How My Project is
Creative
After the final creativity project was
discussed at the beginning of the semester, I began brainstorming ideas of a
project that would be meaningful to me. As I contemplated different ideas, I
had the idea to design a creativity crash course which will congruently teach
history while fostering creativity. This idea quickly became very exciting to
me and has been equally rewarding as I’ve worked and watched it come to
fruition. Over the past few weeks I have collaborated with Mrs. Walker, a
teacher at Lindon elementary, and presented my project to her 6th grade class on December 8th,
2016. The content of discussion was designed to match their school curriculum.
One of the main reasons I felt so
excited about this project is because of my passion for teaching and additional
desire to design educational curriculum in the future. I have a strong interest
in discovery learning and personal development and believe that my first
creativity crash course will model a methodology of teaching that will enhance
student engagement, foster creativity, and teach required curriculum. Creative
minds are fragile and can often be sealed off or limited in our public
education system. With curriculum that seems to be designed in a "survival
of the fittest" methodology, teachers expect black or white, wrong or
right answers. This only results in students who "enter school as question
marks, and leave as a period" (Neil
Postman).
In response to what I
have seen and experienced over the years, I designed this course as a call for
creativity in the classroom, especially at the elementary and middle school
level. It’s my personal belief that students at these levels are particularly
vulnerable to self doubt and discouragement which can only debase creative
thinking. For this reason, I chose to design this crash course for a 6th grade audience. My project will
exercise their creative minds and encourage them to practice habits of
creativity in the future despite any failures or road blocks along the way.
One of the most unique
ways that I show creativity is the way that I designed my two creativity
challenges in this course. Each creativity challenge not only helps foster
creativity in a classroom setting, but is also rich with symbolism drawn from
our historical studies. For example, in my first creativity challenge “Building
a Tomb for Pharaoh,” I provided a mystery bag which contained materials they
were allowed to use to build a Tomb suitable for Pharaoh. My design not only
presented a creative constraint, but also drew symbolism from historical key
terms which were represented by each item I selected for their mystery bags.
This symbolism will be discussed in my next section which describes how my
project is relevant to course content.
This project fits my
definition of creativity because it will require the students to explore
history and add breadth and depth to their knowledge. As they learn about
history they’ll be asked to engage in creative projects related to the course
content discussed. The students will be asked to carry out three creativity
challenges and in doing so will engage in the exploration and innovation of old
ideas to reveal new ideas that they haven’t thought of before. It demonstrates
my creativity because I have developed a project that will not only demonstrate
my mastery of course content, but provide a model for fostering creativity that
will be meaningful to others.
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