I think that we all got a lot out of the efforts of Gaye and Micah tonight! I know I did! Please post reflections, regarding their topic of creative teaching, here, Thanks, Dr. Andy
I start off by simply stating wow! Last night we were all witness to an awesome presentation on Creative Teaching. I might add that it was an incredibly creative presentation with plenty of diversity and lots of opportunities for us as students to wield our creative skills and talents. The overviews, the activities, and the videos were superb! We actively participated through dynamic interaction, risk taking, engagement, and fun last night which are all critical components of creative teaching. The process of preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification were modeled repeatedly by our wonderful presenters and by all of us who got the chance to actively engage in the creative learning process numerous times throughout the presentation. If we want students to be excited about their learning then we need to get them actively involved in the learning process. We need to stimulate their curiosity and give them every chance possible to use their creativity to create after which they will most certainly learn through a valuable learning experience that is authentic and real life. We must learn to value diversity and foster an environment of creative thinking and learning in our classrooms. To do this means that we as teachers need to make every effort to be as creative as possible. Without creativity our classes, teaching, etc. will simply be a static graveyard of nothingness. This was a very powerful and eye-opening presentation. Thank you so much Micah and Gaye!
Application: 1. We as teachers must make every effort to be creative in our lesson planning. We need to plan for opportunities in every lesson for our students to be creative and create. We must model that first as teachers in our planning and delivery as well as in activities that we prepare for students.
2. We as teachers have to be flexible. There are many days when a lesson doesn’t go quite as planned. So be creative! Be open to alternatives and last minute changes or twists that keep a lesson alive and foster opportunities for students to be creative and be engaged. Be prepared to be flexible!
3. We need to plan activities very carefully so that they allow our very diverse students the opportunity to shine through the use of their own creativity. Our activities must be engaging and allow for powerful and meaningful interaction. Our activities need to be fun and relate somehow to real life. Creative activities will instill fresh life into our classrooms and the learning process.
Reflection Part II Applications Thanks everyone. David Maksel
Reflection 5 Gaye and Micah presented about creativity in curriculum, and their presentation was excellent. I think we all agree that they put a lot of efforts for this presentation. Gaye and Micah not only taught us about creativity in curriculum but also modeled us how to be creative teachers. I learned a lot from the presentation. While Micah was talking about the things that kills creativity, this point “Being creative for the sake of being creative” made me reflect on my own experiences as a teacher. There are many occasions that I try to be “creative” in my lessons by doing different activities; and I was hoping students got the concept of what they were supposed to be learning. Students had fun and they enjoyed the activities, however somehow students had too much fun during the activities that they didn’t get the real meaning and purpose of the lessons. As I reflected on my own experiences, I realize that I need to have specific learning goals while planning creative, interesting, and engaging lessons so that students will get valuable learning experiences from the lessons. Ken Robinson said that “schools kill creativity.” It is a strong statement, but I have to agree to some extent. Schools rarely give students chances to analyze and discuss the mistakes. We often say to the students that it is ok to make mistakes, but some students are learning that it is not all right to make mistakes because they are corrected in a harsh way. Three applications: 1) Teach students to analyze the mistakes and remind the students that learning from our mistakes can be opportunities for us to grow. 2) Give the students opportunity to be creative. I need to encourage any new ideas of my students. Feedback and criticism should be given constructively so that students won’t get discouraged of their inputs. 3) Storytelling: It is an extremely useful classroom activity. Storytelling is not only acknowledging the importance of each student’s life but it also gives many opportunities to be creative with thinking and language.
David, a very positive overview that raises some valuable ideas, Zarni, I appreciate how you are using these ideas to reflect on your own practices and to improve upon them. Andy
Where can I start? Obviously by thanking Gaye and Micah for their awesome presentation. I have to thank them because I have learned. I have learned that creativity is fun but more than that I witnessed two teachers enjoying their profession; great vibes filling the room. They both have strong personalities and were never conflicting they just completed each other and made the lesson even more powerful. We as students were just engrossed by them and that is how our students should be. Few words on the presentation itself; this is actually the way I hope my students see me when I teach. I am pretty confident that I teach in a relaxed atmosphere but I am not so sure how my content is received. Gaye and Micah mastered the topic, used multimedia wisely and excelled in the activities.
Applications 1)Teachers must be models. I hope I can be as good as they were. Their presentation boosts my motivation. Life in the classroom could be so easy.
2)We need to be prepared to fail when we try being creative. This means preparation; so better lesson planning; so a much more effective lesson.
3)With Ben, we, for the first time took the video (since Micah was kind of busy) and had a few glitches; memory card full, battery dead.
Hi everyone.First of all, I would like to thank Gaye and Micah for a great presentation! Congratulations guys!!! As teachers, we must be aware of how creativity works in our classroom. Creative activity/tasks that are more varied and more enjoyable will enrich the creative minds of our students, leading them to be motivated to study and learn. As what Gaye emphasized, being creative is fun, which I totally agree. Also, it lessens boredom of our students. Just imagine yourself seated and watching a boring movie, the tendency is for you to yawn and you might even fall asleep, isn't it? This didn't happened last Tuesday, as the fun was so spontaneous! I can say that it made me aware and meditate on why creativty is very important in our classrooms. Moreover, the activities were so interesting plus the materials they used. This is a superb example of how can we avoid killing creativity in the classroom. My applications: 1) First of all, I will create my "purpose" before I prepare my lessons and stand in front of the class. 2) I will allow creative thinking in the classroom, by asking open ended questions to my students. 3) Available materials related to the activities is a "must" as to increase interest and creativity on the part of the students. It's easy to think of what activities are you going to give, but if you don't have the proper materials, then, it's still a failure. 4) Being creative means, that I need to be aware of the varied activities such as role plays,simulation,games,and most especially songs, which I believe is a very powerful tool in arousing students positive outlook in learning ESL. Another thing is that, songs and music has a great educational value.
