Group items tagged

"Conversation is key . Sawyer succinctly explains this principle: "Conversation leads to flow, and flow leads to creativity." When having students work in groups, consider what will spark rich conversation. The original researcher on flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, found that rich conversation precedes and ignites flow more than any other activity.1 Tasks that require (or force) interaction lead to richer collaborative conceptualization. Set a clear but open-ended goal . Groups produce the richest ideas when they have a goal that will focus their interaction but also has fluid enough boundaries to allow for creativity. This is a challenge we often overlook. As teachers, we often have an idea of what a group's final product should look like (or sound like, or…). If we put students into groups to produce a predetermined outcome, we prevent creative thinking from finding an entry point. Try not announcing time limits. As teachers we often use a time limit as a "motivator" that we hope will keep group work focused. In reality, this may be a major detractor from quality group work. Deadlines, according to Sawyer, tend to impede flow and produce lower quality results. Groups produce their best work in low-pressure situations. Without a need to "keep one eye on the clock," the group's focus can be fully given to the task. Do not appoint a group "leader." In research studies, supervisors, or group leaders, tend to subvert flow unless they participate as an equal, listening and allowing the group's thoughts and decisions to guide the interaction. Keep it small. Groups with the minimum number of members that are needed to accomplish a task are more efficient and effective. Consider weaving together individual and group work. For additive tasks-tasks in whicha group is expectedtoproduce a list, adding one idea to another-research suggests that better results develop

Lessons for teaching and learning in iWoz by Steve Wozniak and Creating Innovators by Tony Wagner

Innovation and creativity can't be tested or graded, but they can be built up. Here's how.

We all get overloaded from time to time, especially toward the end of a term when your todo list turns from being measured by points to metres. We all have our own capacity to deal with the issues at hand, and the ideas behind Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) attempt to maximise our bandwidth while streamlining the signals. The origins of the theory go back to the 1980s when a plethora of digital innovations changed how presentations were done in the business world. This trickled down in the following decades into how teachers presented ideas, moving away from blackboard and Over-Head Projectors to digitalised PowerPoint presentations. As with any new innovation, form overcame function, and for a period in the early noughties, I swear it must have been the law to cram as many animations and sound effects into every PowerPoint, and reading every word from the screen aloud was mandatory.

The Partnership for Innovative Instruction is a project of the MN Learning Commons. Our goal is to leverage the power of collaboration and digital resources to launch teachers and students into new learning frontiers.

A great example of a young innovator and the benefits of play and prototype.  Should have been a Tony Wagner case study.

Wow! This is amazing!!

I like the idea of reinforcing the valued behaviors using the technology tools in our hands. Promoting key self-descriptors such as resilient, innovative, self-determined, integrated, and the like, on the pages of our training materials both paper and electronic, would create added value.

Most employers do not want employees who hate their work but persist through it anyway. It is a fallacy to believe that we are teaching our kids that the heart of innovative capability (and therefore their future job prospects) is best served by doing something you hate for an extended period of time no matter the consequences.

Love it... should be more than a single day, of course.

Editor's note: Group work can suck because teachers sometimes do a poor job of giving credit where credit is due.  Innovative educator Diana Laufenberg has some thoughts on how to make group work better.  

Harvard team of educational thinkers and innovators whose principal inventories include researching beliefs, attitudes, policy, and how to make change

"For example, all of us can relate to how we moved, in financial record-keeping, from paper processes to our present reconceptualized approach. First, we duplicated the by-hand processes and forms into a digital format, including all the checking and rechecking by people. Only when we had convinced ourselves that a digital world was possible, that it was reliable, and that the output was valid did we rethink the process of what needed to be done and for what purpose. Only then did we redesign the approval process, for instance, to include human checking only when required by best practice under audit standards. At that point, true reconceptualization (reengineering, disruption) occurred."

To catalyze and support excellence in teaching and learning of science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) and other core subjects through innovative, research-based instructional strategies and use of novel technologies.

The Innovative Educator: 5 Reasons to Allow Students to Use Cell Phones in Class #edtech http://t.co/LFxg2cM4

Thinking about how to create a classroom that allows for authentic innovation and investigation. 

This reinforces Scott McLeod's assertion (shared by many others) that we need to have a revolutionary change, not an incremental one.