cultivating creativity in our schools acamis guangzhou 2015

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Cultivatin g Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

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Page 1: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Cultivating Creativity

in our Schools

ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Page 2: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

For more conversation:

Rick Wormeli703-620-2447

[email protected]@rickwormeli2 (Twitter)

Page 3: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

q

c d

p

Which letter does not

belong, and why?

Page 4: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.” -- Tom Robbins

Page 5: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Processing Activity: “I used to

think…, but now I think…”

Page 6: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

In order for someone to accept feedback or take a risk with your new idea, he must admit first what he

was doing was less effective than he thought it

was.

Page 7: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

We are hired for how we are similar to a company, but we advance based on

how we are different.

Page 8: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Consider: Rhodes Scholarship Candidate struggles

Page 9: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Transcend formulaic responses.

“Please paint the transit buses in an interesting way that breathes a little more

life into our city.”

Page 10: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Video: When There is a Correct Answer

Page 11: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Our future depends on this one here.

Page 12: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Tenets:

A. It takes creative and critical thinking to achieve standards.

B. Thoughtful classrooms create thoughtful students. We do not get creative students from non-creative classrooms.

C. Students who think creatively and critically perform better on tests, standardized or not.

Page 13: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

If we find ways for colleagues and ourselvesto experience curiosity, awe, induction,

deduction, analysis, synthesis, resilience, empathy, extrapolation, juxtaposition, and

other mental dexterities in their own development, they are better thinkers of our

discipline. They can solve their own problems, connect with others and among ideas,

innovate their way to meaningful contributions, and persevere in the midst of challenge.

Page 14: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

”All thinking begins with wonder.”-- Socrates

Our job is not to make up anybody’s mind, but to open minds and to make the agony of decision-making so intense you can escape only by thinking.” - Fred Friendly, broadcaster

Page 15: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Create a sense of wonder!

•Verbs•Pronouns•Newton’s Laws•Put on Scuba Gear and climb out of an eyeball•Velcro props •Compare Not-so- Pretend Constitutions

Page 16: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Embrace the fact that, “[l]earning is fundamentally an act of creation, not consumption of information.”

-- Sharon L. Bowman, Professional Trainer

Page 17: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

What Could We Do If We Were Creative

Together?

Page 18: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

(Sampling from Innocentive.com, page 1, downloaded June 24, 2012)Seeking Orthogonally Functionalized CyclobutanesNavigating the Inside of an Egg Without Damaging ItCleveland Clinic: Method to Reconnect Two Tissues Without Using SuturesSeeking 1H-pyrazolo[3,4-b]pyridin-3-amidesSynthetic Route to a BenzazepinoneMy Air, My Health: An HHS/EPA ChallengeMechanistic Proposals for a Vanadium-Catalyzed Addition of NMO to ImidazopyridazinesSeeking Highest and Best Commercial Application for Breakthrough Innovation in Building Technology/Structural OptimizationDesafio da Educação: Como atrair pessoas talentosas para se tornar professor na rede pública brasileira

Page 19: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

“The problem solvers...were most effective when working at the margins of their fields….While these people were close enough to understand the challenges, they weren’t so close that their knowledge held them back and cause them to run into the same stumbling blocks as the corporate scientists.” (p. 121, Lehrer)

Check out InnoCentive at www.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/browse

What would this look like in education?

Page 20: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Could you teach the differences between architecture in the Middle Ages and architecture in the

Renaissance period in such a classroom?

Page 21: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

How about the principles of algebra here?

Page 22: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Information Age is old school. We’re in the High Concept Age, and we have the tech to pursue it:

Twitter and other social mediaDaily newspapers downloaded for analysisMuseum school partnerships and Virtual ToursQR codes attached to classroom activitiesStudent-designed appsKhan Academy and similar on-line tutorialsGraduation in four states now requires one course taken completely on-lineGoogle DocsGoogle Glass/Eyes – wearables, implantables, augments

Page 23: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

MOOCS – Massive Open On-line Course Crowd-Sourcing MIT Open Courseware TED talks and ed.Ted.com Screencasts (ex. Camtasia Studio) Voicethread Moodle PBL’s Prezi iMovie Edmodo

Page 24: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015
Page 25: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Make it fun.Fun Theory --

Ice Skater –http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bt1xm4w_CM

Page 26: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

“We went to school. We were not taught how to think; we were taught to reproduce what past thinkers thought….Instead of being taught to look for possibilities, we were taught to exclude them. It’s as if we entered school as a question mark and graduated as a period.”

-- Michael Michalko, Creative Thinkering,

2011, p. 3

Page 27: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

It’s not an answer chase.

