Thursday Thoughts December 5
Yesterday I had the opportunity to join the 21 other NELC principals at North Fulton Community Charities for our holiday party. No we didn't actually have the party at NFCC but we served in a volunteer capacity for a couple of hours and then had a potluck lunch back at the Milton Center. Yes...I brought the soda. Now this is a new experience for principals, as we are accustomed to grand luncheons at various venues throughout the county. I can tell you that it was one of the best holiday parties I have ever attended. We were all assigned different tasks and we worked up a sweat. My job (with three other principals and Amy Booms) was to sift through donation bags and sort the items into the appropriate bins. There was plenty of camaraderie, laughter and just plain old fun.
The NFCC volunteer coordinator shared some facts about the services that they provide to the families in Johns Creek, Alpharetta, Milton and Roswell that truly surprised me. For example, last year NFCC gave over 1.2 million dollars in rent and utility assistance. For Thanksgiving this year they gave away turkeys, groceries and gift cards to nearly 800 families in need. I was so proud that Medlock Bridge donated over 900 pounds to the organization. For the month of December, I will highlight a few other organizations in the blog that do great work to assist those in need. If you have a chance, please read all about the work that the NFCC does at http://nfcchelp.org/. In additon, I have provided a link below to the pictures of the principals hard at work yesterday. Here at Medlock we have a great opportunity to assist a few of our own students this season. Thank you in advance for participating in our gift card campaign. It will mean the world to the recipients.
This week I would like to shine the spotlight on Traci Fleck. Traci has a passion for teaching and a huge heart for her students. She serves as an advocate for her students' needs and rarely takes no for an answer. Traci seeks opportunities for professional growth and I am excited to announce that she is days away from graduating from Georgia State. She works closely with her students' parents and goes above and beyond when it comes to communication. Traci thank you for doing what it takes to educate and inspire your students.
4C's: Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, Critical Thinking Skills
5 Hallmarks of a Creative Project
Structure student projects to demand creativity
By Melinda Kolk
Creative projects are the tangible products of creative behavior and creative thinking. If we want students to produce creative works, we need to structure student work so that the outcome is a natural result of these behaviors.
A project is creative when it:
1. Asks, or attempts to answer, the right kind of questions
A project that answers a question with an obvious right answer doesn’t leave much room for creative thinking. Create is at the very top of Bloom’s taxonomy. A project’s questions should prompt students to: integrate, design, invent, compose, organize, plan, propose, and of course, create.We are probably all familiar with the concept of essential questions, questions “that pose dilemmas, subvert obvious or canonical truths, or force incongruities upon our attention.” (Bruner, 1996). Even if the project doesn’t drive to an essential question, it should be framed by a question that is open-ended, eliminating the expectation that the project requirements can be fulfilled by a specific answer or type of answer.
Read more about Bloom’s and creative project work here.
Most importantly, questions must be meaningful. Questions that can be answered with factual information are useful, but not meaningful. Such questions may be part of gathering foundational knowledge, but the crux of student work should address questions that connect students to the world beyond the classroom. That doesn’t mean that students have to have free rein to do whatever they want, but they do need to feel that their work is recognized and has an impact.
2. Requires collaboration or cooperation
There is no shortage of research that shows that creativity does not thrive in competition. While individual work can certainly be creative, team work leads to more creativity for more students.Collaborating exposes us to different perspectives and leads to more diverse and varied ideas, especially when the group is heterogeneous. If group norms are such that all ideas are welcome and debate is free and respectful, ideas cross-pollinate and produce better and more original thinking.
Even if a project is more cooperative than collaborative and students work to make an individual contribution to a larger whole-class project, try to work in opportunities for students to collaborate on brainstorming, planning, and evaluating. These activities expose individuals to a more diverse range of ideas and perspectives, allowing them to incorporate those concepts into their personal work.
3. Doesn’t need the student’s name on it
That’s right. If you can’t tell the difference between students’ work, the project didn’t leave enough room for students to invest themselves. No worksheet is creative. Projects that are creative are as unique as the students that create them. In a student-created version of Judi Barrett’s Things That are Most in the World, there is an amazing range of content, intonation, and style. Although the student names appear at the bottom of each page, I’m certain that neither the teacher nor the parents needed to see them to identify each student’s work.
Creative work is deeply original, making it also deeply personal. If students can’t see themselves in their work, why would they want do it? In her research on creativity, and in exploring other research on creativity, Teresa Amabile found that intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity and extrinsic motivation is almost always detrimental. Be sure to give students “voice and choice” so they can appropriate the task to their interests and skills to make the work more interesting and satisfying.
