Describing the creative process is almost a contradiction in terms for me. Creativity has always seemed to work at right angles to intent; that is, for me to sit down and say, “Now I will be creative and insightful and brilliant” and things just flow. Doesn’t happen that often.
When I transcend being a craftsman and become an artist, the Muse sneaks in somewhere and whispers much more than sweet nothings in my ear.
I’ve found that the harder I try to be creative, the more elusive the creativity becomes.
However, that’s not a particularly useful response and puts creativity on a somewhat loftier pedestal than may be warranted.
In looking at my creative process, I’ve realized in the course of answering this question that it’s exactly the opposite of what I do at work. Instead of de-constructing a single (usually coherent, defensible, and attainable) concept, creativity is a matter of using a lot of little things to build up to a new (perhaps unique, perhaps very compelling) construct. In this particular case, I looked at as many examples of PBL as available in the time allotted and read the assignments. I was looking for similarities and for gaps. By gaps, I mean what hadn’t been done before (within the breadth of my search) and what would be appealing to my (virtual students).
All of these pieces, these bits of ideas, eventually coalesced into the draft of a new construct. However, it’s just a draft. I find that simply putting the idea in the form of the final assignment that new possibilities and gaps present themselves.
And the process starts again. The conclusion? The good news is that creativity produces something – the next possibility.
Fortunately, this struggle can be verbalized and shared with students. By “opening up” this process with students, they can also be drawn in, especially if I “admit” to being stuck on a particular point or coming to a fast but not particularly successful “creation.” Seems like it takes a very few words to describe what is ultimately a highly complicated give-and-take.
From this openness, students can feel more secure in their own explorations and lack of infallibility. After all, if the teacher isn’t perfect, it’ gives them permission to be less than perfect, too. And I’ve never been comfortable with being the kind of authority figure that McCain describes in his early chapters.
With that level of comfort, students (even adults!) can be more open, more experimental, and more – dare I say it? – creative.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Implementing Ted McCain's Ideas
I must confess that my first response was to feel the same level of impatience with Ted McCain that I do with so many other “I've-seen-the-light-and-this-is-the-NEW-way-to-teach” tomes.
That accounted for the first two “significant changes” as in “Yeah, yeah, what else ya got?”
I wasn't sure if I was angry for paying so much for such a slim volume or grateful that it was, indeed, short. I started reading McCain a week late as the book was delayed due to a mix-up on payment. So I decided to read it all, all at once. (See above paragraph.)
It wasn't until he explained what he meant under:
3. We must stop giving students the final product of our thinking.
4. We must make a fundamental shift - problems first, teaching second that I changed my mind.
Finally. Here were practical, pragmatic methods of teaching that addressed the needs of 21st Century Skills. The teacher became the initiator, the source or the guide, instead of the judge and arbiter. The students were empowered to act – or not.
This completely dovetails with my experience in training adults. Adults don't want to get lectured at; they're accustomed to taking responsibility for their own learning (or not). They're used to having parameters set out and have learned (or can be coached into asking the kinds of questions that move them toward achieving the goal (finishing the job, doing the assignment).
But it was his descriptions that really turned my perceptions around – in very specific terms, he showed how a class could essentially run itself.
This was not to excuse the teacher. It seems to me that McCain's approach actually demands MORE of a teacher – certainly in finding and defining the kinds of problems/ real world situations that encompass a class's objectives and still be contained within a class.
To be a guide, to consistently resist the temptation to “tell” and to give the canned explanation, to prepare and have the resources to answer questions that may go far afield (legitimately) but beyond one's preparation also sounds far more difficult than “teaching to the test.”
As I am not currently teaching, no, I haven't implemented any of these approaches but I certainly intend to do so.
That accounted for the first two “significant changes” as in “Yeah, yeah, what else ya got?”
I wasn't sure if I was angry for paying so much for such a slim volume or grateful that it was, indeed, short. I started reading McCain a week late as the book was delayed due to a mix-up on payment. So I decided to read it all, all at once. (See above paragraph.)
It wasn't until he explained what he meant under:
3. We must stop giving students the final product of our thinking.
4. We must make a fundamental shift - problems first, teaching second that I changed my mind.
Finally. Here were practical, pragmatic methods of teaching that addressed the needs of 21st Century Skills. The teacher became the initiator, the source or the guide, instead of the judge and arbiter. The students were empowered to act – or not.
This completely dovetails with my experience in training adults. Adults don't want to get lectured at; they're accustomed to taking responsibility for their own learning (or not). They're used to having parameters set out and have learned (or can be coached into asking the kinds of questions that move them toward achieving the goal (finishing the job, doing the assignment).
But it was his descriptions that really turned my perceptions around – in very specific terms, he showed how a class could essentially run itself.
This was not to excuse the teacher. It seems to me that McCain's approach actually demands MORE of a teacher – certainly in finding and defining the kinds of problems/ real world situations that encompass a class's objectives and still be contained within a class.