Consider:

Page 28: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

It’s a question journey.

Page 29: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

“Do they know how to ask good questions?”

-- Tony Wagner, The Global Achievement Gap, 2008

Page 30: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Techniques and Elements that Cultivate Creativity

Page 31: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Creativity is making connections between dissimilar things in such

a way as to create something new.

It’s often about recombining old ideas and things for new

purposes or perspectives.

Page 32: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

From Professor Alane Starko in her book, Creativity in the Classroom:

Gutenberg developed the idea of movable type by looking at the way coins were stamped.Eli Whitney said he developed the idea for the cotton gin while watching a cat trying to catch a chicken through a fence.

Page 33: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Pasteur began to understand the mechanisms of infection by seeing similarities between infected wounds and fermenting grapes.

Einstein used moving trains to gain insight into relationships

in time and space.

Page 34: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

“Consider Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. He did not invent the concepts of energy, mass, or speed of light. Rather he combined these ideas in a new and useful way.”

-- Michael, Michalko, Creative Thinkering, Machalko, 2011, p. xvii,

Page 35: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Combination and Re-Combinination

• Hall duty and Teacher Advisory• Service Learning and Students in danger of

dropping out• Miniature Golf and lesson sequence• Students’ cafeteria behavior and architecture• Unmotivated faculty and farming, astronomy,

or marble tabletops. • Parental involvement and medicine

Page 36: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Grades are compensation.communication.

Page 37: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Tomlinson: “If I laid out on my kitchen counter raw hamburger meat still in its Styrofoam container, cans of tomatoes and beans, jars of spices, an onion, and a bulb of garlic [and told guests to eat heartily]….My error would be that I confused ingredients for dinner with dinner itself.”

Page 38: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Tomlinson: “One can make many different dishes with the same ingredients, by changing proportions, adding new ingredients, using the same ingredients in different ways, and so on.”

Page 39: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

“Creativity is making mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

- Scott Adams, The Book of Positive Quotations

Page 40: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Doubt

Our greatest Compass Rose:

Page 41: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

“It’s not what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure that ain’t so.”

- Mark Twain

Page 42: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Writer and educator, Margaret Wheatley, is correct:

“We can’t be creative unless we’re willing to be confused.”

Page 43: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Do I dare disturb the universe?

Page 44: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Teams and individuals need

clear vision for how to fail, even

in multiple attempts, before succeeding. Be realistic: “Wow,

this is taking longer than I

thought it would,” and constructive, “That’s one thing

I’ll never forget the next time I do

this!”

Page 45: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Taking Positive Risks

“The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does.”

-- Herbert Prochnow

“If I had been a kid in my class today, would I want to come back tomorrow?”

-- Elsbeth Murphy

“Nothing ventured, something lost.” -- Roland Barth

Page 46: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Negating Students’ Incorrect Responses While Keeping Them in the Conversation

• Act interested, “Tell me more about that…”• Empathy and Sympathy: “I used to think that, too,” or “I

understand how you could conclude that…”• Alter the reality:

-- Change the question so that the answer is correct-- That’s the answer for the question I’m about to ask

-- When student claims he doesn’t know, ask, “If you DID know, what would you say?”

Page 47: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Negating Students’ Incorrect Responses and While Them in the Conversation

• Affirm risk-taking• Allow the student more time or to ask for

assistance• Focus on the portions that are correct

Remember: Whoever is responding to students is processing the information and learning. Who, then, should be responding to students in the classroom? Students.

Page 48: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Tenets for a Positive Culture for Failure

• Academic struggle is virtuous, not weakness.• Failure can teach us in ways consistent success

cannot. • Initial failure followed by responsive teaching that

helps students revise thinking results in greater long-term retention of content.

Page 49: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

…comment on decisions made and their impact,

NOT quality of work.

When providing descriptive feedback that builds creativity

and perseverance,

Page 50: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

The amount of risk someone takes in the work place is directly proportional to his sense of strong relationship with the person in charge.

Page 51: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Re-Do’s & Re-Takes with

students and their teachers:

Are They Okay?

More than “okay!” After 10,000 tries, here’s a working light bulb. ‘Any questions?

Thomas Edison

Page 52: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

F.A.I.L.

First Attempt in Learning

Page 53: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Recovering in full from a failure teaches more than being labeled for failure ever could teach.

It’s a false assumption that giving a student an “F” or wagging an admonishing finger from afar builds moral fiber, self-

discipline, competence, and integrity.

Page 54: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Rigor versus

DifficultDifficultDifficultDifficultDifficultDifficult

Page 55: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Does providing more support mean it’s less rigorous?

