How Can We Infuse Creative Strategies into Content?

1. How Can We Infuse Creative Strategies into Content? Joyce VanTassel-Baska, EdD. College of William and Mary 2008

2. The current K-12 landscape • Assessment-driven • Instruction controlled by standards • Priorities given to learning in reading and math • Lack of time for creative approaches to teaching and learning Solution: Integrate creativity into current requirements.

3. What do we know about creativity? • The creative personality • The creative process • Creative strategies to enhance creativity • Creative products • The creative environment • The interplay with intelligence, domain-specific expertise, and personal motivation

4. Essential Elements of CreativityJ. VanTassel-Baska Personality Traits: *Openness to experience *Risk-Taking *Non-Conforming *Independent *Confident Communication Capacity What is Creativity? Deep Knowledge in a Domain High Level Convergent & Divergent Thinking Processes Personal Motivation & Passion

5. Findings from Creativity Studies on Students K-12: *Creativity training can improve divergent-thinking performance. *The most effective training tends to focus on ideational strategies such as brainstorming or Osborn-Parnes-type techniques. *Training can be effective for various types of students, including gifted, regular and disabled students. *It is not clear how training effects generalize to applied problems, or to explain the mechanisms through which creativity training works. -Clapham, 2003

6. Creativity-Relevant Strategies • Creative Problem-Solving • Metaphor development • Creative skill-building (fluency, flexibility, elaboration and originality) • Synectics • Lateral thinking • Multiple perspective-taking and role playing • Insight processes

7. Creative Problem Solving (Parnes & Osborn, 1961) • Brainstorm (idea-finding) • Restatement or formulation of the problem • Solution-finding • Developing a comprehensive solution • Creating a plan of action to address the issue

8. Six Hats (De Bono, 1986) • White: Research orientation • Green: Creative ideas to address the project • Yellow: Feasible approaches • Black: Downside considerations • Red: Gut reactions/hunches • Blue: Recap/status/synopsis

9. Divergent Production Skills • Fluency • Flexibility • Originality • Elaboration • Transformation

10. What is Metaphor? “Our species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories” – Mary Catherine Bateson, 1994 • A figure of speech in which a term is transferred from the object it ordinarily designates to an object it may designate only by comparison or analogy. • A relationship between two unlike objects, ideas, or situations. • A physical picture of an abstract condition • An interpretive construct to help us understand the world in new ways • A story form to link ideas and persuade others

11. Examples of Metaphor • The universe as a mechanical system (e.g. the solar system as clockwork) • The human body as a machine (e.g. the heart is a pump) • Time is money. Modern capitalism as a cancer on the social immune system • Life is a roller coaster, full of ups and downs. • Life is a river and we make decisions about how to navigate it. • The interconnected world as a whispering pond • Leaders as improvisational jazz musicians

12. Metaphoric Thinking Approaches • Using basic structural properties of an object to define a person • Creating analogies (_______is to _______ as ______ is to _______) • Drawing bisociations (also visual puns and satire) • Building metaphor as a way to grasp an important yet difficult concept (e.g. leadership, love, justice)

13. Using visual stimuli to promote creativity What do you see in your picture? What could you change in the picture that would make it more appealing to you? What aspect of the picture do you identify with and why? Create a poem, metaphor, or graphic organizer that captures the essence of your picture.

14. Synectics (Gordon, 1961) Problem: Reduce noise in the school cafeteria Direct: How is noise muffled in nature? Personal: How would you like to be captured if you were noise? Symbol: How could noise be represented in the problem? Fantasy: Create an ideal eating place. Force-fit into solution

15. Background Students use mathematical concepts and problem-solving processes in order to build a model house by acting as a general contractor. All activities are hands-on requiring students to build, design, or construct. From A Blueprint for Geometry Math Projects Series Activities Making Scale Drawings Working with A Floor Plan Working with Rulers 3-D Construction Making a Drafting Tool Median Cost Per Square Foot Isometric Drawings Building Inspecting Calculating Costs Acting as Energy Contractor Acting as Roofing Contractor Designing A House Architectural Site Plan Hands-On Projects

16. Multicultural Author Study • Read a short story by an African American, Hispanic American, and a Native American author on the theme of oppression. How are the stories similar yet different? • Write in your journal what you learned about each culture from your readings. Create a metaphor about oppression and use it to tell a story and illustrate it. • Read the biography or autobiography of one author you have read. How does the author’s life influence her writing? How does the theme of oppression work in her life?

17. Delilah She has blue eyes like the ocean. Her tongue like a rose. Her nose like a heart. Her tail like a fan. Her black coat like the night sky. By Casey Carroll Grades 4-5 Honorable Mention Center for Gifted Education Talent Search

18. C 3 C 2 Delilah C 1

19. Teaching Foreign Language: Latin • Create language trees that illustrate the evolution of selected words from Latin to three other languages. Create your own neologism and its derivations. • Take an incident from the Trojan War that illustrates the theme of loyalty and depict it in a story, art object, skit, or piece of music. • Work in groups of four to create a newspaper that explores the meaning of selected myths. Each student will adopt the persona of one of the following gods or goddesses: Juno, Venus, , Jupiter, Neptune for purposes of writing news articles, op ed, cartoons, obituaries, and crosswords.

20. A r t A n a l y s i s Whatis it?What is it made of? • What ideas does it convey? • How do you respond to it? What do you identify with in the picture? • Create an art object that has a similar theme and feeling.

21. Teaching Concepts The human conceptual system is metaphorical, depending on other concepts to explain itself.Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) • Brainstorm 25 examples of change. • Categorize your examples. • Brainstorm 5-6 examples of things that don’t change. • What generalizations can you draw about the concept of change? • Describe and illustrate an important change in your life. How does it reflect the generalizations you have derived? • Apply the concept of change to your understanding of the following disciplines: science, math, art, history.

22. Features of Performance Based Assessment • Emphasis on thinking and problem solving, not prior learning • Off-level/advanced • Open-ended • Use of manipulatives • Emphasis on articulation of thinking processes

23. Sample Item Name _____________ Think of all of the positive and negative effects of the following situation, and record them in the chart below: Situation: Your parents have decided to remove all television(s) from your home. Choose one positive effect and explain your thinking about why it would be positive. ______________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________

24. Systems Assessment • Create an aquarium that illustrates how it is a system. What are its elements, interactions, boundaries, inputs and outputs? • How do systems interact? What is the relationship among transportation, economic, and political systems? Among science, technology, and society? Illustrate in a diagram. • How can terrorism be viewed as a system? Create a systems model.

25. How can we infuse creativity into content? • Teach creativity-relevant skills and embed them in selected content. • Encourage creative behaviors (risk-taking, openness, multiple answers). • Teach higher order concepts that embrace creative thinking. • Develop content-based creative projects. • Use performance-based and portfolio assessment approaches to document authentic learning.