18/04/2011
Wow, so I just got through scouring the curriculum. Creative thinking is a key competency, but isn't explicitly an achievement objective in any of the curriculum areas... I bet that means it gets lost or only taught implictly most of the time.
Monday, 18 April 2011
Thursday, 14 April 2011
Maths Reflection
15/04/2011
Well, I taught the maths lesson...
Turns out leaving the kids to come up with their own creative ways of predicting patterns was a bit of a faliure. The kids basically copied the examples we had done on the board and together on the mat. There wasn't enough time for them to tet their theories, either.
Which leads me to three conclusions:
When working creatively in the classroom, you have to have time to try things out.
6 year olds are absorbing everything around them and interperating it. If you introduce a new idea, they have to have time to play with it.
There are DEFINITELY stages of creative process. And they can't be done at the same time.
The first stage is research of theory and ideas. The second is finding real world examples of those theories and ideas. The third is testing those theories and ideas in other situations, and looking at new ways to apply them. The fourth is adapting, changing or creating new theories/ideas.
What does this mean for me in the classroom?
Well, it's pretty simple. If I want to promote creative thinking in my classroom, I can't expect kids to come up with ideas without stimulation. I also have to know which stage I am at in the process of learning, and teach to that.
More later!
Well, I taught the maths lesson...
Turns out leaving the kids to come up with their own creative ways of predicting patterns was a bit of a faliure. The kids basically copied the examples we had done on the board and together on the mat. There wasn't enough time for them to tet their theories, either.
Which leads me to three conclusions:
When working creatively in the classroom, you have to have time to try things out.
6 year olds are absorbing everything around them and interperating it. If you introduce a new idea, they have to have time to play with it.
There are DEFINITELY stages of creative process. And they can't be done at the same time.
The first stage is research of theory and ideas. The second is finding real world examples of those theories and ideas. The third is testing those theories and ideas in other situations, and looking at new ways to apply them. The fourth is adapting, changing or creating new theories/ideas.
What does this mean for me in the classroom?
Well, it's pretty simple. If I want to promote creative thinking in my classroom, I can't expect kids to come up with ideas without stimulation. I also have to know which stage I am at in the process of learning, and teach to that.
More later!
Got it the wrong way round?
11/04/2011
I've been reading Jared Diamond's famous 1998 publication 'Guns, germs and steel.' In it he points out that inventions rarely happened the way we are told that they did. He discusses the fact that most inventions happen due to long processess of building on other people's ideas, and also that many landmark inventions were created without a purpose, and that a purpose was found for them later and the product was then refined for this. For example, James Watt was supposedly trying to come up with a better way of transporting goods than using horses. One day he watched the steam rise out of his kettle, and Eureka, he had the idea for the steam engine. Except it didn't work like that. His idea was a refinement of many steam engines and plans for steam engines before his - he instead created one that was more fit for a specific purpose than the others.
Considering that invention in a creative process, this thinking can be applied to all creative thinking.
That is - maybe creative thinking does not have to have a purpose. Maybe actually, creative thinking is not about problem solving, but instead about having orginal thoughts and contributing new perspectives for people tp build upon. Maybe your finished product will spark someone elses creativity.
I seem to have come full circle back to where I started - creative thinking for the sake of it. Purposeless, except to expand horizons.
Or maybe the ultimate purpose of creative thinking is new perspectives.
I have to admit, the previous theories I have read have seemed a bit eliteist to me. I think that any child can think creatively, even if what they deliver as a product from that is not a great leap forward in our collective thinking.
I think perhaps my new theory is this:
I've been reading Jared Diamond's famous 1998 publication 'Guns, germs and steel.' In it he points out that inventions rarely happened the way we are told that they did. He discusses the fact that most inventions happen due to long processess of building on other people's ideas, and also that many landmark inventions were created without a purpose, and that a purpose was found for them later and the product was then refined for this. For example, James Watt was supposedly trying to come up with a better way of transporting goods than using horses. One day he watched the steam rise out of his kettle, and Eureka, he had the idea for the steam engine. Except it didn't work like that. His idea was a refinement of many steam engines and plans for steam engines before his - he instead created one that was more fit for a specific purpose than the others.
Considering that invention in a creative process, this thinking can be applied to all creative thinking.
That is - maybe creative thinking does not have to have a purpose. Maybe actually, creative thinking is not about problem solving, but instead about having orginal thoughts and contributing new perspectives for people tp build upon. Maybe your finished product will spark someone elses creativity.
I seem to have come full circle back to where I started - creative thinking for the sake of it. Purposeless, except to expand horizons.
