Fall in Michigan can be beautiful. I will admit Ann Arbor can’t hold a candle to the Susquehanna Valley, where I used to see colors blaze on the mountains along the river, but still, the colors are lovely. And so for October, our family fun activities are all about leaves. 1. We eat a lot … Continue reading
One of the best things I’ve read about creativity recently did not come from a book on creativity—it came from a book on learning targets. In their book, Learning Targets: Helping Students Aim for Understanding in Today’s Lesson, authors Connie M. Moss and Susan M. Brookhart describe the use of learning targets (goals) to focus … Continue reading
What happens when you mix Carl Sagan, profound ideas from science, illustration, and video/music remix techniques? Magical things. Recently I came across a video, created as a thesis project at Sheridan College. In it, student Adam Winnik used animation to bring part of Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot to video life. It made me wonder how … Continue reading
For the last few weeks I’ve been writing about teaching for creativity and the Common Core State Standards. The Common Core State Standards Initiative outlines core math and language arts content to be addressed at each grade level. In my first Common Core post, I clarified that the Common Core State Standards are not intended … Continue reading
Would your students like to share information through the image of Abraham Lincoln, a space alien or a cat? Would you? How about through an avatar that looks something like you—or maybe the way you’d like to look! There are many technology tools that use avatars in very sophisticated ways. Creating this type of avatar … Continue reading
The Common Core State Standards Initiative outlines core math and language arts content to be addressed at each grade level. That is, the Core Standards carefully delineate WHAT is to be taught at each grade level, at least in those subject areas. But is does not address the ways that content is to be taught. … Continue reading
The Artful Thinking website, from Harvard’s Project Zero, is a fine resource for teaching art—and just about anything else. The program uses the image of an artist’s palette to outline six dispositions, or ways of thinking, that can be mixed to create masterpieces of teaching and learning. The dispositions include: Reasoning Exploring Viewpoints Questioning … Continue reading
In the United States, The Common Core State Standards Initiative is one of the most powerful forces we’ve seen in education in a long, long time. So what is it? And how does it influence teachers’ options for developing creativity in classrooms? This is the first of several weekly posts on the Common Core and … Continue reading
September is here, summer is slipping away, and most of the students in the U. S. are beginning the new school year. As promised, I am beginning a first-of-the-month post of creative activities focused on families–after all, we can’t have all our fun in the summer! Many of the activities will be appropriate for school … Continue reading
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