Assessment of Creativity in K-12 Education

Israelson, Kristy

Bolden, B., DeLuca, C., Kukkonen, T., Roy, S. and Wearing, J. (2020), Assessment of creativity in K-12 education: A scoping review. Review of Education, 8, 343-376. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3188

Creativity is one of the core elements in the 21st century learning model. However, historically, educators have struggled to reconcile the need for creativity with the need for assessments in the classroom. After all, how can a test measure creativity? This study examines the ways teachers can inspire creativity in students while still assessing whether or not standards are being met. The first main consideration is that most assessment for creative projects will come in the formative assessments throughout the working process. During this time, teachers should ensure that their assessment criteria is well-defined and communicated to the students. The type of summative assessment that works best for fostering creativity comes in the form of student self-reflections of the process and outcomes of the creative projects.

I also used to find it difficult to assess creative projects for my students. However, this study highlights easy ways to make sure that we, as educators, are allowing students to work creatively and still holding them accountable to objectives throughout the process. The assessment doesn’t come in the final product, since each student’s work is going to end up different. The objectives should be met and observed throughout the creative process. I also like the idea of allowing students to self-assess and self-reflect on creative projects. This metacognition will help students appreciate their own creative process and build confidence in their creative abilities.

Learning Commons

1. Gittins, Charley
2. Main Topic: Learning Commons
3. Holland, B. (2015, January 14). 21st-Century Libraries: The Learning Commons. Edutopia; George Lucas Educational Foundation. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/21st-century-libraries-learning-commons-beth-holland
4. This article from Edutopia written by Beth Holland examines how school libraries are expanding what are considered library services. The “Learning Commons” is an evolution of the libraries we know today, and offers similar services, along with opportunities for children to learn through exploration and collaboration. Due to digital accessibility, schools may no longer need libraries simply for access to books, thus encouraging librarians to innovate and explore new options for what libraries can provide to student’s learning.
5. This article is a valuable resource as an introduction to the concept of the Learning Commons, as well as a resource for connected topics and supporting ideas that are linked throughout the article.

Application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) In Libraries and Its Impact on Library Operations Review

Martinez, Robert

ID

Technology that boosts teaching and learning

A, Subaveerapandiyan. (2023). Application of artificial intelligence (AI) In libraries and its impact on library operations review. Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal). Retrieved 9/10/2023 from
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/7828

This research paper explores the benefits and problems with incorporating AI technology into libraries both for librarian use in building out their information architecture and for the library patron to use for their own personal needs. The author explores current literature on the subject of AI in libraries from the perspective of accessibility, linguistics, digital cataloging, software, and library service. The author explores the implications of AI on the role librarians play in serving their community, their job security, ethical legal and IP complications. However the author also highlights the value of AI for managing the exponentially increasing amount of data which librarians find themselves responsible for organizing, exploring, and maintaining.

I found this article useful for learning about the potential disadvantages of AI and exploring what specific roles AI can fill in the data management ecosystem by categorizing the different impacts and disruptions to the traditional library system and reviewing the associated literature. This article is well- sourced and provides many references. However as far as using AI for teacher librarians, his use cases for AI are somewhat lacking.

ChatGPT and Beyond: How to Handle AI in Schools

Said, Nadine

ET

Elgersma, C. (2023, February 14). ChatGPT and beyond: How to handle AI in schools. Common Sense Education. Retrieved April 23, 2023, from https://www.commonsense.org/education/articles/chatgpt-and-beyond-how-to-handle-ai-in-schools

The Common Sense Education article “ChatGPT and Beyond: How to Handle AI in Schools” discusses the implications of using artificial intelligence (AI) in educational settings. The article highlights the benefits of AI, such as personalized learning and increased accessibility for students with disabilities, but also discusses the potential risks and challenges that come with its use.

To effectively handle AI in schools, the article recommends several key strategies, including:

1. Prioritizing student privacy and data security: Schools should ensure that student data is protected and that AI systems are designed with privacy in mind.
2. Providing clear and transparent communication: Teachers and school leaders should communicate with students, parents, and the broader community about how AI is being used in the classroom and what its benefits and limitations are.
3. Incorporating AI into the curriculum: Schools should consider how AI can be used to enhance teaching and learning across various subjects and grade levels.
4. Promoting critical thinking and ethical considerations: Students should be taught to think critically about the potential biases and limitations of AI systems, as well as the ethical implications of their use.

Overall, I think the article emphasizes the importance of taking a thoughtful and intentional approach to using AI in schools, and encourages educators and policymakers to work together to ensure that its use aligns with educational values and goals.

Helpful YouTube Video Explaining Free Collaboration Software from Google

Olson, Amanda

TE

Byrne, R. (2021, April 23). Ten Google workspaces features for teachers you might be overlooking [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UUXip4EdEY

Summary: This video is fifteen minutes long but it includes several helpful hands-on instructions on how to use Google Workspace for the classroom. Items covered in the video include Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Forms, Google Sheets, Google Meet, Google Classroom, Google Jamboard, Google Drawings, Gmail, and Google Keep. The author steps the viewer through each tool and how it can be used to help teachers utilized technology in their classrooms. Although many schools have gone back to normal in-person sessions, I can see how this video would be especially helpful to teachers and students during COVID-19 or for teachers who are trying to integrate more technology in their classrooms.

