Fueling Creativity in Education
Episodes
Tuesday Aug 29, 2023
Tuesday Aug 29, 2023
In this episode of the Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast, Matthew Worwood and Cyndi Burnett are joined by special guest Katie Trowbridge. Katie is a highly experienced educator and the President and CEO of Curiosity to Create, a nonprofit organization dedicated to incorporating creative and critical thinking strategies into education.
Throughout the episode, Katie emphasizes the importance of putting things into context and reflecting on the impact of teaching strategies. She discusses the need for teachers to help students make connections and highlights the power of deep reflections to demonstrate these connections.
The episode explores the vital role of creativity and critical thinking in education and the importance of teachers modeling the process of learning from failure and mistakes. Katie emphasizes the need to build a community around creative and critical thinking, involving both educators and parents. Critical thinking is particularly essential in today's world, where students often seek answers without engaging in deeper analysis.
Finally, the episode encourages teachers to take risks and try new approaches in the classroom, allowing for reflection, mistakes, and growth. Katie highlights the significance of creative metacognition, which involves both critical and creative thinking, in developing knowledge and understanding of creativity.
About Katie:
Katie Trowbridge has over two decades of experience as a teacher and mentor. She is President and CEO of Curiosity 2 CREATE, a nonprofit organization focused on helping educators incorporate creative and critical thinking strategies into their existing curricula and build creative classroom environments. Katie has won several Teacher of Excellence and Outstanding Educator awards, has a Master’s in Teaching and a Master’s in Education Administration, and is pursuing her ED.D at Northeastern University in Boston.
Eager to bring more creativity into your school district?
Check out our sponsor Curiosity2Create.org and CreativeThinkingNetwork.com
What to learn more about Design Thinking in Education?
Do you want to build a sustained culture of innovation and creativity at your school? Visit WorwoodClassroom.com to understand how Design Thinking can promote teacher creativity and support professional growth in the classroom.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
Tuesday May 09, 2023
Tuesday May 09, 2023
How is teaching art different than teaching creativity? How do you teach creativity in the context of art? In this throwback episode of Fueling Creativity in Education podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood revisit their discussion with Tamara Doleman, head of the Visual Art department at Ashbury College in Canada. Tamara is passionate about exploring the intersection between art, creativity, wellbeing, and the growth and healing potential it can provide our communities and schools.
Listen in to learn about Tamara’s deliberate approach to teaching creativity in the art classroom and the difference between teaching art and teaching creativity. She details the many benefits of teaching for creativity in schools, especially now during the pandemic, along with how to facilitate a long-term program for creativity in your classroom.
“Creativity is the celebration of pluralism and diversity. I think that our world, in essence, really needs to come to terms with the fact that all of us are different and we all have something to contribute to the world. And so, when we’re teaching for creativity, we’re really teaching an individual how to be comfortable with who they are and start to think about what they want to bring into the world… to make it a better, more enjoyable, beautiful place”
- Tamara Doleman
Tamara’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Read up on creativity, but also read up on what skills and characteristics different artists have. Were they risk-takers, detail-oriented, etc?
Don’t focus on and criticize the outcome of a creative experience. Focus on the creative process and how each student differs from one another.
Acknowledging how you talk to yourself during your creative process is an opportunity for learning in a creative space. Encourage your kids to work through frustration, getting stuck, and their inner critic.
Engagement and connection will increase once you focus on creativity in the classroom.
Set up expectations and awareness around behaviors and how our actions impact others.
Foster a space where kids feel comfortable being playful and coming up with crazy ideas.
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom?
Access various creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting www.CreativityandEducation.com.
What to learn more about Design Thinking in Education?
Do you want to build a sustained culture of innovation and creativity at your school? Visit WorwoodClassroom.com to learn how Design Thinking can promote teacher creativity and support professional growth in the classroom.
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 Tamara Doleman:
Tamara Doleman has been teaching for over 20 years. Her experience includes teaching a variety of subjects in elementary and secondary, in single sex and co-educational schools, both public and private. She is head of the Visual Arts department at Ashbury College in Ottawa, Canada. Tamara has a Master’s degree in Creativity from SUNY Buffalo State. She has coached individuals, run workshops, written articles, and presented a TEDX talk on the topic of creativity in schools. She is passionate about exploring the intersection between art, creativity, wellbeing, and the growth and healing potential it can provide our communities and schools. Her future goals involve getting training in expressive arts therapies.
Visit Tamara’s website
Connect with her on LinkedIn
Follow her on Twitter
Follow her on Instagram
Tuesday Feb 14, 2023
Tuesday Feb 14, 2023
How do you champion students through failure, success, and the creative process? In this episode of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood welcome Dr. Salome Thomas-EL, aka Principal EL, an award-winning principal, teacher, speaker, and author.
Tune in to learn how to motivate children who find success early in school, the innovative ways Principal EL teaches math, and the benefits of using games and game-based learning in the classroom. Principal EL highlights how he’s using chess to help students build resilience, creativity, problem solving, and critical thinking skills.
“Failure is motivating. Success can be paralyzing.”
– Salome Thomas-EL
Principal EL offers advice for parents and teachers on supporting students while helping them navigate failure and embrace their creativity on a daily basis. Then, he shares the inspiring story behind his book, I Choose to Stay, and speaks to teachers who are entering the profession, considering leaving it, or transitioning to another leadership position in education. He also sheds light on how he supports teachers and students as a school administrator.
“Choose impact over compliance.” – Salome Thomas-EL
Principal EL’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Allow students to be themselves. Ask students what they like, then tap into that and create joyful experiences for them.