On the contrary, providing support for

complex, multi-faceted applications is MORE

rigorous.

Page 56: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

One way to embrace creativity…is to let go of comparison. If you are concerned about conforming or about how you measure up to others’ successes, you won’t perform the risk taking and trailblazing inherent in creative endeavors.

-- P. 57, Creative Confidence, Kelley and Kelley, 2014

Page 57: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Build instructional versatility.

We can’t be creative with what we don’t have. Remember?

Page 58: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Participate in the larger profession.

Professional inquiry via personal action research projects, Professional Learning Communities, subscriptions to professional journals, participation in on-line communities: listervs, Twitter, Blogosphere, Webinars, Nings, and Wiki’s; professional conferences, instructional roundtables in the building

We get more ideas/tools, and creative people are inspired by people around them.

Page 59: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Read professionally and personally

Write in the margins, make personal reactions to text. Share text/comments with colleagues. Occasionally do intense, focused time immersed in one topic via Literature, blogs, videos, lectures, and other resources.

Page 60: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Practice looking at objects, situations, ideas from different perspectives

•Argue from opponent’s point of view•Re-tell the story from a different character’s point of view•Imagine a day in the life of…(animate, inanimate)•If decision is made, imagine the response of different groups of stake-holders•Pursue methods to achieve empathy

Page 61: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Suspend judgment.

Humans naturally categorize and judge. Fight the urge to label or automatically dismiss something – which are both hard to do when in survival mode, agreed. Discern between exploring and judging, and lean toward exploration only. “Tell me more about…” “What would happen if we…?” “Have you considered…?” Choose “Yes, and…” over, “Yes, but….” comments.

Page 62: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Practice Complex-ifying. ‘Really. ‘A lot.

Practice turning regular and advanced education objectives and tasks into even more complex objectives and tasks.

Be careful to change the nature of the content/task, not the difficulty or workload.

Page 63: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

To Increase (or Decrease) a Task’s Complexity,

Add (or Remove) these Attributes:• Manipulate information, not just echo it • Extend the concept to other areas • Integrate more than one subject or skill• Increase the number of variables that must be considered; incorporate

more facets• Demonstrate higher level thinking, i.e. Bloom’s Taxonomy, William’s

Taxonomy• Use or apply content/skills in situations not yet experienced• Make choices among several substantive ones• Work with advanced resources• Add an unexpected element to the process or product• Work independently• Reframe a topic under a new theme• Share the backstory to a concept – how it was developed• Identify misconceptions within something

Page 64: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

To Increase (or Decrease) a Task’s Complexity,

Add (or Remove) these Attributes:• Identify the bias or prejudice in something• Negotiate the evaluative criteria• Deal with ambiguity and multiple meanings or steps• Use more authentic applications to the real world• Analyze the action or object• Argue against something taken for granted or commonly accepted• Synthesize (bring together) two or more unrelated concepts or objects

to create something new• Critique something against a set of standards• Work with the ethical side of the subject• Work in with more abstract concepts and models• Respond to more open-ended situations• Increase their automacity with the topic• Identify big picture patterns or connections• Defend their work

Page 65: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

• Manipulate information, not just echo it: – “Once you’ve understood the motivations and viewpoints of the two

historical figures, identify how each one would respond to the three ethical issues provided.”

• Extend the concept to other areas: – “How does this idea apply to the expansion of the railroads in

1800’s?” or, “How is this portrayed in the Kingdom Protista?”

• Work with advanced resources: – “Using the latest schematics of the Space Shuttle flight deck and real

interviews with professionals at Jet Propulsion Laboratories in California, prepare a report that…”

• Add an unexpected element to the process or product: – “What could prevent meiosis from creating four haploid nuclei

(gametes) from a single haploid cell?”

Page 66: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

• Reframe a topic under a new theme: – “Re-write the scene from the point of view of the

antagonist,” “Re-envision the country’s involvement in war in terms of insect behavior,” or, “Re-tell Goldilocks and the Three Bears so that it becomes a cautionary tale about McCarthyism.”

• Synthesize (bring together) two or more unrelated concepts or objects to create something new: – “How are grammar conventions like music?”

• Work with the ethical side of the subject: – “At what point is the Federal government justified in

subordinating an individual’s rights in the pursuit of safe-guarding its citizens?”

Page 67: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

William’s Taxonomy

FluencyFlexibility

OriginalityElaboration

Risk TakingComplexity

Curiosity

Imagination

Page 68: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Frank Williams’ Taxonomy of Creative Thinking

Fluency – We generate as many ideas and responses as we can

Example Task: Choose one of the simple machines we’ve studied (wheel and axle, screw, wedge, lever, pulley, and inclined plane), and list everything in your home that uses it to operate, then list as many items in your home as you can that use more than one simple machine in order to operate.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Flexibility – We categorize ideas, objects, and learning by thinking divergently

about them

Example Task: Design a classification system for the items on your list.

