Brainstorming & Creativity

I took notes on the background of "Brainstorming" and "Creative Writing Prompts." I wanted to first understand what I was going to teach. I knew about brainstorming and writing prompts, but I knew that I needed to have a full understanding of both since I want to teach these concepts. In researching brainstorming, I found that there are several different ways of brainstorming. I think teaching a variety of these strategies is important for my students because not all of them will have the same preference or creativity style. By teaching them different ways of brainstorming, my students will be able to choose which one they prefer, but they will also gain a deeper understanding of what brainstorming is by having it presented to them in different forms. In regards to writing prompts, I found an article that was titled, "7 Good Sources for Creative Writing Prompts." This article presents the 7 websites with a brief description about each one. In addition, the site provides a link to each site. I love this website because it too provides differentiation not only for my students but for me, as a teacher, as well. I believe these prompts will allow my students to remain interested and engaged with writing and the material they are writing about.

I made my own Brainstorming example using bubbl. to show students what brainstorming actually looks like. I will introduce them to this site as well.

The final part of this is the actual lesson. There is an overall lesson plan for Writing Essays. I then created 2 mini-lessons based on my research of writing prompts and the brainstorming process. For these mini-lessons, the other links on this page will be utilized. 

Creativity and Innovation

Here is my teaching video! I have been learning different ways of viewing subtraction. I believe that learning the traditional algorithm for subtraction is essential, but there are other strategies that can be used as well. These two strategies can help students who are struggling. In addition, students will need to be able to quickly solve subtraction equations for standardized tests, so these strategies can be an aid for them.

The Art of Classical Ballet

I took ballet for 14 years. I had the opportunity to pursue it as a career, but I ended up not having the heart for dance. My dream was always to be the Sugar Plum Fairy, and when I was 16, that dream came true for the first time. At the age of 17, I, once again, had the opportunity to perform the Sugar Plum Fairy. This was never just a dance for me but a goal, an opportunity that I strived for my entire life. Here is the Sugar Plum Fairy with her variation, the man's variation, and the Coda. The pas de deux is not included in this clip. The ballet dancers performing are from the Royal Ballet, and they are the definition of perfection. Take a glimpse into the marvelous (painful, emotional, strenuous) world of ballet.

Learning & Leading

The 4 dimensions Guilford uses to describe creativity are Fluency, Flexibility, Elaboration, and Originality. Out of these 4 dimensions, I struggle the most with Originality. It requires a great deal of risk, and I am afraid of failing, so mostly, I would rather base my ideas and projects off of others' ideas and then expand on them on my own. I am good at providing details and planning and coming up with different aspects of plans, but creating something new entirely is extremely difficult for me. Originality cannot be forced, but only reinforced. This is both a good and bad thing. It is good because it means that it is encouraged, but the fact that it cannot be forced means that I am still less likely to develop that aspect of creativity. In examining tools we have looked at in class, blogging, I believe, is the best tool in making me facilitate creative originality. A blog has a basis; it has templates and tools, but the way they are presented and what is presented on them is completely up to me. This allows me to create something out of nothing (or out of very little). Blogging also aids the dimension of elaboration. Once you have created the backbone of your blog, you can add to and individualize it completely. You can make it look as if it never even began from a basic format. Both originality and elaboration can be explored and exemplified through blogging. In my future classroom, I plan on teaching history to middle schoolers. Twitter would allow students a really great avenue in which to communicate facts and ideas. Students could tweet facts about events they were studying. They would tweet the fact to our class twitter account (@perkins7thperiod-for example). Then, their fellow students would retweet or favorite tweets that they found interesting or agreed with. They would then be required to reply to say, 5 tweets. They would have to respond to 2 that they agreed with, 2 they disagreed with, and 1 they found interesting. Twitter, in this case, could be used as a tool to facilitate and implement creativity in the classroom.

Be Creative

Today, we were told to take a nap and be creative.

I have been wanting a chair in my room for quite some time. It just so happens that my parents surprised me this past weekend and bought one for me. Then it was my turn to assemble it and place it precisely where I wanted it in my room. This may not have taken too much creative thinking, but it was definitely a creative process in finally finding a chair that I loved and putting it in my room to finally complete my very own space. Here it is! Tell me what you think.

 

Horizon Report

The trend that sticks out to me the most is the one stating that "People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want to." I think this one is most relevant in our society today. I see this in every age, whether it's a 5 year old or a 65 year old, this expectation seems extremely prevalent throughout all generations. We have phones to get work done, updates, emails, complete communication, and so forth. We have access to the Internet in 99% of the areas we visit. This expectation is in the technological world just as much as it is in the education world because we have come to expect to be able to do whatever, whenever we decide we have time to. In regards to challenges that we face, the one stating that "Appropriate metrics of evaluation lag the emergence of new scholarly forms of authoring, publishing and researching," is extremely apparent in the college classroom. So many of our classes require research, tests, and projects that haven't been used in previous years. Because these technologies are new, the way they should be graded and evaluated must be revised as well. However, colleges and professors are so stuck in their usual way of evaluating students that even when they change and modify their curriculum and requirements, they keep their grading the same. All of these factors, and the others mentioned in the article, combine to prove the necessity for change in education. It is no secret that the world around us is constantly changing, and as a result, the classroom should be changing as well. It is juvenile and silly of us to believe that the education system can or should stay the same when everything in students' lives is different. Teachers and schools need to jump on board with technology and its prevalence rather than pushing it aside and being stuck in old ways. This will require the presentation of material to be different; lectures and PowerPoints are not the only means by which teaching should occur. Tests and responses to learning should be interactive, both with the environment and technology. This will provide opportunity for research and gaining deeper understanding of material. Group projects and collaborative work should involve not only phone class and in class work but also blogs and interactive documents that can be accessed through computers. There is so much out there that teachers and the education system deny or neglect. The truth is that if they would simply run with it, they may end up with students who are fully engaged and attentive, who want to succeed and persevere, rather than students who simply go through school because it is required. 

Technology in the Classroom

I believer that people learn differently. For some, they learn better through lecture, others learn through reading, others learn audibly, and so on. However, the one conclusion I have drawn about learning is that it should be engaging and interactive. No matter what someone's preference is, they will gain a better understanding through a hands-on experience. I found this article regarding technology in the classroom to be specifically interesting because technology has always been somewhat of an unknown for me. I have had teachers who used technology for the sake of using technology and not really providing any purpose. This has always frustrated me because I don't really believe in change for the sake of change, especially in learning. I believe that learning is purposeful and the way material is presented should be purposeful as well. That said, I really appreciate the way the article addressed using technology as a tool to dive deeper into material. It suggests introducing technology into the classroom so that students can do more. This means that they will be gaining a deeper understanding as a result of the technology rather than learning the same material just with technology added to it. The article presents the benefits and ways in which to use technology effectively, which in my own experience, is rarely done.