Creativity Guidebook - 10-12 (High School) Sun West
Creativity High School 10-12
Purpose
Creativity is widely acknowledged to be a key 21st century skill and included in many countries’ desired college & career ready outcomes for students. Humanity has been fascinated by the creative process for millennia. But what do we know about creativity?
- Creativity has been well defined
- Numerous models have been developed to help enhance creativity
- Neurological workings of creativity are widely understood
- All students have creative potential
- Creative competence can be developed and supported by thoughtful interventions
- Methods of assessing creativity are well defined
- Instructional models to enhance creativity exist but are not widely used in schools
Creativity. P21 Partnership for 21st Century Learning. http://www.p21.org/our-work/4cs-research-series/creativity. Web. May 7, 2018
Why is this important?
Creativity is a key 21st Century skill that students need to embody in order to create and share unique and original ideas. Having the skills and abilities to imagine, make connections, elaborate and transform, and task risks, allows students to be successful participants in the planning of their learning and assessment.
Key Steps in Teaching Creativity Strategies
1. Isolate the skill needed to be taught.
2. Provide students with direct teaching to learn strategies and practice self-awareness.
3. Provide and allow opportunities for students to practice the skills and strategies, and reflect often. This takes time at first, but students are rewarded for their efforts once they are able to master their practised skill.
4. Revisit strategies and skills often.
Explicit Teaching
To be able to learn and grow in 21st Century Competency understanding, it is important to teach each skill and let students experience what each skill looks like as well as how you can grow in each area. Caution: by simply saying the word "communication or collaboration...etc" students may not get a full understanding of each skill. Explicitly teaching and utilizing skills in different ways is what will ultimately promote deep understanding and growth in 21st Century Competencies.
Timeline Suggestions for Explicit Teaching
The document below provides a year plan to teach each of the 21st century skills. It is beneficial to have an explicit teaching plan to ensure each skill is taught; however skills should also be reinforced as much as possible throughout class time.
Lesson Plan Ideas
Imagine (Generate original ideas)
Literacy Though Creative Dance
Here are ten exercises and projects that put fun back into your classroom:
Make Connections
5 Ways to Bring More Creativity Into the Classroom
Elaborate or Transform
Teaching Creativity & Creative Thinking Skills
Top 5 TED-Ed Lessons on creativity
Take Risks (Entrepreneurship/ Innovation)
Yes, You Can Teach and Assess Creativity
Integration of Skills
Intentional integration of 21st Century Competency language in all day-to-day activities supports the development of routine reflection, skill use, and growth in support of curricular knowledge acquisition.
Why?
If we do not intentionally integrate 21st Century Competency connections into our learning environments, it is easy to forget about them. As the language becomes routine, growth in skills can and should be explored regularly. Ultimately the 21st Century Competencies are the skills needed to be successful in all day-to-day activities as well as future career opportunities. By being intentional in integrating the language and skill use in all aspects of learning, understanding of the skills can be applied and reflected upon to look for areas of potential growth and application.
How?
Once skills have been explicitly taught, integration of 21st Century Competencies can be achieved by connecting skills to all curricular areas, participating in pre-and post reflections (allowing students to predict which skills will be needed and subsequently which skills need to be worked on) and the use of 21st Century Competency rubrics to track growth. Example: by using learner profile data, students can reflect on which skills they need to employ for a particular activity and based on this information, choose group members that have strengths or challenges in those skill areas.
Examples
When integrating 21 Century Competency language in all areas of learning consider the following curricular connected resources. As you use similar resources in your own learning environment, how can you relate them back to growth and understanding of the 21 Century Competencies?
In ELA
Creative Writing Activities: This resource includes assignments/handouts on the following: Writing poetry, fiction, nonfiction, writing and peer editing.
Writing Prompt Generator: Generate your next creative writing prompt with this little tool.
Alls Well that Sells Well: A Creative Introduction to Shakespeare: Students compare attending a performance at The Globe Theater with attending a modern theatre production or movie. They then create a commercial for an Elizabethan audience promoting a modern product
Creative Outlining-From Freewriting to Formalizing: After reading a short story, students use freewriting as a catalyst for a literary analysis essay.
High School Writing Supports: a list of creative writing ideas and prompts for high school students
Fractured Fairy Tales: encourages students to create their own fractured fairy tales
Letter Poem Creator: provides an online model for the thought process involved in creating poems based upon a letter; then, students are invited to experiment with letter poems independently.
Poetry Circles: students put their heads together in a poetry circle to learn and practice different forms of poetry
Analyzing and Comparing Medieval and Modern Ballads: Students explore the ballads genre by reading medieval ballads to deduce their characteristics, acting out the ballads, comparing medieval and modern ballads using Venn diagrams, and composing their own ballads
Discovering Poetic Form and Structure Using Concrete Poems: uses concrete poems to explore the connection between a poem's layout and its meaning.
