Ch. 5 Reflections

    The topic of Ch. 5 is how teachers can support student creativity. The book defines creativity as "the creation of ideas, processes, experiences or objects." This expands on Ch. 4 because critical thinking is evaluating a creative process or final product. One way that teachers can encourage creativity is by allowing students to choose their own tasks. For example, a teacher could allow the students to choose from a list of tasks, such as, the topic of a paper or assignment or give the topic but allow students to choose from options of how to complete assignment (i.e. power point presentation, website, blog, paper, etc.) The book offers a guideline to help teachers to design creative tasks. 

Characteristics of effective creativity tasks:

1. Focus on content: work from what the students already know. 
2. Emphasize divergent thinking: allow the students to hypothesize, experiment, suggest. 
3. Incorporate strategies: make students aware of how creativity happens. 
4. Engage students: use authentic content, examples, and resources. 
5. Provide Informative Feedback: help students understand their strengths and weaknesses and exercises on how to improve them.

(p. 131)

 And Ch. 5 offers a process to guide student creativity.

 Process to creativity: 

1. Warm up: clarify/review
2. Deepen expectations: identify/restate
3. Extend the learning: develop/test

(p. 133)

I could use these steps to creativity in my class to practice and go over before assignments are given. For example, if doing an assignment about Oglethorpe's relations with Native Americans, first we'd review the content (warm-up). Then, we would identify significant relationships he had with Native Americans (i.e. Tomochichi, Mary Musgrove) (deepen expectations). Next, I would instruct them to develop a hypothesis about his relationships --was he fair, was he unfair, or was he both? . . . etc. Then, using library research or internet research they should test whether hypothesis was correct by reviewing credible sources (extend the learning). Lastly, they can make either a powerpoint presentation or another mode of media support to present their findings and explain the process it took to find a conclusion. 

Please see this link to read more on cultivating creativity in the classroom: http://www.ndt-ed.org/TeachingResources/ClassroomTips/Encouraging_Creativity.htm

 Textbook: Supporting Learning with Technology by Joy Egbert (pp. 131-133)

Pearson Education, Inc. 2009