Page 69: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Frank Williams’ Taxonomy of Creative Thinking

Originality – We create clever and often unique responses to a prompt

Example Task: Define life and non-life. -------------------------------------------------------------------Elaboration – We expand upon or stretch an

idea or thing, building on previous thinking

Example: What inferences about future algae growth can you make, given the three graphs of data from our experiment?

Page 70: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Frank Williams’ Taxonomy of Creative Thinking

Risk Taking – We take chances in our thinking, attempting tasks for which the outcome is unknown

Example: Write a position statement on whether or not genetic engineering of humans should be funded by the United States government.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Complexity – We create order from chaos, we explore the

logic of a situation, we integrate additional variables or aspects of a situation, contemplate connections

Example: Analyze how two different students changed their lab methodology to prevent data contamination.

Page 71: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Frank Williams’ Taxonomy of Creative Thinking

Curiosity – We pursue guesses, we wonder about varied elements, we question.

Example: What would you like to ask someone who has lived aboard the International Space Station for three months about living in zero-gravity?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Imagination – We visualize ideas and objects, we go

beyond just what we have in front of us

Example: Imagine building an undersea colony for 500 citizens, most of whom are scientists, a kilometer below the ocean’s surface. What factors would you have to consider when building and maintaining the colony and the happiness of its citizens?

Page 72: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Steal, borrow, and steal some more.

Incorporate others’ work and ideas in your own. From T.S. Eliot: “Immature poets imitate. Mature poets steal.”

Page 73: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Share freely. We are often better served by connecting ideas than we

are by protecting them. (P. 22, Johnson) P.61 – “Instead, most important ideas emerged during

regular lab meetings, where a dozen or so researchers would gather and informally present and discuss their latest work. If you looked at the map of idea formation…., the ground zero of innovation was not the microscope. It was the conference table.”

The Fox televsion show, “House,” used this model frequently.

Page 74: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Children are creative because their filters and censors haven’t activated yet.

“You are seven years old, and school is canceled. You have the entire day to yourself. What would you do? Where would you go? Who would you see?” Two groups, one with these instructions and one with the same instruction minus the first sentence. Both groups wrote ideas for ten minutes.

Then given various tests of creativity, such as generating alternative uses for an old car tire or a brick. The group that experienced imagining being seven years old came up with twice as many ideas a the other group. (P. 110, Lehrer)

Page 75: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Discern the Pattern and Fill in the Last Row of

Numbers

11 12 11 2 1 11 1 1 2 2 13 1 2 2 1 1 1 3 1 1 2 2 2 11 1 1 3 2 1 3 2 1 1

- From, Creative Thinkering, 2011, Michael Michalko, p. 44

Page 76: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Regularly do automatic tasks and let the mind roam.

Walk, run, drive a long distance without listening to music, take an extended shower or bath, wash a lot of dishes, mow the lawn, weed the garden, paint a room, crochet, clean gutters, shovel snow, stare at the ocean, watch birds for 45 minutes, swim freestyle, water walk, or tread water for an extended time. All of these put us in a more associative state.

Page 77: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Do activities that have no extrinsic reward associated with them.

In Drive, Daniel Pink reminds us that, “Rewards, by their very nature, narrow our focus.” (p. 44) Creativity happens more often because people are curious, not because it satisfies financial incentives. Yes, we do some things in order to increase our salary step or receive a bonus, but creativity is usually a casualty of such approaches.

Teachers can write articles and blogs on topics they enjoy, not just on topics that get pay. As we have time and interest, we can mentor new teachers, sponsor a club or sport of interest, write articles and blogs on topics of interest, and we can participate in training and teach a class about ELL, gifted, technology, coding, library/media services, learning disabilities,

and drama.

Page 78: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Ask the larger questions of what we do and why we do it.

•Whose voices aren’t heard in our deliberations?•How are our current structures limiting student achievement?•What does this classroom incorporate what we know about how the mind best learns?•What is the role of homework? ‘Grading?•Do teachers feel valued? •Will time on task increase achievement or is it the type of task we assign that increases achievement?

Page 79: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Publicly declare your teaching philosophy and Invite professional critique.

Come across as accessible and inviting of critique. Enjoy the interaction between teacher and critic. This is where most of the transformation occurs: not only in the information offered by the one critiquing, but in the back-and-forth between the two people involved. This is hard, of course, because in order to accept a new idea teachers have to first admit what they were doing was ineffective or wrong.

