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Developing creativity is crucial in an elementary education classroom. It is imperative that a teacher embraces and fosters his/her own creative ideas because this will allow for the students to cultivate creativity of their own. I have always appreciated creativity when it comes to education, but my appreciation for it grew even stronger after reading Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein’s (1999) book, Sparks of Genius. The book describes seven cognitive tools that aid with developing creativity: perceiving, patterning, abstracting, embodied thinking, modeling, playing, and synthesizing. All of these tools are powerful and purposeful when it comes to fostering creativity.
While reading about the cognitive tools, I focused on one content area that I wanted to apply my new knowledge too. My focus was on Daily 5, and Daily 5 is a framework for structuring literacy time so students develop lifelong habits of reading, writing, and working independently. My goal was to find new approaches and activities that would help my students to learn in powerful ways.
To begin my creative journey, I started by re-imagining the familiar. I have been using Daily 5 in the classroom for four years now and I am very accustomed to it. I had to challenge myself to view an aspect of Daily 5, read-to-someone, in a new way. By allowing myself to perceive this activity differently, I realized how important the sense of touch is. At first I did not think touch was an important sense to utilize during read-to-someone. I’ve always like EEKK (elbow, elbow, knee, knee) style because it makes it easy for both children to view the book and they can hear each other easily. However, I now notice that the sense of touch during read-to-someone helps the children to feel involved and comfortable. I noticed that my third graders like to be close to a peer. They enjoy having a buddy right next to them to talk to, to discuss the book with, and to problem solve with. The sense of closeness allows for some students to open up, and I noticed them becoming really engaged with their partner. By being close together and collaborating, students can experience Daily 5 in a more powerful way. By perceiving something familiar in a new way I was able to discover something deeper. I want make sure I promote closeness so that students continue to feel involved and engaged.
The next stop on my journey to developing creativity was learning more about patterning. From my readings, I learned that patterning is present in so much, and being able to recognize and create patterns is crucial. Becoming more knowledgeable with patterning allowed me recognize many patterns in Daily 5 that I did not notice before; however, re-patterning my literacy block in a new way that will engage and interest my students proved to be difficult for me. I finally decided to allow my students more freedom when choosing the order to their literacy activities. I created a chart and made a numbered clip for each of my students. The children will place their clip on the activity they are participating in during the rounds. This enables my students to decide what they want to accomplish first, second, and third. They are creating their own pattern instead of being told a pattern by me. The Root-Bernstein’s (1999), state “Learning to create patterns is therefore one of the keys to innovating in every discipline, and it is wise to learn this skill early on” (p. 132). Allowing my students to create their own patterns within their literacy time will help them develop responsibility and it gives them more ownership of their learning. My re-pattering idea is still new, but I’ve already noticed a heightened engagement level in my students during Daily 5 because they get to make choices and create their own patterns.
The third stop on my creativity quest was to gain more knowledge about the cognitive tool, abstracting. I learned that abstracting is being able to ignore extraneous parts of a topic and really hone in on one aspect of a topic. In order to do this, I realized that I had to use my new perceiving skills as well. When beginning to abstract my topic, Daily 5, I took some advice from Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein’s book, Sparks of Genius (1999). The authors state, “Don’t just look – think! Find the surprising properties hidden behind the obvious ones. See with your mind, not your eyes” (p. 73), and this made me realize that an important abstraction to Daily 5 is collaboration. I noticed collaboration during reading and in writing. When reading, both students had a hand on the book and were holding it in between them. They were taking turns reading aloud and would help sound out words. When writing, students would stop from time to time to conference with each other and to ask for suggestions. I also noticed collaboration in less obvious ways during Daily 5. For example, I saw one student still sitting at his desk and not starting a round. Before I could intervene, another students went over to him and asked if he wanted help picking out new leveled books for his Daily 5 book bag. She stated that she just finished a great book and that he could read it if he wanted to. The little boy lit up and accepted her book and help. The collaboration that is happening during Daily 5 is helping my student develop important life skills. They are learning from each other and offering a helping hand to one another. I now have a new appreciation of the collaboration that happens during literacy block. I was able to see that Daily 5 isn’t just a time where students are strengthening their literacy skills. It also serves as a time for students work on the life skill of collaboration. I will make sure to promote collaboration in my classroom so that students can have more powerful learning experiences and develop their creativity.