To be a guide, to consistently resist the temptation to “tell” and to give the canned explanation, to prepare and have the resources to answer questions that may go far afield (legitimately) but beyond one's preparation also sounds far more difficult than “teaching to the test.”
As I am not currently teaching, no, I haven't implemented any of these approaches but I certainly intend to do so.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Thinking about the Framework for 21st Century Skills
Now that you have explored the Framework for 21st Century Skills- what are your thoughts?
I have heard it, read it, watched it and I still don't see where these skills are any more 21st Century than they are 20th Century (or 2nd Century for that matter).
I realize I may be committing grade suicide here but I can't help but echo Jay Matthews, the Washington Post education columnist who noted, “The organizations involved in the 21st-century effort are staffed by good people. I am going to assume that we agree that we need to look closely at the details of teaching these skills, and in that spirit I want to make two suggestions.
"First, please try to avoid the lethal disease that infects so many of these studies. I call it All-at-once-itis. That refers to the irresistible urge to insist that the changes have to be accomplished ALL AT ONCE, or we will fall short of our important objectives.
"In this democracy we never make good changes all at once. The presidential campaign and economic crisis are proof of that. So please don't tell us we have to.
"Second -- and this will wreak havoc with report deadlines -- why not wait to release your recommendations until you have tried them out on at least two or three schools with a few hundred students?
"I won't insist on proof of success. I just want to get a sense of how young human beings, and their teachers, react to all these new hoops they must jump through. (This will also help stifle my suspicion that you don't actually know how to do any of the things you are suggesting.)
"No one is going to pay attention to what I want, of course. The report writers know I will keep reading their stuff, full of hope that I will eventually find some classroom reality among all the pie charts.
"I am not saying the people who issue these pronouncements are wrong. Many of their ideas are excellent. But if we are going to make them happen, they have to show us what it is going to take, besides just more concerned citizens spending more money to produce more reports like this one."
Yes, they're phrased and packaged in a contemporary way. The presentations are all very “professional” (which I've found to be the word used when something looks like it wasn't done by an amateur and devoid of any appreciation of content). The urgency of addressing problems has grown exponentially from the 2nd to the 21st Century, certainly. The stakes of making mistakes or not aggressively addressing challenges has certainly grown.
Lest anyone get the opinion that I'm sort of latter-day Luddite, I'll readily grant that Information and Communications Literacy (ICT) is an utterly new construct worthy of separate attention and inclusion in the curriculum.
As the slide says, Use the ICT Literacy Maps for Math, Science, English, Geography, and Social Studies.
As I've commented elsewhere, this should be incorporated at the earliest levels where there is some support for it being effective. It seems this alone would be something quantifiable, easily (or should be easily) communicated to even the most parochial or ignorant school board member, and straightforward in implementation. Pursuing this alone would be a huge leap forward for the American education effort and one that would certainly have payoffs in the workplace.
The Life Skills List continues to bother me.
Why is Personal Responsibility any more important now than it ever has been, for example? Has there ever been a time when personal productivity wasn't important? Seems like a lot of effort went into coming up with this list and it doesn't just resonate with me.
Global awareness is critical, yes, but can't it be incorporated right now? Watching currency exchange rates would be a great way to teach division (dollars to Euros, Euros to dollars, for example) at the lower grades, graphing the changes in exchange rates for higher grades, and analysis of those trends for upper levels of high school. What is it going to cost? Is some principal really going to say “No, don't do that?”
I have heard it, read it, watched it and I still don't see where these skills are any more 21st Century than they are 20th Century (or 2nd Century for that matter).
I realize I may be committing grade suicide here but I can't help but echo Jay Matthews, the Washington Post education columnist who noted, “The organizations involved in the 21st-century effort are staffed by good people. I am going to assume that we agree that we need to look closely at the details of teaching these skills, and in that spirit I want to make two suggestions.
"First, please try to avoid the lethal disease that infects so many of these studies. I call it All-at-once-itis. That refers to the irresistible urge to insist that the changes have to be accomplished ALL AT ONCE, or we will fall short of our important objectives.
"In this democracy we never make good changes all at once. The presidential campaign and economic crisis are proof of that. So please don't tell us we have to.
"Second -- and this will wreak havoc with report deadlines -- why not wait to release your recommendations until you have tried them out on at least two or three schools with a few hundred students?
"I won't insist on proof of success. I just want to get a sense of how young human beings, and their teachers, react to all these new hoops they must jump through. (This will also help stifle my suspicion that you don't actually know how to do any of the things you are suggesting.)
"No one is going to pay attention to what I want, of course. The report writers know I will keep reading their stuff, full of hope that I will eventually find some classroom reality among all the pie charts.
"I am not saying the people who issue these pronouncements are wrong. Many of their ideas are excellent. But if we are going to make them happen, they have to show us what it is going to take, besides just more concerned citizens spending more money to produce more reports like this one."