Or maybe the ultimate purpose of creative thinking is new perspectives.
I have to admit, the previous theories I have read have seemed a bit eliteist to me. I think that any child can think creatively, even if what they deliver as a product from that is not a great leap forward in our collective thinking.
I think perhaps my new theory is this:
- Creative thinking is a process of using tools and prior knowledge to discover and create new perspectives on a topic.
- No one person has the knowledge or ability to come up with a desirable product on their own. Creating desirable products is a collective process.
- Expanding on others' ideas is crucial to the collective development of desirable creative products.
- It's ok to teach creative thinking processes without following them through to the end.
- I need to encourage kids to be creative together! Often people jelously guard their 'creative' and 'original' ideas, in case other's copy them. But if we cannot be usefully creatve without others' input, we need to learn to work together.
5 Stages of Creativity
06/04/11
Another reading! (attached) This one identified 5 types or stages of creativity.
Where to start…
My conceptions of creativity before I started this project were firmly in the ‘expressive creativity’ camp. What I was hoping to teach children before I read this article was to reach the stage of ‘technical creativity’, with a vague hope that one child might present ‘Inventive’ or perhaps even ‘Innovative’ creative thought one day.
Some things I need to clear up in my own thinking:
• Creativity is not about being artistic
• Unique thought is subjective
This article makes more sense to me than the ‘genex’ theory, which is absolute in its terms of what is and is not creative thought. That doesn’t mean I’m throwing out the ‘genex’ theory as useful – but that I’d like to try and synthesise these ideas with it.
What this means for my teaching:I think that most of the time in primary school, I will be working in the ‘expressive’ realm, and hoping to help kids into the ‘technical’ realm by the end of their education. However, I believe that children can work in the ‘Inventive’ realm to some extent, with scaffolding – or at least learn tools to help them do this. Maybe even skills for ‘innovative’ creativity can be taught. ‘Emergentive’ creativity seems to me to be out of my grasp in a teaching role. This theory seems to set clear goals to work towards in creative thought.What next?I think the most useful thing for me to do in light of this understanding is to try to design some activities that teach tools for working in each of these stages. These activities should be purposeful, and potentially should work towards some kind of refining and sharing. A big challenge lies ahead.
Teachers conceptions of creativity.pdf
Another reading! (attached) This one identified 5 types or stages of creativity.
- Expressive creativity: as in the spontaneous drawings of a child. Involves instinct and impulsiveness; does not require any particular skill or originality.
- Technical creativity: as in the performance of a virtuoso musician. Comprises knowledge, skills and expertise. Implements ideas, methods or techniques that are new to the individual but not necessarily to the others.
- Inventive creativity: as in the printing press of Gutenberg. Consists of the use of existing ideas, materials, methods and techniques in new or unusual ways.
- Innovative creativity: as in the work of Copernicus who modified earlier theories and formulated his heliocentric cosmology.
Involves conceptualizing skills and the extension of existing ideas, methods, principles, and techniques. - Emergentive creativity: as in the work of Freud. Includes the most abstract theories or assumptions around which new schools of thought, movements and the like can flourish.
Where to start…
My conceptions of creativity before I started this project were firmly in the ‘expressive creativity’ camp. What I was hoping to teach children before I read this article was to reach the stage of ‘technical creativity’, with a vague hope that one child might present ‘Inventive’ or perhaps even ‘Innovative’ creative thought one day.
Some things I need to clear up in my own thinking:
• Creativity is not about being artistic
• Unique thought is subjective
This article makes more sense to me than the ‘genex’ theory, which is absolute in its terms of what is and is not creative thought. That doesn’t mean I’m throwing out the ‘genex’ theory as useful – but that I’d like to try and synthesise these ideas with it.
What this means for my teaching:I think that most of the time in primary school, I will be working in the ‘expressive’ realm, and hoping to help kids into the ‘technical’ realm by the end of their education. However, I believe that children can work in the ‘Inventive’ realm to some extent, with scaffolding – or at least learn tools to help them do this. Maybe even skills for ‘innovative’ creativity can be taught. ‘Emergentive’ creativity seems to me to be out of my grasp in a teaching role. This theory seems to set clear goals to work towards in creative thought.What next?I think the most useful thing for me to do in light of this understanding is to try to design some activities that teach tools for working in each of these stages. These activities should be purposeful, and potentially should work towards some kind of refining and sharing. A big challenge lies ahead.
Teachers conceptions of creativity.pdf
Measuring Creativity
06/04/11
Just read an article on "how to measure creativity" (It is attached below).
