Malena+Cobo

email address: mecobo@fcaq.k12.ec =__ASSIGNMENT #3__= =**Pre-assignment : Creativity**=

PRE ASSIGNMENT FOR CRS 560: Module One: Why is studying creativity important? Creativity is important because it comes from what you are good at; it comes from your inside from what you are. When you use your creativity you are not worried if it is correct or if it is accepted by others. Creativity should accompany us per life but sadly we are in every educational system forced to let it aside and do things as we are told to. We should have as educators a close interaction between being creative and following the curriculum for the school system. The main enemy against creativity is to enforce students to do things, as we would like them to do. Let them express themselves by different means not necessarily our way as teachers. As a background for CRS 560 you are to do the following 5 per assignments. [|www.scottberkun.com/blog/2010/the-creativity-crisis-newsweek/] Jul 19, 2010 – The creativity crisis (Newsweek). In a recent article on America's declining ability to be creative, the author, Po Bronson, tries to explain why creativity is important.
 * 1) Read:[|The creativity crisis (Newsweek) « Scott Berkun]

[|www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html]
 * 1) View Ken Robinson’s Ted Talk.

TED Talks - Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines).


 * 1) **Write a summary of five main points you find compelling from these articles.**

1- **Creativity is as important in education as literacy**. With this phrase he is trying to tell us that some areas like art, drama have been put at the end of a list in subjects at schools and with it many students are left behind, children that see the world in a different way, students that need to learn differently. Schools should motivate students to find out how they learn. All the subjects are important and that is the way schools should handle it. 2- **Children are not afraid to be wrong. If you are not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original.** We are allowed to make mistakes and that is an idea we should transmit our students. We learn out of our mistakes, we have to try and repeat and we will get there. No one is exempt of making mistakes. Students have to have the confidence to know that making mistakes is ok. That they will have help and support from others to continue and learn. 3- **Adults have lost the capacity to be creative**. When students do not have confidence they are always waiting to do what they are told, they do not let their creativity emerge; they don’t give themselves an opportunity to try something different. Also, our education system contributes for this to happen and that is why adults loose their capacity to be creative, we are always restrained by rules, to routines, to do what we are told to do and how. It is a circle that repeats itself, we adults have lost our creativity and as teachers we do not permit our students to be creative and they will loose their creativity as well. 4- **If we don’t grow into creativity we grow out of it, we get educated out of it**. We as teachers, as adults have to be conscious of this and try and re educate ourselves back into creativity. We should work with our students in letting them use their creativity let them find it again. Restrain ourselves from telling them everything on how to do or how we want them to do it. Give them some liberty to express themselves. 5- **Our task is to educate their whole being, so they can face this future**. As the video said we do not even know what would happen in 5 years so how can we teach them about it. What we can do is teach them skills to use in any kind of situation. We can give them the liberty to express themselves and be genuine. We can be respectful of their ideas and understand that we are not living in their time they are living their own reality. We not only have to educate their minds but also their spirits. In Ted talk Ken Robinson says that we should educate the whole being not only their brains. THESE ARE FINE POINTS YOU CHOSE TO COMMENT ON. I LIKE THE WAY YOU ELABORATED ON THESE IDEAS. What I do is ask questions and answer questions with more questions so they can continue thinking and going beyond and in more depth. Also, doing projects, I give the idea and they are responsible for making it as they wish, here is where they begin thinking about the materials, the quantities, colors and textures etc. Other idea is for them to present their work as they feel more comfortable, orally, they may draw to show their work, they may dance or make it as a song. I AM PLEASED THAT YOU ALLOW THE KIDS FREEDOM TO CHOOSE HOW THEY EXPRESS THEIR UNDERSTANDINGS.
 * 1) **Discuss how you nurture creativity in your students currently. Provide concrete examples.**


 * 1) **Finally list three understandings or skills you would like to learn in this course on Creativity**.

1. How to lead students to be more creative. 2. What changes should we go through to not let our creativity be lost? 3. How to implement activities in the curriculum to motivate creativity. I DO BELIEVE YOUR OBJECTIVES WERE COVERED BY CLASS ACTIVITIES, READINGS, AND DISCUSSIONS.

