Creativity Blog Prompt 2

Too often, creativity is stifled in the classroom because idea generation is not encouraged. To encourage idea generation, as teacher could accept ideas from all students, and not correct/reward them for their ideas right away. It is important to just get the ideas out there first, and without the remarking about the ideas, other students may be inspired to give their ideas as well. Once everyone has thrown out their ideas, then the teacher can proceed to explain which ideas contain value and the reasoning behind that. One example could be having children tell you their opinion on what will happen next in the story. This allows the children to think creatively, and come up with various ideas since no answer may necessary "right". Not attributing judgement and giving students freedom allows for the production on creativity and generation of ideas.

Creativity Blog Post 2

I would allow my students time for creative thinking.  I would allow them to express creative thinking in many different forms.  The students are allowed to write, draw, or act out whatever comes to their minds when given a certain topic.  Each week we will vote on different topics that the students come up with such as places, people, sports, etc.  Then one student will randomly be chosen to choose a more specific topic such as Australia, Mickey Mouse, soccer, etc.  Then the students will then have 20 minutes to let their creative minds wander within this topic.  Finally these will be showcased on The Wall of Inspiration.  This will be a positive way for the students to express their ideas.  I did something similar to this in sixth grade.  Every Friday we would write a story about a random word that the teacher chose from the dictionary.  I really enjoyed doing this and I think it helped make me a more creative person.

Creativity Post 1

One question I have about the Gifted chapter is when grouping students by ability, how can you prevent the gifted students from knowing they are more gifted than other students?  I think this could go to their heads and sometimes even work backwards because if they are constantly told they are "gifted," then they might slack off and think it's acceptable to put in minimal effort just because they're "gifted."
Creativity is a form of higher order thinking because you think about something in more ways than one.  Creativity involves more than just remembering or understanding (lower order thinking).  It involves analysis, evaluation, and creation (higher order thinking).  Lower order thinking requires no creativity, but higher order thinking does.

I think creativity is important in the classroom, and I can stress it in multiple ways.  I can allow students to create any kind of project they would like to show they understand the material instead of giving them an exam.  It is also important to make the classroom a community in which mistakes are acceptable, because if a student doesn't feel comfortable sharing answers, he or she will never share creative answers.

In math, a student can use creativity by solving a problem in a different way than has been taught.  For example, some teachers might teach subtraction as strictly memorization of facts, but to assess students' creativity you could challenge them to think of subtraction as the opposite of addition.  For example, instead of memorizing the fact 4-2=2, students can think about the same problem as 2+?=4.

Creativity

For students, it is not fair to only let them express themselves in the thirty minute art class twice a week. Creativity can be expressed by not only in art, but among various subject areas using technology. The upcoming generation is more technology capable than our parents, and grandparents. A four year old can pick up a cell phone and can operate Apps like second nature. With incorporating this technology with student’s creativity, the limits are endless. Rather than only having a certain time for the day for math or social studies, it would be more efficient for students to use math practices while learning social studies. With using simple addition or subtraction, students would be able to tell how many years ago the Civil War was. Using technology, students could tract where the Native Americans traveled away for the Trail of Tears on Google Maps. Using real world practices of technology for subject areas such as social studies provides resources for students to manipulate on their own for another question they may encounter. Students could practice their daily writing using Blogger or other safe blog cites. Teachers can have students make presentations of how and why they got a certain answer in a science and math word problem. Using technology in the classroom would make it more efficient and effective with the resources the internet provides. Teachers can integrate technology for students to be more creative in different content areas at one time.  

Creativity (Prompt #2)

One way to develop creativity is to cross fertilize ideas.  This can help students learn how everything is connected. For example, when learning a concept in math, have the students write their own story problems that could be a paragraph long (for older elementary, shorter for younger students). Encourage them to think outside of the box! This can be assessed on content as well as grammar and structure. Have them trade papers and then complete the problems that were written to assess mathematic ability. Then, have them trade again and illustrate the problem. In the end, the class will have produced collaborative works that encompass writing, math, and art and that helps stimulate creativity.