What goes unlearned by students because we weren’t open to critique?

Page 80: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Challenge assumptions.

Get your personal Socrates going. Why can’t students re-do final exams? Look at limitations of the research study, and ask to see the raw data from which conclusions are drawn. Are we sure the classic was symbolizing man’s inhumanity to man? Develop data analysis skills. Look for what the writer/speaker is NOT saying just as much as for what he IS saying. Ask colleagues to articulate positions thoroughly – Don’t let them get away with generalizations. Explore layered meanings, consider the source of information and possible bias.

Page 81: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Reframe the question or endeavor. “Instead of trying to invent a better mousetrap,…look at other ways to mouseproof your home. Maybe the mousetrap isn’t really the problem.” “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!” (p. 101, 102), Creative Confidence

What would this look like in schools?

Re-frame:

•How can I get students to pay attention to the lesson?

•How can I get parents off my back?

•How can I find the time to teach these standards?

•How can I teach this many students in one classroom?

Page 82: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Sleep.

Seriously, ‘a lot. Sleep aids creativity in many ways: It creates the relaxed, associative state of mind. It improves alertness, working and long-term memory, and positive, “Can do” attitude. It may be one of the most influential factors in thinking.

Page 83: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Creativity is Powerful, but Meaning also Matters!

An English professor wrote the words, “A woman without her man is nothing,” on the blackboard

and directed the students to punctuate it correctly. The men wrote: “A woman, without her

man, is nothing,” while the women wrote, “A woman: without her, man is nothing.”

----------------------------------------------

“Let’s eat, Dad!”

“Let’s eat Dad.”

Page 84: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Meaningful Arrangement and Patterns are Everything

d-a-o-o-u-i-d-y-v-l-e

“I love you, Dad.”

Page 85: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

“To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or

seaside stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works

of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall.”

-- Thomas Huxley, 1854

Page 86: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Expertise increases engagement and understanding. (Physics students example)

Chance favors the prepared

mind. -- Pasteur

‘Put another way:

Page 87: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Yes, teach students to

memorize content.

We can’t be creative with what we don’t have.

Page 88: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Which one leads to more learning of how microscopes work?

1. Kellen plays with the microscope, trying out all of its parts, then reads an article about how microscopes work and answers eight comprehension questions about its content.

2. Kellen reads the article about how microscopes work, answers eight comprehension questions about its content, then plays with the microscope, trying out all of its parts.

Page 89: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Worthy they were, Rafael, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Donatello.Theirs’ a chromatic and plumed rebirth,‘A daring reflection upon man. Beyond Hastings and a Wife’s tale in Canterbury, Galileo thrust at more than Windmills, He, Copernicus Gravitas. And for the spectre of debate, religion blinked then jailed, errant no more, thereby errant forever.Cousin to Pericles, Son of Alexander, The cosmology of Adam fanned for all, feudal plains trampled by trumpeters, man and woman lay awake --calves on wobbly legs,staring at new freedomand Gutenberg’s promise.

Page 90: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Creating Background Where There is None

• Tell the story of the Code of Hammurabi before discussing the Magna Charta.

• Before studying the detailed rules of baseball, play baseball.

• Before reading about how microscopes work, play with micros copes.

• Before reading the Gettysburg Address, inform students that Lincoln was dedicating a cemetery.

Page 91: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Creating Background Where There is None• Before reading a book about a military campaign or a

murder mystery with references to chess, play Chess with a student in front of the class, or teach them the basic rules, get enough boards, and ask the class to play.

• In math, we might remind students of previous patterns as they learn new ones. Before teaching students factorization, we ask them to review what they know about prime numbers.

• In English class, ask students, “How is this story’s protagonist moving in a different direction than the last story’s protagonist?”

• In science, ask students, “We’ve seen how photosynthesis reduces carbon dioxide to sugars and oxidizes water into oxygen, so what do you think the reverse of this process called, ‘respiration,’ does?”

Page 92: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

• Chess masters can store over 100,000 different patterns of pieces in long term memory. Chess players get good by playing thousands of games!

• Experts think in relationships, patterns, chunks, novices keep things individual pieces.

• Physics experiment in categorization…• Solid learning comes from when students make

the connections, not when we tell them about them.

Page 93: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Exposure to a wide array of experiences

creates is the basis for creative solutions.

Insulation embalms the sentiment that the

world we know is the only one that matters.

