09-06 Creativity

Before class

- share your initial thoughts about creativity here.

- Review ISTE standards, Meaningful Learning, 21st Century skills, and UDL, to see what they have said about creativity.

1. What is creativity?

Let's first see what some of your brilliant ideas:

Something you do without having to worry bout others opinion.

Creativity is putting your own spin on something, making a piece of art or work that is in some way unique to you.

Creativity is ones ability to solve problems or express ones thoughts in unique ways.

Creativity means you are open to new ideas, and that you are able to express yourself in a unique and original way.

being able to think "outside of the box" and come up with ideas or thoughts that others do not necessarily think of

Being able to express yourself in a way that defines you.

Using your imagination to design something new.

Creativity is the ability to come up with new solutions, ideas, or products. But it is also just being able to think freely (or within yourself) to create/do something.

To me, creativity means coming up with new ideas or thinking of a different way to solve a problem. I usually think of people who are very artsy and have a knack for making things with their own hands as well.

Now let's review what the "boring" readings say about creativity:

1. ISTE Standards: Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions. Students:

• a. know and use a deliberate design process for generating ideas, testing theories, creating innovative artifacts or solving authentic problems.

• b. select and use digital tools to plan and manage a design process that considers design constraints and calculated risks.

• c. develop, test and refine prototypes as part of a cyclical design process.

• d. exhibit a tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance

2. 21st Century Skills:

• a. Think Creatively: Use a wide range of idea creation techniques; Create new and worthwhile ideas; Elaborate, refine, analyze, and evaluate original ideas to improve and maximize creative efforts.

• b. Work Creatively with Others: Develop, implement, and communicate new ideas to others effectively; Be open and responsive to new and diverse perspectives; incorporate group input and feedback into the work; Demonstrate originality and inventiveness in work and understand the real world limits to adopting new ideas; View failure as an opportunity to learn; understand that creativity and innovation are part of a long-term, cyclical process of small successes and frequent mistakes.

• c. Implement Innovation: Act on creative ideas to make a tangible and useful contribution to the field in which the innovation will occur.

3. Meaningful Learning: Creativity is not one of five characteristics, which are used to describe meaningful tasks. But it does have a whole chapter called "design with technology-creative knowledge constructor."

4. UDL: Creativity is not explicitly stated there, but teachers are encouraged to shift away from a one-size-fits-all approach to more creative and flexible teaching and learning methods.

2. Examples of being creative

"I did do ballet for many years at performing arts schools. I'm creative in a more subtle way. Like I would take a coded variation (a dance thats moves have been set in stones for ages) and put my own spin on it in my facial expressions or subtleties of the arm movements."

"I think I have a unique sense of creativity as I am a musician. I express my thoughts and feelings though different chords and lyrics in the songs that I write."

"I am open-minded and expressive."

"I can come up with unique scenarios and I can trace and draw extremely well when I know what I'm supposed to draw..."

Questions to think about:

• Do you think it will make a different if I ask you in different ways: Are you creative? How creative you are? How are you creative?

• In everyday life, how do you decide if a person is creative or not?

Now lets do a Q sort activity to see if you have different opinions

3. Q sort Activity

"Creativity can be expressed through a plethora of different outlets."

You will read 27 short statements about traits of people and you will decide to what extent you agree / disagree if each one is a statement of creative trait.

• Step 1: cut each statement out from the statement sheet along the dashed line (the white sheet).

• Step 2: sort the cut-out statements into three piles: agree, neutral, disagree.

• Step 3: sort them into the Q sort grid (yellow sheet).

• Step 4: read again and make changes if you feel like it.

• Step 5: Write down the number of statement you put in each cell in the grid.

• Step 6: Write down your name and submit your Q sort grid (yellow sheet).

I'll do the analysis and we'll discuss the results in groups next week.

HOMEWORK:

1. Watch this TED talk video about "Creative Confidence" and rethink what is creativity.

2. Read this article "Everyday Creativity" and think about how you can practice creativity in everyday life. We'll do a creativity challenge later.

3. Tool commercial project - Due next Friday, September 13th.