Imagine trying to learn how to drive a car from a book or from lectures given by expert drivers. You study diagrams showing the position of the accelerator, brake, and clutch pedals. You read about the process of releasing the clutch as the accelerator is depressed. You memorize the appropriate braking distances… When you have … Continue reading
I have a friend whose son is in second grade. It is now March. As far as his mother can determine, the teacher has yet to make a positive comment regarding a child’s work. Accurate work is met with more work. Mistakes are met with red marks and, “Do over.” The intent is high standards, … Continue reading
Assessment is front and center in just about every educational venue today. Whatever we want to develop in schools, we need to think about how it relates to assessment. To me, one of the most important concepts in assessment is Stiggins’ differentiation of assessment OF learning and assessment FOR learning. Assessment OF learning, of course, … 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
It would not come as any surprise to any teacher I know, that the United States’ current obsession with high stakes testing may not be the best thing for student learning—to say nothing of student creativity. Test scores appear to have become our ultimate goal, as if we believe that raising scores, particularly on international … Continue reading
Today I’d like to (for now) wrap up my comments on the so-called “Creativity Killers,” common classroom routines that stifle both students’ motivation and their creativity. Today we consider choice—or the lack thereof—and its impact in the classroom. Collins and Amabile (1999) put it bluntly, “The best way to help people maximize their creative potential … Continue reading
Today I’d like to continue my comments on the so-called “Creativity Killers,” common classroom routines whose negative influences can loom unseen over our classrooms. If you recall, Amabile and her colleagues have worked for years to study the relationship between intrinsic motivation and creativity. In her early work she identified several practices as “Creativity Killers” … Continue reading
Last Thursday I introduced the variables designated as “creativity killers” because they have been found to inhibit intrinsic motivation: evaluation, surveillance, reward, competition, and lack of choice. I know, the list is depressing. Procedures that are so familiar and common in classroom life can, vampire-like, suck the creative lifeblood from our classrooms. To add to … Continue reading
Creativity killers. Sounds pretty scary—my immediate image is of brain-sucking aliens or some such thing, draining creative energies from the people around them. The reality is less dramatic but still pretty frightening. Last week I talked about the importance of intrinsic motivation in creativity. In fact, Amabile proposes a three-part model of creativity in which … Continue reading
One of the most interesting and puzzling dilemmas in thinking about creativity and schools is the relationship between creativity and intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation, of course, is defined as the motivation to do something for its own sake, for the sheer pleasure or satisfaction of the task. A runner may run marathons for the joy … Continue reading