Great start with these reflections! I echo all of the positive views expressed and am very glad that we got such a great model for presenting so early on. I think it will be helpful for us all having seen a strong example of the way to proceed with these presentations. Andy
We had learned the significant role of creativity in curriculum from Micah and Gaye's powerful presentation. They put enough strategies to battle the elements that kill creativity in class room. The elements that can produce creativity are engagement, flexibility, interaction, planning, modeling and risk taking and I strongly consent with the idea that afraid of risk taking is the most tremendous obstacle in creativity. Mean while most teachers are killing students' creativities because they are reluctant to take risk in a new situation eventhough they may be flexible and interactive with others in other fields.
Applications. 1. I will encourage my students not to afraid of making mistakes and I will let them know that mistakes are the scaffolds of success. 2. I will use some different styles of teaching in order to get students to be more active and creative.
3. I will carefully organize my daily, weekly plan in order not to be cliched or repetitious lessons.
That was great! I was exhausted after the presentation, but in a good way. I was taken on a journey from not really knowing what creativity was in education through to being very motivated to allow my students to be more creative and be more creative myself. The presentation was interesting because of how creative Gaye and Micah were in making and executing it. The slides were easy to digest and the look and feel were easy on the eyes. The activities chosen were very creative and I especially enjoyed listening to Micah singing. I was impressed how both Gaye and Micah researched their work and were very confident explaining it. I especially liked the slide how the HP Garage list was changed to be relevant to teachers.
My applications are:
1.It’s important that learners and teachers realize that mistakes are part of learning. After the presentation; the saying the person how never makes a mistake, never makes anything really came to mind.
2.Last week I tried two of the activities that we saw in the presentation. I wrote the math problem on the board and although none of my students were able to get the ‘right’ answer it was fascinating seeing their process of flipping numbers etc. The students later challenged me with their own logic problems. The sentence to picture back to sentence exercise was a hit. I have tried similar approaches in the past, but this time instead of correcting the students who weren’t following the guidelines to the letter I let it go. This lead to about three variations of the activity, but all achieved the objectives of the lesson.
3.I intend to be more creative and appreciate it may be difficult for the students and myself to come out of their comfort zone at first, but the benefits for all are great long term.
Creative Teaching is an interesting topic and Gayeh and Mica’s presentation even made the topic more interesting. The activities were fun and enjoyable, especially the interpretation of the drawing. I have learned a lot in this session --- on planning, being flexible, being creative and even got ideas on how to execute or implement the lessons on a creative way. I believe that creative teaching strategies must be incorporated in lesson planning in all levels to maximize the learning potentials of the students. We know that each student has his own strengths and weaknesses and by using creative teaching strategies,the teachers can harness these strentghs and improve on other areas, thus enhancing the learning. My applications would be as follows. 1. Careful and thorough planning must be always done in preparing for every lesson in order to make the teaching and learning process very productive. In planning any lesson, we must always consider the learners' needs --- how they think, how will they react, their strengths and weaknesses, and what they would like to know. We must also consider in planning the learning environment which should be conducive to both teaching and learning. 2. I must be always flexible and innovative in teaching. As I always do, I have a major plan for each topic and then have sub –plans or even back-up plans for each, especially on the delivery of the lessons. If one technique or activity seems to be not interesting for my students, then I move to another technique which will get their attention. Also, I may have different teaching strategies to different classes. I will be giving more challenging activities to my diamond class than to my other classes, but all strategies and activies cover the same lesson that each student must learn. 3. I will have my activities authentic in such a way that my students can readily appreciate the lessons they are learning. I will give them more application exercises of the lesson in practical situations to keep them motivated, make them more creative and to encourage the use of deeper levels of thinking. Thank you. Emil
Creativity in the classroom, for me, was a really fun and interesting topic to work on. During the research, I figured out that for centuries, the greatest minds of the Western world concluded that imagination could not be trusted. However, in the last 50 years, it has become increasingly clear that imagination and being creative plays a crucial role in learning and education throughout the life time. Pleasingly, as a result of the increase in applied imagination and creativity, a new educational trend which gives priority to imagination, is finally formed and now many of the educators value creativity, as it has to be.
My applications:
1) Being creative doesn't only mean to create new things. You can pick materials from sources like the internet, books and newspapers and adapt them to your classroom. From now on I plan to spend more time on searching for creative ideas and activities. Definitely there is a great amount of sources available out there waiting to be discovered
2) One of the key points of being creative is that the teachers should enjoy what they are teaching too. From my personal observation, I realized that the more I am excited and having fun about what I am teaching, the more my students are engaged and being creative. So I think as a teacher we should try to keep our enthusiasm alive.
3) What is a little bit scary about being creative in the classroom is that the teachers need to take risks sometimes. Actually, for me it's the fun part I can say. Waiting for the unknown to happen and excited about it. Definitely I would take that risk...
Thanks Gaye and Mica brought that such great presentation to us, made class became a lot fun and interested.
Creativity classroom encourage creative thinking. Based on I learned from they are presentation and I did some searching I'll add some ideas here: Effect of ‘creativity’ and ‘meditation’ rooms on pupils - Pupils’ self-esteem and sense of wellbeing was raised through involvement in designing the meditation and creativity rooms - Pupils benefited from learning specific techniques for relaxation and creative thinking in the redesigned rooms - Pupils felt greater ownership of their learning environment when given the power to design and create it - Pupils working in their own creative room become more engaged in writing activities - Feedback from pupils and parents was positive in assessing the outcomes of the project - New strategies were developed for teaching meditation, relaxation, philosophy and creativity - Staff felt the new rooms provided creative resources for the whole school
creativity classroom should be fun and interested, it could be releasing potential and divergent thinking of student. But during the process of class it not only required teacher can flexible use multiple teaching skill or doing activities but also required teacher could manage classroom well.
