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Taking a risk means that failure is an option. Many students may see taking a risk as a negative. If we want students to take risks, we must not only create an environment that encourages students to take risks, but makes risk taking seem like the best option.

This article talks about how to encourage students to take risks in the classroom. These "risks" can range from just questioning to imagining to trying out something new. This is a very important higher order thinking skill that many students have trouble comprehending and acting on because they would rather stick with what they know (or what they think will get them the highest grade). I think the ideas in the article can be applied to high school classrooms as well as college classrooms.

A great article about helping students be more creative by incorporating risk-taking activities in the classroom. Create an environment where taking risks are rewarded. Also start with small risk-taking activities and build up into more complex ones.

'We do not need to teach creativity, but rather inspire its daily practice.' This opening sentence is intriguing yet inspiring to me. As said in the title, this article introduces 18 apps to support students developing creativity at different thinking stages. The writer also suggests some practical strategies which could be incorporated in our daily teaching practice. Nevertheless, what strikes me more is the reminder that we, as a class, school, or community, need to build a culture of trust in the first place to cultivate culture of creativity and innovation.

What a great article about creativity.  What I loved is that the article states that schools do not need to teach creativity.  Schools need to foster it by providing students a safe place to take risks and providing them tools that make that risk taking possible.  Creativity is about finding solutions to problems using one's own ideas and thinking skills.  Students can do this when given the power and opportunities to do so.

Like Chris, the opening to this post caught my eye. "We do not need to teach creativity, but rather inspire its daily practice." Ms. Darrow's article captures the importance of creating a school that values it's students, encourages them to take some risks, and lets them practice these skills with abandon. With support and coaching from teachers, students can work through the steps outlined in this article using technology to streamline the process, help them develop real life/career skills, and appeal to their interest in digital media. I like how Darrow labels this process; there are clear steps to increase understanding. Collaboration or group work can use this format as well, group members' jobs are easily created with the resulting structure. It also creates natural places to scaffold the process for individualizing learning in a classroom full of all kinds of learners. Each activity we do in a class may not need all these steps and some may need more, but I plan to keep this article in mind as I tweak my courses this summer.

Describes the efforts of the student group known as White Rose