Page 94: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

To create meaning in students’ learning experiences:

•Connect new learning to previous learning •Connect new learning to students’ backgrounds - Sousa: “If we expect students to find meaning, we need to be certain that today’s curriculum contains connections to their past experiences, not just ours.”(p. 49)•Model how the skill or concept is used •Demonstrate how the content or skills create leverage (how it gains us something) in other subjects•Include a, “So, why should we learn this?” section in every major lesson •Increase the emotional connections•Create more access points in the mind•Prime the brain•Separate and combine knowledge: analyze, synthesize

Page 95: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

“The Inner Net”- David Bowden

Page 96: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Finger Mitosis

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• “a lot” – Running to each wall to shout, “a” and “lot,” noting space between

• Comparing Constitutions – Former Soviet Union and the U.S. – names removed

• Real skeletons, not diagrams

• Simulations • Writing Process

described while sculpting with clay

Vividness

Page 98: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Have Some Fun – Anything Can Be A Metaphor!

An apple

• a star (the birth place of energy on our planet) in the middle (the seed pattern makes a star if we cut it the right way)

• we must break the surface to get to the juicy good parts• the outside doesn’t reveal what lies inside• the apple becomes soft and mushy over time• the apple can be tart or sweet depending on its family background• its parts are used to create multiple products

A cell phone

• lifeline to the larger world• an unapologetic taskmaster• an unfortunate choice of gods• a rude child that interrupts just when he shouldn’t• a rite of passage• a declaration of independence• a secret language encoder (text messaging abbreviations unknown to adults)• delineation of generations •  

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A pencil sharpener • Whittler of pulp• Tool diminisher• Mouth of a sawdust monster• Eater of brain translators • Cranking something to precision• Writing re-energizer• Scantron test enabler

Curtains

• Wall between fantasy and reality• Denied secrets• Anticipation• Arbiter of suspense• Making a house a home• Vacuum cleaner antagonist• Cat’s “Jungle Gym”

Railroad

• Circulatory system of the country• Enforcer of Manifest Destiny• Iron monster• Unforgiving mistress to a hobo• Lifeline• Economic renewal• Relentless beast • Mechanical blight• Movie set• A foreshadow of things to come• A hearkening to the past 

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Body Analogies• Fingers and hands can be

associated with dexterity, omnidirectional aspects, working in unison and individually, flexibility, or artwork.

• Feet can relate to things requiring “footwork” or journey.

• Anything that expresses passion, feeling, pumping, supplying, forcing, life, or rhythm could be analogous to the heart.

• Those concepts that provide structure and/or support for other things are analogous to the spinal column.

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Body Analogies• Those things that protect are similar to the rib

cage and cranium. • The pancreas and stomach provide enzymes

that break things down, the liver filters things, the peristalsis of the esophagus pushes things along in a wave-like muscle action.

• Skin’s habit of regularly releasing old, used cells and replacing them with new cells from underneath keeps it healthy, flexible, and able to function.

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At your table groups, identify one concept, principle, or idea from yesterday. Then, using every person’s body, create a frozen tableau that symbolically represents the concept, principle, or idea.

Evaluative Criteria:

•It’s comprehensive of the idea – It represents all of it, not just a portion of it.•Once viewer’s know what it is, nothing in the sculpture would create a misunderstanding of the concept, principle, or idea.•Every member of your group can explain the different elements of the sculpture.

Body Sculptures (Statues) “Frozen Tableau”

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Metaphors Break Down

“You can’t think of feudalism as a ladder because you can climb up a ladder. The feudal structure is more like sedimentary rock: what’s on the bottom will always be on the bottom unless some cataclysmic event occurs.” -- Amy Benjamin, Writing in the Content Areas, p. 80

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Same Concept, Multiple Domains

The Italian Renaissance: Symbolize curiosity, technological advancement, and cultural shifts through mindmaps, collages, graphic organizers, paintings, sculptures, comic strips, political cartoons, music videos, websites, computer screensavers, CD covers, or advertisements displayed in the city subway system.The economic principle of supply and demand: What would it look like as a floral arrangement, in the music world, in fashion, or dance? Add some complexity: How would each of these expressions change if were focusing on a bull market or the economy during a recession?

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Same Concept, Multiple Domains

Geometric progression, the structure of a sentence, palindromes, phases of the moon, irony, rotation versus revolution, chromatic scale, Boolean logic, sine/cosine, meritocracy, tyranny, feudalism, ratios,the relationship between depth and pressure, musical dynamics, six components of wellness, and the policies of Winston Churchill can all be expressed in terms of: food, fashion, music, dance, flora, fauna, architecture, minerals, weather, vehicles, television shows, math, art, and literature.