Application: - creativity classroom could be use in any level teaching, especially for K-12 grade students.
-The purpose of creative class is let the student get knowledge from teacher's approaches or activities. How can we achieved that purpose? It required teacher have to planning well before the class, otherwise, the class could going to mess.
- Definitely, as Gaye said that creative in the classroom is that the teachers need to take risks sometimes. That's would be a challenge for teacher and more interesting, but, anyway, teacher should be control class steps and manage well, there are could be take risk but not an accident.
From Chie.... First of all, thank you very much for wonderful presentation, Gaye and Micah. It was really fun and engaging. I learned a lot, and I am actually very excited to apply what I have learned from the presentation in my own class. Whenever my students do presentation in my class, I encourage them to be creative. However, seeing the presentation, I realized that it is not enough to just tell them “be creative.” I need to model creativity and give some stimulation or incentives to get my students to be more creative. As shown in the presentation, creativity involves engagement of a teacher and students, flexibility, interaction, modeling, planning, and risk taking. I guess fostering creativity is a challenging task, and it requires a lot of preparation and creativity in teacher’s part as well. However, Micah and Gaye’s creative presentation really made me feel that I want to try my best to make my lesson more creative because I really enjoy seeing my students show their creativity in my class. 3 applications 1) Three activities Gaye and Micah have done are all applicable in my Japanese class. Especially I want to try the “filling in lyrics” one. In introductory Japanese course, my students do presentation on their favorite Japanese songs. I think I should let them do the “filling in lyrics” activity so that they pay more attention to the language of songs. (I am not a good singer like Micah, but I am sure my students can sing) 2) The way they presented the material was also something I would like to apply in my class. The presentation was well understood, I think that’s because they showed us what is creativity, how to foster it, and why it is important. Especially when you present something abstract like creativity, it is crucial you show what, how, and why (the value or meaning of the notion). I would make sure I do that too in my class. 3) As a language teacher, in terms of language usage, I do need to correct mistakes and let them know proper, acceptable way of using language so that my students won’t get embarrassed in the future. However, in terms of ideas, I would like to encourage different ways of thinking and critical way of looking at the language and culture. Thank you, Chie Katsuda
Firstly, i would like to thanks Gaye and Micah for their efforts in their presentation. They did a great job. Creative classrooms encourage creative thinking and im sure they have had a great but positive impact on each of us that night. Especially the were very creative in choosing their activities to pass on the message. I was impressed with all the activities we had in class, especially the first activity guessing the meaning through the picture drawn. Moreover, Micah singing was very impressive. A good way to entertain the class.
- I would encourage my students to be creative in classroom to foster better learning. - Micah and Gaye had showed that using the appropriate activities would denfinately give a postive impact to learning. Making it fun and easily applicable in classrooms. - The quote "School kills creativity" that was presentation by Micah and Gaye was quiet shocking. We as teachers needs to encourage a more creative classroom by improving ourselves and trying our best to implement creative classroom learning.
Week 5 I enjoyed admirable presentation of Gaya and Micah’s–creativity curriculum .creativity involved (engagement ,flexibility ,interaction ,modeling ,planning ,risk- taking )and process of creativity (preparation ,incubation ,illumination ,verification)are significant for us in real teaching activity .presenters clearly express the significance and taken practice in the process ,show us the theme clear. There is a phenomenon shocked me ---96% of adolescents with online access create new content online, primarily outside school. As a teacher ,we have to face and think this serious problem .same phenomenon in China ,so many students got golden medal in the International Mathematical/ Physics Olympiad Competition, but no body can get the Nobel prize. This always was considered as failure of Chinese education . The students' creativity was killed in school . Application : 1, Cooperation between school and teachers is necessary. Implement creativity curriculum and teaching is not easy ,can not get a prospective result just teachers engage in it .need school support ,offer creative environment to students even teachers . 2,Encourage students open mind , Think positively. protect students’ creativeness. 3,Do not be afraid make mistakes .do not be afraid take risk .mistake and risk can help strike out new path.
Thank you so much to Mica and Gaye for a fantastic presentation. Judging by the reflections I've read everyone got a huge amount out of it. I certainly did! Loved the variety of approaches, activities and the worship song was a real bonus! I also loved the last video you showed. I have thought quite a lot this week in response to your presentation, about creative risk taking and how essential this is to the creative process. That failure needs to be allowed and at times encouraged. I thought the 2 examples you used namely Picasso and Mozart were very interesting. Both highly creative, both of them radically changed the direction of their chosen medium. The worlds of Music and Art were never the same after them. It was if a doorway had been opened that others could now step through. But what has interested me this week is that they both started in their chosen career in a very disciplined and structured manner. Probably without much creativity! Learning skills and by reproducing the works of other great masters. Once they had a deep understanding of their subject they were able to really ‘cut loose’ creatively. I have been thinking about the teaching of basic skills are used a ‘building block’ to take creative risks. Applications: Question: how to achieve a balance between teaching skill (in order to build confidence and understanding) and risk taking (which will lead to new and original outcomes). 1. Gaining Balance – readdressing the balance between what time is spent focusing on skills teaching and what time is spent on creative thinking, experimenting and risk taking. 2. Grading – I have been thinking about how the grading of student work could be structured in a way that would positively reward both skill development and risk taking.
Thanks everybody! I'm glad you enjoyed our presentation. I am cramming this post by the way! However, the issues I brought up in our presentation of creativity in curriculum are still in my head. I recently went to Asia books to check if they had copies of the book "A Whole New Mind" and they didn't have it. I'm really intrigued by what the author, Daniel Pink, said about how creative jobs or jobs that require alot of creativity will dominate the future, at least that what he says.
