To be honest, I was a little disappointed when I saw our task for this unit's blog post. Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk, "How Schools Kill Creativity" is one that I have had to view over and over again in my education courses (both in my undergrad and during this grad program). I've frankly run out of things to say! I'll give it a shot though.
Do schools kill creativity?
The obvious answer to this question is yes. I would venture to say every student in this class is going to answer similarly, unless they work for some awesome Expeditionary Learning Charter School or something. Every public school teacher faces the ever-present dauntless task of preparing students for standardized assessments. Every public school teacher feels pressured by the administrators at their school to ensure their students perform well for one reason or another. This definitively causes a deficit of "creative learning opportunities" in the classroom, as teachers are focused solely on content, content, testing strategies, and more content.
The less obvious answer to this is no. More specifically: no schools do not kill creativity — state educational protocols (fueled by the need to acquire funding from the federal government) kill creativity. If less pressure was put on teachers to get students to perform well on standardized assessments, there would be more time for creativity and the arts. Sir Ken Robinson sums up this problem slightly differently in his TED Talk "How Schools Kill Creativity" when he states, "If you were to visit education, as an alien, and say 'What’s it for, public education?' I think you’d have to conclude, if you look at the output, who really succeeds by this, who does everything that they should, who gets all the brownie points, who are the winners — I think you’d have to conclude the whole purpose of public education throughout the world is to produce university professors. Isn’t it?". When we only focus on preparing students for tests, we are effectively accomplishing exactly what Robinson outlines above.
How can you use digital media to bring creativity alive in your classroom?
This is a much easier question to answer. My district is in the process of going one-to-one with Chromebooks. Currently only the high school has made it that far; the hope is to get 9th and 8th grade to one-to-one next year. Given our goals of technological advancement, we have seen an increase in available resources over the last two years. I have a Chromebook cart that lives in my room and is shared with the other teachers in my wing. I try to incorporate these into my lesson plans as often as I can without monopolizing them.
Here are some of the things I do with our Chromebooks that encourage creativity while still furthering the students' grasp of the content we need to master by the end of the year (read: by PSSA season).
FlipGrid: Occasionally when students do a Collins Writing, I will have them hop on a Chromebook and record their response or a summary of their response on FlipGrid. This may not seem hugely creative, but my students LOVE recording themselves, seeing themselves, and personalizing their videos. Are they still writing and analyzing? Yes, but in a much more creative way for the end goal. Linked to the title of this example is my students' most recent FlipGrids. They read an article, analyzed it, did a Socratic Seminar with it, wrote a Collins Type 1 reflection, and recorded a FlipGrid at the end. Check it out!
Google Slides: Google's G-Suite for education is really a dream when it comes to technology integration in the classroom. Linked to the title of this example is quite possibly the most boring topic we tackle in 7th grade English: PSSA Vocabulary Terms. While I do teach these concepts individually, students need to know the definitions as well. Rather than breaking out a dictionary, I have each class create their own visual dictionary using the integrated creative features in Slides. Check it out!
Pear Deck: This is an Add-On for Google Slides that I just discovered in the last few weeks. It turns a normal Google Slides presentation into an interactive one for students. While I cannot link a presentation that I've created (you need to view it live with a code), I did link an article that describes the add-on in depth and shows examples. Students have a device (a Chromebook in my case) while the teacher is presenting the Slides. There are slides interspersed that students must directly engage with. That could be a matching activity, a true or false question, a written response, etc. At the end of the presentation/notes/whatever the teacher can export the students' responses and use them as formative assessments if they wish. If anyone would like to see how it works live, I'd be happy to set up a time to demonstrate it.
Resources:
Robinson, K. (2006, February). Do schools kill creativity? Retrieved February 08, 2018, from https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity
Do schools kill creativity?
The obvious answer to this question is yes. I would venture to say every student in this class is going to answer similarly, unless they work for some awesome Expeditionary Learning Charter School or something. Every public school teacher faces the ever-present dauntless task of preparing students for standardized assessments. Every public school teacher feels pressured by the administrators at their school to ensure their students perform well for one reason or another. This definitively causes a deficit of "creative learning opportunities" in the classroom, as teachers are focused solely on content, content, testing strategies, and more content.
The less obvious answer to this is no. More specifically: no schools do not kill creativity — state educational protocols (fueled by the need to acquire funding from the federal government) kill creativity. If less pressure was put on teachers to get students to perform well on standardized assessments, there would be more time for creativity and the arts. Sir Ken Robinson sums up this problem slightly differently in his TED Talk "How Schools Kill Creativity" when he states, "If you were to visit education, as an alien, and say 'What’s it for, public education?' I think you’d have to conclude, if you look at the output, who really succeeds by this, who does everything that they should, who gets all the brownie points, who are the winners — I think you’d have to conclude the whole purpose of public education throughout the world is to produce university professors. Isn’t it?". When we only focus on preparing students for tests, we are effectively accomplishing exactly what Robinson outlines above.
How can you use digital media to bring creativity alive in your classroom?
This is a much easier question to answer. My district is in the process of going one-to-one with Chromebooks. Currently only the high school has made it that far; the hope is to get 9th and 8th grade to one-to-one next year. Given our goals of technological advancement, we have seen an increase in available resources over the last two years. I have a Chromebook cart that lives in my room and is shared with the other teachers in my wing. I try to incorporate these into my lesson plans as often as I can without monopolizing them.
Here are some of the things I do with our Chromebooks that encourage creativity while still furthering the students' grasp of the content we need to master by the end of the year (read: by PSSA season).
FlipGrid: Occasionally when students do a Collins Writing, I will have them hop on a Chromebook and record their response or a summary of their response on FlipGrid. This may not seem hugely creative, but my students LOVE recording themselves, seeing themselves, and personalizing their videos. Are they still writing and analyzing? Yes, but in a much more creative way for the end goal. Linked to the title of this example is my students' most recent FlipGrids. They read an article, analyzed it, did a Socratic Seminar with it, wrote a Collins Type 1 reflection, and recorded a FlipGrid at the end. Check it out!
Google Slides: Google's G-Suite for education is really a dream when it comes to technology integration in the classroom. Linked to the title of this example is quite possibly the most boring topic we tackle in 7th grade English: PSSA Vocabulary Terms. While I do teach these concepts individually, students need to know the definitions as well. Rather than breaking out a dictionary, I have each class create their own visual dictionary using the integrated creative features in Slides. Check it out!
Pear Deck: This is an Add-On for Google Slides that I just discovered in the last few weeks. It turns a normal Google Slides presentation into an interactive one for students. While I cannot link a presentation that I've created (you need to view it live with a code), I did link an article that describes the add-on in depth and shows examples. Students have a device (a Chromebook in my case) while the teacher is presenting the Slides. There are slides interspersed that students must directly engage with. That could be a matching activity, a true or false question, a written response, etc. At the end of the presentation/notes/whatever the teacher can export the students' responses and use them as formative assessments if they wish. If anyone would like to see how it works live, I'd be happy to set up a time to demonstrate it.
Resources:
Robinson, K. (2006, February). Do schools kill creativity? Retrieved February 08, 2018, from https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity
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