shows us his creativity and ingenuity...as well as resilience. He also shows an understanding of the scientific method, sharing his hypothesis and more. I suspect that many will share this video with others in their schools.
This post begins with a quote from President Obama:
"“The quality of math and science teachers is the most important single factor influencing whether students will succeed or fail in science, technology, engineering and math.” From this point it veers in a different direction, noting that the issue is that teachers "are not given the freedom to support children in ways that will produce the scientists and innovators our country needs."
If we look to our past (and our present) we will find that we are not listening to the advice that "our nation's historic inventors, scientists, and physicists (whom have shared) their advice and experiences."
Read the article to learn the experiences of Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Richard Feyman, Michio Kaku (which includes a video where he explains "that exams are crushing curiousity out of the next generation..."), as well as individuals around today such as Aaron Iba and Jack Andraka (the student who at the age of 15 created a test for pancreatic cancer).
Perhaps the question we need to ask is how do we change the system to support the necessary learning?
Click closer to scan this sketch and you just might learn something new. If anything, you’ll get a peek into the value of what a “graphic facilitator” can provide to a discussion....
A look at some "big-picture ideas" that may help you think about ways to bring new tools and innovations into your classroom. Each idea (listed below) provides a link to more information.
According to the Buck Institute for Education a project is meaningful when it fulfills two criteria. The students “must perceive it as personally meaningful, as a task that matters…and a meaningful project fulfills an educational purpose.” This PDF provides 8 essential components to create meaningful projects. Each is explained using an example of a project with suggestions on how to make the project more robust.
"High school history has a tremendous obstacle to learning — getting students enthusiastic about reading difficult texts. When I teach World History to my 9th graders, I have come up with a list of 6 common challenges I face when trying teach reading comprehension. Here’s a glimpse into how I meet these 6 challenges and help my students win!"
Beth Dichter's insight:
Vicki Davis shares her insights in working with students on informational text, specifically in history (but applicable to other subjects).
The infographic located in this posts looks at six challenges that students may face, and provides insights that you may use to meet them with your students.They six challenges are listed below, with additional detail found in the post.
1. Did the student read the text?
2. Did the student comprehend the text?
3. Where does the student struggle?
4. How can you give meaningful feedback to the students?
5. How can you get meaningful data to help your whole class?
6. How do I align this with standards?
Then Davis raises an important question: "So now, how do we meet these challenges and teach nonfiction text, put questions in the text, improve the questions, personalize learning AND align with standards?"
She provides the answer by introducing a website that is new to me, Actively Learn. Davis provides a great review of the site and shares what she sees and pros and cons. There is a freemium version and a paid version, so you may choose to try it out and see how it works.
Reading comprehension is so important. There are so many children who can decode brilliantly but have difficulty with comprehending...an essential part of reading. Good tips.
"Recently I participated in a discussion on 21st century skills where one educator posed the question 'can you teach 21st century skills without technology?'"
Beth Dichter's insight:
Think about the skills that are defined as 21st century skills:
* collaboration
* communication
* critical thinking and problem solving
* creativity and innovation
Are these skills that can be taught without technology? If we look to the past, we would answer yes, they are skills that can be taught without technology.
We are often asked to teach these skills today with technology. What if we introduce these skills with technology, providing students the opportunity to collaborate and learn how to effectively communicate face-to-face, learn about visual cues and more. This post explores how each of these skills may be taught without technology. You can take the information and consider how to them augment the skills with technology to help your students deepen their understanding.
"Welcome to a post devoted to turning STEM to STEAM. It is exciting to cover the topic of STEAM since it is important to include the Arts. I have also included 25 resources to help make it happen!..."
Beth Dichter's insight:
Take STEM, add A for Art, and you get STEAM. As this post states, if you think of Leonardo di Vinci and his work this is a logical connection. This post discusses why adding the A for Art is important and the changes that may happen because of it, such as more innovation and creativity.
The list of resources includes links for all five letters and chances are you will find a few that you may not have checked out. Below are five of the resources listed...but click through to see the rest, and all are hot linked in the post. (Most tools listed are free but a few have costs.)
* Cardboard Challenge
* Why Scientific Innovation Needs the Arts
* PBS Learning Makers Party
* Odyssey of the Mind
* The Arts Institute of Chicago
Have fun exploring this diverse set of STEAM resources!