1)I'm interested to know more about this so this is my first application: Find the book- read it.
2)Secondly, what I learned from creating my presentation was how to ask myself this question: "How do I really get across in a way that is effective?" Which essentially is a key question for creativity in the curriculum. I think this question forces you to think hard about what you're teaching, which helps you develop different ideas about how to teach a lesson.
3) Thirdly, I am also interested in Edward De Bono. I'd like to find out more about his ideas about creativity. He wrote a book called "Lateral Thinking" in which he basically talks about how we can teach and train creative or critical thinking, which I am somewhat interested in. He also wrote a book called "How To Have Creative Ideas", in which he lists 62 games that help you brainstorm for creative ideas. I think it is helpful and useful for anyone and definitely, I feel, for a classroom. I would like to get it as well and hopefully use it sometime!
Thank you so much to Mica and Gaye for a fantastic presentation. Judging by the reflections I've read everyone got a huge amount out of it. I certainly did! Loved the variety of approaches, activities and the worship song was a real bonus! I also loved the last video you showed. I have thought quite a lot this week in response to your presentation, about creative risk taking and how essential this is to the creative process. That failure needs to be allowed and at times encouraged. I thought the 2 examples you used namely Picasso and Mozart were very interesting. Both highly creative, both of them radically changed the direction of their chosen medium. The worlds of Music and Art were never the same after them. It was if a doorway had been opened that others could now step through. But what has interested me this week is that they both started in their chosen career in a very disciplined and structured manner. Probably without much creativity! Learning skills and by reproducing the works of other great masters. Once they had a deep understanding of their subject they were able to really ‘cut loose’ creatively. I have been thinking about the teaching of basic skills are used a ‘building block’ to take creative risks. Applications: Question: how to achieve a balance between teaching skill (in order to build confidence and understanding) and risk taking (which will lead to new and original outcomes). 1. Gaining Balance – readdressing the balance between what time is spent focusing on skills teaching and what time is spent on creative thinking, experimenting and risk taking. 2. Grading – I have been thinking about how the grading of student work could be structured in a way that would positively reward both skill development and risk taking.
LOL looks like Martin succeeded after all, as I noticed right after reading his email and posting for him. Oh well, you can all read it twice, it's a good reflection, Dr. Andy....
I gained a lot of valuable things from our last class. They were well done so benefited to others. I really want to apply what I had learned to may real situation as a teacher.
1. Many activities such as: writing, painting and expressing ideas. I try to keep doing much more when I begin a new lesson because it makes students really love the class and when they love they will direct their own learning.
2. Learning English by singing is a great skill that I used to do and I continue to do it better with your Dr.Andy's suggestion.
3. I will apply Team teaching method to my lesson because we have many good ideas to put together and help students to learn effectively.
Gaye and Micah's presentation was excellent, and I definitely learnt alot about creativity. However my applications would be regarding the usage of creativity in three different areas:
1)Teaching methodologies could be creative. One example could be instead of a boring common approach to teaching history, teachers could get students to dress up in relevant costumes to make it more entertaining.
2)Creativity could be used in classwork as well where instead of teachers giving students to memorize poems in class, to make it more fun and interesting, students can pair up and create their own tunes to the poem which will help them memorize,
3) In public schools where students wear uniforms, to make the class more interesting teachers should used materials in class which are colorful as students uniforms themselves are robotic and colors are a good aid to teaching.
I think the presentation on creativity is one of the most challenged topics for presenters however Gaye and Micah showed us an incredible presentation last week.
They delivered a fruitful presentation by using variety ways in their presentation; lecture by slides, using multimedia and engaging audiences by activities and I love all of their activities; filling the lyric & playing guitar, drawing picture and leaf activity. They were actively encouraged us to develop creative ideas and to apply it in our own classes and I would love to share my applications as follows;
Applications
1) I definitely agree that creative and innovative approaches to curriculum planning can increase levels of motivation and I will apply it to my training class. There is one thing that would be more practical for my training class is to emphasize on the importance of the links between imagination, skills, knowledge and competencies of my audiences.
2) I have applied one of Gaye and Micah activity (drawing picture and rewrite a sentence) in selling skill training class for sales team last week and I used it to encourage them to think in different ways to gain sales and as a result they could reframe their mindset that there should be more creative and innovative ways to work beyond their routine job.
3) And lastly I have learned from both of Gaye and Micah about preparations and planning, if I would like to strengthen my training class to be more creative I need to put enough effort for preparations like they did so thank you so much for your inspired presentation.
Thank you very much Gaye and Micah for showing your best effort to give such a beautiful and creative presentation. Your motivations have shown us that learning is fun. I agree with some of you in saying that it sometimes could bring us into an unknown and risky, but it's fun. We could do that sometimes. For people who have lots of creativity is easy to say. Creativity, I think is a gift and a skill to acquire. I have always thought that being creative is "crafty and original," but after the presentation I've learned that creative thinking and idea are also part of creative learning as well. Applications: 1. I encourage my students to not only be creative, original in arts and crafts, but also in their thinking as well. 2. I've learned today that in order for my students to be creative, I need to model it in the classroom through my creative lesson plan. 3. Creativity makes learning fun and enjoyable. Through it had also boost and energize me to teach, to pray, and to learn effectively.
I start off by simply stating wow! Last night we were all witness to an awesome presentation on Creative Teaching. I might add that it was an incredibly creative presentation with plenty of diversity and lots of opportunities for us as students to wield our creative skills and talents. The overviews, the activities, and the videos were superb! We actively participated through dynamic interaction, risk taking, engagement, and fun last night which are all critical components of creative teaching. The process of preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification were modeled repeatedly by our wonderful presenters and by all of us who got the chance to actively engage in the creative learning process numerous times throughout the presentation. If we want students to be excited about their learning then we need to get them actively involved in the learning process. We need to stimulate their curiosity and give them every chance possible to use their creativity to create after which they will most certainly learn through a valuable learning experience that is authentic and real life. We must learn to value diversity and foster an environment of creative thinking and learning in our classrooms. To do this means that we as teachers need to make every effort to be as creative as possible. Without creativity our classes, teaching, etc. will simply be a static graveyard of nothingness. This was a very powerful and eye-opening presentation. Thank you so much Micah and Gaye!
