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Brian C. Smith

How to Incubate Creativity in School Through Making and Discovery | MindShift | KQED News - 1 views

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    "'Our goal is not to create more scientists and engineers; it's to leave doors open for kids.'" This is a particularly powerful message for those interested in developing creativity. Creativity is cannot be captured in the form of a rubric, it is within the child and we must cultivate and allow it to develop in ever opening doors.
Martin Leicht

The End of 'Genius' - The New York Times - 0 views

  • JOSHUA WOLF SHENK
  • The elemental collective, of course, is the pair. Two people are the root of social experience — and of creative work.
  • given that our psyches take shape through one-on-one exchanges, we’re likely set up to interact with a single person more openly and deeply than with any group
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  • he found that groups created a sense of community, purpose and audience, but that the truly important work ended up happening in pairs
  • Two people can make their own society
  • The pair is also inherently fluid and flexible
  • Three legs make a table stand in place. Two legs are made for moving
  • But nobody can hide in a pair.
  • The pair is the primary creative unit — not just because pairs produce such a staggering amount of work but also because they help us to grasp the concept of dialectical exchange.
  • And when we listen to creative people describe breakthrough moments that occur when they are alone, they often mention the sensation of having a conversation in their own minds
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    the "pair" take on creativity - no "solo" genius
Martin Leicht

Jennifer Mueller's Creative Change: Most people are secretly threatened by creativity -... - 0 views

  • But research shows that many teachers define creativity as a skill that’s mainly associated with the art
  • Study after study shows that new ideas are chronically rejected at many companies, even businesses that say they want more innovation.
  • To cope with all this complexity, we strive for simplicity.
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  • So how do we unleash this potential for innovation? The first step is to face up to our (quite understandable) desire for clear-cut answers that affirm ideas with which we’re familiar.
Brian C. Smith

Fundamentals of Creativity - 0 views

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    Five insights can help educators nurture student creativity in ways that enhance academic learning.
Brian C. Smith

Adios Ed Tech. Hola something else. - 0 views

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    "My framework for technologies in the edtech space now, those that I find empowering for learners and reflective of a human and creative-oriented future, includes five elements: Does the technology foster creativity and personal expression? Does the technology develop the learner and contribute to her formation as a person? Is the technology fun and engaging? Does the technology have the human teacher and/or peer learners at the centre? Does the technology consider the whole learner?"
Martin Leicht

Play Is Serious Business | Psychology Today - 0 views

  • the Prussian military developed a model that now resembles our school structure today
    • Martin Leicht
       
      Okay, we throw the Prussians under the bus for developing school, as we know it. 
  • Researchers have already exposed the risks of sitting for hours at a time and know that it increases health problems
  • Stuart Brown, one of the foremost play researchers in the world, states that play is essential for both brain development and social development, from childhood into adulthood.
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  • It is a biological mechanism for making learning enjoyable.
  • Play helps meld emotion into the experience of learning.
  • If a child is denied the opportunity to play, the body and mind fight back.
  • Play allows children to let off steam
  • positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and increase cognitive flexibility.  Why not embrace the tool in the curriculum?  
  • When school becomes a stressful place for a child, it is no longer a supportive, positive learning environment
  • teachers at traditional schools can adapt their classrooms to include more choices, more creativity, and more open play
  • Play has become a luxury – available in private schools that espouse progressive learning principles, but crowded out of public schools by a teach-to-the-test mentality.
  • Despite increasing research on play and emotion, relatively few studies of play within the school environment exist.
  • Increasingly, educators are calling for a return (link is external) to the greater integration of play into elementary education.
    • Martin Leicht
       
      integration, the question what is the integration equation? How much play how much less structured teach to the test? 
  • Fredrickson
Martin Leicht

