Creating, Imagining and Innovating
Creating, Imagining and Innovating can lead to self mastery and high self esteem. I chose this mindset because exploring the depths of one's imagination can lead to new ideas, cures for diseases, new inventions and other benefits to society. Using this mindset, my students and I have grown into innovators that are not afraid to show the world their ideas.
Table of Contents
1. Explicit Teaching
2. Food Creativity
3. Narrative Writing
4. Characterization
5. Other Strategies
6. Conclusion
Explicit Teaching
This lesson was beyond refreshing because my students enjoy being creative so I did not have to go in depth about what it means to be an innovator. There are three aspects of this lesson; teaching the mindset, analyzing the video, and student reflection. Below are artifacts from the lesson.
Here is the lesson plan I used teach instruct the mindset of being Creative, Imaginative and Innovative. I used a clip of the Incredibles for two reasons, to engage them because part is coming out and to analyze of the Incredibles were creative during their battle with the omni-robot. In addition, I used the story of Cast Away to allow my students to understand that the main character was creative, imaginative and innovative so that he could survive.
Overall, this lesson was short and to the point because students already knew what being imaginative meant. Now it was my job to properly instruct them so that they can analyze creative behavior correctly as an assessment. Below are arifacts from the lesson.
I used this power point on the left to explicitly teach my students about being creative, imaginative and innovative. This presentation was extremely helpful because it was easy for my students to understand. In addition, I used Costa and Kallick's article on Habits and Mindsets to create these notes. I also used a video on a frog being creative to engage my students for the overall lesson. Below are more artifacts from the lesson.
Food Creativity
This activity was beyond engaging for my students. I allowed my students to watch a Chopped Junior episode is a contest that promotes creativity by allowing contestants to make meals from three random ingredients. After watching the video, I allowed my students to create meals from three ingredients that I chose. With those ingredients, students made meals and reflected on their activity. Overall I wanted students to be open to criticism and feedback during this activity which is an example of being creative according to Costa and Kallick (2008) "Creative people are open to criticism. They hold up their products for others to judge and seek feedback in an ever-increasing effort to refine their technique."Below is the lesson I created followed by artifacts from the lesson.
Narrative Writing
Writing narratives takes not only organization, but imagination that is thoroughly explored. In our Peter Pan unit, students were to create their own narrative from the point of view from the parents while the children were in Neverland. This process took a while to complete, however with modeling and support my students created interesting narratives from a different point of view. Below the lesson plan I created. The important parts of the lesson are highlighted.
Planning this lesson was extremely difficult because creating a learning target based on the imagination of my students was hard to narrow down. I not only asked my students to be creative, but they had to display organization and dialogue between characters.
In addition, students had to bring all of those elements together to submit an appropriate narrative. Moreover, this lesson organized the required steps needed to be creative, imaginative and innovative. Below are other artifacts from the lesson.
Characterization
Identifying character traits can be boring according to my students, so I had a creative idea. I decided to allow my students to create human sized characters that resembles a character from Peter Pan. In addition, I required that they right character traits on sticky notes that will be placed on the art form. This lesson not only challenged my students to be creative, but myself as well. Below is the lesson plan and artifacts.
This lesson was helpful in organizing this activity. I wanted to show my students comic books before they started on their art because I had multiples versions of a character in multiple comic books. For instance, I showed them many comic book about Spider-Man and that each illustrator made him look different. I wanted them to understand that they can show creativity while creating their caricature. Since my students wanted their art to reflect them, I decided to allow them to use brown construction paper. Below are artifacts from the lesson.
Other Strategies
I used other strategies to allow my students to creative and innovative during other activities. My sudents have displayed these attributes while completing projects, assessments and other activities. Below are the artifacts of my students being imaginative.
Conclusion
Teaching about Creativity, Imagination and Innovation was personally my favorite over taking responsible risks. Working with students between the ages of nine and eleven, was rewarding because this age students are extremely imaginative. When I allowed them to reflect on the Incredibles and Frog clip, I knew my students were engaged to learn more about the habit. In addition, the reflection on Cast Away gave me the evidence that my students understood creativity, imagination and innovation. The Food Activity was an unique activity that gave my students the opportunity to be original despite three different ingredients to combine into a meal. The Peter Pan narrative was a difficult, yet purposeful activity that allowed my students to use analogies and organize their vision into a narrative. Moreover, this habit of mind was already in my students. The activities and their actions allowed them to express their creativity in their own way. Moreover, my students have internalized this habit of mind in their actions, language and daily life.