Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Where Creative Teaching Comes From

It's been a long time since I've written this blog, in part because I am being pulled in many directions, but also because I have set out to do some research-oriented writing for this blog.  The research is coming along, but I want to share the following writing in the meantime.

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.

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