4. Includes original art or design
Remember your students’ first PowerPoint? When they spent what felt like a week designing the title page and finding just the right font, Word Art. or animation? Most kids get over that by their fifth project. Do they stop because they are truly getting better at the process or because we have crushed their creativity? If we keep outlining requirements (on page 1, include x and y) or scaffolding projects through research worksheets, creative projects quickly turn boring, and we end up watching variations of the same PowerPoint presentation 24 times.If you ask a room full of Kindergartners who can draw a frog, you will see lots of raised hands. Ask that same question in middle school and you probably won’t get one… unless you have an “accomplished” artist in the class.
Why is this? Since most of us aren’t great at drawing, our original artwork isn’t likely to garnish praise and admiration. As we get older, we are less and less likely to try drawing something new for fear that our art will be labeled “not good.” We are conditioned over the years to take fewer and fewer risks.
But creativity requires risk taking, as Sir Ken Robinson explains, “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” Asking all students to draw their own work creates a culture of risk taking. If everyone has to do it, everyone is in the struggle together. Just be sure to follow it up with a celebration of effort and risk taking… do not just focus on the quality of their drawings.
If you aren’t ready for this step or don’t want to take the time necessary for original illustration, ban the use of clip art or make require justification for any clip art used in a project. You could also require students to edit the clip art or synthesize multiple pieces of clip art into a new design. Stop using templates, or at the very least, require students to make changes to the templates.
5. Transfers energy and demonstrates passion
In addition to new inventions and products of value, creativity brings joy to our world. Creative projects often make us smile, whether we are in the audience or in the creator’s seat. We work hard on creative projects because they are meaningful and important to us. Creative projects portray the fun and energy that went into them and transfer this energy from the creator to the viewer. In the same way a passionate presenter inspires us and connects us to content in a way no lukewarm presenter can, you can easily tell when students have connected with the content and approached it in ways that reflect their passions and interests.
The hard work of creativity
Making creativity a requirement for your learning projects isn’t just about fun. When we take a creative approach, our students are free to try new things and explore passions.But creativity isn’t easy, it’s the result of hard work!
Hard work building adequate content knowledge to be capable of transformative ideas and products.
Hard work creating original infographics to display data in more revealing ways.
Hard work drawing and designing original artwork to model our ideas or connect with our audience.
Hard work looking at ideas from multiple perspectives, especially those that contradict our own.
Hard work doing thinking that isn’t just remembering, but is connecting, synthesizing, and transforming.
Hard work imagining what could be instead of using or thinking about what already is.
Hard work bringing the novel into existence and getting others to value what is new and different.
It’s time to get down to some hard work!Hard work creating original infographics to display data in more revealing ways.
Hard work drawing and designing original artwork to model our ideas or connect with our audience.
Hard work looking at ideas from multiple perspectives, especially those that contradict our own.
Hard work doing thinking that isn’t just remembering, but is connecting, synthesizing, and transforming.
Hard work imagining what could be instead of using or thinking about what already is.
Hard work bringing the novel into existence and getting others to value what is new and different.
Technology Tidbits: (If you have websites to share please email me and I will share with all)
Check out the following websites:
http://interactivesites.weebly.com/science.html-
This site is a great resource to locate additional interactive sites for all subjects
http://www.uen.org/3-6interactives/science.shtml
Science resources provided by the state of Utah
News & Notes
If you have a high school senior or know someone who does, please note the following:
The North Fulton Council of PTAs (NFCPTA) has posted the 2014 Sally FitzGerald Scholarship application online please visit the website at http://www.nfcpta.com/?page_id=696
The Sally FitzGerald Scholarship is open to all seniors graduating from a North Fulton County High School. This scholarship targets students who exhibit characteristics in volunteerism, extra-curricular activities, academic excellence, and essay writing. The deadline for this scholarship application is March 19th, 2014. The scholarship application package must be mailed and have a postmark no later than this date to be considered.
If you have a high school senior or know someone who does, please note the following:
The North Fulton Council of PTAs (NFCPTA) has posted the 2014 Sally FitzGerald Scholarship application online please visit the website at http://www.nfcpta.com/?page_id=696
The Sally FitzGerald Scholarship is open to all seniors graduating from a North Fulton County High School. This scholarship targets students who exhibit characteristics in volunteerism, extra-curricular activities, academic excellence, and essay writing. The deadline for this scholarship application is March 19th, 2014. The scholarship application package must be mailed and have a postmark no later than this date to be considered.
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