After viewing these very different videos, I feel I have learned so much more and seen so many different viewpoints. Ken Robinson lays the groundwork with his video focused on "Creativity". His believe that we "get educated out of creativity", and that "creativity is as important as literacy" goes counter-intuitive to what our current education system emphasizes. That said, with CCSS we are shifting to a new way of teaching. The teacher is the facilitator of knowledge, there is not always one right answer, and there are many different ways of solving a problem, understanding a piece of text.
The CAASPP highlights there is not always one right answer, and the importance of reasoning which is new and different, can be a form of creativity. A student can get the answer to a math problem wrong, but if they can reason why they got the answer they did, then they can receive credit. This to me is progression toward what Ken Robinson is saying. In Daniel Pink's The Science of Motivation video, he discusses that importance of intrinsic motivation and the idea of looking at things on the periphery. The Carrot and stick doesn't work, and with globalization changing what is classified as a "white collar job" we have to teach our student's that there is not just one track. When looking at the candle problem, being able to turn it on it's head and think about something that might not be right there in front of you is VERY powerful. This lends itself to the inquiry based learning we are striving for as a district. But, how can you craft this learning, make it powerful and hold student's accountable? This is the balance I feel like I need to find. There is something to Google's 20% time, where they give their engineers one day a week to work on something outside of their job description. This is where Google Drive came from. The idea that there are some "Must Dos", but then you are able to work on some "May Dos", and if structured correctly that is where the creativity comes in. To bring it home John Seeley Brown talks about the Blended Epistemology: Homo sapiens (Man as knower) and Homo Faber (Man as maker). He states meaning emerges as much from context as content. Our context used to be relatively stable, and now it isn't with our new world of social media. He uses Blogging as an example of how it can change the context. We consume information in a new, different way. Our students are being raised in a world where there is not just one word, message; they too can craft their own context, which can change the content. It is not just Man as knower, and man as maker, Brown introduces that idea of Homo Ludens (Man as player). Currently, I am working on developing a Maker Space for my child's elementary school. There is such power in this maker's movement. This drives home the idea that Brown is highlight a new type of "deep tinkering" that plays with change. Knowing, Making, playing cultivates imagination. This theory puts into context for me the importance of this "play" aspect. Again, this lends itself to the inquiry based. We are all looking at the content, but how can we shift the context and allow student's the imaginative opportunity to "play" and come up with a potentially different outcome. The Entrepreneur spirit is a Must have vs. a nice to have to be successful in our new, changing world. Cultivating that is key! Lastly, there are Mobley's 6 insights. How can that help my student's think creatively? It really summarizes all the content we looked at in this class. Touching back to Robinson's sentiments, Mobley states that creativity is "unlearning rather than a learning process". This also touches back to Pink's thoughts on seeing the periphery vs. what is right in front of you. You can't learn it, you have to BECOME it. He also states the importance of failing-you have to be wrong to understand what went wrong and how to come about it in a different way. In my current position I do a lot of work with teacher's professional learning. One of the big ways we have shifted how we are thinking is less sit and get, spray and pray, and more processing and application time. As teacher's we need to plan out the journey for student's to be creative. This needs to be done explicitly. Project learning can go wrong when there isn't a plan. Need to knows NEED to be revisited, they need to be crafted with focus, and student's need tight learning objectives. They need to know the confines so that they can then be creative in how they learn. There needs to be that balance.
1 Comment
Zack
11/6/2016 03:17:22 pm
Striking a balance as you state, while confining the need to knows to a point that is helpful is really the challenge. As teachers we need to know about the destination and path of our students' learning. This essential of 21st century instruction seems to be limited by our own bias and paradigm. How can teachers be expected to keep up with these new ways of approaching learning, while they also need to engage in a life of meaningful self-inquiry. I've found a divide when working with teacher colleagues, some are innovative and understand that their epistemological understanding is just that, their's.. But, others cannot release hold on the modernist view that facts, knowledge and ideas are static. As a post-modern thinker, I was excited to read/watch the material, but I can imagine the dread others feel as they're asked to grow beyond themselves. Seems to me we need professional development to move from modernity into the post-modern world we live in.
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