The authors chose to judge creativity via 'uniqueness of response'.
Their findings:
Asking people to think creatively is more likely to garner unique results.
Under these circumstances, outside subjective judgments as to the uniqueness of an idea tend to be reliable.
What does this mean for my teaching?
Well, it does raise a new question for me - should I be trying to measure children's creative ability? If so, how can I do this? Would it be useful?
Is uniqueness the most desirable creative outcome in the classroom? I guess it could be in some circumstances, but an understanding of conventions are important too - it is much easier to be 'unique' when one understands conventions.
Also, if a child is unable to grasp conventional ways of doing, say, maths, or thinking about scientific fact, is that going to cause them problems in life?
Seems to me that uniqueness of response is only useful when the person judging that response understands the uniqueness of the idea (which they can only do if they understand the conventions surrounding the topic). A person could be coming up with unique ideas all day long, but unless they can identify the value in them, then it seems to me that they are meaningless.
However, I suppose that by explicitly asking people to 'be creative', you will in fact be assessing their understanding of the conventions. We can see this in children all the time - they often think they are the first person to even come up with an idea or joke, but adults recognise these as derivative or already in use, or even not useful (i.e., claiming that ice is made of rats may be original, but it isn't helpful in any way).
So it seems that teaching conventions may be vital to having useful creative thoughts. However, does teaching conventions in fact restrict thinking to conventional lines of thought?
I suppose that this is the reason we have to teach creative strategies alongside research.
Questions going forward:
Is creativity measurable?
How does one balance teaching conventions with teaching creative thought?
Assessing creativity.pdf
Just read an article on "how to measure creativity" (It is attached below).
The authors chose to judge creativity via 'uniqueness of response'.
Their findings:
Asking people to think creatively is more likely to garner unique results.
Under these circumstances, outside subjective judgments as to the uniqueness of an idea tend to be reliable.
What does this mean for my teaching?
Well, it does raise a new question for me - should I be trying to measure children's creative ability? If so, how can I do this? Would it be useful?
Is uniqueness the most desirable creative outcome in the classroom? I guess it could be in some circumstances, but an understanding of conventions are important too - it is much easier to be 'unique' when one understands conventions.
Also, if a child is unable to grasp conventional ways of doing, say, maths, or thinking about scientific fact, is that going to cause them problems in life?
Seems to me that uniqueness of response is only useful when the person judging that response understands the uniqueness of the idea (which they can only do if they understand the conventions surrounding the topic). A person could be coming up with unique ideas all day long, but unless they can identify the value in them, then it seems to me that they are meaningless.
However, I suppose that by explicitly asking people to 'be creative', you will in fact be assessing their understanding of the conventions. We can see this in children all the time - they often think they are the first person to even come up with an idea or joke, but adults recognise these as derivative or already in use, or even not useful (i.e., claiming that ice is made of rats may be original, but it isn't helpful in any way).
So it seems that teaching conventions may be vital to having useful creative thoughts. However, does teaching conventions in fact restrict thinking to conventional lines of thought?
I suppose that this is the reason we have to teach creative strategies alongside research.
Questions going forward:
Is creativity measurable?
How does one balance teaching conventions with teaching creative thought?
Assessing creativity.pdf
Thinking Creatively in maths!
06/04/2011
So, yesterday at my Tuesday school I ran a maths lesson, and I didn’t feel it went very well.
On the bright side, I get to teach the same lesson to a different group next week. So, I spent some time today working on the lesson plan, trying to make it work better.
The lesson is about figuring out strategies for predicting patterns. The first time I taught it, I tried to guide the kids step by step through each strategy, eliciting ideas from them, but supporting them through each one. At the end, I didn’t feel that any of the kids had actually learned anything. Mainly, I didn’t feel that any of them built any solid links.
Next time, I am going to let them spread their creative wings a bit more, and come up with their strategies in groups without my help, and then get them to explain it to the whole group.
I’ll do a diagnostic first, to help me figure out the groups. I want to put anyone who is really far ahead into their own group to make sure that they will be challenged. And then I want to mix up the other groups so that the lower level kids are being guided by the slightly higher level kids.
This is, of course, what Peter has been talking about in our Maths class, so it will be interesting to try it out. But what I’m especially stoked with is how this lesson fits in with so many of the ideas about creativity I expressed in my last blog post.
