Creativity Empowers Learning

This year when asked to share an Ignite talk at the Auckland EdTech Summit I chose to attempt presenting in five minutes the PLD theme for Manaiakalani schools in Term 2: Creativity Empowers Learning.

Our innovative Manaiakalani teachers and facilitators are preparing professional learning group sessions and staff meetings based on this concept so I thought I would give it a go too.

This movie is a slightly expanded version of the Ignite talk - without the relentless auto switching of slides I was able to slow it down a bit!  It includes snippets from two movies, a New Zealand documentary "The heART of the Matter" and a fun piece from Will Smith.

Our teachers spent a month in April contributing ideas to create an understanding of what we mean when we use the word Create in our pedagogical framework. I included this in the presentation. We debated fiercely as we co-constructed a way to synthesise the multiple contributions and after coming to an agreement Karen Ferguson created us a graphic to use. It incorporates the idea that while many definitions of creativity focus around thinking and using our brains, the pathway to creativity for many of us - and the children we teach- involves other parts of the body 'doing creative stuff' before the brain makes sense of it!

Create: Learn Create Share Pedagogy

One of the foundation goals of Manaiakalani is to
"Motivate our learners  to engage with the curriculum" 
and a significant driver for engagement has been our intentional use of modern technologies to enable creativity to play a significant part in learning and teaching opportunities.



Since the beginning of the Manaiakalani programme our teachers have been exploring how to increase opportunities for our learners to be creative - and this often means physically moving, making and doing - both individually and collaboratively. Our evidence confirms that Creativity is a significant hook into learning and we need to be empowering our young people to develop this.

One of the proponents of creativity who has impacted teachers across the globe is Sir Ken Robinson.  There are few who would not find his talks entertaining, but implementing the ideas he discusses can seemed daunting to teachers constrained by a 9-3 school day, timetabling and testing/assessment. His suggestion that Dance should be a daily event seems beyond the realms of possibility.

Our digital learning environments, which remove the time constraints of traditional classrooms, allow increased opportunity for our learners to be creative.  We are talking about creativity in traditional forms (song, dance, art, culture etc) and using digital technologies (MakerSpace, digital art and design, movie making, animation, coding, etc). And whatever medium a child uses to express their creativity, the affordances of the technology mean that this can be capture digitally and shared with a wide audience.

We talk about creativity being an element of the Manaiakalani pedagogy, a component of the learning cycle.  And often this is where it sits; Learning activities occur, the learner creates something to demonstrate this learning (process, activity, knowledge building etc) and then shares it with a wider audience. This almost linear framework can be a comfortable starting place for teachers who have little experience or are hesitant about 'letting go' and empowering children.

We believe, and our researchers concur, that significant learning and cognitive engagement occurs when our young people 'Create to Learn'.  They begin with creativity and the learning emerges from there.  Sir Ken, in this interview, uses the example of his home town band, the Beatles, and his belief that when they first started out they only knew three chords and their musical knowledge and learning exploded as they were involved in the creative process.

This thinking around 'Create to Learn' is where our experienced and confident teachers are focusing their attention. We have adopted the SAMR model as a shared framework across our cluster of schools, and have been interested to note that teachers who are focusing on cognitive engagement and 'Create to Learn' are automatically working above the line on the SAMR ladder.  It promotes modification and redefinition in digital learning environments.

We have much to learn and are interested in what our colleagues around the country and the world are doing in this space.

Helen King on Creativity

In 2012 one of our cluster lead teachers, Helen King, was awarded an eFellowship with Core ED. It was significant for all of us that she chose to investigate creativity in her classroom to enhance learning and teaching. 
The Manaiakalani schools have developed the "Learn Create Share" pedagogy and in 2012 acknowledged that the Create component of the pedagogy is the most challenging to consistently provide opportunities for.
In this video Helen explains what she did with her class of Year 5 ( none year old) children.

Elearning and creativity from EDtalks on Vimeo.

Helen King from Pt England School tells us how encouraging creativity through music, animation, and movies enhanced the learning of her students. She found that infusing creativity through all curriculum areas contributed to a change in classroom culture.

Creativity - an elusive ideal?

During TEP Bahrain there were a number of ideas that recurred throughout the conference. In the eLearning stream that I presented in, creativity was one of these - unsurprisingly. One of the most impacting statements made for me was when a woman asked a question following our presentations that went something like; "It is all very well to talk about creativity as being an essential component of 21st Century education, but what are we to do if in our countries our teachers have never seen a creative classroom, been taught in one or have any idea what it would look like?"

This question has stuck in my mind and I have been pondering it for a couple of weeks now. Firstly to realise how many intangible advantages we have in developed countries, and secondly to consider what we have to offer as real solutions to developing countries.

On our return from the Middle East we stopped over in Sydney so I could attend the Australia/NZ ADE conference for 3 days. As part of the event we were asked to bring a 2 minute 'double click' to present. This was to be a multimedia presentation showcasing what we have been doing in our own recent practice. As you can imagine at a gathering like this these presentations were stunning and I learned a huge amount from them. And carrying the hallmark of the ADE community, they were very creative.

During the first session Maxx Judd, who organises the global ADE programme, gave a presentation showing where on the globe ADEs are located. When I saw the map, with the question of the woman in Bahrain still alive in my head, my eyes were drawn more to where ADEs are not represented on the world map and I decided to change my presentation. I looked at the talent in the room and thought about the words used to describe ADEs: Advocates, Advisors, Authors, Ambassadors - and wondered if there was any place for this talented group to support the kinds of schools who have never experienced creativity.

So this is what I put together that night for my double click presentation on the second day...

*NEW*

Added YouTube version in response to request. Left blogger version for those where YT is blocked!