What Is Creativity

Using ICT To Nurture Not Numb Creativity

Rochelle Jensen and Ivan Lomax - School Support Services, Uni of Waikato.

For workshop material visit: https://creativethinkingulearn.wikispaces.com/ULearn+2007

Overview What is Creativity? Creativity in Action Educators and Creativity The Importance of Creative Thinking Creativity in the Classroom *pedagogy *environment *thinking tools *software *learning experiences

Aims

Increased understanding of the importance of creativity in today’s society

Practical tools and strategies for use in the classroom

Where this workshop fits? Bernie Trilling - "Toward learning societies and the global challenges for learning with ICT“ Australian Education Computing Journal Vol 22 No 1

What is creativity?

Being purposeful as well as imaginative.

Often comes from the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things

Technology – an enabler of creativity

The link between creativity and innovation

Being purposeful as well as imaginative

The interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things

Technology – an enabler of creativity

Creativity can lead to innovation

creativity in action

big picture What do educators need to do to generate this kind of thinking?

Look beyond education – Immerse ourselves in ideas, visions and plans.

Collaborate with a wide range of people and industries. Seek / Generate Intersections.

What possibilities lie beyond the boundaries?

Keep up with technological developments. - Rid cinderella mentality – don’t wait for hand-me-downs.

What is available? How can it be applied to the education sector?

As Douglas Adams once observed : “ the best way to predict the future is to build it”. We need to know the building blocks available to us as educators in the near future in order to know how we might use them and develop them for education. Futurelab -2020 and Beyond

creativity Why is it important? You can't solve a problem on the same level that it was created. You have to rise above it to the next level. Albert Einstein

today's classrooms What can educators do to nurture creative thinking? Creativity can be strengthened through use. ‘ Muscle’ behind it that tends to improve with use . Source: Adapted with permission from Planning for Productive Thinking and Learning (p. 27), by D.J. Treffinger & J.F. Feldhausen, 1998, Saratosa, FL: Center for Creative Learning. Thinking Tools/ Software Micro: Challenges/ Tasks Mega: Collaborative Projects/ Independent Research Pedagogy

Focus :

Knowledge – Concepts

Synthesis

Process/Metacognition

pedagogy

Higher Order Thinking

( Blooms/SOLO)

Inquiry Learning

Performance Measures

Trevor Bond's understanding performances

form or alter an opinion

govern an action

make a decision

form a hypothesis

meet a need

predict an outcome

suggest a solution

analyse a situation

debate an issue

create a strategy

improve a product or process

solve a problem

prepare a demonstration

Characterised by:

Questioning and challenging.

Exploring and accepting a range of ideas and solutions

Providing instruction in methods and tools and the learning experiences to practice and apply .

Reinterpreting and apply their learning in a new context.

Build learners' sense of themselves as active knowledge-builders, having a unique niche, role, point of

difference -Gilbert

Envisaging what might be – What if? Visualise? Alternatives?

Exploring with a range of tools. Collaborating, communicating with a range of sources.

Communicating ideas in novel, unexpected ways. Experimenting with different multi-media tools

to make meaning.

Reflecting critically on ideas, actions and outcomes

Focus on metacognition

Focus on process - how meaning was made.

Relationships, connections and interactions

environment

What tools/strategies are you aware of that aim to generate creative thinking ?

Popular tools/ strategies

thinking tools “ The creative thinking process can be accidental or deliberate. In saying that , most experts believe that everyone can be more creative than they are at present when specific approaches to creative production are employed”. Pohl - 2000

What software are you aware of that can promote creative thinking ? How do you use it? software

the learning experience task, challenges, projects ... To be powerful in our contemporary world , instruction that seeks to nurture creativity, critical thinking, or problem solving must extend beyond simple activities , exercises or packaged problems. We must learn, apply and teach sophisticated approaches in which we tailor our methods and tools to the tasks we are addressing , including real life challenges ; to the people with whom we are working, and to the situations in which our work takes place. Mary Murdoch. micro mega