Blog Post 2

Encouraging idea generation is about letting students freely express their ideas. The would come up with lists of ideas to discuss about a certain topic and if every student participates you would have a much broader list of ideas for students to think about. In class we talked about how this could be used in a classroom setting by having students say anything they thought about the topic. The teacher would then write down all of these on an overhead or on the board for everyone to see. The ideas would only be written down without the teacher commenting on them right away. They would not acknowledge which answers were correct and which were not. This would allow students to be confident about their answers and not discourage shy students who are worried about being wrong. With all of these ideas students would be able to look at all right and wrong answers and ideas and allow them to have a broad perspective of the topic. It would also lead to a better discussion with not just a few people participating. 

Module 23 Post 1

The relationship between creativity and intelligence surprised me. With so many hypotheses, it's hard to determine how they're related. I personally believe that creativity and intelligence are related similarly. Generally, if you're creative then you're usually intelligent and vice versa. The traits seem to overlap. I didn't ever think of it differently. Creativity may be a form of higher-order thinking because gifted learners process information more efficiently, learn at a faster pace, and use more effective strategies, i.e. creating and analyzing as higher-order thinking. In my classroom, I can promote creativity by asking open ended, puzzling questions and I can implement problem solving techniques and innovative teaching strategies. I could also have a certain area of the room that is used for quiet reading or idea generating for certain skills. Creativity could manifest in a history lesson by asking the students to create their own lesson to present to the class. There are no requirements except what is listed in the lesson summary. They're able to present a skit, rap, powerpoint, play, etc. or whatever effectively presents the information. To assess creativity, I would ask all of the questions I could think of based on a drawing, list possible product improvements so children would have more fun with it, find unusual uses for an object. I must be familiar with the domain in which the creativity is being assessed in, too.

Creativity Blog Post 2

In a classroom setting, in order to develop creativity in the classroom, I would allow time for creative thinking.  A teacher can be creative in his/her assignments and projects, but in order to really inspire creativity in the students, it is important to allow them to come up with creative ideas on their own.  For example, allow the students at the beginning of the week to brainstorm ideas for writing prompts, they can jot down words, phrases, or actual questions that will provoke thought.  Then, throw them in a basket, and throughout the week, draw a card, and have the students do short writings about the word, phrase, or question.  This is a fun and creative way for students to engage in writing activities they would otherwise see as bothersome and boring.  Because they and their peers have made the prompts it automatically makes the writing more enjoyable.  It also creates and opportunity for the teacher to recognize standout writers.  For example, I have seen it done where a student wrote down the word "frustrated" on his card.  When it was drawn later in the week, the responses were surprisingly deep and thought provoking.  I will definitely use this creative writing technique in my future classroom.

Blog Post 2

I would encourage creative collaboration in my classroom because the students could work together and come up with ideas to use. For example, if I assigned my students the task of making some type of presentation and left the choice of how to present up to them, the groups would come up with ideas of how to be creative. They could go in so many different and creative ways. When everyone is putting their thoughts in, it would get a lot of different ideas going and students could go many different ways with the project. Some students might be more creative than another so they could maybe help the student to be more creative.

Creativity - Post 2

Giving students time to think about a prompt they are given is very important when encouraging creativity in the classroom. Here is a hypothetical situation... In my classroom we just read The Giver. I have told the students to create a sculpture out of found items I have brought in that represents The Giver in some way. In order for the students to come up with something clever and creative I have to give the students time to think and also time to create. I would give time during the school day for a whole week for the students to start their project, work on it, and perfect it. If I were to give the students only 10 - 20 minutes I probably wouldn't get as good sculptures from this amount of time as I would have if I had given them a few hours over the course of one week.

Creativity Blog Post 2

Allowing time for creative thinking is always a key concept in classrooms. Allowing kids to really fulfill their own thoughts and be as imaginative as they wish is a great way for kids to learn a lot about not only themselves but about how they think. For example, you could do an activity where you give each child a slip of paper. On this slip of paper is a sentence and the child has to start writing a story based on the sentence you give them. This gives them the opportunity to take it into any direction they wish to go and allows them to be as goofy, silly, sad, happy, etc. as they wish. When I was cadet teaching the students made their own books and it was so interesting to see how each child's book was different because each student has their own creative style. Creative thinking allows students to learn about themselves, find their interests, and most of all it allows them to see each others creative sides.

