Creativity Empowers Learning
This week our staff meeting was run by Fiona Grant, who came to talk to us about the way that creativity empowers learning. As our Manaiakalani pedagogy is 'Learn, Create, Share' our students are given regular opportunities to create and to be creative.
However, not all create activities are equal. When we consider the SAMR model, we know that we can design activities at the Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition level of the model. We know that we cannot always design tasks at the top two levels of this model, and that substitution has its place.
image by Sylvia Duckworth
Fiona reminded us that often Modification and Redefinition level tasks can be more time consuming than those at the Substitution and Augmentation level. However, students can achieve a deeper level of understanding in these higher level tasks. Fiona suggested that we consider the concepts that we are teaching; we must decide what we can teach in a shorter substitution session and what would be best explored in depth through a task at the redefinition level of SAMR.
We also considered the cognitive load of these create tasks. While some require the students to simply recount their experiences, others require the students to have a deeper understanding of these experiences. I have decided to make an explainer video as my next create activity for inquiry and writing, as it requires the students to have a deep understanding of the content and to consider how they can best represent and explain the key ideas.
However, not all create activities are equal. When we consider the SAMR model, we know that we can design activities at the Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition level of the model. We know that we cannot always design tasks at the top two levels of this model, and that substitution has its place.
image by Sylvia Duckworth
Fiona reminded us that often Modification and Redefinition level tasks can be more time consuming than those at the Substitution and Augmentation level. However, students can achieve a deeper level of understanding in these higher level tasks. Fiona suggested that we consider the concepts that we are teaching; we must decide what we can teach in a shorter substitution session and what would be best explored in depth through a task at the redefinition level of SAMR.
We also considered the cognitive load of these create tasks. While some require the students to simply recount their experiences, others require the students to have a deeper understanding of these experiences. I have decided to make an explainer video as my next create activity for inquiry and writing, as it requires the students to have a deep understanding of the content and to consider how they can best represent and explain the key ideas.
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