And we need to include kids in the process of creativity - what structure do they naturally follow? Have them use Bloom's taxonomy to mull over the process of creativity. What is the difference between a wild idea that is outside of the box and a wild idea that is totally out of the realm of possibility? Once the kids establish a process and structure for creative thinking, they can also begin to fill their tool kit with creative thinking tools, like SCAMPER and reverse brainstorming.
I'm not sure about this...there has to be a balance I have said for years that we need more time in school
America is now facing the biggest challenge it's ever faced—to maintain it's position in the world economies. All these things demand high levels of innovation, creativity, and ingenuity. At the moment, instead of promoting creativity, I think we're systematically educating it out of our kids.
See Ken Robinson's talk on how schools kill creativity for more on this; I think this is an opportunity to look at all of the amazing things we do in our schools already to encourage creativity and innovation and then to figure out how to expand those things rather than to feel singled out as a cause of creativity's demise.
And when you find things you're good at, you tend to get better at everything because your confidence is up and your attitude is different.
The number of kids who check out or actually drop out of school is alarming - a noticable portion of whom are gifted learners. This really concerns me.
This is one of the great skills we have to promote and teach—collaborating and benefiting from diversity rather than promoting homogeneity. We have a big problem at the moment—education is becoming so dominated by this culture of standardized testing, by a particular view of intelligence and a narrow curriculum and education system, that we're flattening and stifling some of the basic skills and processes that creative achievement depends on.
So there's no doubt in my mind that collaboration, diversity, the exchange of ideas, and building on other people's achievements are at the heart of the creative process. An education that focuses only on the individual in isolation is bound to frustrate some of those possibilities.
The regime of standardized testing has led us all to believe that if you can't count it, it doesn't count. Actually, in every creative approach some of the things we're looking for are hard, if not impossible, to quantify. But that doesn't mean they don't matter. When I hear people say, "Well, of course, you can't assess creativity," I think, "You can—just stop and think about it a bit."
This is where the value of standards based education becomes clear. I want to use meaty criteria based on student actions and products to assess learning and growth, not numbers and letters. Both my students and I can most effectively assess creativity and innovation by using criteria embedded in content standards. For example, a student can look at their brainstorming notes, organized ideas, idea development work and product creation materials to determine whether they have taken their knowledge all the way up to the top of Bloom's Taxonomy. Have they generated multiple ideas to respond to the guiding question or problem? Have they made connections between ideas to generate new thoughts? Have they piggybacked off others' ideas to create new ones? Have they organized their ideas, explored the logistics behind them and selected the best one for the situation? Have them woven their best idea into new content mastery to apply their knowledge in an innovative way? To me a student reflection around these types of questions is a much more authentic and valuable means of assessment that any attempt to put a numerical value on creativity.
"For much of the world, it's that special time of the year when students head back to school. The good news for students is that even though that means waking up early and doing homework, there are a number of web-based and social tools to help you get through the school year. From staying organized to improving study habits to making sure you reference your research sources properly, the web can help you be a better student."
Cell phones are in our schools and classrooms. According to data recently gathered by the Pew Research Center, 88% of teen cell phone users text message. While schools have taken various approaches towards student cell phones, from banning and storing in lockers, to lunchtime use, there are free online resources available that can transform cell phones into handheld classroom response systems.
Advancing Excellent Teaching in American Schools Annenberg Media uses media and telecommunications to advance excellent teaching in American Schools. This mandate is carried out chiefly by the funding and broad distribution of educational video programs with coordinated Web and print materials for the professional development of K-12 teachers. It is part of The Annenberg Foundation and advances the Foundation's goal of encouraging the development of more effective ways to share ideas and knowledge.\n\nAnnenberg Media's multimedia resources help teachers increase their expertise in their fields and assist them in improving their teaching methods. Many programs are also intended for students in the classroom and viewers at home. All Annenberg Media videos exemplify excellent teaching.
In science and math classes across the country, digital tools are being used to conduct experiments, analyze data, and run 3-D simulations to explain complex concepts. Language arts teachers are now pushing the definition of literacy to include the ability to express ideas through media. This report, "Multimedia Transformation," examines the many ways multimedia tools are transforming teaching and learning as schools work to raise achievement and prepare students for careers that require increasingly sophisticated uses of technology.
Lots of schools are talking about the importance of preparing their students for an increasingly inter-connected, Web-centric world. Here are some districts that are "doing" it. Some of their advice may be able to help the reader avoid mistakes, etc.
I sort of model this when I give exemplars for projects in which writing in their own words is part of a rubric. I'm not sure that is enough, however. I think maybe my writing doesn't sound enough like their writing in all cases
This instruction should focus on the supposedly simple technique of summarizing sources, which is in truth not simple. Many students are far from competent at summarizing an argument— and students who cannot summarize are the students most likely to plagiarize.
This strikes me as someting teachers in many learning areas could work on with kids rather than defaulting to Language Arts as the place where kids learn about plagiarism
The teacher in this tale uses the incident to teach students that using others' words without attribution is a serious crime. He then emphasizes to students the importance of citation and source integration techniques and enlists the school librarian to model how to cite outside works used in a piece of writing.
I'm not sure that I see the evil/missteps in this example. It doesn't say the student was punished it says the teacher & librarian used it as an opportunity to teach about proper attribution...
Educators should also communicate why writing is important. Through writing, people learn, communicate with one another, and discover and establish their own authority and identity.
Being able to write about things that you are passionate about will bring even more importance to students' writing.
it is easy for well-intentioned students to overlook the boundaries between what they themselves have produced and what they have slid from one screen (their Internet browser) to another (their word-processed document)
She begins by explaining that inserting synonyms is not paraphrasing. She then guides students in studying a passage and identifying its key words and main ideas that must be retained to paraphrase the passage. Shirley shows her students poor paraphrases of the passage for them to critique. Finally, she has them write their own paraphrase of a 50- to 100-word source passage that they themselves choose.