Is Design Thinking the New Liberal Arts? - CIO Journal. - WSJ - 0 views

  • The first is feasibility
  • Next comes viability
  • The final dimension is desirability
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  • Design thinking is now being applied to abstract entities, such as systems and services, as well as to devise strategies, manage change and solve complex problems.
  • d.school, was launched in 2004 as a graduate program that integrates business, the social sciences, the humanities and other disciplines into more traditional engineering and product design
  • take on the world’s messy problems together.
    • Martin Leicht
       
      human values & continuing evolution
  • deliberate mash-up of industry, academia and the big world beyond campus is a key
  • rigorous engineering education; entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial thinking; and the arts, which broadly encompasses creativity, innovation and design
  • students needed to learn how to think critically and creatively every bit as much as they needed to learn finance or accounting.
    • Martin Leicht
       
      approach from different perspectives & even combine approaches to find innovative solutions
  • has design thinking now become the new liberal arts? After pondering the question, I believe the answer is: No
  • Design Thinking is frequently identified as an engaging process and methodical framework for approaching complex, multidisciplinary problems in ways that consistently result in solutions that are successful and often creative in unpredictable way
    • Martin Leicht
       
      DT - it's a framework for thinking about complex, multidisciplinary problems to be applied to anything
    • Martin Leicht
       
      successful design solutions are found at the intersection of "feasibility", "viability," and "desirability.'
  • How is design thinking human-centered,
  • Do disciplines, in order to evolve and advance, need some place in which to play and from which to be provoked?… Research-as-questioning is a much freer and more playful approach to discovery. It keeps us in closer contact with our natural disposition to curiosity and wonder.”
  • concluded that their action-oriented approach to problem solving did not pay proper attention to past knowledge. “A truly human-centered design, if it takes culture at all seriously, would have to take pastness seriously
    • Martin Leicht
       
      study of the past sets us up to live well in future
    • Martin Leicht
       
      Design Thinking does not really focus much on the past beyond the definition of the problem/challenge were liberal arts does.
  • But for them to really shape the future of university learning, they will have to do a better job of engaging with precisely what the university was designed to promote, and what design thinking, with its emphasis on innovation, has thus far completely ignored: the past.”
  • The difference between science and engineering is often described by the nature of the questions that are asked: scientists ask why as they attempt to understand the world, while engineers ask why not as they attempt to change it and create what has never been
    • Martin Leicht
       
      You need both Science, the why, and Engineering, the why not, to fully leverage/use/benefit from design thinking. As do Liberal Arts and Design Thinking. Both are a symbiotic twin.
Brian C. Smith

These Creative Kids Designed A Way To Measure All The Plastic In The Ocean | Co.Exist |... - 0 views

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    This project happened right here in Hong Kong with a partnership between a school and makers in the community. We have the contacts for this type of project. Do we really want this? If so, what needs to give in order to make it happen? If we don't, why the heck not? ~ Brian
Brian C. Smith

Constructionism through Design Thinking Projects | FabLearn Fellows - 1 views

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    "Hard problems require time (months), collaboration, creativity, grit and learning new skills to pass a challenge. The true sign of a good hard problem is when the adults do not have all the answers for students, rather the students get to take charge using their own imagination and ambition to reach a goal set by their team."
Martin Leicht

It's 'digital heroin': How screens turn kids into psychotic junkies | New York Post - 0 views

    • Martin Leicht
       
      Signs/signals being sent to the parent. "It's educational" is a reasonable excuse, yet does it trump parenting technique/skill?
  • As his behavior continued to deteriorate, she tried to take the game away but John threw temper tantrums. His outbursts were so severe that she gave in, still rationalizing to herself over and over again that “it’s educational.”
    • Martin Leicht
       
      Is too much of any one thing, e.g., baseball, food, study, computers, etc., a good idea?
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  • Many parents intuitively understand that ubiquitous glowing screens are having a negative effect on kids. We see the aggressive temper tantrums when the devices are taken away and the wandering attention spans when children are not perpetually stimulated by their hyper-arousing devices.
  • Recent brain imaging research is showing that they affect the brain’s frontal cortex — which controls executive functioning, including impulse control — in exactly the same way that cocaine does. Technology is so hyper-arousing that it raises dopamine levels — the feel-good neurotransmitter most involved in the addiction dynamic — as much as sex.
  • “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” to be especially true when it comes to tech addiction.
    • Martin Leicht
       
