PG's Ponderings

by Michael Michalko for Think Jar Collective (2013) . We learn about great ideas and we learn the names of the creative geniuses who created them, but we are seldom taught about how they got the ideas. Following are twelve things about creative thinking: YOU ARE CREATIVE. The artist is not a special person, each one of us is a special kind of artist. Every one of us is born a creative, spontaneous thinker. The only difference between people who are creative and people who are not is a simple belief. Creative people believe they are creative. People who believe they are not creative, are not. The reality is that believing you are not creative excuses you from trying or attempting anything new. When someone tells you that they are not creative, you are talking to someone who has no interest and will make no effort to be a creative thinker. CREATIVE THINKING IS WORK. You must have passion and the determination to immerse yourself in the process of creating new and different ideas. Then yo...

Thank you for your collective contribution to the discussion on Friday – it had me thinking about the power of collective thought which led to this article: Is Collective Intelligence Like Individual Intelligence? by Tom Atlee (2003). The article follows. The capacities I explore here are perception, communication, memory, reflection, problem-solving, creativity, implementation, and feedback. They are listed in a loose order (we perceive first, then think about what we saw, then implement what we decide, etc.). Keep in mind, however, that these capacities are not really separate or linear. Most of them are deeply involved in each other's functioning. But I think you will find it interesting to explore them separately with me here... PERCEPTION - Seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. -- these are different ways we absorb information from our environment, or gather it from within ourselves. This information is the foundation for everything we do with our intelligence. HOW DO WE DO THIS CO...

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In preparing for the examination, it may be useful to get the students to develop their own questions, based on what they know. Begin the revision with Students Developing Questions: Have your class think of questions that could be asked about the exam topics. Create a Taxonomy of Questions: When students begin to label the different kinds of questions, they learn to select different kinds of questions to perform different kinds of thinking. No matter what the level of schooling, some kind of label can work effectively. Ask Students to Create Questions as Homework (this would work with the Flipped Classroom): Put your classroom questioning typology to work with their examination preparation. If students read a question, let them form extension questions for the next day's discussion. Try these six key steps: Teachers Design a Question Focus. The Question Focus is a prompt that can be presented in the form of a statement or a visual or aural aid to focus and attract student atten...

Graham Aitken on Developing an Inquiry Approach: "Teaching effectiveness is determined by the quality of inquiry into the relationship between teacher actions and student learning." Effective teachers inquire into the relationship between what they do (style) and what happens for students (outcomes). But effective teachers do more than simply inquire (or reflect) – they take action (in relation to what they are doing in the classroom) to improve the outcomes for students and continue to inquire into the value of these interventions. Thus effective teaching is more than style and it is more than outcomes – it is the continual interrogation of the relationship between these two dimensions with the aim of enhancing student achievement. Such a model implies particular attitudes or dispositions (open-mindedness, fallibility) and particular actions (questioning students about what they are understanding) but it does not prescribe or checklist such qualities. It simply prescribes...

Reflective teaching means looking at what you do in the classroom, thinking about why you do it, and thinking about it is a process of self-observation and self-evaluation. We identify and explore our own practices and underlying beliefs. This may then lead to changes and improvements in our teaching. Why it is important? Many teachers already think about their teaching and talk to colleagues about it too. You might think or tell someone that "My lesson went well" or "My students didn't seem to understand" or "My students were so badly behaved today. "However, without more time spent focussing on or discussing what has happened, we may tend to jump to conclusions about why things are happening. We may only notice reactions of the louder students. Reflective teaching therefore implies a more systematic process of collecting, recording and analysing our thoughts and observations, as well as those of our students, and then going on to making changes. If a...