How Do I Love Thee: A Synthesis in Three Parts

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Use 7 creative tools to help engage students, promote higher order thinking, and add to your own understanding. Visit: msmacs.blogspot.com

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In the book Sparks of Genius, the authors, Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein, present a multitude of tools to help develop creativity. These tools include reimaging, perceiving, patterning, abstracting, embodied thinking, modeling, playing, and synthesizing. All of these tools can be used not only to foster creativity but also to deepen understanding. All of these tools should be used in today’s classrooms to engage students and promote higher level thinking skills. Furthermore, educators should use these tools to help deepen their own understanding of the subject matter and bring more cross-curriculum lessons into their classrooms.

After working with each of these tools over the course of the semester, it is quite evident why educators should be implementing them in their classroom. First of all, these creativity tools are excellent ways to engage students and keep them interested in the content material. When we as teachers ask students to think about a concept in a new and meaningful way, we are more apt to capture their attention, cause them to think critically and lead them towards a deeper understanding. This principle is quite evident in my experience using embodied thinking to teach about Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights movement. While I had taught my students about the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Civil Rights movement, it was not until we took a field trip to the Henry Ford Museum where my students could sit in the actual seat Ms. Parks sat in that they truly understood her. Prior to the trip, many still clung to the misconception that she refused to give up her seat because she was tired. However, when they themselves had to give up their seat for new students getting on the bus, they began to empathize with Ms. Parks and understand the humiliation that came along with segregation.

Other tools, like reimaging and perception, can also have huge impacts on student engagement. Reimaging allows students to look at the familiar through a new perspective. Students spend time observing and really thinking about what that topic looks, sounds, moves, acts, feels, smells, and tastes like. Teaching students good observation skills can also enhance their abilities to describe. Once they have completed their observation, they can then reimagine or reimage the topic. During my focus on rights, I focused on the Bill of Right, which is a long and complicated document important to our nation’s government and history. If we plug the text into Wordle, we now have a different perception of the Bill of Rights.


Wordle generates word clouds from text that the user inputs. The more often a particular word is used in a passage of text, the larger it will appear in the word cloud. Once you have a visual aid of how often certain words might be used over and over again, students can think about its importance within the text. You can even take it a step further and have students think about their understanding of the word and how it might be different now that they see how often it is used and how important it is to the document. Students can also be asked to predict what words will be the largest in the word cloud. Even if they are not able to accurately predict which words are the largest, knowing what words they think will be the largest can be a valuable tool for teachers to help assess misconceptions and correct them. Students can also use this tool to judge the accuracy of their own observation and perception. Being faced with the reality that they may make incorrect observations can be very powerful to students.

Once students have seen the importance of good observation, you can build on that skill by teaching them about patterns. Patterns are everywhere and can easily be found if we open our eyes and use good observation. Often time in Social Studies courses we focus too much on history as the underlying pattern in the concept. What can we learn from the past? What pattern do we not want to have repeated? Often times, we overlook other patterns that exist that connect the difficult and more abstract concepts, like the one I chose for this project: rights. We can easily describe rights and many governments have a written list of basic rights and/or rights guaranteed by the government. But how can you show a pattern in rights? One way to "see" a world-wide pattern is through the use of maps. Looking at political and demographic statistics on maps, we can find patterns. For example, if you compare a map of government types to a map that depicts the Freedom of Press Index you can see that countries with strong central governments like military dictatorships and absolute monarchies have a poor ranking on the Freedom of Press Index.

As an educator if we start to point out and reveal patterns to our students, they are more likely to start looking for the patterns themselves. I easily found four patterns within my maps in my original posting. When I presented the information to students, I challenged them to find more patterns. I was amazed how many they found as a class and how easily the discussion flowed. Students suggested ideas and then discussed whether or not it could be considered a pattern. Most importantly, understanding the patterns and the connections can help students understand the turmoil and chaos that we see in the world today and reflect on how those patterns reflect in the content that they are learning.

Another creative tool that is highly engaging is play. Play is not just for young children and can be a wonderful teaching tool for complicated concepts and tasks. Play is very important for the learner because it allows them to work through new ideas and concepts without the extreme consequences that they might have in the real world. The students feel the some of the same pressures to perform, but the mistakes are not as costly. Thus, the learners feel safe and more trusting in play scenarios. Play keeps interests sparked and allows learners to become more creative. I have used play in my classroom in the form of mock crime scene investigations and mock trials. Students learn the process through which suspects are accused and processed through the court system by playing roles that include the detective, the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the judge, the jury, etc. Play is not limited to a mock trial. It can take many forms in a variety of subject matters. In my own classroom, I am excited to try out a play scenario where students are asked to make huge decisions such as whether or not to drop the atomic bomb on Japan in World War II or how to respond to potential homeland security threats.

Many of the tools presented by the Root-Bernsteins can and should be used together. For example, we need to have good observation and perception skills to recognize and develop patterns. To make an accurate, helpful model we also need good observation, perception, and patterning skills. We might even need to call upon abstraction skills to make a model. Take the double helix model of DNA. It is a model of something that is just too small for us to see. But to represent its shape and the patterns of the sugar-phosphates and the bases that make up a strand of DNA, the model’s creators had to be able to imagine an abstract illustration of what those components would look like and how they would be arranged.