Evaluation: Although this video is specifically for teachers, I see the value of it for librarians as well. Knowing the tips that the author demonstrates in the video will also be especially beneficial for any teachers or librarians who are co-teaching or collaborating and need to use tools, such as the above mentioned free offerings from Google, that will help to cater to a seamless collaboration process.

Campfires, Caves and Watering Holes

Name: Livingston, Midge

Topic: Inquiry and Design Thinking

Citation: Davis, A., & Kappler-Hewitt, K. (n.d.). Learning & Leading Through Technology, June/July
2013, 26. http://www.learningandleading-Digital.com; Learning and Leading with Technology.

https://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learningandleading/20130607?pg=26#pg26

Overview: This article discusses the importance of spaces created for specific purposes in the Library Learning Commons. These spaces allow for opportunities to share, create, explore and innovate.

Evaluation: When thinking about how library space should be used, this article from Australia is an excellent reference for the 21st century. These ideas can be applied to Understanding by Design, the LIIITES Model, Inquiry and Design Based Learning, Makerspace concepts, the use of stations as well as many more. It is a beneficial read for the newly hired or when designing a new library.

Arts integration and 21st-century skills

Name: Claire Huysentruyt

Topic: Collaboration (CO)

Citation: Corbisiero-Drakos, L., Reeder, L. K., Ricciardi, L., Zacharia, J., & Harnett, S. (2021). Arts integration and 21st-century skills: A study of learners and teachers. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 22(2), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.26209/ijea22n2

Summary: The article explores the idea that arts integration is probably the best access point for learners to develop the 4Cs of 21st-century skills. Skills like collaboration are far more critical in today’s landscape as interactive work replaces the individual work of the past. As schools work to adjust their curriculum, it is becoming increasingly apparent that arts subjects that already made students active participants are better suited for this type of skills development, over more didactic instruction. Art also bridges cultural and language barriers in ways that other subjects can’t meet. Looking specifically at each of the 4Cs, it’s immediately apparent the value of the arts in building these skills. Creativity is obviously accessed through arts education and proves to be critical for students to solve complex problems. Certain arts curricula like Visual Thinking Strategies strengthen critical thinking skills and along with communication and collaboration. Music can strengthen neural pathways for language which is especially important for younger children. Arts activities teach essential skills like sharing, taking turns, and putting the needs of the group over individual needs.

Evaluation: Creativity is such a difficult thing to teach, but if arts integration happens early in a child’s education, then creative expression becomes a more natural part of a child’s thinking. This study mentions VTS (Visual Thinking Strategies) an arts curriculum I had the pleasure of instructing for several years. Children are presented with a piece of art and asked a combination of set questions meant to neutrally find out what they see in the artwork. The facilitator repeats each response in their own words and uses hand gestures to indicate where in the picture the comment is referring to. I worked with classrooms that had only just started doing VTS and 4th-grade classrooms that had been doing VTS since kindergarten and it was profoundly moving to see how learners grew more comfortable interacting with art and sharing their ideas over time. This curriculum has the power to build all 4Cs. They use their imaginations and creativity to come up with responses, they use critical thinking skills to consider what they’re looking at, they use collaboration in the conversation and how it flows, and they use communication in expressing what they see and in response to other ideas.

Classroom Interaction Redefined: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Moving Beyond Traditional Classroom Spaces to Promote Student Engagement

Name: Mason, Hilary

Topic: ET – Educational Theory

Citation: Zimmermann, P., Stallings, L., Pierce, R., & Largent, D. (2018). Classroom Interaction Redefined: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Moving Beyond Traditional Classroom Spaces to Promote Student Engagement. Journal of Learning Spaces, 7(1). Retrieved from http://libjournal.uncg.edu/jls/article/view/1601

Summary: This article summarizes research done to determine how physical space affects student learning in a classroom setting. The main idea is that Interactive Learning Spaces increase student engagement and a Literature Review shows how student engagement positively affects student achievement and length of educational career. The authors state that the purpose of the article is “to examine the transition from traditional to interactive learning spaces for faculty members” (Zimmermann, et. al., 2018, p. 46). Therefore, this information is beneficial to educators working in classrooms with students. The article supposes that the traditional classroom space, where each student sits at an individual desk and all desks face the educator, to be problematic for student achievement because “these traditional spaces are not naturally configured to engender discussions, student group work, other forms of collaborative learning, or even instructor mobility that encourage student engagement and immediacy” (Zimmerman, et. al., 2018, p. 46). The article defines, with images, what the terms Traditional Classroom Space and Interactive Learning Space mean, which helps the academic community of educators interested in this topic to easily converse. More research is needed to conclude that Interactive Learning Spaces positively affect student achievement more than Traditional Classroom Spaces, but this study finds that Interactive Learning Spaces are beneficial for student achievement.