Acrostic Poems: This online tool enables students to learn about and write acrostic poems
In Math
Work Place and Apprenticeship Math 30-What Bank to Use When Starting A Small Business: the student will be developing an idea for a possible small business that they would like to start and run
Connect the Dots: With a friend(s) take turns making line segments to connect the dots
Teachable moments
Whenever a question, situation, comment or activity that involves a connection to a 21 Century Competency arises, take a moment to talk to students about it. Discussing skills, how they integrate into everything you do in life makes the reflection on the importance of skills a habit. This habit will instill a growth mindset around developing skills to their fullest potential. Teachable moments can be as short as 20 seconds. Make it your habit and it will become theirs!
Tracking Growth
When considering the 21st Century Competency application, it is essential for both the teacher and the student to track growth. There is clear potential for growth in skill use throughout our lives. To ensure growth and understanding of application is taking place, we can easily track progression using rubrics, checklists, and self-assessments.
Formative Assessment
Formative assessments of 21st Century Competencies include anecdotal documentation, self-assessments and rubric check-ins. These formative assessments provide snapshots of growth throughout the learning process and allow goal setting to take place.
See below for Self-Reflection and Goal Setting Documents:
Assessing Growth
Assessing Creativity and Innovation: A rubric to assess the 6 phases of assessing creativity and innovation, Creativity Process Poster, a student chart to self-assess creativity and innovation and a chart outlining the 6 phases of the creative process.
Rubrics for English Language Arts for Grades 10-12 CR & CC: Over 30 amazing pieces are included
Summative Assessment
Exemplar Rubrics
Creativity 10-12
Creativity Exemplar Rubric 10-12
|
Creativity |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|
Imagine (Generate original ideas) |
I can use someone else’s ideas to help me understand and describe a concept. | I can use someone else’s ideas to help me understand and describe a concept. I can add an idea of my own. | I can come up with ideas to understand and describe a concept and then evaluate/determine which one is the best. | I can come up with ideas to understand and describe a concept and then evaluate/determine which one is the best. I can predict how each solution will work and test my hypothesis. | I consistently think “outside the box”. I regularly imagine and carry out completely new ways of doing things. |
|
Make Connections |
I have difficulty making connections between my previous learning, other subjects or the world yet. | I can sometimes connect a topic with myself.
|
I can connect topics and apply it to my life.
|
I can connect various topics and apply it to my life and to others.
|
I can connect new learning to past knowledge or other subjects and create new ideas. |
|
Elaborate or Transform |
I am not able to elaborate or transform my work yet. | I ask for support when elaborating and transforming my work. | I am able to elaborate and transform my work independently. | I am able to elaborate and transform my work in a variety of ways. | I am consistently able to elaborate and transform my work in a variety of unique ways and share with others. |
|
Take Risks (Entrepreneurship/ Innovation) |
I am comfortable with having my ideas or work look different than others. | I can take risks, navigate failure and share with others. | I value risk-taking and can share my unique perspectives. | I value risk-taking. I can present something that may be controversial or may persuade others. | I push boundaries. I innovate and encourage others to take risks with me. |
Co-creating Rubrics
Exemplar rubrics have been developed for K-5, 6-9 and 10-12. To connect fully with students in their understanding of skill application and growth, a recommendation would be to re-write the rubric with the students to include their understanding of the skill, goals for integration in learning and commitment to the skill development.
Resources
Sun West Resource Bank Creativity Resources
Assessing Creativity & Innovation: A rubric to assess the 6 phases of assessing creativity and innovation, Creativity Process Poster, a student chart to self-assess creativity and innovation and a chart outlining the 6 phases of the creative process.
Visible Thinking: is a flexible and systematic research-based approach to integrating the development of students' thinking with content learning across subject matters.
Print based
Strategies to Enhance Creative Thinking: Simple, but effective strategies to encourage creative thinking. These strategies include assumption busting, negative brainstorming, storyboarding and using a decision tree.
Food Studies 30 Pysanka (Ukrainian Easter Eggs): Learn how to make authentic Pysanka using the traditional methods for cultural Ukrainian expression of the Easter celebrations
Resiliency Thought Bubbles: requires students to use critical thinking and creativity in writing their own original idea that demonstrates both Fixed Mindset and Resiliency
Think Literacy: This amazing 144-page document covers the following topics: Reading strategies, writing strategies and oral communication. There are tons of ideas and practical lessons for teaching in this resource.
Interactive Portfolio with Adobe InDesign: Students will create an interactive portfolio, using Adobe InDesign
Videos
What is Critical Thinking: Critical thinking is a term that we hear a lot, but many people don't really stop to think about what it means or how to use it. This lesson will tell you exactly what it means and make you realize that the average person largely ignores critical thinking.
Tales of Creativity and Play: Tim Brown talks about the powerful relationship between creative thinking and play with many examples you can try at home (and one that maybe you shouldn't).
Do Schools Kill Creativity: Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.
Creative Periodic Table Storytelling The Youtube Generation: creating videos to teach the periodic table
Interactive
Fun Physics Friday - To give students a chance to use their creative and critical thinking skills in a variety of physics related challenges
Comic Creator: The Comic Creator invites students to compose their own comic strips for a variety of contexts (prewriting, pre- and post-reading activities, response to literature, and so on).
Question Creation Chart- provides students with a framework for developing a range of personally meaningful questions, encompassing both close-ended factual questions and open-ended, divergent questions.