Yes, they're phrased and packaged in a contemporary way. The presentations are all very “professional” (which I've found to be the word used when something looks like it wasn't done by an amateur and devoid of any appreciation of content). The urgency of addressing problems has grown exponentially from the 2nd to the 21st Century, certainly. The stakes of making mistakes or not aggressively addressing challenges has certainly grown.
Lest anyone get the opinion that I'm sort of latter-day Luddite, I'll readily grant that Information and Communications Literacy (ICT) is an utterly new construct worthy of separate attention and inclusion in the curriculum.
As the slide says, Use the ICT Literacy Maps for Math, Science, English, Geography, and Social Studies.
As I've commented elsewhere, this should be incorporated at the earliest levels where there is some support for it being effective. It seems this alone would be something quantifiable, easily (or should be easily) communicated to even the most parochial or ignorant school board member, and straightforward in implementation. Pursuing this alone would be a huge leap forward for the American education effort and one that would certainly have payoffs in the workplace.
The Life Skills List continues to bother me.
Why is Personal Responsibility any more important now than it ever has been, for example? Has there ever been a time when personal productivity wasn't important? Seems like a lot of effort went into coming up with this list and it doesn't just resonate with me.
Global awareness is critical, yes, but can't it be incorporated right now? Watching currency exchange rates would be a great way to teach division (dollars to Euros, Euros to dollars, for example) at the lower grades, graphing the changes in exchange rates for higher grades, and analysis of those trends for upper levels of high school. What is it going to cost? Is some principal really going to say “No, don't do that?”
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Response to Blog Entries from Module 1
Okay, first the disclaimers. My “day job” is a business analyst for WEA Trust, the Wisconsin teacher’s union benefits company meaning I am not a classroom teacher. My claim to being involved in education is a sometimes-trainer and a nearly full-time curriculum writer and developer. So I couldn’t really answer the assessment questions any more honestly than could Paul
I can offer some perspective from that business-industry point of view and as a “consumer” (if only working with recent graduates on teams and some informal mentoring) of the American public school system.
In reading the blogs of my classmates, I am encouraged to see that all of them are in the “transitional” stage in terms of their MILE assessments. (I will take it at face value that the survey was accurate, the respondents were able to express themselves accurately, etc.)
I detected a bit of discouragement from a few that they were “only” in the transitional stage. However, the great thing is that they and their districts have started to acknowledge the need for change but, even better, have taken steps to achieve those changes. On the other hand, I am worried that all of them are in the “transitional” in this literally globe-spanning if scientifically invalid slice of teaching. From a business-industry perspective, I know the U.S. can’t wait for another five to 10 years for schools to collectively “get it together” and contribute graduates from the K-12 system and post-secondary system who can contribute effectively from very early in their tenure.
I am encouraged that all of the practicing teachers see a personal responsibility to not just teach well within their own subject but also show a district-wide responsibility to move education forward. I am equally pleased that they recognize teachers can be their own worst enemies. From personal experience, I can safely agree that teachers are often the worst students and the most resistant to change (even when it can be shown to be in their own best interest).
I am, however, discouraged that so many of the themes – getting everyone on board, having open and innovative leadership, better tools, more time – are the same things that I’ve heard, well, at least since I covered education as a newspaper reporter in four different states and at least 24 different districts.
Time, the time to learn new technology and 21st Century skills teaching tools, time to apply them in the classroom, tempt me into this digression. 21st Century skills are “messy,” just as democracy is “messy,” and any process that puts humans in the center of things is “messy.”
This connects to time because, as one of my colleagues mentioned, she gives small groups time in her science class to discern and understand the steps involved in an experiment. How many schools can grant that kind of time, that kind of “messiness” with the dictates of No Child Left Behind hounding their every move?
I was also a bit surprised that only one of my colleagues even brought up the question of creatively teaching to a diverse student group. In my own workplace, this is a near constant challenge as we have rotating groups of off-shore IT personnel.
I was pleased that one of our colleagues commented, “The tendency of education to be separate from the world and exist only in learning institutions has to change.” Nothing occurs in a vacuum and let me extend that time-weary bromide by adding, that schools reflect that reality just as they reflect the society in which they operate.
Let me suggest because I didn’t really read it from my colleague’s blogs or read it in the articles. It must be a two-way flow of meaningful programming so that businesses get the employees they need while the schools get the support and recognition they need.
Yes, it’s one thing to solicit the input from local businesses on what kinds of skills they need. But it’s getting down to the practical. How many districts have partnerships/internships/apprenticeships that go beyond the Explorer Scout “gee-whiz, ain’t that interestin’” level? How many districts get students involved in the real world beyond granting time off to flip burgers or fold sweaters at Wal-Mart? I’m talking about meaningful exposure and not the silly posturing of Junior Achievement.
As a liberal arts graduate and unrepentant generalist, I want to hasten to caution against total and absolute kowtowing to the needs of business-industry in a school. The antithesis of what I’m perceiving as “21st Century skills” is the technologically adept drone who meets the letter but not the spirit of a job opening.
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