PME 811- Post #9

"Innovation is more like a habit of mind that is fostered through consistent attention to classroom culture and expectations." (Trevor Shaw, 2015)

As I continue to focus on creating a student-centered virtual classroom, I feel that between the research and implementing practices I am learning, I have made improvements. With this goal, and the course purpose in mind, I decided to look into how teachers can create an innovative classroom. I felt adding creativity and innovation into my classroom would be the cherry on top of it all! When searching the web, I found a article by Trevor Shaw (2015) that stated "Give students the basics, but keep it short." It got me thinking about a recent project I presented to my students.

The project involved them interviewing an object and using research to respond to the answers. Since I teach 3 different leveled groups, I felt that I would give the directions and keep it short for my advanced group. I wanted them to be creative and pick their own object, come up with questions, and be excited about this project. Instead, it left about half of my class full of anxiety and wanting me to hold their hand through the project. Did I give them too much room to be creative or have I just not taught them HOW to be creative? I had kids staying after class for 15 extra minutes so concerned about this assignment and had no clue where to even start with picking an object.

This got my thinking about how we have trained our students, like I mentioned in my last blog post, to not be creative. Maybe, "trained them" is not a fair term to use, but I think we could agree that we have lacked this tool in our classrooms. The assignment was not difficult. We looked at student examples, we practiced an example together, and I even provided them a structured organizer to help them fill in the questions and responses.

Are the student's afraid to be creative because there is no exact answer? Or did I not provide them with enough instruction? Do they not know how to be creative because we have held their hand all of these years?

I found a great quote from the same article that answered my question,

"Grades work really well when there is a correct answer you want students to work toward. If you want them to own a problem and to produce a genuinely original solution to it, you cannot motivate that with a grade. In fact, when you assign a grade to something like creativity, students will often perform for the grade and not for the best possible solution. Thus, a grade for creativity, will often become an unintended disincentive."

My plan is to revisit this assignment with my students today and let them know that this will be graded for completion, not right or wrong. I hope this helps instill creativity in my students! Do you find grades hinder creativity in your classroom?

Sources:

Shaw, Trevor. “8 Things Every Teacher Can Do to Create an Innovative Classroom.” ESchool News, 4 Sept. 2015, www.eschoolnews.com/2015/08/03/innovative-classroom-490/2/.