Before I say anything, I want to clarify and remind readers that this blog entry is written by a high school math teacher. Teachers of different subjects and ages may have very different opinions and I will be curious to hear your responses.
As we begin to talk about creativity, I am noticing that there is a certain feeling that standards and our current educational focus interfere with both teacher and student opportunities to be creative. The claim, both implied and explicitly stated, seems to be that using standards forces teachers to conform. In turn, this causes a loss of professional freedom, which decreases the frequency of lessons that promote creative thinking.
I find the relationship between standards and creativity to be exactly opposite. I feel that using standards (properly!) actually increases a teacher’s ability to get student engaged in creative thinking. Here’s how….
Traditional math education involved covering many chapters in a book. One or two days per section, then move on to the next. Repeat this process until you have covered most, if not all, of the book at a very surface level. In my district, we created our own district standards to narrow our curriculum and reduce the amount of concepts we have to cover. In turn, this allowed us to spend more time on important topics and strive for deeper conceptual understanding. This additional time and interest in deep understanding is the perfect opportunity to bring in critical thinking activities that encourage creative mathematical thinking from students.
The strategy I use in my classroom (based on the ideas of the MTI course) is to put major problems in front of instruction then let student work, think, and muck around towards possible solutions. This process promotes wonderful mathematical thinking and discussion and also allows students to be creative in their thinking instead of following pre-described procedures. At least in the world of math education, these powerful learning activities do not happen when you have to teach the whole book. They happen when you are focused a smaller number of course standards.
I would agree that this method is certainly one that does create more creative thinking and not one that is often seen in the area of math, at least not that I have seen or experienced. Let students dig deep and understand the concept.
ReplyDeleteRyan,
ReplyDeleteI googled "the pros and cons of creativity in the classroom". One consistent con that continued to pop up was the difficulty of incorporating it into math and science classes. This was odd to me since I have taken the MTI course. It's just another example of how quality professional development can open your eyes up to new ways of thinking. Now, I would like to take the ETI, RTI, STI, SSTI, HTI, and the PETI.
Ryan, letting students muck through real world problems and applications during math wiil foster creativity. I don't remember much of anything from my high school math classes. I suspect that is why, no time to play around with material. I had so much lectured to me that I had no idea where to start. Instead of finding my way through the muck, I WAS stuck in the mud. Yo go, Ryan.
ReplyDeleteRyan,
ReplyDeleteOver the course of this year you have really helped me realized that standards does not mean scripted, hardwired, boring, unimaginitive, uncreative, all about the test, and more...I genuinely understand the importance and how they can be adhered to while still achieving the higher order skills desired. The word doesn't give me hives anymore - Thank you!
Angie
the "C" in Cram School stands for creativity...or Chinese
ReplyDeleteCreative Reasoning And Math...wappett should be proud
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteI can hear the Newsweek authors applauding your creative teaching. Why, they need a high school example. I am going to cut and paste your post and send it to the editors, okay?
Sounds good Meg, Send away. But I'm concerned that no one has commented on the title.... I thought that was the most creative part! Think about it. =)
ReplyDelete