__Advertisement TED talk__: María Elena Cobo, María Soledad Robalino, Ken Hadden
Glogster []

I LIKE YOUR POSTER. FINE AD FOR YOUR TED TALK =Block of creativity:=

Reflections:
Joshua in the box: this brings to my mind that we sometimes are in boxes and we do not dare to go out due to our fears and to try something new. We are comfortable in our own little routine, or our known setting. Joshua tries to go out of the box and takes a lot of time to figure out a way to go out. He finds a small crack and goes out, he feels happy but after a while he does not feel comfortable and cannot adjust to the new feeling and what he does is go to another box and he is trapped again and his color changes as a metaphor that says that you may be trapped in anything that you do. The message, how I see it, is that we as individuals should look for our own happiness, our fulfillment in life. Do what we really like and what we enjoy. We cannot spend part of our lives wishing we did something else or wondering what would had happen if we were something else. Your choices in life are your responsibility and what you do with them. Be simple, life is complicated enough for us to be all messed up. Be yourself, do what you what you want to do, live your life in the best way. I LIKE YOUR IMPLICATIONS FOR THE VIDEO. BUT I WONDER IF YOU FEEL BLOCKED AT ALL IN PURSUING YOUR CREATIVE POTENTIAL.


 * TED Talk**: Thomas Suarez 14 year old boy that created a new program was an amazing TED TALk. I am not a tech person and that is why this was wonderful to watch. This boy with 14 years of age created something that not many people could. His imagination, creativity helped him to do it. He had this desire to do something else. He likes all that kind of electronic devices and was curious on doing something else and he did it. It is amazing how people with creativity, desire can do anything. The best thing is that now he is thinking about helping his school system and specially doing this for free. He is not thinking in his own personal advantage but he is thinking in the greater good.

1. How are the ways do you think schools can motivate teachers?Can money be one of them? 2. What are some ways to kill creativity from students? Do we do that in our classes? 3. Have you been motivated by your students to do something different? 4. Does creativity has to do with gender/age?
 * Questions for Socratic Seminar**: I read the 6 myths of creativity.

I LIKE THE WAY YOUR QUESTIONS RELATE TO YOUR READINGS.

What I´ve learned is from this class is that we all are creative in our own way. Being creative is not creating something important but how you creatively do things, teach a content, explain something. What really matters is trying to do it, not having fear of what can come out of it or if it would be nice or not. If you keep trying you may get good things out of it. The Socratic Seminar is a tool that is use in my TOK class to discuss matters seen in class or subjects that students can bring to the class. It works really well because it gives all of the students the opportunity to talk to express their own ideas in a safe environment. Their ideas can be heard and they can listen respectfully as well.

__Creating a math problem:__
**Math problem**

**Masato is a tourist guide on his spare time. He receives a call from some tourists. They need a guide for three groups of twenty three tourists that come from different countries. They wish to visit Masai.** **How many tourists does he need to guide in a week to earn US126?**

**He charges US13 per hour. Since it is a large group he usually offers a 10% discount.** **Finally he needs to know how much he will earn in shillings. The currency change at the moment is 85,23 shillings are equal to US1.**

**Group:** **Maria Ines Carrion** **Gabriela Larrea 2** **Paulina Lucero** **Valeria Izquierdo** **Maria Tereesa Romero** **Soledad Robalino** **Gabriela Bustamente** **Maria Elena Cobo** **Maria del Carmen Elsitdie** GREAT PROBLEM FINDING HERE. YOU WERE BOTH ORIGINAL AND ELABORATE. BRAVO.

= **ASSIGNMENT #1 SCAVENGER HUNT:** =

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=** ASSIGNMENT #2 : LESSON PLANS **=

Maria Elena Cobo María del Carmen Elsitdié


 * Application of Creative Strategie__s__ **
 * __ Lesson Plan 1 __**


 * Discipline: ** TOK / Humanities


 * Essential Question: ** To what extent can humans be certain that what they believe is true?


