Have your students made anything today that made them feel empowered?

9/26/2015

The Maker Space at the http://www.playeum.com/ in Singapore

I've been doing a lot of thinking recently about play, creativity and innovation in preparation for 3 webinars I'll be presenting for the IB in the coming months:

Playful Learning : 1st November 2015
Imagine! Encouraging a culture of creativity: 29th November 2015
Beyond the passive consumption of knowledge:Getting students to actively think, manipulate, create and innovate with what they know:
8th & 14th February 2016

I hope that many readers of this blog will be able to join me.

Key to the ideas I'll be exploring is that if we want students to create and feel empowered to continue creating we need to:

Create a culture where creativity is valued.
Give students time and space to use existing knowledge and skills in new and original ways.
Give students opportunities to adapt and refine their creations as they develop new knowledge and skills.
Give students the autonomy over the process to enable them to create products meaningful to them.
Enable students to share their creations in a way that empowers and inspires them and others.

The self assessment below might be a useful one to give your students to reflect on the creative process. It also might be useful for teachers to think about at the planning stage. Please feel free to adapt it for your particular circumstance and age group.

3 Comments

Christopher Frost link

9/26/2015 08:45:23 pm

Creativity really interests me yet I am not sure I really understand what promotes it. I live in Japan a country with a reputation for conformity and 'in the box' teaching. learning and generally being. Yet conversely Japan is absolutely 'choka block' of amazing design and creativity. I wonder when I listen to Ken Robinson and his spiel that (traditional) schools kill creativity if he could be very wrong. Maybe great creativity stems from being a bit bored and letting the mind wander - discuss :).

Derek Pinchbeck

9/27/2015 11:13:35 am

Couple of points Chris. Whilst you I'm sure have more expertise in the Japanese system than me there are certain elements of it that do promote creativity.

1) The TIMMs Comparative Classroom study https://nces.ed.gov/pubs99/1999074.pdf favourably compared the amount of problem solving and open questioning in Japanese Mathematics teaching with that found in the US.
2) The Japanese practice of allowing unsupervised play times.

Whilst I take your point about conformity being an impediment to creativity collectivism is not necessarily the same as conformity. One of the hindrances to creativity in the West is the myth that creativity is individual and the realm of inspired individuals rather that the result of collaborative insights.
I agree with you that serendipity and space in the curriculum is required for students to follow paths that have meaning to them. What can be created is a culture that values this and systemic teaching to enable students to work through the seed of inspiration to nurture into the plant of creativity.
hope you can make the webinars.
Derek

Christopher Frost

9/27/2015 10:06:51 pm

There are examples of great teaching going on all of the world - Japan included. But it seems to me creativity has been popping up happily and impressively irrespective of our school systems. Take deprived (grey) Salford and the Madchester Scene of the late 80's-90s or the the NY graffiti boom in the1980s. Did these kids attend special schools which didn't kill creativity? Did the kids who grew up to start the manga boom have an out of the ordinary education? I wonder if perhaps creativity stems perfectly well on its own in us all, from being bored and having time on our hands?

Author
My name is Derek Pinchbeck. I am the Learning and Teaching Adviser for English Schools Foundation in Hong Kong. For the last 25 years I have been teaching in International Schools around the World. During my teaching career I have been fascinated by the question "How do we get students to think and create with what they know?" This blog is a collection of some of my thoughts as I strive to answer that question.

Have your students made anything today that made them feel empowered?

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