The idea that these cognitive tools are important as a way of developing creativity is becoming very apparent, and it becomes even clearer after learning more about embodied thinking. I understand embodied thinking as using your body to explore and learn about a subject. Embodied thinking also incorporates empathy and I agree with the Root-Bernstein’s when they state, “The key to empathizing is learning to perceive the world through someone else’s mind and body” (p. 186). My students are participating in this when we are reading a book during guided reading groups. They love to step into the shoes of the character to feel and experience what the character is feeling and experiencing. My students are able to feel as if they are a part of a story, and they become upset when we finish reading a book because they fall in love with the characters. Another way that my students could potentially experience guided reading with their bodies is by acting out scenes in their books. The Root-Bernstein’s explain, “When children play out a choreography of movements representing fundamental elements of the narrative, they remember it better” (p. 180). I had never thought of having groups act out moments in their books, but it seems beneficial to have them do so and I’m sure they would really enjoy it. Students could pick their favorite part of a story and create choreographed movements representing that scene. Having them do this would also involve empathy because it would help them to feel what the characters were feeling. They would be looking at the scene through their characters’ eyes. Students can experience embodied thinking during reading groups, and I will make sure to utilize it more often. I’ll continue to encourage my students to use empathy and to walk in the shoes of their story characters. I will also try to have my groups act out scenes from their books. Experiencing reading with their bodies can be a unique, powerful, and fun way to learn!
There are only a couple of stops left on this journey to creative discovery, and another tool I learned about is modeling. I believe modeling to be representing an idea or concept in a diverse way in order to better understand it, and I realized that modeling is present during reading groups. While reading, we stop and reflect upon what we read often. I’ll pose a question and the students will respond. However, I noticed that not all students were able to model their understanding this way. In a lot of cases, one student would be quick to verbally respond and the other students would nod in agreement and not want to give a response of their own. Because of this, I modeled how to record my thinking using a website called Titan Pad or Padlet. The students watched me type my response as I conducted a “think aloud”. I modeled how to use Titan Pad and Padlet to record my thinking multiple times until I was confident the students could do it independently. I can now post questions on these sites and student can type their answers using their iPads. They can still view each other’s answers and they can reply to one another. In their book, Sparks of Genius (1999), Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein state, “For out of modeling come understanding and control” (p. 243). By modeling this new method myself fist, and then by having my students try it, they were able to show their understanding and they took control of their interpretation of the book. Modeling should be present in the classroom, and according to the Root-Bernstein’s, “In school modeling can also be directed toward mastery of various subjects” (p 244), and I agree with them. Modeling is an important tool in education and I will continue to use it!
Play is another important cognitive tool that can be easily looked over sometimes. Play allows for exploring and risk-taking without holding back. An important aspect of Daily 5 is spelling/word work. It is essential that third graders learn how to spell and use their high frequency words correctly. Introducing spelling words can be viewed as a boring lesson. It’s probably a common conception to think of a teacher standing at a board with a pointer presenting spelling words. Well, not anymore! My third graders can now play with their new spelling words before they are formally introduced to them using an app called Spelling City. I input the new words and the children play games to try and discover what their words are. One of the games is called “Hang Mouse” and students are given the amount of letters a word has and they have to guess what letters create the word. There is also a word unscramble game and many more! Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein mention how beneficial playing with words can be. With some of my students, we will kinesthetically learn our words by using a plastic egg. Students write a single letter on the smaller section of the egg and then write a word ending on the longer section. This allows the third graders to discover word families by turning the plastic egg! I believe these introductory spelling activities to be very playful and meaningful. It puts a fun twist on learning high frequency words and the students will be engaged.
All of these tools have helped me create stronger and more creative learning experiences for my students during their literacy block. By reflecting upon all of the work I have done this semester, I realize that my students will benefit greatly from my new knowledge. Also, stepping back and being able synthesize these diverse experiences I have had proved to be very beneficial. This is something that I should make my students do more often. After we finish a book or a writing unit, it would be valuable to synthesize our experiences. I believe that every teacher should read Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein’s (1999) book, Sparks of Genius, and become familiar with the cognitive tools that help to develop creativity and spark powerful learning. I now feel better equipped to foster creativity in my classroom!
References:
Castle Rock Innovations. (n.d.). Retrieved October 29, 2016, from https://www.castlellc.com/collaboration.aspx
Collaboration | LinkedIn. (n.d.). Retrieved October 29, 2016, from https://www.linkedin.com/topic/collaboration
Root-Bernstein, R. S., & Root-Bernstein, M. (1999). Sparks of genius: The thirteen thinking tools of the world’s most creative people. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
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