Choose impact over compliance. Make sure you’re making decisions that will impact your students and their families in powerful ways. Move away from relying on assessments and more towards developing soft skills.
Understand that creativity is a prerequisite for innovation.
Engage students before giving them information.
“That self-esteem… comfort with expressing themselves, feelings of pride and accomplishment, all of those are stoked by creativity.” – Salome Thomas-EL
About Salome Thomas-EL:
Dr. Salome Thomas-EL, aka Principal EL, is an award-winning teacher, principal, speaker, and internationally recognized educator. Principal EL is currently a K-8 school leader in Wilmington, Delaware and speaks to groups around the world. He was a regular contributor on the “The Dr. Oz Show” and is the author of the best-selling books, I Choose to Stay (movie rights optioned by Disney Films), The Immortality of Influence, which stresses the importance of leadership, mentoring, parenting and service to others. He is the co-author of the newly released, Passionate Leadership, Building a Winning Team, and Retention for Change.
Principal EL has addressed over 100,000 teachers, administrators, school staff, board members, parents, students and community members in the United States, Canada, Nigeria, Trinidad, England, Jamaica, and The Virgin Islands and frequently appears on C-SPAN, CNN, and NPR Radio. He has studied at Cambridge University in England, Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, and holds a doctorate in Education from Wilmington University in Delaware. He has received the Marcus A. Foster Award as the outstanding School District Administrator in Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania’s distinguished Martin Luther King Award.
Follow Principal EL’s website
Follow him on Instagram
Follow him on Twitter
Connect with him on Facebook
Subscribe to his YouTube channel
Recommended Resources:
Principal EL - TEDx PennsburgED - Every Kid Deserves Someone Crazy About Them
Check out Principal EL’s books
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom?
Access various creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting www.CreativityandEducation.com.
What to learn more about Design Thinking in Education?
Do you want to build a sustained culture of innovation and creativity at your school? Visit WorwoodClassroom.com to learn how Design Thinking can promote teacher creativity and support professional growth in the classroom.
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!
Tuesday Feb 07, 2023
Tuesday Feb 07, 2023
How can teachers empower children to be more creative and engaged in class, even when they don’t want to? In this Fueling Creativity in Education podcast episode, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood welcome Andrea Mango, an elementary STEAM teacher based in Williamsville, New York. This episode focuses on bridging the gap between theories and studies of creativity and the practical implications for them in an elementary classroom.
Please tune in to learn how Andrea inspires creativity in her STEAM classroom, how she has overcome barriers to bringing choice for students into the classroom, and how STEAM classrooms differ from regular classrooms. She offers insight into how to build a safe, trusting environment for creativity to thrive in your classroom and how to engage students that don’t like the topic or project or are having a bad day and don’t want to be engaged.
“Where in your curriculum can you give up a little bit of control, a little bit of power?”
– Andrea Mango
Andrea tells us why she brought flexible seating options into her classroom, like rocking chairs and bean bags, and how she deals with the vulnerability and stigmas of being a creative educator. Then, Andrea describes how she brings her problem-solving skills into her classroom and involves students in the problem-solving process.
Andrea’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
When it comes to making changes, start small. Challenge yourself to get rid of 1-2 worksheets per week and turn the lesson into an activity, game, or something more hands-on.
Give up a little power so your students can have some. Does it really make a difference if they use markers, sit at their desk, or work with their best friend?
Use your #1 resource for creativity: your students. They are far more creative than sometimes we can be, and they are dying to have a voice in the classroom. They are also a different ages, so they have different perspectives.
Recommended Resources:
Listen to the episode with Dr. Kulvarn Atwal
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom?
Access various creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting www.CreativityandEducation.com.
What to learn more about Design Thinking in Education?
Do you want to build a sustained culture of innovation and creativity at your school? Visit WorwoodClassroom.com to learn how Design Thinking can promote teacher creativity and support professional growth in the classroom.
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! Rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!
About Andrea Mango:
Follow Andrea on Twitter
Mrs. Andrea Mango has taught for the past 18 years, first as a kindergarten through 2nd-grade educator and now as a STEAM educator for K-4 at Dodge Elementary in Williamsville, New York. Before teaching, Andrea worked at Erie One BOCES’ Positive Youth Development Center, where she trained teachers on empowering students in the classroom and prepared middle and high school students to become positive leaders among their peers. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre and a master’s degree in Elementary Education-Birth-6th.
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
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom?
Access various creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting www.CreativityandEducation.com.
What to learn more about Design Thinking in Education?
Do you want to build a sustained culture of innovation and creativity at your school? Visit WorwoodClassroom.com to learn how Design Thinking can promote teacher creativity and support professional growth in the classroom.
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)
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom?
Access various creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting www.CreativityandEducation.com.
What to learn more about Design Thinking in Education?
Do you want to build a sustained culture of innovation and creativity at your school? Visit WorwoodClassroom.com to learn how Design Thinking can promote teacher creativity and support professional growth in the classroom.
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.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom?
Access various creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting www.CreativityandEducation.com.
What to learn more about Design Thinking in Education?
Do you want to build a sustained culture of innovation and creativity at your school? Visit WorwoodClassroom.com to learn how Design Thinking can promote teacher creativity and support professional growth in the classroom.
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
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom?
Access various creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting www.CreativityandEducation.com.
What to learn more about Design Thinking in Education?
Do you want to build a sustained culture of innovation and creativity at your school? Visit WorwoodClassroom.com to learn how Design Thinking can promote teacher creativity and support professional growth in the classroom.
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