While all the creativity skills can and should be used with students, they should also be used by teachers to help deepen their own professional understanding of their content. Abstracting is the act of taking a complicated subject matter and stripping away all other details to focus on one important characteristic of that subject. In a way, it is asking someone to describe or represent a complicated issue or topic in a simple way. Abstracting can be very difficult. It is a process of looking for only the essential qualities of something as a way to define it or describe it. By thinking about and creating abstractions for concepts as teachers, we force ourselves to decide what the essential parts of the concept are. That discovery can help us as teachers streamline our teaching and focus it in a more controlled way. Too often teachers get overwhelmed with teaching to the standards and benchmarks, causing them to miss the essential aspects of the topic. If teachers focus on the essentials, they will leave students with a well thought out overall picture of the topic. As a bonus learning to abstract as a teacher means you can teach your students how to abstract in the classroom. Abstracting can be used as a discussion starter for a class to help teachers see what their students already know about a subject. Teachers can also have students create abstractions and reflect on them as a way to demonstrate their understanding, rather than use a traditional test.

As a final point, it is important for teachers to use these creative tools as a way to foster higher level thinking in their classrooms. Higher level thinking skills are the skills that are needed and desired in today’s work place. Employers are not interested in rote memorization and regurgitation. They are looking for employees who can think creatively and find solutions to real world problems. Higher order thinking skills allow students to be able to comprehend and utilize new knowledge to address problems and projects in the future. In other words we can not possibly teach students everything they need to know for the rest of their lives, but we can teach them skills to help them acquire new information, sort through it, and use that information to make well thought out and sound decisions in the future. The same of course can go for teachers and educators. We did not learn everything we needed to know in our high school and college careers. Teachers should use these tool to nurture their understanding of the curriculum they teach and to spark new ideas and new connections with it. As always, a teacher’s learning should be perpetual.

In summary, the seven creative tools highlighted by the Root-Bernsteins in their book, Sparks of Genius, can have many positive effects on teachers and their students. If used properly, tools like perceiving, patterning, abstracting, embodied thinking, modeling, playing, and synthesizing, can both engage students and promote higher level thinking skills. Teachers can also use these tools to further their own understanding and continue to look at their material and curriculum through a fresh, creative perspective.

Play

Play is an essential tool in learning for every individual.  When you are an infant, much of what you learn is through play.  You learn object permanence through the play of the game Peek-a-boo.  Children play and practice manners and chores when they "play house".  The importance of rules and many math concepts are also learned through board games.  I first learned to budget by playing games like Monopoly and Life as a child.

Play also no knows no age limit.  Even adults learn through play.  Many games shows, like Jeopardy for example, are geared towards adults.  Many professional programs, from law school to med school also use play.  Law students play in their mock trials and mock juries.  Many medical programs use role play and run their med students through pretend scenarios like breaking tough news to patients to treating pretend patients.  Some programs even use highly sophisticated dummies and robots to mimic patient symptoms and reactions as part of this play.

Play is very important for the learner because it allows them to work through new ideas and concepts without the extreme consequences that they might have in the real world.  In the med student scenario, for example, their mistake in the play scenario could ultimately cost a real patient their life.  The students feels the some of the same pressures to perform, but the mistakes are not as costly.  Thus, the learners feel safe and more trusting in play scenarios.  Play keeps interests sparked and allows learners to become more creative.

Each year, usually before a holiday break, I use play scenarios with my students.  They are excellent ways to burn off built up energy and excitement while still learning.  This year, I have planned to use two play scenarios together to teach students about rights.

The first play scenario is that of crime scene investigation.  Years ago, I found a crime scene investigation webquest created by a group of Michigan State students.  The webquest sets up the details of a crime scene and has students work through the evidence and (hopefully) determine which suspect(s) committed the crime.  In past years, I have not been able to use the webquest the way it is set up either because it is blocked on school computers or because the computer lab has not been available.  Thus, I usually end up providing the information to students in a presentation or we go through a packet of information as a group.  We then look at the pictures and evidence via overhead or digital projector and then I ask students to work through the evidence as if they were the detective.  They must pretend that they are responsible for figuring out who killed the victims.  Students always get excited about this project and really get into the play scenarios. 


We completed this initial play scenario prior to the Thanksgiving break.  My students worked in teams/groups.  In each group, one student was designated as a detective in charge of interviewing suspects.  Another was in charge of sketching the crime scene.  Another was in charge of reviewing the physical evidence.  Many students fought over this because it was like watching an episode of CSI.  Then as a group they had to discuss the evidence they each had, decide who they believed the killer(s) was/were, and present their findings.

I will then continue the play scenario with a mock trial.  In class we will review the steps related to arrests and trials.  We will also review the rights of the accused and how those rights are guaranteed by the constitution.  We will reference the concept map from my modeling post and use that to guide us in the direction of our play.  I will then ask students to act out various parts of the process.  The detective, for example, will act out the arrest, making sure to read Miranda rights.  Students will also be split into teams of prosecution and defense.  They will prepare and deliver opening arguments.  They will prepare witness lists and ask for evidence to be admitted into trial.  Both prosecution and defense will examine witnesses on the stand.  Some students will have to role play as witnesses.  One student will play the judge.  Some students will play jury members.  I am looking forward to the students acting out the questioning and the cross examinations in the court room.  And students of course will have to decided if the suspects/accused will exercise their 5th Amendment rights or if they will get on the stand in their own defense.

Mock trials are an excellent example of play.  They allow students to see what the trial process would be like.  They will also be able to role play in the safe environment of the classroom.  Furthermore, students will have to think critically and use their analytical skills as they play through this scenario. I am look forward to the end result.

Below is a picture of another class's mock trial so that you can visualize the play scenario.  It comes from the blog of a school in New York: http://blog.ps119amersfort.com/?p=1099