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Common Analogous Relationships

• Antonyms • Synonyms • Age• Time • Part : Whole • Whole : Part • Tool : Its Action • Tool user : Tool • Tool : Object It’s Used With • Worker: product he creates• Category : Example • Effect : Cause • Cause : Effect• Increasing Intensity• Decreasing Intensity • Person : closely related

adjective

• Person : least related adjective• Math relationship• Effect : cause• Action : Thing Acted Upon • Action : Subject Performing the Action • Object or Place : Its User • Object : specific attribute of the object• Male : Female• Symbol : what it means• Classification/category : example• Noun : Closely Related Adjective • Elements Used : Product created• Attribute : person or object• Object : Where it’s located• Lack (such as drought/water – one thing lacks

the other)

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Creating and interpreting patterns of content, not just content itself, creates a marketable skill in today’s students. A look at data as indicating “peaks and valleys” of growth over time, noticing a trend runs parallel to another, or that a new advertising campaign for dietary supplements merges four distinct worlds -- Greco-Roman, retro-80’s, romance literature, and suburbia – is currency for tomorrow’s employees.

To see this in a math curriculum, for example, look at algebraic patterns. Frances Van Dyke’s A Visual Approach to Algebra (Dale Seymour Publications, 1998)

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A submarine submerges, rises up to the surface, and submerges again. Its depth d is a function of time t. (p.44)

d

t

d

t

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A submarine submerges, rises up to the surface, and submerges again. Its depth d is a function of time t. (continued)

d

t

d

t

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Consider the following graphs. Describe a situation that could be appropriately represented by each graph. Give the quantity measured along the horizontal axis as well as the quantity measured along the vertical axis.

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Descriptions With and Without Metaphors

Friendship FamilyInfinity ImperialismSolving for a variable TrustEuphoria MercyWorry TroubleObstructionist Judiciary HonorImmigration HomeostasisBalance Temporal RiftsEconomic Principles Religious fervorPoetic License SemanticsHeuristics TautologyEmbarrassment Knowledge

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4-Square Synectics1. Brainstorm four objects from a particular category

(examples: kitchen appliances, household items, the circus, forests, shopping malls).

2. In small groups, brainstorm what part of today’s learning is similar in some way to the objects listed.

3. Create four analogies, one for each object. Example: How is the human digestive system like each

household item: sink, old carpet, microwave, broom

Example: How is the Pythagorean Theorem like each musical instrument: piano, drum set, electric guitar, trumpet?

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Great Resources on Metaphors• From Molecule to Metaphor: A Neural Theory of

Language by Jerome Feldman • Metaphor: A Practical Introduction by Zoltan

Kovecses• Poetic Logic: The Role of Metaphor in Thought,

Language, and Culture by Marcel Danesi• Metaphors & Analogies: Power Tools for Teaching

any Subject by Rick Wormeli• I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It

Shapes the Way We See the World by James Geary

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Great Resources on Metaphors

• Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff • The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-

Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain by George Lakoff • A Bee in a Cathedral: And 99 Other Scientific

Analogies by Joel Levy• On Metaphor (A Critical Inquiry Book) edited by

Sheldon Sacks

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 Analyze… Construct…Revise… Rank…Decide between…Argue against…Why did… Argue for…Defend… Contrast…Devise… Develop…Identify… Plan…Classify… Critique…Define… Rank…Compose… Organize…Interpret… Interview…Expand… Predict…Develop… Categorize…Suppose… Invent…Imagine… Recommend…

Change your

verbs.

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One-Word Summaries

“The new government regulations for the meat-packing industry in the 1920’s could be seen as an opportunity…,”

“Picasso’s work is actually an argument for….,” “NASA’s battle with Rockwell industries over the

warnings about frozen temperatures and the O-rings on the space shuttle were trench warfare….”

Basic Idea: Argue for or against the word as a good description for the topic.

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Summarization Pyramid

__________

______________

____________________

_________________________

______________________________

___________________________________

Great prompts for each line: Synonym, analogy, question, three attributes, alternative title, causes, effects, reasons, arguments, ingredients, opinion, larger category, formula/sequence, insight, tools, misinterpretation, sample, people, future of the topic

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3-2-13 – Identify three characteristics of Renaissance art that differed from art of the Middle Ages2 – List two important scientific debates that occurred during the Renaissance1 – Provide one good reason why “rebirth” is an appropriate term to describe the Renaissance

3 – List three applications for slope, y-intercept knowledge in the professional world2 – Identify two skills students must have in order to determine slope and y-intercept from a set of points on a plane1 – If (x1, y1) are the coordinates of a point W in a plane, and (x2, y2) are the coordinates of a different point Y, then the slope of line WY is what?

