A8MattSmith

A8MattSmith

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?

From my experience in lower education I would agree with this statement, the coursework was cut and dry and the teachers were spoon feeding information into students instead of letting them create outside the box.

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 in my life as a student which have helped me become a more creative thinker are 1) in high school my East Asian Cultures teacher taught us to explore new cultures 2) in my freshman year of college, Clayton Lewis taught an intro to cs class which pushed the students to meet their professors and think outside the box about what they would like to do as an undergrad and also how to create an interesting project 3)my current class in ATLAS, Digital Media 1 pushes the students to use the new digital technology to create meaning and interesting content with just an open ended prompt.

In high school the first event that helped me become a more creative thinker was my East Asian Studies class which pushed me to learn a different language and culture and the teacher also pushed us to think outside the box about cultural issues and events in the gray areas. This also led to me spending a summer studying abroad in China, where I learned that the world is a much bigger place than the United States. This event led me to start thinking more creatively about subjects that weren't so cut and dry.

The second event in my freshman year pushed me to create new ideas around CS and get in contact with professors who could help me. Clayton pushed us to think about the future and about what we could do as an undergrad to help our future. The first assignment was "where do you see yourself in ten years" which pushed us to think creatively about what our life would be like after college. By the end of his class the ideas I had in the first homework had completely changed as well and I had to imagine a new scenario and strive for those goals.

The newest event in my life which has pushed me to be a more creative thinker is my Digital Media 1 class in the ATLAS program. The class gives the students the tools they need to be creative and then for each project gives an open ended prompt which allows/forces the students to think creatively and reflect on the meaning of their work. There is also a reflection and feedback time on the day the project is due which allows for the other students to critique and discover the meaning of the work. Which also allows for the other students to find their own meaning in the work. This class elevates creativity over technical because technical can be learned from a textbook, but creativity takes more work.

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.