A8DaraCunningham

A8DaraCunningham

To-Do

please discuss / address the following issues: claim: "Few of today's classroom focus on helping students develop as creative thinkers"

1. Do you agree / disagree with this statement of the article?
2. From your personal experience: which are the three most prominent events / activities in your life as a students (in school, in the university) which have helped you to become a more creative thinker?
   1. Analyze these three events by elaborating your description with the framework defined by the creative thinking spiral.
   2. For each of the processes did you have and use tools to support your activity?
3. Discuss whether the processes of the creative thinking spiral are or will influence your research in your course project and in which way.

1. Do you agree with the statement?

As someone with a Master's degree in Education (Information and Learning Technologies), and someone who received this after the era of "no child left behind," I can personally vouch for the decimation of creativity in the classroom. No child left behind made schools become test-teaching ventures, rather than well-rounded learning arenas. Teaching to standardized tests has made schools all over the country drop creative or extracurricular activities, like music, art, sports, etc. When test results are all that matter, teachers cannot focus on anything else.

I would not say that my K-12 experience was particularly creative but, compared to what most K-12 students have available to them now, I did have more encouragement and more tools provided to encourage creativity. My Bachelor's degree was in Fine Arts so creativity was highly encouraged throughout my tenure. I would not say my graduate work has encouraged creativity. While creativity has been a research subject, the focus in my graduate work has been on literature and analysis.

2. Analyze the three most prominent events / activities in your life as a students (in school, in the university) which have helped you to become a more creative thinker

Three prominent events from my life as a student that helped me become a creative thinker are: 1) in junior high, my English teacher allowed me to write short stories instead of simply writing standardized research reports; 2) in high school, I became the Teacher's Assistant for the Psychology teacher and spent a semester writing practice Psychology tests in BASIC on the mini-frame computer we had the school Library; and 3) in my Bachelor's degree, my 3D design class challenged me to take my designs out of the 2D plane and create novel 3D artwork (that may or may not be useful). Each of these events allowed me to personally experience the creative thinking spiral: imagine, create, play, share, reflect, imagine --->

When I was in junior high, I was a budding writer. My seventh grade English teacher recognized this, and that I had already mastered report writing, so she challenged me to stretch my writing skills into more creative projects. To write short stories, I needed to imagine the characters and the scenario, create/write the story, I would then read/play the story to the instructor (share), reflect on my experience reading the story as well as her comments, then begin imagining again. I did not have any special tools. This was before the PC so my tools were a pencil and paper.

As the child of a psychologist and a social worker, I was immersed in psychology growing up and really didn't need any more psychology by the time I got to high school. I became the Psychology teacher's assistant in lieu of taking any more classes in this area. My Psychology teacher wanted to make use of the brand new computer terminal in the school library to help his students but had no experience with programming (which is what you had to do at the time in order to use any computer). I had taken BASIC the year before and knew the class material already. My experience allowed me to imagine the best way to help the current and future Psychology classes. My imagination led me to create practice tests for students to take in preparation for real tests. Programming in BASIC was like play to me and the final product allowed me to share, then reflect on how well this worked, and imagine how it might work better. The tool I used to create these tests was the Library mini-frame computer.

3D Design was one of the required classes in my Bachelor's degree. I went into this class thinking it was going to be a computer class but it turned out to be a studio class. This class challenged me to take my ideas that I was accustomed to sketching or drawing on computer and translate them to the "real" world. Throughout this class I imagined the 3D design, created and played with the 3D design (very challenging to someone unaccustomed to working this way), shared my work, reflected on my experience and the class' comments on my work, and imagined how I could have re-created each project to make it better. This class forced me to invest in the tools necessary to create projects out of wood, paper, fabric, and metal.

3. Discuss whether the processes of the creative thinking spiral are or will influence your research in your course project and in which way.

My group's research project will utilize the creative thinking spiral in the research and in further work on this project. Our survey/interview participants will need to use their imagination to place themselves in a simulated building and attempt to predict their use of that space. Participants who are already familiar with the building will need to imagine what could make the building better and more useful/usable. After this semester, I plan to continue this research and will need to reflect on the results and imagine/create additional research opportunities to continue this project.