ASHLEY CONGDON

Creatively Teaching & Learning

 

inspirelilminds

 

"Whether we are attempting to understand ourselves [or] other people...

it is imperative that we learn to use the feelings, emotions, and intuitions

 that are the bases of the creative imagination. That is the whole point

 of gourmet thinking and education." ~Root-Bernstein

 

 

Creativity – a process I had always valued and hoped could be taught. I felt there must be a way to capture “the process”, but I had yet to identify a clear answer or method of teaching this way of thinking. The connections I uncovered, with the support of CEP 818 and Root-Bernstein, have cleared a path down which I will confidently lead my students. I feel that teaching creativity is really about providing students with the tools necessary for understanding and communicating their thinking and their connections. In thinking that I was going to have to scrap everything I am doing in the classroom, I became overwhelmed, but I realized, “we need not change what we teach. A synthetic education requires only that we change how we teach…” (Root-Bernstein, 316). Part of changing how we teach begins with changing our own perceptions first.

 

One of the most altering moments I experienced along the CEP 818 path was realizing my personal biases at play during my creativity interview. I recognized a preconceived notion of mine, which was unfortunately quite limited, in who I considered to be creative. This realization did not only knock me on my feet so to speak just once. What I started to notice is that in the weeks following the interview, because I had discovered this new knob (e.g. redefined who or what is creative in my mind), I felt that it was following me around. I now saw and heard people in fields, which I formerly did not relate to creativity, speaking about their work, projects, process, etc. with the same emotions and imagination I identify as creative and seek for my students. I realized that it comes down to opening up ourselves to view the world in a different way than we have before. The more connections we make – the more knobs we turn and seek out – the more knobs will be waiting for us. We all have the ability for creative thinking; we just need to be open and aware of how to mine this gem.

                 

So, creativity can be taught, and each individual can grow his or her imagination through purposeful (and playful) practice. This creativity is what I seek for my students so they better understand themselves and others. Our students are our future, and the better they understand themselves, others, and the world in which we live, the better chances of a brighter future. While I am working on creatively teaching, I believe I need to bring more creative learning back into my own life in order to be as successful as possible. “…the best predictor of career success…[is] participation in one or more mentally intensive leisure time activities,” (Root-Bernstein, ).  Personally, my leisure time activities include mindfulness, painting, journaling, dancing, and more opportunities for the random, whimsical…the playful. In the span of CEP 818, I have continued to develop my own mindfulness practice. And with the creative tools I have incorporated into my classroom and my own life, both my students and I, have come away with greater insight and understanding. At some point, I made the connection, it wasn’t a change in what I was teaching that made these understandings more powerful, but in how I was teaching.

 

I know that the way I am teaching today will look different than the way I am teaching in two, five, ten years, or else I am not effectively doing my job. Creativity evolves along with our understanding of the world, but for now my approach in my classroom consists of a few teaching rules.

 

 

“Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Teacher Out of Yourself”

(Inspired by Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis)

 

 

Rules and Things #683: There are some knobs that you must point out directly for students. These creative tools bridge classroom learning and life learning.

 

Part of the way I am bridging the gap between our classroom and the learning beyond our four walls is by giving students vocabulary for their creative processes. These terms help break down barriers because they are found in every category of learning students could possibly pursue – math, English, humanities, music, art, science – shuffleboard if they are so inclined. By sharing these terms with my students and colleagues, we begin the process of integrating curriculum. “Imagination can be encouraged and trained through the exercise of thinking tools and a desire for synosic understanding,” (Root-Bernstein, 316). My students begin to understand that imagination is universal and applied not only to the problems within our class but to problems and thinking in other classes, disciplines, and in their daily lives outside of the classroom. The toolbox I provide students includes:

 

• Perception – Perception is how we make meaning, how we interpret our world. Given a particular reason for building meaning, and when partnered with intentional practice, we can tailor our perception, or the way we make meaning, for uses that go beyond our natural instincts. 

 

• Patterning – Patterning is when you identify repetition, whether it is in similarities or in variation, that then allows for useful associations or connections to be made that were not made previously. 

 

• Abstracting – Abstracting is portraying an essential element of a concept in a way that feels as if the entire concept is simplified, but by doing so, you actually provide a deeper understanding of the concept as a whole.

 

• Embodied thinking – Embodied thinking is when you pay attention to what your body is telling you -- gut feelings, movement, energy, posture, muscles, body extensions, etc. -- and allow it to support your understanding of the world. I would also refer to embodied thinking as a sixth sense. Empathizing – Empathizing is when you extend yourself to connect with something outside of your own person, whether it is human, animal, or inanimate, so that you and the something are one in the same. These practices provide a thinker with greater insight into his or her personal understanding and greater perspective of other beings.

