Fueling Creativity in Education
Episodes
Tuesday Dec 06, 2022
Tuesday Dec 06, 2022
What is your Dream Machine? In this episode of Fueling Creativity in Education podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood welcome Piet Grymonprez, author and Co-Founder and Managing Director of MyMachine. MyMachine is a for-purpose non-profit that has a unique and multi-award-winning methodology that unites students in primary, secondary and higher education to co-create "Dream Machines" invented by children.
Tune in to hear how Piet and his fellow Co-Founders created MyMachine, why they’re asking children to create a “Dream Machine”, and what a Dream Machine is in the first place. Piet explains how MyMachine challenges the creativity of students at every grade level, from primary school to college/university, inspiring them to think big.
“It really ranges from a very personal to a global scope because of the open-ended question that we pose to them at the beginning of our methodology.” – Piet Grymonprez
Piet describes how MyMachine’s methodology adapts to each child’s personality and how it encourages them to be open, take risks, share their ideas, and develop creative confidence. Then, he shares how teachers can collaborate with MyMachine and start their own chapter.
Piet’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Whatever you want to do with your kids/students, challenge yourself to do it with an open-ended approach.
Don’t make it a competition.
Embrace systems thinking. Explain to yourselves and your students that the world we live in is complicated and that’s okay. That’s how it should be.
Recommended Resources:
Learn more about MyMachine
What Is Your Dream Machine? How Children Change Education Worldwide by Piet Grymonprez
Donate to MyMachine Global Foundation
Listen to the episode with Natalie Nixon
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom?
Access a variety of creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting our website, www.CreativityandEducation.com.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
Have a question? Email Dr. Burnett and Dr. Worwood at questions@fuelingcreativitypodcast.com!
You can also find The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Make sure to rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!
About Piet Grymonprez:
Piet Grymonprez is Co-Founder and Managing Director of MyMachine, a for-purpose non-profit working globally. MyMachine has a unique and multi-award-winning methodology that unites students in primary, secondary and higher education to co-create "Dream Machines" invented by children.
Based out in Belgium, Europe, Piet and his team have grown MyMachine so far to 13 countries on 3 continents.
MyMachine has been widely recognized and endorsed by the likes of United Nations, Harvard, The New York Academy of Sciences, Richard Branson, The Qatar Foundation, The Lego Foundation, Fast Company, and MyMachine was recently inducted into the renowned HundrED Hall of Fame.
Piet is the author of the book "What Is Your Dream Machine? How Children Change Education Worldwide", with a foreword written by Sir Ken Robinson.
He is the founder and co-founder of different industry cross-over networks in his native country. Prior to MyMachine, he worked in higher education for 15 years, establishing research collaborations with companies around the world.
Connect with him on LinkedIn
Follow MyMachine on Instagram
Tuesday Nov 01, 2022
Tuesday Nov 01, 2022
How can creativity help students learn a new language? In this episode of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood welcome Tanya Knudsen, an educator, world traveler, polyglot, and PhD candidate for creative leadership. Tanya’s currently teaching a TIM-based curriculum, Creativity Through English, via zoom to students at Wings of Change, a vocational hospitality school and hotel social enterprise in Madagascar. She teaches for creativity with an expanded and self-designed curriculum squarely rooted in the Torrance Incubation Model (TIM) for Teaching and Learning to combine Creative Thinking Skills with subjects.
Listen in to learn Tanya’s art-based framework for integrating creative thinking skills into her ESL classroom, simple strategies for keeping students engaged while teaching remotely, and how English teachers can use kinesthetic teaching to bring more creativity into the classroom.
“The thing with language is it has to be a subconscious skill, ultimately, so how can I pass the concepts into the subconscious most quickly? And I believe that to be through physical because that’s how it will resonate.” – Tanya Knudsen
Plus, Tanya describes “the language of creativity” and speaks on the immense value that creativity can bring to ESL students.
