I wrote this because I am looking for a job and using What Color is Your Parachute as one of the guides to help me along my way. I wrote this following little story to look closely at something I did quite well, something that defines me to an extent. It also happens to fit into the concept of this blog. So without further introduction . . .
Developing Creative
Thinking Strategies for the Classroom
I had been
teaching about a year at BCIS and fumbling around for the right way to do
things. I felt that I was using
technology well with the students, but I was not very happy with the overall
results. The ones I expected to do well
were but a lot of students were performing fine, but not good.
Honestly,
at this point I cannot recall what the actual tipping point was. I think it may have been reading and studying
the outlining text closer, looking at the assessment criteria and what the
guide said about teaching the arts. I
remember a little better now, I was looking for ways that assessment would not
be vague but able to be pinned down so I could show students exactly where they
were succeeding and where improvement needed to be made. That’s where I saw the artistic process
component and thought: “Design and thinking
are part of the artistic process. Like
in mathematics, students need to show their work.”
I wanted my
students to do well so I helped them through this process and found that not
only did many more of then asses better, they also enjoyed the class a lot
more, became more engaged, and made better art.
Once I found this I took a systematic look at different thinking styles,
Bloom’s Taxonomy, and peers’ work and began to create my own system. Truthfully it’s not my own system, but it’s
my own protocol that is culled and adapted from ideas I found in every source
imaginable. Talking to others, research,
and plain old pragmatism.
