The Art of Creating

One of my favorite guides for learning in the classroom is Bloom's Digital Taxonomy.  It's a clear and simple guide that shows how learners can demonstrate what they've learned.  This post from Edudemic quickly explains how digital tools can help bring this to life in your classroom right now.  There are many digital tools that can help students acquire knowledge, organize understanding, apply thinking in different contexts, analyze the work of others, evaluate content, and create something that demonstrates their learning.  The most comprehensive guide I found is available on a wiki titled "Educational Oragami." It offers a wealth of links and documents that will help you with a single lesson or guide your planning of a more elaborate learning project.

The beauty lies in creation.  Think of something that fascinated you recently.  Maybe it was a video, song, building, website, article or new business in your local community.  The final product was a collection of work that demonstrated that person's thinking and expressed a learning outcome that could be dissected using Blooms Taxonomy.  Some fascinating things are happy accidents and fortunate mistakes but there remains a lesson to be learned.  Creation is the the apex of learning because it requires a strong foundation.

Here's an example.  I watched a remixed video of Bob Ross (on PBS Digital Studios Youtube channel) and thought about what it would take to create something like this.  It requires all levels of Bloom's Digital Taxonomy.  For me, it starts with remembering information about Bob Ross and his show, The Joys of Painting.  Then, I must understand the most important parts (themes) of his painting process; for this I chose his idea of an open canvas being anything you can imagine and the beauty of his "happy accidents."  Applying this understanding into a timeline or sequencing map will encourage my analysis of multiple episodes while I evaluate what clips will ultimately be most helpful in my final product.  Creating is engaging activity that requires all kinds of applied thinking.  And look at what Mr. Ross is creating in the process!

Here is an alternate way to view the taxonomy.  It flips the model and begins with creating and although I don't think creating is the best way to start, I like it because I think it operates under the assumption that learners possess the skills necessary to create, which includes prior knowledge and previous experiences.  If you choose to begin a project or activity with creating, then you should have a pretty good idea of the kind of thing you want to create.  Check out this post on Mind/Shift to see how the flipped taxonomy can work.

However you choose to guide the creation process in your classroom, you should consider some method to channel thinking in a purposeful manner toward the desired outcome.  Need an idea for something to design?  PBS Kids has quickly become my current favorite idea generator site.  Check it out.  Happy building!

It's for the Kids

Seasons greetings to you and your loves ones.  Be thankful you have them and if you haven't told them lately how much you care about them, do it today!

Schools are very special places.  And what is it that makes them as unique as they are?  Undoubtedly, the answer has be children.  Kids, if you will.  Children make schools special places because they are all variables.  Nothing changes more year-to-year than the children that pass through the doors, walk the halls and enter into classrooms.  They can be simultaneously constants and variables.  But they should be the shameless focus of everything that drives a school.  They should be the reason teachers and staff get up in the morning and commute to schools around the world.

My school community is no different than yours.  Regardless of what else happens in our world, children pour into our building every morning full of emotions and energy.  Our job as educators is to provide them with a safe environment where they feel confident to learn.  Some days will be more challenging than others, just as some will be more rewarding that others.  But through it all, we need to maintain a focus on the most important part of our school; our students.

Below, I created a word cloud from President Obama's speech to members of Newtown, Connecticut on December 16 using Tagxedo, a free word cloud generator.   One of the reasons I think a word cloud is a valuable tool in the classroom is the alternate way for students to analyze writing, discuss theme and determine author's purpose.  It's a wonderful visual to accompany any writing assignment and allows children the ability to create something as unique as they are.  I chose to use the President's transcript for a couple reasons.  The circumstances surrounding the events from Sandy Hook Elementary touched the hearts of people around the world.  We all have some kind of connection to an elementary school and what happened in Newtown is unimaginable on so many levels.  The other reason I chose this transcript is because it shows very clearly the focus of his speech.  Look at the larger words in the middle of the shape.  Children, community, know, love, and help are some that stand out because they were repeated in the transcript.

Created from the transcript of President Obama's speech delivered to the community
in Newtown, Connecticut on Sunday, December 16, 2012.

The message I take from this post, and what initiated my desire to write, is the unwavering desire to engage children in learning that so many great educators possess.  Sometimes when schools and classrooms become hectic and seem chaotic we need a gentle reminder of why we teach.  It's not about the teacher, parents, administrators or content.  It's about and for the children we think about and work with every day.