Creativity Blog Prompt 2

I think there are some very useful ways to use the first teaching tip, modeling creativity, in the classroom. Students often use their teachers as models. As we learned in earlier chapters, modeling as a teaching technique can be very effective for young children. If a teacher is looking to promote creativity in the classroom, a great way to jump start that is to model to the students what it looks like to be creative. A teacher should join in with art projects and sing and dance with the students. Teachers should show that they are not afraid to make mistakes by trying new things and acting upon ideas that students have. If the creative process ends up in a mistake, instead of becoming discouraged, a teacher can take that mistake as an opportunity to open floor for discussion and more creative brainstorming. If the teacher models that it is okay to be creative and make mistakes, then the children will feel more at ease to try new things and make mistakes in the process.

Creativity Blog Prompt 1

I am still confused as to how students who are gifted are identified. Many students excel compared to other students in the classroom, but I do not think that this necessarily means that they are gifted. However, I do like that they put creativity and giftedness in the same category because students who are creative are gifted as well to a certain extent. If giftedness is much more than performing at an exceptionally high level on IQ tests, than what is giftedness and how can it be identified in the classroom? Also, if there are not enough gifted students in a classroom or even a school, what kind of program should be created to attend to these students abilities or is it recommended that they go to a more gifted school?

Creativity is considered a form of higher order thinking or giftedness because an individual's creativity is part of their intelligence. However, this does not necessarily mean that people who are intelligent are particularly creative. Creative thinkers engage in divergent thinking, prefer challenge and complexity, take risks, and are curious and intrinsically motivated, which is a demonstration of higher order thinking and giftedness. Students that are creative generate ideas for answering a question or solving a problem and produce work that is unique and original. Higher order thinking involves learning to problem solve and this is what creative thinkers do.

In my classroom, I would want to show that creativity is valued by modeling creativity and giving students more time to do activities and think so that they do not feel rushed or stressed to finish something. I think time is an important factor for creative thinkers because they think in more depth into an idea instead of just brushing it on the surface. I also think encouragement to take risks is important because if students just stick to the norm and never take risks, then mistakes will not be made and they will not learn from these experiences.

In order to assess creativity, students must think outside of the box. I think it is important to start at a younger age so for example when students are just learning to add they do not necessarily have to think in terms of actual numbers but objects as well and create stories that have to with their adding problems. I think this is a good way to show creativity at the earliest of stages because students are not just demonstrating addition in the typical way of tally marks and numbers, but they are using objects or drawings.

Creativity Blog Post 2

Instructing and assessing creatively are great ways to encourage creativity in students. By assessing creatively a teacher allows for students to come up with their own answers that may not be word for word what the teacher taught, but still demonstrate deep understanding of the topic. One way this could be applied to teaching is with mathematics. If teachers require that students show their work then the teacher can see that they know how to do something like addition, but may not be good at the actual calculations. Teachers should also show multiple ways to do a problem so that the students can understand the problem from different perspectives and hopefully come to a deeper understanding of the topic.

Creativity Blog Prompt 2

I would use Allow Time for Creative Thinking tip in my future classroom. This tip is focused on the balance between teaching the required material and allowing time for creativity. As a teacher I want creativity to be valued in my class. I want students to know that using their creativity is a positive and important part of learning. I will give many opportunities for creativity during my classes. Instead of talking throughout a whole class period, I will talk for a short period of time and then allow the students to break up into groups. In these groups students will create something relating to the lesson. If we are discussing a specific book, then I will have the groups of students collaborate to create a storyboard for an assigned chapter. They will draw the picture, write the lines out, and add in any sound effects they think would be useful. On some instances students can act out their storyboards for the whole class. This project is incorporating many different ways of being creative; drawing, writing, thinking, and acting. It is also aiding the students in studying the chapter.

Creativity Blog Post Two

In class we discussed teaching tips for developing creativity. One of the tips is allowing time for creative thinking. Creativity takes time, and we as teachers need to allow time for students to think creatively. We need to allow our students to come up with ideas, and make them more outside the box, and have a creative ecge. If we give them the time, the students will be able to better develop their answers. I believe that with science experiments especially we must allow students the time to develop their ideas. Science experiments encompass more than just reading a lab and we must allow time for students to be able to think creatively on how the experiment works, and the variables involved. Therefore, I think it is important to have a large amount of allotted time available if you want your students to express ideas and responses creatively.

