Readings: Creative learning

Discuss ideas and readings from this week's topic: Creative Learning.

How did it relate to your own experience? What did you find interesting or surprising?

Video: Tune in for the live session on March 18th at 1:00PM U.S. Eastern time here: https://unhangout.media.mit.edu/event/lcl. We'll add a link to the archived video after Tuesday.

Readings:

• Seymour Papert (1980): Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas, Foreword: Gears of My Childhood

• Mitchel Resnick (2007): All I Really Need to Know (About Creative Thinking) I Learned (By Studying How Children Learn) in Kindergarten. ACM Creativity & Cognition conference.

Here are additional readings and resources for week 1:

Seymour Papert (1980): Mindstorms, Chapter 1: Computers and Computer Cultures.

• *"This book was ahead of its time, providing a vision for how computers
  could empower children to learn and express themselves in new ways.
  Papert inspired millions of people -- including me." (Mitch)*

Mitchel Resnick (2013). Lifelong Kindergarten. Cultures of Creativity. LEGO Foundation.

• “This essay explains why we call our research group Lifelong Kindergarten.” (Mitch)

Sherry Turkle’s Introduction about evocative childhood objects.

Essays about childhood objects (most from Sherry Turkle’s books Evocative Objects (2007) and Falling for Science (2008): Cello, Knots, Stars, Blocks, Steps, Coloring Set, Kites, Pencils.

• “Some of these childhood object essays were written by students in previous versions of the local course.” (Natalie)

Hello!When you find in the video and reading about reflection I assumed that it involves a great part of self-esteem for the child and encourages motivation from the teacher.Teacher´s role is very important beceause she or he will help the student feel happy in his /her classroom.He will love going to school.Teachers need to love teaching .
The students will see their drawings or activities pasted on walls in order to see their knowledge or abilities.

It´s important that students create with technology what they really need to apply or express.Students need to give their opinions and be creative thinkers.

I also think that´s very important to encourage children´s imagination because sometimes students don´t try to think because they only use computers.

Thus the “laws of learning” must be about how intellectual structures grow out of one another and about how, in the process, they acquire both logical and emotional form.

This quote jumped out at me. Especially as a literacy instructor. We too often focus just on the cogntive structures. We them as concrete, a file cabinet to be filled, and not as a series of simulations that draw on stimulations from the environment and driven by passion.

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In the "All I Really Need to Know..." article, what caught my attention were comments that lamented the loss of creativity as children move through school. I've seen this in every school I've ever worked in. Time and reflection are both key to the creative process, and neither is given enough focus. Learning happens in the reflection, but there's no time to reflect before we're expected to move students onto the next topic to be covered by the end of the term. I'm not sure what the answer is, since teachers who want to do innovative things in their classrooms often get negative feedback from parents. There is a fear that somehow kids are missing out if we're not constantly moving them forward onto the next topic. No time to breath, think, and reflect.

One dilemma that my colleagues and I face as university faculty is the issue of accelerated graduate courses and the students' quest to finish the degree "quickly." The result is teaching a course in a matter of weeks rather than months; the student "customer" is, perhaps, driving pedagogical decisions even though the end result (student learning outcomes) may not be best served.

The idea of students applying creativity and creative approaches (difficult already as a result of having the creativity drilled out of them since childhood) then face the added frustration of having to do this quickly (often without adequate time for experimentation and reflection). I just wanted to point out that your comments ring true for me even with my adult students.

I enjoyed re-reading Seymour's essay: Gears of My Mind. I don't have anything profound to say right now, but in keeping with the spirit of childlike play, I made my own silly little video puzzle about gears. You may want to pause the video at the beginning and see if you can predict what will happen.

I don't have anything profound to say about your video but it made me smile and laugh, however I have a warped sense of humor! Poor ducky...

I really liked this Bob because it does exemplify what LCL is all about, child like creative experimentation. The direction of the egg's roll is fascinating and opens up so many more questions. Well done.

My childhood object is a double convex lens. It was one of many given to me by my father, who was an optical engineer. As a child, I spent many hours looking through and otherwise using these lenses (e.g. lighting a fire with sunshine). Today, the metaphor of a lens is still foundational to my thinking, as in a conceptual or epistemic lens with which one examines the world in different lights. In fact, the curriculum I use in my consulting work is based on eight lenses and associated learning archetypes that cover math, literacy, science, etc. primarily through their social roles of mathematician, author, scientist, etc. respectively.

Loved your video. Creative learning at it´s best.

I believe Gears of Dr Papert's Childhood motivated him to build a Powerful Ideas such as Mindstorms. Is there any other our childhood object, mix it with technology, culture, and education, and bring it back to the world in a new form to help children learn to code?

By learning how to code, children can learn important skills of life : Design, Build & Experiment, Communicate & Collaborate, Fix & Persevere. I also believe children could benefit from playing with each other of different abilities(i.e. visually impaired children).