Create

Due Monday, April 5 by 8pm

The second phase of Mitchel Resnick’s creative spiral is to create. For the next two weeks, we will continue imagining by creating. Note that the idea here is that by creating, we imagine; by imagining, we create. This phase is rooted in a belief that when we think theoretically about stuff, we can easily get stuck and not see easy-to-identify barriers and opportunities that arise when we actually start moving our ideas into creation. Take this “Create” to mean “create to learn”.

Our project is to help our classrooms and schools do post-pandemic learning better by using lessons learned over the last year. So our creation is two-fold — we’re imagining the possible futures of education (a creative process) and creating materials that could help bring that future about. In this phase, we’ll get specific about the futures we’re imagining by writing short blog posts and we’ll draft digital storytelling projects for our students/schools.

1. BLOG

Based on your experiences as an educator over the last year, our readings last week, and any other research you might do (talking to colleagues, reading more articles …), what do you hope for the future of education? Perhaps you have ideas about something new that should be adopted, or something old that should be abandoned. Please compose a 500-1000 word post for our travel blog about the change(s) you see as valuable for K-12 learning in the coming year. This could mean changes for students in the classroom, but could also focus on changes for teachers, or at the level of a school or system. This is a very open question and I hope you’ll come to Slack to brainstorm and refine your ideas.

This writing is likely to be more useful to you if you can focus on one or just a few changes and get specific about what you imagine. This will make it easier to create learning experiences that build toward that vision.

Please remember to categorize your post as “Travel Blog.”

2. Student Input

The MIT Teaching Systems Lab is facilitating an “Imagining September” project very similar to what we’re working on. They are collecting responses from teachers and students across the country on our experiences over the last year and hopes for next school year. They’ve created a set of prompts for engaging your students in a dialogue about this reflection, and ask educators to facilitate a conversation and submit responses back to them. Would you and your students like to participate?

This is an optional activity for our class. I’ll award extra credit to anyone who participates. This google doc has all the details you need. Please also share what you and your students have to say in our Slack space — the rest of us want to know!

Please note that if you have this discussion with students, you’ll likely want to incorporate it into your blog. The ordering of the assignments here does not reflect the order in which you must complete them.

3.DIGITAL STORYTELLING PROJECTS

Given your visions for educational futures, please create a digital story or digital storytelling activity for your students, school, or other that may help turn that vision into a reality. For example, if you are interested in hybrid learning for your high school students, you might take an activity you’d usually do in class and turn it into an asynchronous digital storytelling assignment. If you’re committed to addressing issues of internet access for students at home, you might create a collaborative map-based storytelling assignment, where your students share about their access and then share the map with local internet providers.

You may structure this activity/assignment as a lesson plan, a handout, a series of both — or whatever form is most comfortable to you. We will share these and complete some of each other’s assignments, so whatever form it takes should make sense to your peers.

Please post your project here on our class site and categorize it as “Projects.”

Declare your work

Due Monday, April 5 by 8pm

Please declare your work by filling out this form.

Remember too that you are always welcome to share feedback on the course using the (anonymous) course feedback form.