“That’s really what we want to pull out in the creative thinking skills is what is your process for developing your understanding or ability to think through the information that you’re learning so that you can evaluate, sift, and formulate your own original thought.” – Tanya Knudsen
Tanya’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Try! Just do it. Whatever you want to try, go for it, because everything leads to something else.
Ask questions. That’s how you learn, figure out where they are, and how to teach them more effectively.
Have fun! Kids are bored at school and humans seek play at every age, so it’s important to have fun throughout learning.
Recommended Resources:
Wings of Change – Madagascar
GoNoodle
Listen to The Idea Gym Podcast
Weaving Creativity into Every Strand of Your Curriculum by Dr. Cyndi Burnett (contributions by Tanya Knudsen)
20 Lessons to Weave Creative Thinking into Your Curriculum by Dr. Cyndi Burnett (contributions by Tanya Knudsen)
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom?
Access a variety of creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting our website, www.CreativityandEducation.com.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
Have a question? Email Dr. Burnett and Dr. Worwood at questions@fuelingcreativitypodcast.com!
You can also find The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Make sure to rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!
About Tanya Knudsen:
Tanya is an educator, polyglot, world traveler and PhD candidate for creative leadership. Tanya teaches for creativity with an expanded and self-designed curriculum squarely rooted in the Torrance Incubation Model for Teaching and Learning to combine Creative Thinking Skills with subjects. Tanya’s first creative curriculum, Creativity Through Arts, received scholarly recognition in 2021. Tanya now teaches her second TIM-based curriculum, Creativity Through English, via zoom, to students at Wings of Change, a vocational hospitality school and hotel social enterprise in Nosy Be, Madagascar. Tanya is headed to Nosy Be in the new year to conduct research for her dissertation. For Tanya, creativity is new new lingua franca and she’s on a quest to expand creativity to the far reaches of the planet.
Visit Tanya’s website
Connect with her on LinkedIn
Listen to The Idea Gym Podcast
Tuesday Aug 16, 2022
Tuesday Aug 16, 2022
How do you find joy in your classroom and infuse creativity into your students’ curriculum? In this throwback episode of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood revisit their discussion with Dr. Susan Keller-Mathers, an Associate Professor at the Center for Applied Imagination at SUNY Buffalo State.
Susan teaches graduate courses in creativity, chairs the curriculum committee, and serves on leadership teams of various departments across campus dedicated to infusing creative learning into their teaching and learning practices. Her focus is educating the next generation of creativity experts who will utilize their degree in creativity in diverse professional and personal arenas.
“Good teaching is creative teaching.” - Susan Keller-Mathers
Tune in to learn how to infuse creativity into your curriculum and how to find joy every single day you walk into your classroom!
You’ll gain insight into the importance of the practitioner-scholar model, the difference between teaching creativity and creative teaching, and the best practices for nurturing long-term professional learning in teachers. Susan also gives great advice for teachers who are overwhelmed or challenged with constraints in the classroom.
“You have to be an advocate for creativity outside of your classroom to do it in your classroom. You can close your door and you can do what you want to do, which is what a lot of teachers want to do, but you must also be that teacher leader who helps others understand the value of it. Then, it becomes more embedded in the educational environment because you can’t do it in isolation.” - Dr. Susan Keller-Mathers
Susan’s Tips for Teachers:
Your attitude and energy make a difference in the classroom.
Remember why you’re an educator and come in refreshed and ready to engage with your students.
Always think about how you can meet the needs of your students and bring out their creative thinking.
About Susan Keller-Mathers:
Susan Keller-Mathers is an Associate Professor at the Center for Applied Imagination at SUNY Buffalo State. Susan holds a BS in Elementary Education, an MS in Creativity, and an Ed.D in Curriculum and Instruction. She teaches graduate courses in creativity, chairs the curriculum committee and serves on leadership teams of various departments across campus dedicated to infusing creative learning into their teaching and learning practices.