ReplyDeleteReflection Part I Summary
David Maksel
Application:
ReplyDelete1. We as teachers must make every effort to be creative in our lesson planning. We need to plan for opportunities in every lesson for our students to be creative and create. We must model that first as teachers in our planning and delivery as well as in activities that we prepare for students.
2. We as teachers have to be flexible. There are many days when a lesson doesn’t go quite as planned. So be creative! Be open to alternatives and last minute changes or twists that keep a lesson alive and foster opportunities for students to be creative and be engaged. Be prepared to be flexible!
3. We need to plan activities very carefully so that they allow our very diverse students the opportunity to shine through the use of their own creativity. Our activities must be engaging and allow for powerful and meaningful interaction. Our activities need to be fun and relate somehow to real life. Creative activities will instill fresh life into our classrooms and the learning process.
Reflection Part II Applications
Thanks everyone.
David Maksel
Reflection 5
ReplyDeleteGaye and Micah presented about creativity in curriculum, and their presentation was excellent. I think we all agree that they put a lot of efforts for this presentation. Gaye and Micah not only taught us about creativity in curriculum but also modeled us how to be creative teachers. I learned a lot from the presentation.
While Micah was talking about the things that kills creativity, this point “Being creative for the sake of being creative” made me reflect on my own experiences as a teacher. There are many occasions that I try to be “creative” in my lessons by doing different activities; and I was hoping students got the concept of what they were supposed to be learning. Students had fun and they enjoyed the activities, however somehow students had too much fun during the activities that they didn’t get the real meaning and purpose of the lessons. As I reflected on my own experiences, I realize that I need to have specific learning goals while planning creative, interesting, and engaging lessons so that students will get valuable learning experiences from the lessons.
Ken Robinson said that “schools kill creativity.” It is a strong statement, but I have to agree to some extent. Schools rarely give students chances to analyze and discuss the mistakes. We often say to the students that it is ok to make mistakes, but some students are learning that it is not all right to make mistakes because they are corrected in a harsh way.
Three applications:
1) Teach students to analyze the mistakes and remind the students that learning from our mistakes can be opportunities for us to grow.
2) Give the students opportunity to be creative. I need to encourage any new ideas of my students. Feedback and criticism should be given constructively so that students won’t get discouraged of their inputs.
3) Storytelling: It is an extremely useful classroom activity. Storytelling is not only acknowledging the importance of each student’s life but it also gives many opportunities to be creative with thinking and language.
Zarni Lwin
David, a very positive overview that raises some valuable ideas, Zarni, I appreciate how you are using these ideas to reflect on your own practices and to improve upon them. Andy
ReplyDeleteWhere can I start? Obviously by thanking Gaye and Micah for their awesome presentation. I have to thank them because I have learned. I have learned that creativity is fun but more than that I witnessed two teachers enjoying their profession; great vibes filling the room. They both have strong personalities and were never conflicting they just completed each other and made the lesson even more powerful. We as students were just engrossed by them and that is how our students should be.
ReplyDeleteFew words on the presentation itself; this is actually the way I hope my students see me when I teach. I am pretty confident that I teach in a relaxed atmosphere but I am not so sure how my content is received. Gaye and Micah mastered the topic, used multimedia wisely and excelled in the activities.
Applications
1)Teachers must be models. I hope I can be as good as they were. Their presentation boosts my motivation. Life in the classroom could be so easy.
2)We need to be prepared to fail when we try being creative. This means preparation; so better lesson planning; so a much more effective lesson.
3)With Ben, we, for the first time took the video (since Micah was kind of busy) and had a few glitches; memory card full, battery dead.
Thanks Olivier
Hi everyone.First of all, I would like to thank Gaye and Micah for a great presentation! Congratulations guys!!!
ReplyDeleteAs teachers, we must be aware of how creativity works in our classroom. Creative activity/tasks that are more varied and more enjoyable will enrich the creative minds of our students, leading them to be motivated to study and learn.
As what Gaye emphasized, being creative is fun, which I totally agree. Also, it lessens boredom of our students. Just imagine yourself seated and watching a boring movie, the tendency is for you to yawn and you might even fall asleep, isn't it? This didn't happened last Tuesday, as the fun was so spontaneous! I can say that it made me aware and meditate on why creativty is very important in our classrooms. Moreover, the activities were so interesting plus the materials they used. This is a superb example of how can we avoid killing creativity in the classroom.
My applications:
1) First of all, I will create my "purpose" before I prepare my lessons and stand in front of the class.
2) I will allow creative thinking in the classroom, by asking open ended questions to my students.
3) Available materials related to the activities is a "must" as to increase interest and creativity on the part of the students. It's easy to think of what activities are you going to give, but if you don't have the proper materials, then, it's still a failure.
4) Being creative means, that I need to be aware of the varied activities such as role plays,simulation,games,and most especially songs, which I believe is a very powerful tool in arousing students positive outlook in learning ESL. Another thing is that, songs and music has a great educational value.
Thanks,
Evan :)
Great start with these reflections! I echo all of the positive views expressed and am very glad that we got such a great model for presenting so early on. I think it will be helpful for us all having seen a strong example of the way to proceed with these presentations. Andy
ReplyDeleteWe had learned the significant role of creativity in curriculum from Micah and Gaye's powerful presentation. They put enough strategies to battle the elements that kill creativity in class room. The elements that can produce creativity are engagement, flexibility, interaction, planning, modeling and risk taking and I strongly consent with the idea that afraid of risk taking is the most tremendous obstacle in creativity. Mean while most teachers are killing students' creativities because they are reluctant to take risk in a new situation eventhough they may be flexible and interactive with others in other fields.
