LAUNCH...

Sharing a few highlights from LAUNCH: Using Design Thinking to Boost Creativity and Bring Out The Maker In Every Student by John Spencer and A.J. Juliana.

We are now seeing a new divide emerge — a Creative Chasm between those who passively consume and those who actively create.

In our experience, when students are thinking creatively, they are fully engaged in their learning. This increased student engagement often leads to more buy-in from students and ultimately deeper learning.

There is no guarantee that creative thinking will increase test scores, but who would you rather have take a test: a disengaged trained test-taker or a fully engaged creative thinker?

Design thinking provides a way to think about creative work. It starts with empathy, working to really understand the problems people are facing before attempting to create solutions.

Launching our work into the real world and in front of an actual audience is what makes creative work so scary, but also so rewarding.

Every time your students get the chance to be authors, filmmakers, scientists, artists, and engineers, you are planting the seeds for a future you could have never imagined on your own.

how often they put their early thoughts and inklings out into the world, in sketches, dashed-off phrases and observations, bits of dialogue, and quick prototypes. Instead of arriving in one giant leap, great creations emerged by zigs and zags as their creators engaged over and over again with these externalized images.”

the Hacker is a little more subversive, actively working to tear down a broken system in order to create something better. In this sense, the Hacker is inherently destructive.

Hackers don’t always destroy systems. Often, they find new ways to use a system, idea, or resource. Think less “computer hacker” and more “life hacks.”

Everyone possesses important skills and talents, but it’s only when we honor and tap into those skills and talents that we, together, can do exceptional creative work.

Children are naturally fascinated by the wonder of their world. Hang out with a four-year-old and take a tally of all the questions they ask. Unfortunately, schools are more often designed to help students answer questions rather than question answers. Students rarely have the chance to ask whatever question they have and go off on a rabbit trail to find the answers.

Worth Reading

Sharing some worthy reads...


1. Richard Elmore: Future of School Reform- in 8:30 minutes a one man wrecking ball against the educational system and he is not wrong


2. 5 Inspiring Social Design Pioneers (Brown)- further evidence of seeing the connection between problem-solving and design thinking.  Continues to make me think he we should rephrase and reshape conversations with kids around problem-solving regardless of content or discipline.

Jeanne van Heeswijk describes herself as an artist rather than a designer, yet she uses the tools of design to build coalitions within communities to create lively and diversified public spaces. The video shows her remarkable ability to connect to a community, giving them ways to participate in designing solutions for themselves.

3.  GOOD Education: The Rise of Democratic Schools and ‘Solutionaries’: Why Adults Need to Get Out of the Way (Goyal)- highlights a point that often we forget to include students in any conversation about what is best for schools.  In doing so, we fail to see problems/solutions through the eyes of our true clients.  Under a design thinking model we fail to develop empathy in neglecting those who we are trying to assist.

 Young people bring a fresh angle to the conversation. It may not always be correct, but at the very least that perspective isn’t drowned in years and years of expertise. You wonder why this may be the best time in human civilization to be a young entrepreneur. Anyone can invent or create something without the risk of failing miserably considering the networks, mentors, and resources we’re bathing in.

4. Why Not Just Do It (Moran)- let's not forget the importance of play, experimentation and prototyping.  Think about the idea of experimentation and prototyping and the fact that embedded into each action is failure.  Why is failure frowned upon in schools and not viewed as part of the learning process?

Wise teachers know how to observe the cycles within a learning culture. They learn over time when to intervene and when to let learning unfold. They don’t see mistakes as a failing grade but as an opportunity for teachers and learners alike to practice experimentation, reflective processing, and abstract reasoning. They don’t spend time criticizing and judging children but rather assessing how they as teachers can provide the scaffolding needed to evolve and advance learning, as well as a love for engaging in it. They understand that different pathways offer different children entry points into learning and they define their job as not interfering with, but rather supporting the process.

5. Fight Songs: How Songwriting Is Saving War Vets' Lives (Peisner)- interesting story about return home from war- both the traumatic stress veterans endure and the ways relief is sought.

All over the country, soldiers who are suffering from the physical and emotional ravages of war are learning to deal with their pain by writing songs and playing music. Even more surprising: It's working.

6. Kelvin Doe, Self-Taught Engineering Whiz From Sierra Leone, Wows MIT Experts 

  

Worth Reading...

Sharing some posts I have come across.

1. If You Could Only Teach Ten Points, What Would They Be? (McIntosh)- 

some compelling research showing how much more learning takes place when students work collectively in a team, coaching each other to create a team-based product of learning with individual accountability built in. The effect of cross-age or cross-ability coaching is equivalent to every student, not just the one "being coached", having one-on-one teacher coaching

2.  Generation Flux (Boyd)- learning how embrace and thrive with instability

Everything in the corporate world is set up for security, so you can get to the next review. People who are willing to be uncertain will be more likely to be able to move ahead. People ask me, Are you afraid you're going to get fired. That's the whole point: not to be afraid. That doesn't mean I want to get fired."

3. The Labor Day Manifesto of The Passionate Creative Worker (Hagel)-  ideals for living life passionately

As we consider the free information and universal connectivity that is now available, we are struck by the potential that each individual has to impact the world. And as we reflect on our past progress and the opportunities still ahead, we recognize that the most valuable resource we have is the human creativity and ingenuity innate in every person. 

4. The Eight Pillars of Innovation (Wojcicki)- guidelines for nurturing innovation by Google

The greatest innovations are the ones we take for granted, like light bulbs, refrigeration and penicillin. But in a world where the miraculous very quickly becomes common-place, how can a company, especially one as big as Google, maintain a spirit of innovation year after year?

5. What Bill Clinton Wrote vs. What He Said (Atlantic Wire)- copies of Clinton's prepared remarks against his speech at the 2012 DNC

6. Tim Brown urges designers to think big



7. A Japanese Approach to Khan Academy