Welcome to an exciting teacher inquiry that a group of three teachers are undertaking. Having looked at deep learning and creativity we are investigating what it looks like in the classroom, how we can best support it within a PYP inquiry based framework and to explore possible links to one of the 21st Century Fluencies , 'solution fluency', as advocated by Lee Crockett. You can explore the others here.
What did we do?
To kick off the two block allocation I introduced the idea of "Time to Create" by sharing a short slideshow that included the video to the book "What Do You Do With An Idea?" Throughout the slideshow students were asked, "If there was one thing that you could change in the world, what would it be?" This was the stimulus to independent inquiry and creativity.
Teachers stepped back and took a supervisory role at this stage to see exactly how far students were independent inquirers and turned each question back on to the students for themselves to answer.
The only things that we changed was student working partners and workspace at two points within the time frame of 2 hours to see if the space changed the ambience and ethos of the learning engagement.
What did I notice?
Engagement was strong - Smiles and energy visible and tangible
Excitement about an idea
Many students stayed focussed on the idea
A few sought other avenues of information to find out more about their idea
Students very able to express what their idea was and why or how they wanted to use it to change something
Some students liked changing the places that they were working in but not their groups/person they were working with
Widespread independence - a few students came for ‘approval’
A difference in ways of showing thinking - drawings, plans, lists, icons
What problems did students have ideas for?
pollution, global warming, deforestation, timetable change, classroom change, political process, adding robotics to make things easier/better
What did students say they liked doing?
fun, cooperating, liked working outside, drawing, thinking wisely, enjoyment, lots of ideas, time, liked to think, time to expand their thinking, working for two blocks, sharing ideas
One of the students said..."No-one said to me, 'You need to do this.'”
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