Evaluation: 9/10. This article offers an easy look into the conversation of Educational Reform via the physical spaces used for instruction, like classrooms. The research is well done, and the results are easy to understand. I appreciate that the authors state that the purpose of their research is to focus on the transition for educators when they begin to implement an Interactive Learning Space in their own classrooms. If in need of evidence for convincing an administrator, this article could supply the reasoning for why educators should consider transitioning to an Interactive Learning Space.

The “Adjacent Possible” in Education

Bodine, Tobias

ET

Warwick, I. (2019, May 13). What teachers can learn from Leonardo da Vinci. The Times Educational Supplement. http://search.proquest.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/docview/2331806814?accountid=10361

In a recent episode of the educational podcast #EduDuctTape, the host mentioned several times “the adjacent possible” as the space where teachers could expand their learning as they dabbled in new technologies for teaching and learning. This concept of the adjacent possible was made popular first by biologist and systems theorist Stuart Kauffmann in the early 2000s, and subsequently expanded by others in business, technology, and education since then.

Kauffmann stated in a 2003 article in Edge magazine:

“It just may be the case that biospheres on average keep expanding into the adjacent possible. By doing so they increase the diversity of what can happen next. It may be that biospheres, as a secular trend, maximize the rate of exploration of the adjacent possible. If they did it too fast [though], they would destroy their own internal organization…”

What this means is that systems stay healthy by expanding outward, but not too fast. And so it is with learning: To use a Goldilocks metaphor, our learning is most sustained when we take on new things neither too quickly nor too slowly. Of course, the world can be unpredictable and challenging to the personal habits that make us comfortable with “the way things are.” To wit, the global COVID-19 pandemic has thrown most everyone’s routines for a loop, and the old ways of doing things just don’t work any more. For educators and learners used to in-person education, stay-at-home orders are a shock to the system. Yet everyone is adapting to this new reality by taking what they thought worked in education and grafting new innovations onto this “pre-2020 knowledge.” Bye-bye confirmation bias!

The expansion of personal and collective knowledge is nothing new: It’s what we do as humans. And a poster child for the expansion of knowledge is Leonardo da Vinci — pick any field of study, and someone could probably connect this 15th century polymath to it. Leonardo has a special fan in British educationalist Ian Warwick, who posits in this article that Leonardo was never satisfied and thus constantly expanded himself into the adjacent possible to create imaginative ideas that impress us to this day. Warwick states, “Leonardo’s notebooks and the ideas and drawings they contain open doors to reveal a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself.”

Unfortunately, Warwick fails to address the flipside of Kauffmann’s notion of the adjacent possible: It is possible to go too fast or too far into unknown spaces, such that we are thrown into a disequilibrium we may not recover from easily. To bring this analogy back to the learning process, we can say that it is good to encourage learners (including ourselves) to have a growth mindset and to look for opportunities for continuous improvement. Yet, it is possible to become so disregulated in learning new technologies and processes that we actually become less efficient in our learning. Diving into an adjacent pool of water might seem like a great way to force one’s self to learn how to swim, but will likely be better off starting by wading in at the shallow end of the pool. Equally, trying to embrace all the different educational technologies that have been made widely available to us — particularly since the COVID-19 shutdowns — might seem tempting, but we educators and learners are better off by relating these new technologies to what we already know, then expanding one step at a time into greater possibilities.

It’s 2019. So Why Do 21st-Century Skills Still Matter?

Name: Boyd, Shani

Topic: ID

Citation:

Boss, S. (2019). It’s 2019. So Why Do 21st-Century Skills Still Matter? Retrieved from: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-01-22-its-2019-so-why-do-21st-century-skills-still-matter

Summary: 

The article introduces how the 21^st Century model has evolved in the current era and how it is being applied in the real world by students. Drawing from examples of various teachers, Boss demonstrates what has worked well to incorporate the 4C’s while empowering students. As the model calls for moving away from textbooks and teachers talking-at students, students collaborate with others, apply critical thinking to real-world situations, and find creative uses for communicating through digital tools. Yet, despite the innovations technology has brought to this way of teaching, many teachers still find it challenging to incorporate established frameworks for deeper learning.

Evaluation: 

This article opens with a successful example of students applying 21^stCentury skills to a problem in their community that drew on their ability to collaborate and think critically. The article then transitions into an explanation about applying the 4C’s and other innovations to deeper learning that have evolved in the digital age. Boss introduces notable educators in the field and incorporates several examples of how students have applied this method outside of classrooms. She also provides additional reading material and links to other websites for further research. I like that this article covers a variety of perspectives on how the 21^st Century model has been applied and how it works for students. She calls for more teachers to make the much needed transition because the competencies taught reman relevant to a students contribution to their community and life outside of school.