Creativity…Really?...REALLY! GT Center Teacher Meeting January 14, 2010 United Methodist Church W. Cedar Drive Lakewood, CO

Welcome & Happy New Year GT Center Teachers! Using only the contents of the envelope or baggie at your table, make something useful – you will have 5 minutes. You can do this activity by yourself, or work with one or more people at your table Be prepared to give a title to what you created, and explain why it is useful. Remember the quote from Sir Ken Robinson: “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you will never be creative.”

Why Creativity? Creativity is…. Critical component of workforce skills by the Partnership for 21 st Century Skills Top of the revised hierarchy in Bloom‘s taxonomy First on the list for National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for students. What students should know and be able to do to learn effectively and live productive in an increasing digital world

Definition… Creativity is defined as a novel and appropriate response to an open- ended task. (Ruscio and Amabile, 1999)

Creativity Pay-Offs ◘ Strongly related to motivation ◘ Motivation causes effort ◘ Effort increases achievement ◘ Results in ability to transfer concepts to new situations and events ◘ Creativity puts the brain in a euphoric state called “Flow”* ◘ Creative thinkers are prized as workers *Source: Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi

Cognitive Creativity Behaviors ◘ Fluent Thinking: to think of the most ideas ◘ Flexible Thinking: to take different approaches ◘ Original thinking: to think in novel or unique ways ◘ Elaborative thinking: to add on to

Affective Behaviors (Feelings) Related to Creative Thinking Risk Taking: to have courage to… – Expose one’s self to failure and criticisms – Take a guess – Work with ambiguity – Defend ideas

Affective Behaviors (Feelings) Related to Creative Thinking Complexity: to be challenged to… – Seek many alternatives – Bring order out of chaos – Solve difficult problems

Affective Behaviors (Feelings) Related to Creative Thinking Curiosity: to be willing to… – Be inquisitive and wonder – Toy with an idea – Be open to puzzling situations

Affective Behaviors (Feelings) Related to Creative Thinking Imagination: to have the power to… – Visualize and build mental images – Feel intuitively – Dream about things that never happened

Tim Brown Video Video Clip sec. Regarding drawing a neighbor

Process Draw your neighbor from affective standpoint Video Clip: Tim Brown TED Video---link What components of the affective behaviors were present in this activity (think-pair-share) What kind of climate would promote creative thinking? (think-pair-share)

Activity: Create Classroom “Rules” to Foster/Encourage Creativity We will divide into 8 groups Go to the chart with your color (name tag) In your group of 4-6 people (various grade levels) create a list of “rules” that would foster/encourage creative thinking in the classroom 5-7 minutes

Video Clip from Tim Brown Summary of Presentation Playful Exploration Playful Building Role Play Video Clip (1 min)

We’ll never see the strengths …if we don’t provide opportunities!

Transition Break 9:45-10

Cognitive Creativity Behaviors ◘ Fluent Thinking: to think of the most ideas ◘ Flexible Thinking: to take different approaches ◘ Original thinking: to think in novel or unique ways ◘ Elaborative thinking: to add on to

Selected Strategies for Building Creativity ◘ Brainstorming ◘ SCAMPER ◘ Forced idea-combining ◘ Observation journals

SCAMPER ◘ S – substitute ◘ C – combine ◘ A – add to, or adapt ◘ M – magnify/modify ◘ P – put to another use ◘ E – eliminate ◘ R – rearrange/reverse Source: Bob Stanish

Observation Journals Example: Sir Isaac Newton’s notebooks Observation as a skill – Increases patience and accuracy – Encourages deep concentration – Causes curiosity – Recognizes sensitivity to detail – Promotes analytical thinking – Enhances memory – Develops hand-eye coordination

Force-fitting “Can You Imagine That?” activity* Create lists of items Discuss a familiar context Assign students the task of “forcing” one or more items from the list into the familiar context *Source: Donald Treffinger et al.

Making the Connection Curriculum – Find opportunities for students to use creativity in all content areas – Teach creativity techniques, skills, vocabulary – Show that you value creative thinking because it encourages depth – Explicitly make connections within and among content areas and disciplines – Ask students to transfer concepts and to make their own connections

Group Tasks Grade Level Teams Within the differentiated lesson plan, explain how/where you would intentionally infuse creativity Review pages of Heacox Book Group or individual? Complete template listing as many opportunities to embed creativity in the diff lesson

Classroom Rules Share the compilation of “rules” based on our discussion which Tonia and Colleen will compile during group task This will take only 1 minute for participants to read

Process out with groups Where and how they infused in the 9 steps for differentiation (accountability piece for group work) will be accompanied by a template to collect

We’ll never see the strengths …if we don’t provide opportunities ! Thanks for all you do! Next Meeting…..