"I’ve been doing some thinking about how to best define innovation in education. I’ve been reading a lot of mission statements lately for schools and districts and keep finding the word “innovative” used, yet little sign of practices in the objectives, tactics and goals to back this up. The tactics and action plan seem to be oriented towards producing test scores and the practices seem 20th century at best."
Beth Dichter's insight:
Nancy White looks at definitions that businesses use to define innovative and then looks at how education defines innovation. Here is one of her statements:
"In education, innovation often results when ideas are applied to satisfy the needs and expectations of the students."
Take the time to click through to the post and read her other statements and then ask yourself 'Am I innovative? Is my classroom innovative? My school?" or "What changes need to be made to make my teaching, my classroom or my school innovative?"
What are the top ten skills that are needed in the workplace today? The University of Phoenix has published this infographic that provides a look at the top ten skills as well as information on how to acquire the skills. Are you providing your students the opportunity to learn and/or practice these skills?
These skills make a lot of sense and all tend to be included in education, right now. In addition to learning the standard topics, most educational establishments incude socio-cultural, moral and practical lessons for students to be able to cope with life in the 21st century.
Every opera you’ve ever heard, every painting you’ve ever admired is reducible to chemical signaling in the composer’s or artist’s brain.
Beth Dichter's insight:
"America grew not just because of its industrial base but also thanks to its inventors and thinkers: Thomas Edison, Jonas Salk, Steve Jobs. Our future lies that way too. Working with the Motion Picture Association of America and Microsoft, TIME polled Americans about creativity in the workplace, schools and government. Does the U.S. still have the juice to be a global leader in innovation? Is our creativity being harnessed at work?"
This infographic shares results of this survey. Do you think American is the world leader in creativity? Do you think creativity is supported in schools or at work? If you would like to see the questions there is a slideshow located at http://business.time.com/2013/04/26/the-time-creativity-poll/
For some time now, the education community has discussed and explored how to get out of the standardized-testing rut and make learning enjoyable again. Online games and challenges, real-world work, and point systems have been a few of the ideas kicked around by educators and tech-enthusiasts alike. Earlier this school year, a New York Times article highlighted the benefits of using digital badges to enable students, including those writing their college-admission essays, to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.
Beth Dichter's insight:
The Smithsonian has amazing resources that are free and this is just one. This is a new program, designed for students K-12, that is online and awards digital badges. What can your students do?
* Explore the world outside the classroom.
* Do real-world work
* Make connections across the curriculum
* Build 21st century skills
* Foster self-directed learning
* Know the environment is kid-safe
This post provides additional information as well as a video that describes this resource. Currently there are 16 badges (with more to be added). To go directly to the website click this link:
"Who knew a YouTube video of a nine-year old boy's cardboard creation would hit such a nerve?" This post updates us on what has happened since Caine's Arcade went viral. The videographer who made Caine's Arcade provides a look at what his cardboard creation has moved others to create. Caine is also in this video sharing his thoughts, including "the three biggest lessons he's learned in the process of this adventure" (quoted below):
Are you looking for ways to foster creativity in your classroom? This post provides some history about the nature of creativity and shares how beliefs have shifted over time. If innovation and creativty is a key component of what students need to learn then how can we go about doing a better job teaching it. A few of the suggestions are below (quoted from the article, although each has additional information).
* Embrace creativity as part of learning.
* Participate in or create a program to develop creative skills.
* Use a creativity model. (Note - one is suggested that has six steps).
* See creativity in a positive light.
* Explore different cultures.
An additional 25 suggestions may be found in the post as well as links to many resources.
"Can creativity be taught? If innovation is truly the key to this country’s success, then it’s time to think strategically about engendering creativity into our education system."
It reviews a new book, 'Ingenius: A Crash Course in Creativity.' The author, Tina Seelig, discusses her 'celebrated Innovation Engine' which consists of 'three internal human factors and three external influences.
The three interal human factors are:
* Knowledge which provides fuel for your imagination
* Imagination which is the catalyst for transforming knowledge into ideas
* Attitude - the spark that set the Innovation Engine in motion
For information on the three external influences as well as using failure to learn click through to the article.
When we speak of 21st century learning we often hear the words innovation and creativity...but what can we do as educators to help our students develop these skills. How can we make our schools bcome idea factories for our students? Below is a list of 8 ideas. For more information click through to the article.
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