David Perkins Creativity Guru

Schools need to spend less time exposing students to large volumes of knowledge and more time teaching them the knowledge arts. David Perkins -

David Perkins  Received his Doctorate in 1970 from MIT in Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence  Currently a senior professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education

 One of the Founding members of Project Zero at Harvard  Smart Schools  Theory of Learnable Intelligence Best Known for:

 Originally founded in 1967, by philosopher, Nelson Goodman, who believed that the arts should be studied as a serious cognitive activity.  Goodman stated that “zero” had been firmly established about the field, hence the name.  In 1972, David Perkins and Howard Gardner (Gardner’s Multiples Intelligences) became co- directors of the project. Project Zero

Original Intent  Maintains a strong research agenda in the arts Progression  Includes Investigation  Understanding  Thinking  Creativity  Cross-Disciplinary and Cross-Cultural Thinking  Ethics

Perkins’ Projects Within Project Zero  Learning in Science/Understand ings of Consequences  Learning Innovations Laboratories  Thinking Dispositions  WIDE World

Based on two guiding beliefs:  Learning is a consequence of thinking, and good thinking is learnable by all students.  Learning should include deep understanding, which involves the flexible, active use of knowledge. Smart Schools

 Generative Knowledge  Learnable Intelligence  Focus on Understanding  Teaching for Mastery and Transfer  Learning-Centered Assessment  Embracing Complexity  The School is a Learning Organization Seven Key Principles:

 Neural Intelligence  Experiential Intelligence  Reflective Intelligence Premise: We can learn to think and act more intelligently Theory of Learnable Intelligence