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Unique Summarization Formats/Products• A soap opera about valence among chemical elements • A “Wanted: Dead or Alive” poster about Preposition Pete (“He was last seen in

the OverHill’n’Dale Saloon, at the table, in the dark, under close scrutiny of other scalawags…”)

• Compose a ballad about the cautious Massasoit tribe coming to dinner with Governor Bradford and his colony in 1621.

• Interpret the Internet for Amazonian inhabitants that have never lived with electricity, let alone a computer.

• Argue for and against Democracy as a healthy way to build a country – Provide at least two arguments for each position.

• Classify the Greek gods and goddesses according to three different criteria.• Predict the limiting factors for this habitat twenty-five years from now. • Retell a fairytale of your choosing with one of the following concepts as its

central theme: – “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the judgment that something else is

more important than that fear.” -- Ambrose Redmoon – “A setback is preparation for a comeback.” – “The one who never makes mistakes takes his orders from one who does.”

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Unique Summarization Formats/Products

• A comic strip about the mantissa (the decimal-fraction part of a logarithm)

• A mysterious yet accurate archeological map concerning the quadratic formula

• A field guide to the asymptotes of a hyperbola (the diagonals of the rectangle formed by the lines x= a, x= —a, y= b and y= -b in the hyperbola: x squared over a squared – y squared over b squared)

• A coloring book about Amendments 1, 2, 3, 4, and 10 to the Constitution• A rap song that expresses the order of Presidential succession• A grocery list for Taiga biomes• A mural that accurately expresses the “checks and balances” nature of

our Federal government’s three branches: judicial, legislative, and executive

• A sculpture or mobile that teaches observers about latitude and longitude

• A pop-up book on liquid and dry measures

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“Word Link”

1. Each student gets a word.2. In partners, students share the link(s)

between their individual words.3. Partner team joins another partner team,

forming a “word cluster.”4. All four students identify the links among

their words and share those links with the class.

-- Yopp, Ruth Helen. “Word Links: A Strategy for Developing Word Knowledge,” Voices in the Middle, Vol. 15, Number 1, September 2007, National Council Teachers of English

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Ropes Course Games

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Ropes Course Games

Electric Fence (Getting over triangle fence without touching)

Spider Web (Pass bodies through “webbing” withot ringing the attached bells)

Group Balance (2’X2’ platform on which everyone stands and sings a short song)

Nitro-glycerin Relocation (previous slide)

Trust Falls (circle style or from a chair)

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Line-up

• Groups of students line up according to criteria. Each student holds an index card identifying what he or she is portraying.

• Students discuss everyone’s position with one another -- posing questions, disagreeing, and explaining rationales.

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Line-up

Students can line-up according to:chronology, sequences in math problems, components

of an essay, equations, sentences, verb tense, scientific process/cycle, patterns: alternating,

category/example, increasing/decreasing degree, chromatic scale, sequence of events, cause/effect,

components of a larger topic, opposites, synonyms

Page 126: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Human Continuum

A

D

Page 127: Cultivating Creativity in our Schools ACAMIS Guangzhou 2015

Human Continuum

Use a human continuum. Place a long strip of masking tape across the middle of the floor, with an "Agree" or “Yes” taped at one end, and "Disagree" or “No” at the other end. Put a notch in the middle for those unwilling to commit to either side. Read statements about the day’s concepts aloud while students literally stand where they believe along the continuum. Be pushy – ask students to defend their positions.

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Resources…• Mindware: www.mindwareonline.com (1-800-999-0398)• Fluegelman, Andrew, Editor. The New Games Book, Headlands Press

Book, Doubeday and Company, New York, 1976• Henton, Mary (1996) Adventure in the Classroom. Dubuque, Iowa:

Kendall Hunt• Lundberg, Elaine M.; Thurston, Cheryl Miller. (1997) If They’re

Laughing… Fort Collins, Colorado: Cottonwood Press, Inc.• Rohnke, K. (1984). Silver Bullets. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt.• Rohnke, K. & Butler, S. (1995). QuickSilver. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt• Rohnke, K. (1991). The Bottomless Bag Again. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall

Hunt• Rohnke, K. (1991). Bottomless Baggie. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt • Rohnke, K. (1989). Cowstail and Cobras II. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt

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Petals Around the Rose

The name of the game is, “Petals Around the Rose.” The name is

very important. For each roll of the game, there is one answer, and I

will tell you that answer.

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Petals Around the Rose Answer:

6

10

0

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Petals Around the Rose

Clues to give students if they struggle:

1. All the math you need to solve this problem you learn in kindergarten or before.

2. The sequence of the dice patterns has no bearing on the answer.

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Processing Activity: “I used to

think…, but now I think…”