ReplyDeleteApplications.
1. I will encourage my students not to afraid of making mistakes and I will let them know that mistakes are the scaffolds of success.
2. I will use some different styles of teaching in order to get students to be more active and creative.
3. I will carefully organize my daily, weekly plan in order not to be cliched or repetitious lessons.
Dennis, I notice improvement in both your thought processes and language use. Solid effort! Andy
ReplyDeleteThat was great! I was exhausted after the presentation, but in a good way. I was taken on a journey from not really knowing what creativity was in education through to being very motivated to allow my students to be more creative and be more creative myself. The presentation was interesting because of how creative Gaye and Micah were in making and executing it. The slides were easy to digest and the look and feel were easy on the eyes. The activities chosen were very creative and I especially enjoyed listening to Micah singing. I was impressed how both Gaye and Micah researched their work and were very confident explaining it. I especially liked the slide how the HP Garage list was changed to be relevant to teachers.
ReplyDeleteMy applications are:
1.It’s important that learners and teachers realize that mistakes are part of learning. After the presentation; the saying the person how never makes a mistake, never makes anything really came to mind.
2.Last week I tried two of the activities that we saw in the presentation. I wrote the math problem on the board and although none of my students were able to get the ‘right’ answer it was fascinating seeing their process of flipping numbers etc. The students later challenged me with their own logic problems. The sentence to picture back to sentence exercise was a hit. I have tried similar approaches in the past, but this time instead of correcting the students who weren’t following the guidelines to the letter I let it go. This lead to about three variations of the activity, but all achieved the objectives of the lesson.
3.I intend to be more creative and appreciate it may be difficult for the students and myself to come out of their comfort zone at first, but the benefits for all are great long term.
Ben
Creative Teaching is an interesting topic and Gayeh and Mica’s presentation even made the topic more interesting. The activities were fun and enjoyable, especially the interpretation of the drawing. I have learned a lot in this session --- on planning, being flexible, being creative and even got ideas on how to execute or implement the lessons on a creative way. I believe that creative teaching strategies must be incorporated in lesson planning in all levels to maximize the learning potentials of the students. We know that each student has his own strengths and weaknesses and by using creative teaching strategies,the teachers can harness these strentghs and improve on other areas, thus enhancing the learning.
ReplyDeleteMy applications would be as follows.
1. Careful and thorough planning must be always done in preparing for every lesson in order to make the teaching and learning process very productive. In planning any lesson, we must always consider the learners' needs --- how they think, how will they react, their strengths and weaknesses, and what they would like to know. We must also consider in planning the learning environment which should be conducive to both teaching and learning.
2. I must be always flexible and innovative in teaching. As I always do, I have a major plan for each topic and then have sub –plans or even back-up plans for each, especially on the delivery of the lessons. If one technique or activity seems to be not interesting for my students, then I move to another technique which will get their attention. Also, I may have different teaching strategies to different classes. I will be giving more challenging activities to my diamond class than to my other classes, but all strategies and activies cover the same lesson that each student must learn.
3. I will have my activities authentic in such a way that my students can readily appreciate the lessons they are learning. I will give them more application exercises of the lesson in practical situations to keep them motivated, make them more creative and to encourage the use of deeper levels of thinking.
Thank you.
Emil
Creativity in the classroom, for me, was a really fun and interesting topic to work on. During the research, I figured out that for centuries, the greatest minds of the Western world concluded that imagination could not be trusted. However, in the last 50 years, it has become increasingly clear that imagination and being creative plays a crucial role in learning and education throughout the life time. Pleasingly, as a result of the increase in applied imagination and creativity, a new educational trend which gives priority to imagination, is finally formed and now many of the educators value creativity, as it has to be.
ReplyDeleteMy applications:
1) Being creative doesn't only mean to create new things. You can pick materials from sources like the internet, books and newspapers and adapt them to your classroom. From now on I plan to spend more time on searching for creative ideas and activities. Definitely there is a great amount of sources available out there waiting to be discovered
2) One of the key points of being creative is that the teachers should enjoy what they are teaching too. From my personal observation, I realized that the more I am excited and having fun about what I am teaching, the more my students are engaged and being creative. So I think as a teacher we should try to keep our enthusiasm alive.
3) What is a little bit scary about being creative in the classroom is that the teachers need to take risks sometimes. Actually, for me it's the fun part I can say. Waiting for the unknown to happen and excited about it. Definitely I would take that risk...
Thank you
Gaye Sadic
Thanks Gaye and Mica brought that such great presentation to us, made class became a lot fun and interested.
ReplyDeleteCreativity classroom encourage creative thinking.
Based on I learned from they are presentation and I did some searching I'll add some ideas here:
Effect of ‘creativity’ and ‘meditation’ rooms on pupils
- Pupils’ self-esteem and sense of wellbeing was raised through
involvement in designing the meditation and creativity rooms
- Pupils benefited from learning specific techniques for relaxation and
creative thinking in the redesigned rooms
- Pupils felt greater ownership of their learning environment when given
the power to design and create it
- Pupils working in their own creative room become more engaged in
writing activities
- Feedback from pupils and parents was positive in assessing the outcomes
of the project
- New strategies were developed for teaching meditation, relaxation,
philosophy and creativity
- Staff felt the new rooms provided creative resources for the whole school
creativity classroom should be fun and interested, it could be releasing potential and divergent thinking of student. But during the process of class it not only required teacher can flexible use multiple teaching skill or doing activities but also required teacher could manage classroom well.
Application:
- creativity classroom could be use in any level teaching, especially for K-12 grade students.