      When do we as parents act? Or is it more a partnership going forward? Yes, we (schools) asked students to use these devices. And we must do are bit to help students manage/cope. At the same time, parents need to be aware too. I know we all want to be liked as parents. In today's modern family, life is complex. Yet, I come to the conclusion that I am not my son's friend. There's going to be a lot of actions/directives he will not like. And yes, I will need to do a lot of work to get us through it, yet isn't that my job as a parent to deal with the changes as they come in order to guide him toward adulthood?
  • According to a 2013 Policy Statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics, 8- to 10 year-olds spend 8 hours a day with various digital media while teenagers spend 11 hours in front of screens. One in three kids are using tablets or smartphones before they can talk
    • Martin Leicht
       
      1 in 3 before they can talk are using tablets? Okay, this is an interesting statement. Is it supervised use? How long? I would ask the question, why? We as parents make a lot of interesting choices as parents and we all need to stop and reflect on those choices often. If it is before they can talk, then it is definitely not the school asking/requiring the device.
  • Once a person crosses over the line into full-blown addiction — drug, digital or otherwise — they need to detox before any other kind of therapy can have any chance of being effective.
  • So how do we keep our children from crossing this line? It’s not easy.
  • That means Lego instead of Minecraft; books instead of iPads; nature and sports instead of TV
    • Martin Leicht
       
      Great strategy, active parenting. I would suggest, cooking, surfing, and any activity involving ones hands. Of course, do parents have time for this?
  • When I speak to my 9-year-old twin boys, I have honest conversations with them about why we don’t want them having tablets or playing video games.
    • Martin Leicht
       
      I like the "conversations" point. Not one, many conversations.
    • Martin Leicht
       
      Another great strategy. I would add, the conversation is on going. The author references the distracted parent syndrome above, that one is key!
  • Developmental psychologists understand that children’s healthy development involves social interaction, creative imaginative play and an engagement with the real, natural world.
    • Martin Leicht
       
      Moderation, no? Does not the standby wisdom that everything in moderation apply here too?
  • Thus the solution is often to help kids to connect to meaningful real-life experiences and flesh-and-blood relationships. The engaged child tethered to creative activities and connected to his or her family is less likely to escape into the digital fantasy world.
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    Yeah, this is why the Reggio Emilia Approach and maker-centered learning is excellent. The blending of the digital and physical world to learn nearly anything on any topic and beyond. Kids might spend more time with devices in activities stemming from maker-centered learning, but it isn't all on the device and it provides alternative ways of knowing, understanding, and doing. We, the adults, are ultimately responsible for creating the conditions for this to be so. Papert has taught us this decades ago. I don't know why we don't study his work among the others that have known this for a very long time. Isn't it time to do so with the technology group?
Brian C. Smith

An Ode to Maker Camp: What Makes a Maker? Childhood - 0 views

  • Dr. Guilford’s question: “How are you going to design something if you’ve never built anything?”
  • How are you going to build something if you’ve never taken something apart?
  • How are you going to come up with interesting ideas and solutions if you’ve never been allowed to play with physical and digital bits and pieces?
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  • It takes a playful, curious person to take things apart and imagine new ways to put the parts back together.
  • Youthful creativity combined with readily available materials often leads to a whirlwind of wonderful things.
  • Amon Milner, a maker/educator, what a “maker” was, he replied that “[all] people are makers. And the conditions in which people can grow up and have that supported and still do it into adulthood is a very special person… Every [child] is a maker and some get to stay that way longer.”
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    How are you going to design something if you've never built anything?
Brian C. Smith

Collaboration - 0 views

  • Collaboration is more than simply the division of labor. It should not be taught as an isolated skill or coerced. Sadly, like many seemingly good ideas, schools seek to mechanize collaboration by turning natural process into a set of measurable skills and multi-year course of study, easily assessed. Some children win, while others fail.
  • Cooperation and collaboration are natural processes. Such skills are useful when the creative process benefits from interdependence. The best collaboration mirrors democracy when individual talents, knowledge, or experiences are contributed to produce something larger than the sum of its parts.
  • Work with your friends. Work with people you trust. Work with people who have different skills or expertise. If that doesn’t produce the result you desire, you will find others to collaborate with. That is how you learn to collaborate. You may teach it, but the students will not stay taught.
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  • The only reason to assign group size is scarcity of materials (we have to share). Even in those largely avoidable scenarios, it hardly matters if group size varies a bit. The main consideration is inactivity by some members when a group is too large.
  • Collaboration is both selfish and selfless. You give of yourself by sharing your talent and expertise, but the collaboration should benefit you as well.
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