Building Teachers’ Capacity for Creative Thinking November 3, 2015 “Creativity in teaching falls flat in schools with complacent and intellectually entrenched staff. It thrives in schools with staff who regularly revise their thinking in light of new evidence.”

Activity Directions: *Each group will be given a teaching scenario *Discuss in your groups how you would respond to the scenario *We will rotate so that everyone will discuss each scenario * As a large group we will discuss your responses

Scenario #1: Learn content or a new skill outside or your subject discipline You have been teaching ELA in 8 th grade for 10 years. This year your principal has assigned you to teach an intervention during the day to 6 th grade math students on equivalent fractions. What do you do to prepare the lessons? “Doing something new and outside one’s field of study is a great catalyst for personal creativity.”

Scenario #2 Open instruction to professional critique Your principal did your first observation and you scored proficient on Element IVf: Element IVf. Teachers help students work in teams and develop leadership qualities. Observable Teachers teach the importance of cooperation and collaboration. They organize learning teams in order to help students define roles, strengthen social ties, improve communication and collaborative skills, interact with people from different cultures and backgrounds, and develop leadership qualities.. Proficient Organizes student learning teams for the purpose of developing cooperation, collaboration, and student leadership. Accomplished Encourages students to create and manage learning teams. You feel like you had cooperative groups and you should have gotten accomplished. How do you handle this with the principal?

Scenario #3 Regularly do Automatic tasks and let the mind roam: Think about the following situations: The student who is failing and you do not feel you have any parent support, the coworker that continues to borrow from your lessons and ideas but never gives anything in return, how you will get that one class to understand a concept that you have been teaching for several week. Discuss with your group the best time you are able to really think about these things and come up with ideas to solve problems like this. “Many of the best ideas in the history of our world occurred to inventors while their minds were occupied on other pursuits.”

Scenario #4 Build Instructional versatility You have a lesson on layers of the earth ready for 6 th grade social studies. The class is very diverse. There are 12 boys and 13 girls in the class. Of those students you have four EC students that read on a 3 rd grade level, three students that are on medication for ADHD and forgot to take it today, five students that qualify for AIG, and one student that is autistic and never sits down. What three ways can you present this lesson so that all of your students are successful? “Teachers can’t be creative with what they don’t have.”

Scenario #5 Brainstorm A student in your 4 th block have not turned in homework since the semester started three weeks ago. You have called mom twice and both times she has told you she would get to the bottom of it. Still no homework was turned in and now the student is falling behind in class work as well. Brainstorm what you could do to get this students on track. “Sometimes divergent and occasionally nonsensical excursions while brainstorming lead to more powerful ideas, but it’s hard to identify successful responses unless we practice brainstorming for its own sake.”

Scenario #6 Accept Life’s Complexity While putting in grades in Power school you notice that there is student that has not turned in the last several assignments and has zeros. What steps will you take to figure out what is going on with the student. “Simple black and white, either /or thinking rarely enables creativity to flourish.”

Scenario # 7 Design multiple access points and meaning -making experiences for students As an ELA teacher you have taught a lesson of finding the climax of the story by reading a short story and discussing the concept. You have several students who did not understand what climax is and how to discover it in additional stories. How do you reteach the concept of finding climax in your ELA classroom? “The more access points a mind has to a concept, the better the mind understands and retains the concept.”

Scenario # 8 Do activities with no associated extrinsic rewards The NC budget for schools was just released and it states that no teacher will receive a pay raise for the next fiscal year and teachers will begin to pay a portion of the state insurance. You have chosen the profession of teaching and still have the passion for student learning. What motivates you to continue to work hard to grow all students each day in your classroom? “ As strange as it sounds, removing the pressures of extrinsic rewards boosted personal creativity in the classroom.”

Scenario #9 No lipstick on the mirror An 8th grader has confided in you that her boyfriend has broken up with her and that she is not able to concentrate on her classwork or homework. She has lost her desire to do well in school because she is heartbroken. You asked her if she wanted to talk to the counselor and she expressed to you that she did not trust the counselor. What do you do to help this student? “ We can’t be creative unless we’re willing to be confused.”

In Conclusion: "We all want the pilot who thinks “outside the box” when the plane’s navigational system fails at 35,000 feet, and we want teachers to think in unusual ways if the regular curriculum or lesson plan isn’t working.”

Homework: How we Assign it Never given to students so they can learn the material the first time around Not be just decorative or clerical Parents should not have to teach students Should not take away from after school exercise Do not just assign homework because that is what you think you should do Given in order for students to practice, reinforce and extend what they know Should advance our subjects Should be done by students independently Should take only minutes Should only assign homework with merit

Homework continued: Should not be a task kids will resent If it is “skip-able” then do not assign it Should not be given over long weekends or vacations Should be something they can enjoy Give students an option for homework activities Should expect each student to turn something in (even if it is a note why they did not do it) “Whatever we do, we must provide feedback on homework assignments.”