Tagged 'Creativity' « Whole Child Education

Tagged 'Creativity' « Whole Child Education

Creativity in the classroom

Creativity can be defined as the production of novel thoughts, solutions, or products based on previous experience and knowledge. Learning is a creative process that involves students making information relevant by linking prior knowledge and new knowledge in an individually meaningful way.

Unfortunately, most school environments do not support, and many actively suppress, creative expression because teachers are often ill equipped to develop, support, or evaluate creativity in their students. In addition, much theory and research shows that creative students often lose their creative potential.

Read this paper on creativity in the classroom, it is full of insights for effective teaching and the fostering of creativity.

http://deved.org/library/sites/default/files/library/classroom_environments_for_creativity_in_higher_education.pdf

Creative book lovers

For those of you that enjoy books with paper pages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adzywe9xeIU

Play

“When we engage in what we are naturally suited to do, our work takes on the quality of play and it is play that stimulates creativity.” –  Linda Naiman

Group-think Vs Creativity

Brainstorming and creativity has increasingly become a group process.However, Lehrer's article in 'The New Yorker' contends that brainstorming groups think of fewer ideas than individuals working alone. Rather, it is better for individuals to work alone and then pool their ideas. One of the problems with group think is that people are usually encouraged not to 'criticise' the ideas of others in the group. 
On the contrary, creativity often thrives on criticism because conflict drives creativity. If you want to be creative you have to get past the top layer of predictability. Read the article at:http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all

Quote from Edison - Creativity

Tim Brown on Creativity and Play

Another TED talk!


Designer, Tim Brown believes that designers [you and me] need to know how to transition in and out of play. He talks about divergent thinking and convergent thinking. In the divergent mode we need to learn to be more playful while in the convergent mode we need to be more serious. being able to move between those modes is really quite important. You can be both serious and, at times, playful.

We need trust to be able to be playful and we also need it to be serious. He also talks about going for quantity, building with your hands, and doing role play.