 

• Modeling – Modeling is when a concept is communicated through a medium that makes the concept tangible or workable in a way that it was not previously. The model allows the user to learn about the concept through a different material, scale, dimension, perspective, etc.

 

• Play – I think of play as learning that is without a box -- there are no parameters, not necessarily rules to follow unless you create them yourself, and certainly no pressures of grades, timelines, or even an end goal. Purposeful play is always the right fit because the learner is in charge and automatically personalizes his or her space, challenge, supports, and tools. This freedom allows room for growth, room for the unexpected, and room for happy accidents that might not have occurred in other settings.

 

 

Rules and Things #214: Give students models, and encourage remixing, remaking, mimicking.

 

My students need creative leaders – for inspiration, for a better understanding of who and what is creative, for examples of struggle and success. I invite guests into the classroom – parents, grandparents, and friends of friends. I read stories and parts of biographies; I show images of people (both past and present); we connect with others visually, verbally, and through writing via Internet. Students need modeling from people, as well as models and abstractions of concepts that offer sensory stimulation (images, text, videos, sculptures, paintings, inventions, dance, experiments, field trips, sounds, touch, smell, movement). And as students are introduced to these models, I encourage them to copy and remix. I introduce remixing, remaking, as a way of learning from these creative teachers, studying these people’s ideas, steps, and journey in order to think about what it means in their life now. Through this mimicking, students begin to identify the significance of models. We discuss what they notice (patterns, observations). What they remember. What and how they feel (empathizing). Models are not always specific to what we are studying either; they can pull in analogies and abstraction tools, too. Sometimes I will introduce a quirky model to see what connections students can make collectively in order to spur a discussion that could go in several different directions. For example, I could bring in a bowl of fruit while we’re talking about parts of speech to begin a conversation about what connections (observations) students can find between fruit and nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and so on in hopes of students connecting color, taste, shape, movement, and fruit to their understanding of parts of speech.

 

 

Rules and Things #79: Incorporate the arts. Incorporate the senses.

 

Within my classroom, I am incorporating more painting, drawing, photography, recordings, music, movement, and writing. I emphasize how the arts, in combination with the sciences, impact their future by demonstrating ways they are combined in the world today and how they have worked in combination in the past. For example, introducing Google’s Maker Camp to students allowed them to see how mathematics, coding, imagery, plot design, drawing, and several other professions and knowledge groups came together to create a video game. These arts are not limited to our classroom, but they play a role in their daily lives. The arts are not isolated, but connected to the science classes as well. For example, students are currently creating a visual representation of a food chain by drawing animals circumscribed inside one another (abstracting, modeling). In combination with the arts, the senses are a large part of my classroom. Mindfulness practices, conversations, journaling, music, movements, and imaging are several methods I use to help students pay attention to how they are feeling as well as tools for expression (embodied thinking).

 

 

Rules and Things #50: Be P*l*A*y*F*u*L! And take some r-i-s-k-s.

 

Should we put up a tent and turn it into a birchbark house for the week if we’re reading about Omakayas’s story in The Birchbark House? Might students want a flashlight and “campfire” over which to tell their legends and tall tales? The students seem like they need a brain break; will it be dancing, yoga, or mindfulness today? Being playful means taking what I have done in the past and turning it on its head. Let’s keep students guessing. How can we look at this from a different view? It’s not a change in what we’re studying, but in how it’s presented. I am taking more risks in my teaching to show that it is beyond okay. It is necessary, to learning. Another example includes our study of fractions. Let’s look at fractions that exist in food, money, books, building, Legos, menus, people, drawings, poetry…by drawing, building, counting, writing about them. The more ways students are able to connect with a concept, the better chance of understanding. And when students have a better chance of understanding, the more likely they are to appreciate the significance of that concept.

 

Not only am I playing with pedagogy and curriculum, I make time for students to play. I am working on incorporating a maker space within my classroom, as well as incorporating more choice when possible. Does a student want to present with a paper, sound clip, possibly a drawing? Additionally, I am introducing passion projects this year where students are able to decide exactly what objective they are working toward and how they would like to get there. As students are asked more open-ended questions they are better prepared to welcome the unexpected, to think creatively. The better they are at thinking creatively, the better they are at charting our unmapped future.

 

 

Rules and Things #818: Ask yourself, everyday, is this education inspiring?

 

When I walk into my classroom, as I look over my plans for the day, I ask myself if this day ahead excites me as a teacher? Would it inspire me as a student? It is our responsibility to whip up the batch of gourmet education each and every day, so that our students will better understand themselves and others.