Children will use creative thinking in this task:
• To find solutions (strategies to predict patterns)
• To approach an unfamiliar problem and find ways to solve it
• Access ideas that they have not experienced (? Maybe they will come up with the idea of using multiples)
• Understand that there are many perspectives from which to approach an idea or problem (ideas will be shared)
• Judge which idea is the most effective (after the initial group work, students will be asked to choose a strategy and solve the next problem)
This lesson also taps into the ‘genex’ theory of creative thinking:
Collect: We will practice skip counting, times tables and counting on before hand. We must also have our background knowledge well established – e.g. ordinal nature of numbers, how to skip count etc.
Relate: Strategies will be devised alongside peers
Create: Solutions will be recorded
Donate: Ideas will be shared with the group, for them to judge and use.
Of course, the lesson is also in line with co-constructivist thought.
I’m now really excited to see if this works. If it does, I will look at maths in a whole new light!
(The full lesson is attached for you to download if you wish)
Plan for 120411.docx
Large number chart.docx
Sheet 1 advanced.docx
Sheet 2 standard.docx
So, yesterday at my Tuesday school I ran a maths lesson, and I didn’t feel it went very well.
On the bright side, I get to teach the same lesson to a different group next week. So, I spent some time today working on the lesson plan, trying to make it work better.
The lesson is about figuring out strategies for predicting patterns. The first time I taught it, I tried to guide the kids step by step through each strategy, eliciting ideas from them, but supporting them through each one. At the end, I didn’t feel that any of the kids had actually learned anything. Mainly, I didn’t feel that any of them built any solid links.
Next time, I am going to let them spread their creative wings a bit more, and come up with their strategies in groups without my help, and then get them to explain it to the whole group.
I’ll do a diagnostic first, to help me figure out the groups. I want to put anyone who is really far ahead into their own group to make sure that they will be challenged. And then I want to mix up the other groups so that the lower level kids are being guided by the slightly higher level kids.
This is, of course, what Peter has been talking about in our Maths class, so it will be interesting to try it out. But what I’m especially stoked with is how this lesson fits in with so many of the ideas about creativity I expressed in my last blog post.
Children will use creative thinking in this task:
• To find solutions (strategies to predict patterns)
• To approach an unfamiliar problem and find ways to solve it
• Access ideas that they have not experienced (? Maybe they will come up with the idea of using multiples)
• Understand that there are many perspectives from which to approach an idea or problem (ideas will be shared)
• Judge which idea is the most effective (after the initial group work, students will be asked to choose a strategy and solve the next problem)
This lesson also taps into the ‘genex’ theory of creative thinking:
Collect: We will practice skip counting, times tables and counting on before hand. We must also have our background knowledge well established – e.g. ordinal nature of numbers, how to skip count etc.
Relate: Strategies will be devised alongside peers
Create: Solutions will be recorded
Donate: Ideas will be shared with the group, for them to judge and use.
Of course, the lesson is also in line with co-constructivist thought.
I’m now really excited to see if this works. If it does, I will look at maths in a whole new light!
(The full lesson is attached for you to download if you wish)
Plan for 120411.docx
Large number chart.docx
Sheet 1 advanced.docx
Sheet 2 standard.docx
What is creative thinking?
03/04/2011
Ok, here is my first brainstorm on what creative thinking is about:
What is the purpose of creative thinking?
• To entertain through surprise
• To find solutions (where others have failed?)
• To be able to approach a problem in which you have no background, and propose ways to solve it.
• To access ideas that you have not experienced.
• To apply an idea in a way in which you have not experienced it being applied.
• Breaking down imagined barriers and recognizing when conventions are able to be broken.
• Understanding that there are many perspectives from which to approach an idea or problem, and having the tools with which to access those perspectives (even if they are unfamiliar to you),
• and the ability to judge which of those perspectives will be most effective in producing the desired outcome.
That's all I have for now, although I'll try to revisit this soon and see if any of these ideas are useful in the classroom. I'll also try to find some scholarly thoughts about it.
Ciao!
Ok, here is my first brainstorm on what creative thinking is about:
What is the purpose of creative thinking?
• To entertain through surprise
• To find solutions (where others have failed?)
• To be able to approach a problem in which you have no background, and propose ways to solve it.
• To access ideas that you have not experienced.
• To apply an idea in a way in which you have not experienced it being applied.
• Breaking down imagined barriers and recognizing when conventions are able to be broken.
• Understanding that there are many perspectives from which to approach an idea or problem, and having the tools with which to access those perspectives (even if they are unfamiliar to you),
• and the ability to judge which of those perspectives will be most effective in producing the desired outcome.
That's all I have for now, although I'll try to revisit this soon and see if any of these ideas are useful in the classroom. I'll also try to find some scholarly thoughts about it.
Ciao!
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