Creativity Power Up PD Module 8

Opening video on creativity

In your experience... What is the most impressed you’ve ever been by student creativity in your class? What were the conditions that you think allowed for that creativity to flourish?

One Small Change What happens to the quality of student work when we make one small change in HOW they demonstrate what they know? In this case, the teacher’s original assignment was for students to do a journal about what the ads in the media suggested about teenagers (and in this case, teenage girls). Compare the assignment on the left to the same assignment on the right, where the teacher asked kids to make a screencast instead. The image on the right is linked to the student’s video.

Plug In Create your own 30-second practice screencast using Explain Everything (iPad) or Screencast-o-matic (java/web). Have some fun! Caption an image and create your own meme to use with your students. Think of this as a clever way to give directions or a reminder. Plug in challenges are small tasks teachers can usually accomplish quickly, in the workshop, to get more familiar with the tools. These are suggestions, but you can change and adapt them to work for your staff. Note: the meme generator is fine for staff, but should be used with caution with students, as every meme generator has some objectionable content.

From Projects to Project Based Learning A little theory behind the practice: Adria Steinberg’s research published in 1997, called “Real Learning, Real Work” For our purposes, we are trying to move teachers toward the “handoff” of who owns the learning.

Classroom Example Insert a classroom example from your school site here. If you need one to borrow, here’s one! Instead of just writing a traditional research paper on global human rights issues (the standard grade-level assignment), students in this class researched ways they might also “teach the solution” to the next generation. If the human rights issue was gender violence, the lesson might be on gender equality. Students created children’s books on blurb.com, and published their books to read to the local elementary school students. These are some of their covers.

iPad Apps for Innovation Screencast: Explain Everything (tutorial) Stop Motion Video: Stop Motion HD (tutorial) Control Time!: Time Lapse (tutorial) Make Your Own Animation: Animation HD (tutorial) Comic Strips Comic Life (tutorial) Film and Trailer Creation: iMovie (tutorial) Audio, Podcast, Song Parody: Garage Band (tutorial) Draw and Sketch: Sketchbook Pro (tutorial) Web Design: weebly (limited use on iPad)

Web / Android Tools for Innovation Screencast: Screencast-o-matic (tutorial) Stop Motion Video: StopMotion-Lite (chrome app) Animation: go animate! (tutorial) Comic Strips: Pixton or Makebeliefscomix Film: YouTube Editor (tutorial), WeVideo (tutorial) Audio: Audacity (tutorial) Infographics: piktochart or easel.ly Web Design: wix or weebly

Power Up Think of an assignment or assessment that is core to students’ experience of demonstrating learning and/or mastery. Then, consider how you can adapt that assignment to increase authenticity, allow for creativity, and hand off ownership of learning to students (PBL, not just “projects”). Suggested challenges that you can adapt to the specifics of your situation. We like to stress that the learning happens in the PROCESS of making the end result, not in the result itself.