Ideas for Learning and Creativity #2

This second post on Ideas for Learning and Creativity looks at examples from very diverse fields which we could use as teachers to enhance the way we think about learning, how we deliver lessons and what type of resources we create and use with our students. This cross-pollination of ideas is becoming more essential as children are exposed to a wider range of sources compared to only 4-5 years ago. If you find this subject of interest then please visit my development blog that I co-write together with Neal Watkin (@nwatkin) over at EatSleepTeach.com.

Creativity and Innovation

Chris Abani

It is seldom you come across people who can move their audiences with such ease and with such sincerity. One such person is Chris Abani. I first came across him when I was browsing the TED.com website for interesting material for a workshop I was running and I have been a fan ever since. Chris Abani’s was first imprisoned after publishing his first novel as a 16 year old about a fictitious Nigerian coup and was later imprisoned again by the Nigerian government. He turned his difficult experiences into poems and stories (see review of one of his books here).  His books and talks provide good possibilities to show students the power of contrasts and his messages can resonate with their lives as he brings out everyday issues relevant to them. His talks also provide a great opportunity to show that speaking in public does not have to be complex as long as the story is clear and the contact with the audience honest as the video below shows.

This is probably one of my favorite talks. His mixture of comedy and sudden switch to the complexities of humanity is simply astounding.

Chris muses on humanity on TED.com

Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us

I mentioned Dan Pink in the last post on Ideas for Learning and Creativity and his latest book is certainly worth mentioning in this one. Drive tries to break the myth that carrots, like financial rewards for example, does not lead to increased motivation at work the 21st Century. Pink goes on to discuss his theory, based on four decades of research, that true motivation only happens when an individual becomes autonomous, has true purpose in what they do and has the opportunity to move towards mastery in their field.

Although this book was written with businesses in mind, many aspect of his ideas and theories can easily be incorporated in education. For example, as teachers we already provide students with a sense of purpose, or at least try to achieve this by showing them that skills learned in lessons matter in real life (see these two post which deal with many of these issues: Big Ideas and Creative Ideas from the industry). Another interesting discovery by Pink was that companies’ productivity and profits did not increase if they offered financial incentives to their employees because although some people might have worked harder, it didn’t mean the quality of their work improved. What about your class? If you tell students they will get As and Bs if they work harder, how many of your students will actually work harder? Be honest. Virtually none? However, companies that provided employees with a sense of autonomy, purpose, training and support to become better at what they did, improved significantly. Similarly, if you can engage students to want to learn, they will realise that working hard at something leads to increased progression (mastery). Suddenly, your subject will become more important to them because they know they can achieve. Using Drive ideas in the classroom is something worth exploring. There is also a Drive Audio Book for those of you that travel a lot.

This video explores the idea of reward as a de-motivator, perhaps not exactly what Pink had in mind but funny nonetheless.

Solving creative stagnation the Sagmeister way

Stefan Sagmeister, a German born designer, realised that his studio was coasting, lacked spark and innovative ideas – not good for a forward thinking design studio. To halt the continuation of a potentially dire future Stefan and his team decided to take time off. Sounds pretty straight forward so far. In his view, we spend approximately 25 years of our lives learning, then there’s another 40 years for working and 15 for retirement. To combat this lack of creativity and drive, Sagmeister decided to take 5 of the 15 retirement years and intersperse them with the working years leaving 1 year sabbatical every seven years.

He claims that his time away from work and the new experiences this provided him with, gave him so many new avenues to consider once back in the studio. For example, when he was on his second sabbatical he was regularly attacked by street dogs on his morning walks in Bali so he decided to create one t-shirt for all the different dog breeds and added this little message on the back:

Most of the design ideas Sagmeister produced over the next 7 years came from that sabbatical. Take a look at his website to discover his amazing work. Sagmeister does not advocate that you ‘just take time off’ without planning your sabbatical. On the contrary, he tried that and it did not work. He produced a timetable for thinking and stuck to it and there is of course that tiny little detail of funding your time off…

It’s certainly important that we consider the lessons learned from Stefan Sagmeister and allow students time to reflect on their learning. But most importantly that we, their teachers, take time off to think and not only switch off. How many of us stop thinking during half-term and just relax? This is not to say that relaxation is not important, in fact it’s essential. However, moving forward and becoming more creative requires us to broaden our horizons just like Sagmeister – but we’ll have to do it in 6 weeks! Why not plan your summer holiday next time and include moments of reflection and new experiences (no, the beach/pool does not count…well, that depends on what happens I guess).

ICT and e-Learning

Garageband.com

This is a portal for independent artists where you can buy, and download for free (certain files only) music produced by bands and singers not yet on a record label. It also provides artists with the opportunity to promote their music, websites and gigs. I love this website as you not only discover new and interesting music from a range of genres, but there are also many groups and artists that give you the opportunity to download their music free of charge. This is brilliant if you develop websites, e-Learning content, videos and so on for educational purposes as long as you provide a link to the artists’ page on Garageband.com.

Google Squared

Google Squared takes a search term and creates a starter ‘square‘ of information, automatically fetching and organising information from across the web (see image below). This is an excellent tool for students if they need to compare and investigate a range of information and Google Sqaure makes that a easier as they don’t need to trawl through an array of different websites to get a good overview of a topic. It is worth pointing out that the information gathered is based on the best attribute values for each item in the Square so this means that information is, as always, open to interpretation.

You can add more columns to extract even more information based on a number of different categories depending on what you searched for. When you are happy with your square you can share the link (if you sign into your Google Account), save it, and send it to FaceBook and Twitter. One clever feature is if you find that something is missing from the square then you simply do an additional search and choose ‘Add to this Square’ after which the new search term is added at the end of the original one.

Here are a couple of examples:

Square: Cloud types

Square: Civil Rights Leaders