Yesterday's chats dovetailed nicely yet independently as teachers on Twitter trumpeted the importance of creativity. Most everyone has heard educators and non-educators alike bemoan business-as-usual standardized testing and the resulting teach-to-the-test methods some schools have adopted as a strategy to protect them from the financial repercussions of poor student test performance. The main objection for decades, in terms of student learning, is simple. Preparing for a test is NOT the same as actually learning. Memorization is not understanding or the ability to apply knowledge; it is not critical thinking. Considering both the general public and even a significant percentage of science teachers lack understanding about the very basics of climate change, any approach that diminishes lessons in critical thinking for rote memorization undermines us all.
Critical thinking has been the focus to encourage a shift back towards education designed to produce better qualitative results for students and their communities. I am not here debating the value of critical thinking. I once coached debate, and as a student, I was on the debate team from junior high until my senior year. Critical thinking represented both a skill and an odd kind of joy for me. Whether I was competing or not, being able to reason logically allowed me to learn much without needing a teacher to supervise me. It was as liberating as learning to read and write. So I value critical thinking highly, but it is only part of the solution to our problems in education and student learning. Critical thinking cannot advance without a necessary partner, creative thinking. Both styles of thinking propel the analytical process. While often acknowledged as essential to student curiosity, motivation and a sense of knowledge ownership, creative thinking is still too often overlooked as an essential component to cognitive processes more generally. Like two sides of a zipper, each style of thinking helps the other advance from question to test to analysis to conclusions and finally implementation. Zippers don't work without both sides. Students' cognitive abilities aren't fully developed without attention to both styles. Fortunately, many educators are well aware of the importance of creativity, especially those involved in PBL, makerspace movements and outdoor learning experiences. These teachers and allies do recognize creativity as an essential for developing skills in logic, as well as adapting to situations in which students have no prior knowledge. Today's students face these situations with ever-increasing frequency because the pace of our rapidly-changing world is accelerated by our technology. So students must learn to adapt by employing creative thinking strategies. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of joining two Twitter chats discussing just that topic: creativity in the classroom, #satchat and a more slowly-paced chat that is ongoing at #edchatMENA. The first chat included several discussions on maker spaces where students get creative by actually designing and producing through PBL learning experiences. Although such spaces often center around STEM education, they need not be so restricted. Any subject can accommodate a maker space, either physically located in the classroom or accessed, indoors or out, as a part of class lesson plans. The second chat focused on teaching creativity more generally and emphasized the multitude of ways in which creative thinking benefits students. Both chats, as well as several other education chats on Twitter are emphasizing creativity in teaching. The topic is trending online. I found inspiration and great suggestions from both chats. The fact that educators on Twitter are ringing the bell to alert the greater world to the necessity for creativity in student learning is worth noting. This isn't another education fad, like so many others in the past. Creative thinking is too often overlooked in the pursuit of some type of semi-critical thinking style, an imitative style, devoid of any creativity, just a step above rote memorization. Or worse, critical thinking is sidelined completely along with its twin for students to pass a test which won't help them in any appreciable way once the test has ended. Finally for STEM fans, adding the creative component in the form of fine arts or other liberal arts such as language and social studies adds a necessary component to give STEM more meaning and impact. STEM + Arts = STEAM Powered Ed!
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Seems like forever since I created a little cloud presentation as a way of learning Google Slides myself. It was my own personal project-based-learning experiment. Then it lingered, circling the runway, so to speak. Finally, with the updates to the Learn On The Fly website, I was able to give this presentation a home. I'm still doing a bit of tweaking and troubleshooting, hoping responsive design will take care of many accessibility issues, but I do plan further updates.
#PBL #STEAM #STEM #GoogleSlides #Clouds CHECK OUT THE PRESENTATION! I can't believe it's been almost a year since I updated my Weebly blog Learn on The Fly! Well, I can if I consider how many other projects I've been working on simultaneously, between bouts of personal and family illness and emergency. 2015 was quite a year.
Not much has changed since my last post, except I've discovered even more fantastic resources and Twitter chats to share. Stay tuned for updates! Until then, catch up with me via social media links on the About page. Taking off for now! |
Tracye Lynn "Willow" BoudellI survive and thrive by learning on the fly! Archives
January 2020
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