Susan’s focus is educating the next generation of creativity experts who will utilize their degree in creativity in diverse professional and personal arenas. For nearly three decades she has continued the development of the Torrance Incubation Model (TIM) to infuse creativity into lesson, unit, course and training frameworks, develop creative learning and creative problem-solving initiatives in educational and business institutions and travel the globe teaching creativity to international educators on five continents.
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom?
Access a variety of creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity Podcast by visiting our website, CreativityandEducation.com.
Follow Cyndi and Matt on Linkedin.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
Follow Cyndi and Matt on Linkedin.
You can also find The Fueling Creativity Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Make sure to rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!
Tuesday Jun 14, 2022
Tuesday Jun 14, 2022
In part two of this “double expresso” discussion, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood continue speaking with creativity researcher, thought leader, and cognitive psychologist, Dr. Mark Runco, about the future of creativity research and his upcoming creativity conference.
Tune in to gain insight into the current creativity in education research and where Mark thinks this research is headed in the future. He also speaks on the misuses of divergent thinking tests, particularly in neuroscientific research, as well as how educators can promote creativity and originality in the classroom, even when they’re following a curriculum.
Then, Mark sheds light on what you can expect from the Southern Oregon University Creativity Conference (coming up on July 14th-17th, 2022) and why everyone could benefit from attending.
Mark’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Be creative and appreciate creativity – whatever that looks like for you.
Depending on the age of your students/kids, work on building confidence, which is called “ego strength” in creativity research.
You don’t need to look for unambiguously creative behaviors in your students. Look for creative potential and look for things that enable and encourage originality, like self-expression. Self-expression is extremely important and leads directly to creativity.
“One of - if not the main problem with creativity among students has to do with social pressure and fitting in… This is really a huge problem in the middle and upper elementary grades… because a strict adherence to convention precludes creativity. It’s basically antithetical to originality.” – Dr. Mark Runco
Resources Mentioned:
Listen to the episode about inquiry-based learning with Dr. Frank LaBanca
Listen to the episode with Jonathan Plucker
Register for the Southern Oregon University Creativity Conference
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom?
Access a variety of creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting our website, www.CreativityandEducation.com.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
Have a question? Email Dr. Burnett and Dr. Worwood at questions@fuelingcreativitypodcast.com!
You can also find The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Make sure to rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!
About Dr. Mark A. Runco:
Dr. Mark A. Runco is a leading creativity scholar who is active in empirical research and has published cognitive, economic, genetic, historical, developmental, and educational books and articles on the topic. To help people fulfill their capacity for creativity, he has devised a battery of tests that measures creative potential and performance. He teaches a variety of graduate and undergraduate classes on creativity and innovation, and once each year he organizes an international creativity conference. Mark earned his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from the Claremont Graduate School in California and has studied creativity ever since. He is currently the Director of Creativity Research and Programming at Southern Oregon University.
Connect with Mark Runco on LinkedIn
Visit his website
Tuesday May 24, 2022
Tuesday May 24, 2022
In this short Creativity Tip episode, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood offer advice on how to promote originality in the classroom. Matthew focuses his response on project-based learning at the higher education level. Cyndi offers advice for K-12 educators and how to facilitate originality in a test-driven culture.
Interested in more tips to help bring creativity into the classroom? Check out Cyndi's Books, Weaving Creativity into Every Strand of Your Curriculum, and 20 Lessons to Weave Creativity into Your Classroom.
Episodes related to Asking Questions:
Listen to the episode with Frank LaBanca
Listen to the episode with Eitan Buchalter
Listen to the episode with Ron Beghetto
Watch short clip from the film, Creativity in Education: Exploring the Imbalance.
Eager to bring more Creativity into your home or classroom?
Access a variety of creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity Podcast by visiting our website: www.CreativityandEducation.com
You can also find The Fueling Creativity Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Make sure to rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!
Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
What would it be like if creativity was a core pillar of your school system’s education? In this episode of the Fueling Creativity podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with Dr. Eitan Buchalter, Creativity Researcher and Practitioner.
Most recently, Eitan has designed and tested a school-based learning initiative that empowers students to look after and develop their creative thinking capabilities. He shares details on this unique initiative as well as his approach to developing a creativity program in school within the constraints of a curriculum or classroom environment.
Listen in to learn how Eitan is expanding creativity research to science as he highlights his research on how scientists generate ideas and produce creative outcomes. The trio also talks about creativity skills that bridge the gap between science and art, how to help your students find their interests and passions, and the importance of teaching your students to articulate their ideas.
Eitan‘s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Incorporate intrinsic motivation and your students’ personal interests into your lessons.
Model vulnerability so your students know it’s okay to make mistakes.
Make friends with uncertainty and risk.
“I’m a big fan of uncertainty and thinking of uncertainty as an important material.”
- Dr. Eitan Buchalter
Resources Mentioned:
Listen to the episode with Wendy Ross
Listen to the episode with Sally Reis
Nurturing Creative Thinking
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom?
Access a variety of creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity Podcast by visiting our website, www.CreativityandEducation.com.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
You can also find The Fueling Creativity Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Make sure to rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!
About Dr. Eitan Buchalter:
Eitan is the Director of Innovation at the Global Governance Institute. He has two decades of experience in creativity and innovation which includes education in schools, college and university. Eitan has also brought his expertise in creative thinking to the commercial world and has worked for a wide variety of clients including: NASA, Proctor & Gamble, The Football Association and Tate Modern.
Most recently, Eitan has designed and tested a school-based learning initiative that empowers students to look after and develop their creative thinking capabilities.
Eitan has degrees from Oxford and UCL including a PhD on Ideas in Science. Most importantly though, Eitan is a father of two boys and can often be found chasing them around the beautiful Kent countryside!
Connect with Dr. Eitan Buchalter on LinkedIn
Tuesday Mar 01, 2022
Tuesday Mar 01, 2022
Fueling Creativity S3 Ep 6 with Bea Leiderman
What are the benefits of being a novice learner? How does having a personal passion or interest benefit your work as an educator?
In this episode of the Fueling Creativity podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with Bea Leiderman, an educational technology coach based in Virginia with over 20 years of experience in education.
In 2012, macrophotography became Bea’s gateway to learning about science, biology, and the natural environment. As a novice learner, Bea had the opportunity to consider learning from a new perspective, later changing her approach to teaching.
Bea sheds light on the power of being a novice as an educator by sharing her first interaction with macrophotography and how it has since influenced her teaching methods. They talk about the importance of finding joy in learning for yourself, exploring non-educational blogs and resources, and the connection that can be built between educators and students when you’re both learning something new.
Can you maintain a level of control while students explore their creativity? How do you raise curious children? Is it important to limit the technology and screen time your kids are exposed to? Listen in to hear Bea’s answers!
“Creativity is at the most creative when it’s cross-disciplinary, it’s outward-focused rather than inward-focused.” - Bea Leiderman
View Bea’s Macro Photography on Instagram
Bea’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Expose your kids to lots of things, even things that may not be traditionally meant for kids. Different types of music, old movies, museums, festivals, factories, etc.
Be interested in what your kids are interested in and don’t make fun of what they like.
Be open to social media and not “the hype”. Find the interesting, passionate, quirky people on social media. There’s something to learn from everything and everyone.
Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to do something simple or be a novice.
Look for things that bring you joy and fun.
“You end up learning all sorts of things by following people who are interested in things that are completely different from what you’re doing.” - Bea Leiderman
Resources Mentioned:
Listen to the episode with Ron BeghettoListen to the episode with Dr. James Kaufman
Listen to the episode with Dr. Caroline BrookfieldListen to the episode with Wendy Ross
Listen to the episode with Dr. Sally ReisCreativity blog series by Punya Mishra
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom?
