Posts Tagged ‘creativity’

The binder lives on.

July 14th, 2011 by Lisa Marie Gonzales

Ever have one of those nights when a friend sends you a “resource you might be interested in” and before you know it, an hour has passed and it’s after your bedtime? I did recently, courtesy of Dr. John White, fellow TICAL and ACSA compadre from Los Angeles USD.  (Thanks, John!)

In all seriousness, John recommended I consider a site called “Live Binders” in my review of sites for an article on the “Top 12 Internet Resources for 2012.”  My work as a coordinator in curriculum & instruction at the Santa Clara County Office of Education focuses on the visual and performing arts.  I took a look at Live Binders from the arts perspective. Hundreds of educational searches are possible on this site where random individuals have created and share online resources organized in digital “binders.”

I started with art and couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of this website!  More than 7,000 people had viewed specific binders of interest to me.  For example,  in one called “Art: Paint/Draw/Create Online,” organized by a teacher from the Chicago Public Schools, I quickly found enough content for a daylong workshop I was preparing on “the arts and technology.”

For an arts person, the options are endless!  Dozens and dozens of sites are shared where students, using only keyboard and mouse, can quickly get started in that kid-kind-of-way—without reading instructions.   Crayola Digi-Color is a great starting place, and Crayola is known for its kid/family/educator/everyone friendly website and resources so even the youngest of young can get onto this site and start drawing.  ScribbleTown and Magic Paint are easy to use sites that also let you print your creations.

The “More Ways to Create” section is fabulous and allows you to start into the realm of portraits, mosaics, tessellations, and more. PicassoHead provides great opportunities for using imagination and creativity, particularly for English learners.  Looking at LiteBrite, I longed to return to my childhood!   Matisse is another of my favorites, along with ThinkDraw, one that showcases recent student work and prompts thinking for those who need to see a concept before comfortably venturing out on their own.

What can I say? All this in just one binder.  Not looking for art resources?  Dozens of other binders exist.  In fact my next task is to check out the Live Binders on “common core.”  There are 74 of them!  What topic will you explore?

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Posted in Integration, Productivity, Professional development | 1 Comment »

What path innovation?”

October 12th, 2010 by Butch Owens

Are common standards and national tests the panacea for our nation’s woes?  Some seem to think so, but I’m not so sure.    Just last April I had the opportunity to hear Yong Zhao, author of Catching up or Leading the Way,  speak at our annual Leadership 3.0 Symposium.   He argues that while for years, politicians and the public have been looking for what is wrong with American education by constantly comparing the test scores of American students to those of students in such places as Russia, Japan, Singapore, and China, test scores don’t measure how well a country itself is doing. One striking example is how far America is ahead of all other countries in the number of patents issued; China, by contrast, is ahead in toy production.

The irony is that while we are busy trying to catch up with countries that have better test scores, those very countries are trying to emulate our educational system—or at least the one we used to have.  China, Korea, Japan and Singapore, for example, all have national initiatives to move their educational systems toward more local control, more autonomy, less emphasis on test scores determining a student’s or school’s future, and greater choices for the individual.  These are traditional characteristics of our system which have contributed to our success in turning out well rounded and innovative citizens.  And all of the latest literature argues that the ability to innovate is what we need in the future.

How would you judge an effective school?  Here are some top criteria on my list:

  • The number of  varied opportunities a student has beyond the core academics
  • The degree that students enjoy their school and feel they are important
  • Teacher behaviors that convey the expectation that all students can learn
  • Opportunities for students to progress at their own rate
  • Strong art and music programs and curricular activities that connect students to school

When you look back on your school days, is it the test scores that really motivated you to excel, or all of the opportunities you had to be an individual and find your own purpose and passion?

Take away those things that have enabled our system to produce the inventors and innovators of today and what will be left?  At best, a technically capable American engineer competing for the same job as an equally capable engineer from India who will do the job for $7500 a year.  A better alternative is an educational system that creates an American engineer with not only the technical skills but the imagination, innovation and creativity to design the new ideas that will need the $7500 a year engineer in India to help develop.

In an earlier post I wrote about what students really need to know and learn in school in this 21st century and ended with  the comment, “If it’s easy to test, it’s easy to digitize, and if it’s easy to digitize it can be done easily by a computer.”  What we really want are well rounded, innovative students prepared for a lifetime as productive, innovative citizens.  Will common standards and national tests ensure that outcome?

As you ponder that question, listen to Harry Chapin’s “Flowers Are Red“; how common do we want our standards to be?

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Mentoring for Creativity

July 18th, 2010 by Sandra Miller

21st century learning is exciting!  I feel like the chains of No Child Left Behind are beginning to loosen.   Hopefully, testing will begin to take a more appropriate role, and teachers will be free to teach in ways they know will serve their students well in the future.  Now, for those of us who are principals, a part of our job is to help teachers move toward new ways of working with students.

We know 21st century learning covers a wide list of skills, but one area that is particularly challenging is “creativity.” How do you explain to teachers what it means to  “mentor students to be creative” when you really aren’t sure yourself?

Daniel Pink has two books that focus on the 21st century.  A Whole New Mind (2005) is thought-provoking, a fast read, and could easily be used with teachers to learn about creativity.  Pink explains creativity, presents tools and exercises to examine our own creativity, and talks about developing “creativity skills.”

Pink also discusses the skills needed for jobs in the 21st century.  He says high paying jobs will require that workers use their creativeness.  Much traditional work—accounting is a typical example—will be taken over by computers or outsourced.  Creativity will be the requirement for better jobs.

In his newest book, Drive (2009), Pink predicts tomorrow’s workers will be motivated by autonomy, mastery, and purpose; workplace rewards that may have worked in the past are outdated.  As educators, we have known for years that these are powerful motivators for learning, as well.  And, in fact, much of the work of the future will be all about learning.

David Kelly offers a complementary perspective.  While his research has been in technology design, his current focus is design thinking in K-12 education.   He believes students need to learn skills, but that for 21st century work, the creative side of the brain needs intentional development, too.  “Design thinking is basically a methodology that allows people to have confidence in their creative ability,” states Kelly.  “Design thinking is ‘intuitive’ thinking, it unlocks the other side of the brain.”  Sharing Kelly’s ideas with teachers can help them become better “mentors of creativity” to their students.

As we enter the second decade of the 21st century, and constraints lessen, it’s an exciting time share new ideas with your staff.  Pink and Kelly are a great place to start.

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Posted in Leadership, Pondering | No Comments »