-The purpose of creative class is let the student get knowledge from teacher's approaches or activities. How can we achieved that purpose? It required teacher have to planning well before the class, otherwise, the class could going to mess.
- Definitely, as Gaye said that creative in the classroom is that the teachers need to take risks sometimes. That's would be a challenge for teacher and more interesting, but, anyway, teacher should be control class steps and manage well, there are could be take risk but not an accident.
Thank you
Eva
From Chie....
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thank you very much for wonderful presentation, Gaye and Micah. It was really fun and engaging. I learned a lot, and I am actually very excited to apply what I have learned from the presentation in my own class. Whenever my students do presentation in my class, I encourage them to be creative. However, seeing the presentation, I realized that it is not enough to just tell them “be creative.” I need to model creativity and give some stimulation or incentives to get my students to be more creative. As shown in the presentation, creativity involves engagement of a teacher and students, flexibility, interaction, modeling, planning, and risk taking. I guess fostering creativity is a challenging task, and it requires a lot of preparation and creativity in teacher’s part as well. However, Micah and Gaye’s creative presentation really made me feel that I want to try my best to make my lesson more creative because I really enjoy seeing my students show their creativity in my class.
3 applications
1) Three activities Gaye and Micah have done are all applicable in my Japanese class. Especially I want to try the “filling in lyrics” one. In introductory Japanese course, my students do presentation on their favorite Japanese songs. I think I should let them do the “filling in lyrics” activity so that they pay more attention to the language of songs. (I am not a good singer like Micah, but I am sure my students can sing)
2) The way they presented the material was also something I would like to apply in my class. The presentation was well understood, I think that’s because they showed us what is creativity, how to foster it, and why it is important. Especially when you present something abstract like creativity, it is crucial you show what, how, and why (the value or meaning of the notion). I would make sure I do that too in my class.
3) As a language teacher, in terms of language usage, I do need to correct mistakes and let them know proper, acceptable way of using language so that my students won’t get embarrassed in the future. However, in terms of ideas, I would like to encourage different ways of thinking and critical way of looking at the language and culture.
Thank you,
Chie Katsuda
Reflection #5
ReplyDeleteFirstly, i would like to thanks Gaye and Micah for their efforts in their presentation. They did a great job. Creative classrooms encourage creative thinking and im sure they have had a great but positive impact on each of us that night. Especially the were very creative in choosing their activities to pass on the message. I was impressed with all the activities we had in class, especially the first activity guessing the meaning through the picture drawn.
Moreover, Micah singing was very impressive. A good way to entertain the class.
- I would encourage my students to be creative in classroom to foster better learning.
- Micah and Gaye had showed that using the appropriate activities would denfinately give a postive impact to learning. Making it fun and easily applicable in classrooms.
- The quote "School kills creativity" that was presentation by Micah and Gaye was quiet shocking. We as teachers needs to encourage a more creative classroom by improving ourselves and trying our best to implement creative classroom learning.
Navnita Charucharoen :)
Week 5 I enjoyed admirable presentation of Gaya and Micah’s–creativity curriculum .creativity involved (engagement ,flexibility ,interaction ,modeling ,planning ,risk- taking )and process of creativity (preparation ,incubation ,illumination ,verification)are significant for us in real teaching activity .presenters clearly express the significance and taken practice in the process ,show us the theme clear.
ReplyDeleteThere is a phenomenon shocked me ---96% of adolescents with online access create new content online, primarily outside school. As a teacher ,we have to face and think this serious problem .same phenomenon in China ,so many students got golden medal in the International Mathematical/ Physics Olympiad Competition, but no body can get the Nobel prize. This always was considered as failure of Chinese education . The students' creativity was killed in school .
Application :
1, Cooperation between school and teachers is necessary. Implement creativity curriculum and teaching is not easy ,can not get a prospective result just teachers engage in it .need school support ,offer creative environment to students even teachers .
2,Encourage students open mind , Think positively. protect students’ creativeness.
3,Do not be afraid make mistakes .do not be afraid take risk .mistake and risk can help strike out new path.
cui mei (May)
Thank you so much to Mica and Gaye for a fantastic presentation. Judging by the reflections I've read everyone got a huge amount out of it. I certainly did!
ReplyDeleteLoved the variety of approaches, activities and the worship song was a real bonus! I also loved the last video you showed.
I have thought quite a lot this week in response to your presentation, about creative risk taking and how essential this is to the creative process. That failure needs to be allowed and at times encouraged.
I thought the 2 examples you used namely Picasso and Mozart were very interesting. Both highly creative, both of them radically changed the direction of their chosen medium. The worlds of Music and Art were never the same after them. It was if a doorway had been opened that others could now step through. But what has interested me this week is that they both started in their chosen career in a very disciplined and structured manner. Probably without much creativity! Learning skills and by reproducing the works of other great masters. Once they had a deep understanding of their subject they were able to really ‘cut loose’ creatively.
I have been thinking about the teaching of basic skills are used a ‘building block’ to take creative risks.
Applications:
Question: how to achieve a balance between teaching skill (in order to build confidence and understanding) and risk taking (which will lead to new and original outcomes).
1. Gaining Balance – readdressing the balance between what time is spent focusing on skills teaching and what time is spent on creative thinking, experimenting and risk taking.
2. Grading – I have been thinking about how the grading of student work could be structured in a way that would positively reward both skill development and risk taking.
Thanks everybody! I'm glad you enjoyed our presentation. I am cramming this post by the way! However, the issues I brought up in our presentation of creativity in curriculum are still in my head. I recently went to Asia books to check if they had copies of the book "A Whole New Mind" and they didn't have it. I'm really intrigued by what the author, Daniel Pink, said about how creative jobs or jobs that require alot of creativity will dominate the future, at least that what he says.