 * Strategy: ** Morphological Matrix

- Students will understand the relationship between areas of knowledge and ways of knowing. - Understand how we “know” and demonstrate capacity to reason critically. - Make connections in real life situations.
 * Objectives: **


 * Description of the strategy: **

The morphological matrix can be used in class to combine the areas of knowledge, the ways of knowing, the questions/problems/issues that appeared for students to understand the connections.

Steps:
 * 1) Introduce students to the morphological matrix. Teacher can give an example by listing the ideas that may fit in the matrix. 10 minutes
 * 2) Students in pairs will fill out their matrix. 10 minutes
 * 3) Students will list the possible combinations that they can come up with from the matrix they did. 10 minutes
 * 4) Students will share their combinations in a whole class discussion. 5 minutes
 * 5) For assessment, students will be asked to reflect on a written paper choosing one combination out of the matrix. 10 minutes


 * ** Ways of knowing ** || ** Areas of knowledge ** || ** Knowledge question/problem ** ||


 * Reflection: ** This lesson might help students come up through a different activity with the main ideas related to the way we human beings can acquire knowledge, which is the basis for the class.

THIS LESSON HAS POTENTIAL TO HELP THE KIDS COME UP WITH DIFFERENT IDEAS.


 * Lesson Plan 2 **


 * Discipline: ** Social Studies


 * Essential Question: ** How can inventions and technology affect societies?


 * Strategy: ** Brainstorm and Imagery

- Understand the impact of inventions and technology on societies. - Evaluate the positive and negative outcomes of human inventions. - Brainstorm ideas and aspects to be considered in their evaluation process. - Decide, as a team, which sculpture will represent better their conclusions.
 * Objectives: **


 * Description of the strategy: **

Brainstorming is a tool that can be used in a fluent and spontaneous way to gather useful information in a large group. Imagery is a great way to express ideas in a playful setting that can allow students find different solutions.

Steps:


 * 1) Discuss with the students the most important inventions of the Industrial Revolution and their impact in new economic and productive activities.
 * 2) Make a list of different fields in which technology and inventions have an influence.
 * 3) Brainstorm possible positive and negative implications of inventions and technology in modern day societies.
 * 4) Allow students to get into working groups of three students to discuss and decide what sculpture they are going to work on.
 * 5) Give students clay to model a sculpture that can express the results of their evaluation process.


 * Implementing the Activity: **

I think that it is very important to find all possible connections of historical events to the present day, so students can realized that history is not just something that happened in the past and is written in books, but has an impact in what we are now. I noticed that making connections help students to understand and integrate the content learned in class with things that we can observe now in daily and common situations. Brainstorming is a good opportunity to share ideas fast, easy, and in a collaborative setting. The most important part is to let students express themselves through a completely new art activity that can probably demonstrate how they interpret the evaluation process in a different way.


 * Assessment/Reflection: **

The assessment will be through all the process, but the most important is the final product the sculpture. It must tell the viewers a story of the positive and negative impact of inventions and technology in societies. At the end students will discuss and reflect about the experience and how they were able to evaluate the essential question. I have had the opportunity to use clay in one of my classes and the reaction of students was amazing, at the beginning they did not know what to do with it. They wanted to model it like they did before in pre – school with play dough. But the atmosphere of the class was wonderful, students really enjoyed using this material and they were proud and happy with the pieces they were able to create following just one simple rule: they were not allow to separate nay part of the piece of clay. I understand that is good for our brains to have an image in three dimensions instead of just a flat surface. Evaluate is a hard task, but if it is combined with a more playful activity it could be less difficult because the ideas are going to be express through art production. In it there is not judgement and allows free expression.

THIS IS AN OPEN-ENDED ACTIVITY WHERE YOUR STUDENTS CAN MAKE CONNECTIONS AND PLAY WITH POSSIBILITIES OF REPRESENTATION. SYNECTICS, WHICH WE JUST DID NOT GET TO, WOULD HAVE ENHANCED THIS ACTIVITY. SYNECTICS IS ABOUT SEEING THE WORLD METAPHORICALLY BY CONNECTING THE STRANGE WITH THE FAMILIAR.