Creativity Blog Post 2

Encourage idea generation:

 This tip encourages teachers to have their students brainstorm and come up with many different ideas, because the more ideas, the better. I really like this tip, and am planning on using it in my future classroom. For instance, in a 7th grade English class, students have just finished reading The Giver. After reading the book, I would break students up into groups of four or five. I would then ask a main question, such as: The Giver is set in a dystopian society. Though many of the ideas seem far-fetched and ridiculous, what connections can you make to today's society? I would then give the students a good amount of time (10-15 minutes) to brainstorm in their groups and write down ideas. After the amount of time, I would ask the groups to share some of their ideas. I would write down all of the ideas on the board, even ones which may not seem as correct or complex as others. Writing down every idea is beneficial because it can give students other ideas and show them different things they may have never thought of. Also, not telling students whether their answer is right/wrong, or good/bad would encourage them to keep answering and make them feel comfortable in sharing their ideas.

Creativity Blog Post 2

Through creative collaboration we can broaden our perspectives by sharing our ideas with others, which will enhance our creativity. By placing students in groups that can share different ideas, they can build and learn from each other.  In my field experience classroom, my students engage in literature circles.  Each student has a specific task for the group: travel tracker, connections, illustrator, questioner, and leader.  Each student shares their specific task with the group and the ideas they’ve learned.  The person in charge of questions asked different questions about the story that each member of the group is required to answer.  I believe this is a great way to enhance creativity.  Instead of the teacher lecturing over the book, the students are able to share with their peers connections they’ve made about the book, and see what each other thought about the story they were reading.  The tasks give the students the ability to enhance their creative ideas and learn from each other.

Creativity Blog Post 1

What are the best ways to determine if someone is gifted without forgetting anyone?

Individuals are considered gifted if they can successfully transform their life experiences into successful outcomes using the abilities they have been given while creative individuals engage in divergent thinking which is the ability to “think outside the box.”  These two characteristics correlate with each other.  A gifted individual can use divergent thinking in order to successfully use their life experiences to be successful.  Both gifted and creative individuals show high levels of self-efficacy and motivation.

As a teacher it’s important to enhance student creativity through an open interaction style.  It’s important to create an environment where students feel safe to share ideas, engage in divergent thinking, take risks, and make mistakes.  Teachers should help students find their interests to intrinsically motivate them to explore ideas.  Teachers should give students choices in learning and encourage students to generate and evaluate their own ideas.  It’s important for teachers to allow time for creativity to happen, so to design activities and assignments that encourage students to use their creative abilities.

Students can demonstrate creativity in math by the way in which they work on a problem.  By letting the students attempt to solve story problems without instruction, the students can engage in creativity by choosing their problem solving methods.  Students will have to think outside the box to solve the problem, and when asking students how they solved the problem, you’ll probably come across a variety of answers because they each have their own unique way of thinking.  You could assess creativity based on whether their method of problem solving was unique, their flexibility in solving the problem, or their ability to elaborate on the problem.   

Creativity Post

Find Excitement and Play to Strengths
     In my Children's Literature class, we do something like this that I believe could be used in an elementary classroom as well.  We have groups called "Book Clubs," where basically small groups of students in the class read books.  There are about four groups, depending on the number of students in the class, and each group reads a different book.  In other words, the students have the freedom to choose what book they want to read for that time.  After we read the books, we are required to write journal entries about our thoughts of the book.  Along with those journal entries, we have to do what she calls a "Creative Journal" for one of them.  This is where the creativity comes in.  She doesn't give a lot of guideline as to how she wants these entries to be done.  Her only criteria is that it has a "creative" aspect.  Students can do anything from writing a poem about the book, writing a letter to a character in the book, or writing an extension chapter of the story to making something artistic about the book or writing a song about it and performing the song.  I like this idea because it allows students to build up what they are excited about or really enjoy doing.  For instance, I like to write poems, so I wrote a poem about how the character was feeling during the story.  Maybe some students are really talented artists and want to draw a scene from the book; our teacher encourages us to do what we feel is appropriate for us and the story.  This particular idea is exactly what I think the last point of creativity (find excitement and play to strengths) is about.  It is saying that teachers should allow their students to grow at what interests them.  I will definitely use this idea in my future classroom.