ReplyDelete1)I'm interested to know more about this so this is my first application: Find the book- read it.
2)Secondly, what I learned from creating my presentation was how to ask myself this question: "How do I really get across in a way that is effective?" Which essentially is a key question for creativity in the curriculum. I think this question forces you to think hard about what you're teaching, which helps you develop different ideas about how to teach a lesson.
3) Thirdly, I am also interested in Edward De Bono. I'd like to find out more about his ideas about creativity. He wrote a book called "Lateral Thinking" in which he basically talks about how we can teach and train creative or critical thinking, which I am somewhat interested in. He also wrote a book called "How To Have Creative Ideas", in which he lists 62 games that help you brainstorm for creative ideas. I think it is helpful and useful for anyone and definitely, I feel, for a classroom. I would like to get it as well and hopefully use it sometime!
This is it for now. Thanks!
-Micah
From Martin...
ReplyDeleteThank you so much to Mica and Gaye for a fantastic presentation. Judging by the reflections I've read everyone got a huge amount out of it. I certainly did!
Loved the variety of approaches, activities and the worship song was a real bonus! I also loved the last video you showed.
I have thought quite a lot this week in response to your presentation, about creative risk taking and how essential this is to the creative process. That failure needs to be allowed and at times encouraged.
I thought the 2 examples you used namely Picasso and Mozart were very interesting. Both highly creative, both of them radically changed the direction of their chosen medium. The worlds of Music and Art were never the same after them. It was if a doorway had been opened that others could now step through. But what has interested me this week is that they both started in their chosen career in a very disciplined and structured manner. Probably without much creativity! Learning skills and by reproducing the works of other great masters. Once they had a deep understanding of their subject they were able to really ‘cut loose’ creatively.
I have been thinking about the teaching of basic skills are used a ‘building block’ to take creative risks.
Applications:
Question: how to achieve a balance between teaching skill (in order to build confidence and understanding) and risk taking (which will lead to new and original outcomes).
1. Gaining Balance – readdressing the balance between what time is spent focusing on skills teaching and what time is spent on creative thinking, experimenting and risk taking.
2. Grading – I have been thinking about how the grading of student work could be structured in a way that would positively reward both skill development and risk taking.
LOL looks like Martin succeeded after all, as I noticed right after reading his email and posting for him. Oh well, you can all read it twice, it's a good reflection, Dr. Andy....
ReplyDeleteDear Dr.Andy
ReplyDeleteI gained a lot of valuable things from our last class. They were well done so benefited to others. I really want to apply what I had learned to may real situation as a teacher.
1. Many activities such as: writing, painting and expressing ideas. I try to keep doing much more when I begin a new lesson because it makes students really love the class and when they love they will direct their own learning.
2. Learning English by singing is a great skill that I used to do and I continue to do it better with your Dr.Andy's suggestion.
3. I will apply Team teaching method to my lesson because we have many good ideas to put together and help students to learn effectively.
Thank for you reading.
All the best,
KHOA, VU DO ANH
Gaye and Micah's presentation was excellent, and I definitely learnt alot about creativity. However my applications would be regarding the usage of creativity in three different areas:
ReplyDelete1)Teaching methodologies could be creative. One example could be instead of a boring common approach to teaching history, teachers could get students to dress up in relevant costumes to make it more entertaining.
2)Creativity could be used in classwork as well where instead of teachers giving students to memorize poems in class, to make it more fun and interesting, students can pair up and create their own tunes to the poem which will help them memorize,
3) In public schools where students wear uniforms, to make the class more interesting teachers should used materials in class which are colorful as students uniforms themselves are robotic and colors are a good aid to teaching.
-Laxshmi S.
I posted at old phd site this week as I had problems getting here!
ReplyDeleteBut I am here now!
please accept!??
Thanks Jeffrey
Jeff, just go ahead and paste a copy of it here, no problem. Andy
ReplyDeleteI think the presentation on creativity is one of the most challenged topics for presenters however Gaye and Micah showed us an incredible presentation last week.
ReplyDeleteThey delivered a fruitful presentation by using variety ways in their presentation; lecture by slides, using multimedia and engaging audiences by activities and I love all of their activities; filling the lyric & playing guitar, drawing picture and leaf activity. They were actively encouraged us to develop creative ideas and to apply it in our own classes and I would love to share my applications as follows;
Applications
1) I definitely agree that creative and innovative approaches to curriculum planning can increase levels of motivation and I will apply it to my training class. There is one thing that would be more practical for my training class is to emphasize on the importance of the links between imagination, skills, knowledge and competencies of my audiences.
2) I have applied one of Gaye and Micah activity (drawing picture and rewrite a sentence) in selling skill training class for sales team last week and I used it to encourage them to think in different ways to gain sales and as a result they could reframe their mindset that there should be more creative and innovative ways to work beyond their routine job.
3) And lastly I have learned from both of Gaye and Micah about preparations and planning, if I would like to strengthen my training class to be more creative I need to put enough effort for preparations like they did so thank you so much for your inspired presentation.
Gina
Thank you very much Gaye and Micah for showing your best effort to give such a beautiful and creative presentation. Your motivations have shown us that learning is fun. I agree with some of you in saying that it sometimes could bring us into an unknown and risky, but it's fun. We could do that sometimes. For people who have lots of creativity is easy to say. Creativity, I think is a gift and a skill to acquire. I have always thought that being creative is "crafty and original," but after the presentation I've learned that creative thinking and idea are also part of creative learning as well.
ReplyDeleteApplications:
1. I encourage my students to not only be creative, original in arts and crafts, but also in their thinking as well.
2. I've learned today that in order for my students to be creative, I need to model it in the classroom through my creative lesson plan.
3. Creativity makes learning fun and enjoyable. Through it had also boost and energize me to teach, to pray, and to learn effectively.