Design Decisions
When I began to
contemplate the way that I would design my course, there was a lot of
brainstorming and bad ideas that came before I ever completed a rough draft.
After I had decided on the idea to design a creativity crash course that I
would present in an elementary school, the next step for me was getting
approval for my project. I met with Professor Halverson and her TA's to discuss
the ideas I had. After getting the thumbs up from them I dove into my design
process.
Choosing my audience was
an important part of the design for me. I didn't want to just go to any random
classroom and present but wanted it to be a meaningful experience that could
have a lasting impact for me and the students. Deciding which elementary school
to go to actually came very naturally for me, however, as I thought back on my
elementary school experience. I remembered that in 6th grade, our class
curriculum covered a wide span of ancient history which paralleled much of what
we learned in class this semester. So I reached out to my 6th grade teacher,
Mrs. Walker, and presented my project proposal to her. She happily approved the
project and invited me to present it to her classroom. I
collaborated with Mrs. Walker to better organize my content so it would parallel
their classroom curriculum and provide a meaningful experience her
students.
In addition to deciding
what elementary class I would design this course for, I also considered the
influence I could have on a wider audience of teachers. For this reason I chose
to submit my project online in the form of a blog. My hope is that teachers who
might be looking for ideas will come across my blog and use my presentation as
a model for their history teaching methodology. As I was looking for ideas, some of the most helpful ideas came through the blogs of other teachers which is why I decided to start a blog of my own and present this to the world.
As I began to design the
content of my course, I had a hard time choosing what to discuss. We went over
so much information in our semester class but I didn't want to overwhelm the
students with too much information. As I began searching through the textbook
for ideas of what to teach, I was reminded about the acronym FLOW which
represents the necessary characteristics of a thriving civilization. As the
textbook discuses early on, a new mindset in humans accompanied the development
of civilization which sparked creativity, "lifted their spirits and expanded
their visions" (p. 1). After being reminded about that, I decided that the
characteristics of FLOW would provide the foundation for my discussion and
content. I divided these four characteristics among the 4 ancient civilizations
of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China, showing the students how each
civilization displayed one particular key characteristic outlined in that
model. I discussed "food in abundance" in Mesopotamia, "labor
specialization" in Egypt, "order and organization of society" in
India, and "writing system" in China. It was very meaningful to
discuss these with the students and it was particularly fun because they have
studied many of these civilizations and had A LOT to contribute to the
discussion in class.
After designing the content
I wanted to teach, I began designing my creativity challenges. I wanted these
challenges to relate to the content I taught as well as course content we
covered in the semester. My real purpose, however, was to engage students in a
creative thinking process that would get them excited about creative thinking.
The first project I designed followed my discussion about labor specialization
in Egypt. We discussed the different roles in society such as farmer,
craftsman, doctor, lawyer, and even talked about the Priests and Pharaoh. After
discussing Pharaoh, I presented them with their first creative challenge,
"Building a Tomb for Pharaoh," using only certain materials I had
provided for them in a mystery bag. I provided 13 unique materials which they
had to use entirely to create a memorable masterpiece Pharaoh could rest in.
They each worked in groups of 6-7. It was fascinating to see how the students
responded and I'll write more about that in my blog post about challenge #1. As
I mentioned earlier, however, each material I gave to them represented a
particular key term from our history course and has been described in the
appropriate section.
The purpose of my second
challenge was to help students express their creativity to create a new form of
communication and understand the critical role transferring knowledge plays in
creativity. I gave each group a “mystery message” which they needed to
communicate to another group without using written or spoken English. All other
mediums of communication such as representative symbols, song, dance, etc.…
were accepted. In congruence with this challenge, I taught them about
creativity in India and China. As they participate in this creativity challenge
it was my hope that they would recognize the importance of clear communication
and explore creative methods to forming an accurate medium to convey an
important message. It turned out to be much more difficult than I had imagined
it being, but it led us into a great discussion about the importance of failure
in creativity which ended the presentation in a very powerful way. I of course
couldn't come to class without having treats, so I brought some milk chocolate
bars to show my appreciation for their participation. I was thrilled to have
great feedback not only from the students, but from Mrs. Walker as well.
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