Access a variety of creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity Podcast by visiting our website, www.CreativityandEducation.com.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
You can also find The Fueling Creativity Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Make sure to RATE, REVIEW, and SHARE the podcast if you enjoy it!
About Bea Leiderman:
Bea is an educational technology coach in Prince Edward County, Virginia, and has over twenty years of experience in education. Her focus has always been on giving students experiences that lead to learning. In 2012, Bea bought a macro lens attachment for her iPhone camera. Macrophotography became a gateway to learning about science, biology, and the natural environment in ways she didn’t initially anticipate. Being a novice learner gave Bea the opportunity to consider learning from a new perspective that has changed how she approaches teaching. Bea has written several books about insects showcasing her photography and inviting readers to explore and learn.
Follow her on Instagram
Follow her on Twitter
Tuesday Feb 08, 2022
Tuesday Feb 08, 2022
How might we help ourselves and others be more willing to express our creativity? In this episode of the Fueling Creativity podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with Dr. Caroline Brookfield, a veterinarian, researcher, and stand-up comedian who delights in using humor and immersive experiences, backed up with research, to sway the most reluctant creative. Today, the dynamic trio delves into Caroline’s experience melding the worlds of veterinary medicine, comedy, and creativity. They also talk about the relationship between multi-passionate creatives and reluctant creatives.
For some of us, there is a desire or need to explore as many interests as we possibly can. Hence, the terms multi-passionate and multiple potentialities. For reluctant creatives, there is a resistance to acknowledging or expressing their creativity.
Listen in to learn the benefits of embracing your creativity and how to tap into it for future success. Caroline shares her science-based approach to exciting people about creativity and how teachers can use it to encourage students who say they’re not creative to express their creativity. She also highlights various creative thinking skills for dealing with judgement around what students, parents, and administration will think about integrating creativity and risk-taking into the classroom.
“Over the last 10-15 years, I kept getting drawn into these creative endeavors, like acting classes or trying stand-up comedy or building businesses, and it took me a long time to connect the dots and realize it’s all about expressing my creativity.” - Dr. Caroline Brookfield
Caroline’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Try to incorporate more M’s for Maybes. School can be very black and white at times, so try to build in ambiguity to your lessons.
Edit later! Just try something new. Nobody is really going to care about what you do if the stakes are low.
Take time to regularly relax and turn things off. We need you so take care of yourself.
“You actually don’t have to even be good at what you do creatively to get the benefits of it.” - Dr. Caroline Brookfield
Resources Mentioned:
Read Caroline’s New Book: The Reluctant Creative!
Listen to the episode with Dr. Sally ReisListen to the episode with Natalie NixonListen to the episode with Jeffrey Davis
Listen to the episode with Wendy Ross
Listen to the episode with Jonathan Plucker
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom?
Access a variety of creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity Podcast by visiting our website, www.CreativityandEducation.com.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
You can also find The Fueling Creativity Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Make sure to rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!
About Dr. Caroline Brookfield:
Caroline believes that if everyone took small, unconventional actions to embrace their creativity, we could change the world. Veterinarian, researcher, and stand-up comedian, she delights in using humor and immersive experiences, backed up with research, to sway the most reluctant creative. Benefits range from personal physical and emotional results to organizational success. Caroline presents convincing evidence of the ROI of creativity for individuals and organizations, expressed in her passionate yet lighthearted and engaging style. She is always up for a challenge, like learning guitar, rock climbing, getting her kids to eat vegetables, surfing, meditation retreats with sniper rifles. You know, the usual stuff.
Caroline received honors for her veterinary degree from the Ontario Veterinary College, is a certified level 2 Creative Problem Solving facilitator, and holds a Certificate of Professional Management from the University of Calgary, where she lives, Her lectures go unheeded by her family. The dog listens, sometimes.
Visit Caroline’s website
Connect with her on LinkedIn
Follow her on Instagram