Fueling Creativity in Education
Episodes
Tuesday Jul 05, 2022
Tuesday Jul 05, 2022
What is a Personal Interest Project (PIP) and how might it benefit students’ creativity?
In this episode of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with Dr. Elizabeth Radday, an educator who’s been working in education for over 12 years. Currently working in Skills21 and School Services for EdAdvance, Elizabeth is passionate about student-driven personal projects, like Capstone, and loves to see what students can do when they are given the space to explore their interests. The Capstone curriculum and Personal Interest Project (PIP) curriculum she wrote are now being used by thousands of students in Connecticut each year.
Tune in to learn about this fascinating high school program that’s built on students identifying and furthering their creativity and interests while at school. Liz provides inspiring examples of Personal Interest Projects and describes how schools and educators can creatively implement them into students’ curriculums.
Plus, Liz breaks down the most successful format of PIPs and Capstones, what types of educators can best facilitate a Capstone course, her recommendations on rubrics, stimulating motivation in struggling students, and much more.
Liz’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Give kids voice and choice. They need to feel control over the process.
Find the time to work on Personal Interest Projects. Start small if you need to.
Do your own PIP or Capstone project alongside your students and share your experience (and mistakes) with them. Also, it’s important that you choose something unrelated to school.
Resources Mentioned:
Skills21 Personal Interest Projects
Skills21 Capstone
Portrait of a Graduate
Listen to the episode with Heather Lyon
Listen to the episode with Dr. Sally Reis
Listen to the episode with Jonathan Plucker
Listen to the episode with KC Lathrop
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 Elizabeth Radday:
Dr. Elizabeth Radday has been working in education for over twenty years. She first started teaching as a teenager doing arts and crafts at sleepaway camp. After college, she spent sixteen years in the middle and high school classrooms teaching STEM subjects and working with students with learning disabilities. She now works for EdAdvance in Connecticut for Skills21 and School Services. She is passionate about student driven personal projects like Capstone and loves to see what students can do when they are given the space to explore their interests. The Capstone curriculum and Personal Interest Project curriculum she wrote is now being used by thousands of students in Connecticut each year.
Connect with Elizabeth Radday on LinkedIn
Follow her on Instagram
Follow her on Twitter
Twitter - https://twitter.com/ecskills21
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ecskills21
Tuesday Feb 15, 2022
Tuesday Feb 15, 2022
How does culture impact a person’s ability to learn and be creative?
In this episode of the Fueling Creativity podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak withGenein Letford, Founder and CEO of CAFFEE Strategies, a top 'intercultural creative thinking' professional development training organization that trains employees to unleash their innovative thinking and create sustainable, organizational inclusion strategies. Tune in to learn the fundamentals of cultural competence and Intercultural Creativity™ along with neuroscience-backed tips for teachers on helping kids grow their cultural competency.
As a trainer on creative thinking and Intercultural Creativity™, Genein has inspired and led many to reconnect to their creative abilities and produce innovative ideas for an inclusive workspace.
Genein shares her thoughts on the impact of knowing your students’ cultural value as well as how to help students become aware of their value and their cultural capital. She highlights the powerful role of emotions and storytelling in learning, then breaks down a few of the gems from her book, The 7 Gems of Intercultural Creativity, including empathetic imagination and perspective shifting. Plus, Genein sheds light on how her work as an educator has inspired her role as a mother.
“We can’t really ask people and young people to be at their full creative best if they’re not in an inclusive environment that really has those cultural connections… That cultural competence is a big part of your creative thinking and creative growth.” - Genein Letford
Genein’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Share last. Your perspective may skew the perspective of the students, so encourage them to share their views and ideas first and then share yours afterwards.
Say “thank you” to students who share their answers, ideas, and views.
There are miracles in the metaphors. Bring metaphors into your day, your lessons, and your meetings and have fun with it.
Arts are key. Artistry helps grow creativity.
Observation is also key. You can’t be creative if you have no data to be creative with, so create activities that combine sensory information, for example, going outside and listening to the sounds of nature.
“Knowing that the cultural capital and the cultural experiences that the children are coming in with is key. That is gold because the brain doesn’t learn by just throwing new information to it, the brain learns through integration, by integrating new information to already learned information. And so, if the teacher or the educator… doesn’t know what the child already knows and what is important to the child, that integration is low.” - Genein Letford
Resources Mentioned:
The 7 Gems of Intercultural Creativity by Genein Letford
Listen to the episode with Dr. Vlad Glaveanu
The Torrance Incubation Model (TIM)
Listen to Create and Grow Podcast Ep 74
Listen to Create and Grow Podcast Ep 66
Listen to Create and Grow Podcast Ep 79
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.
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 Genein Letford:
Genein Letford is an award-winning speaker, best-selling author and corporate trainer on creative thinking and Intercultural Creativity™. She is the founder of CAFFE Strategies, and has inspired and led many to reconnect to their creative abilities in order to produce innovative ideas for an inclusive workspace. Her unique training intersects creative thinking development with building a culture of inclusion and belonging. She believes creative literacy is a critical skill and she is often called ‘America’s Creativity Coach’ for her work in reigniting creativity in our workforce.
Visit Genein's website
Connect with her on LinkedIn
Follow her on Instagram
Listen to the Create and Grow Rich Podcast
Friday Dec 10, 2021
Friday Dec 10, 2021
How is creativity connected to engagement in an educational environment? In this episode of Fueling Creativity, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with Dr. Heather Lyon, author of Engagement is not a Unicorn (It’s a Narwhal) and The BIG Book of Engagement Strategies.
Listen in to learn Heather’s unique formula for engagement, the differences between student engagement and adult engagement, and engagement impacts our ability to be successful learners. She details her 4 Levels of Engagement and what causes someone to shift from one level to another, as well as the manifestations of each of these engagement levels.
“Compliance is not engagement”- Heather Lyon
Heather’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Teachers are models for students. Students do what they see, so teachers who are engaged and creative have students that are also engaged and creative. Be willing to celebrate both the progress and the struggle.
Compliance is not engagement. Stop being okay with students who are simply doing what they’re told.
Creativity is the fuel for engagement. The more a person has choice, voice, input, and control over what they are doing, the more likely they are to be at least interested, if not absorbed, in the learning.
About Heather Lyon:
Heather Lyon is author of Engagement is not a Unicorn (It’s a Narwhal) and The BIG Book of Engagement Strategies. Heather is a former English teacher and has a Ph.D. in Educational Administration and an Ed.M. in Reading from the University at Buffalo. She is an Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction, and Technology for Lewiston-Porter Central School District in Western New York. Heather has been a staff developer and held various administrative titles, but the professional title she likes best is learner. She is also a proud wife and mother who struggles with but values the importance of boundaries and balance—which are so critical for all of us. Heather lives with her husband and three children, who make her smile and teach her the importance of kindness, respect, and patience.
Visit Heather’s website
Follow her on Twitter
Connect with her on LinkedIn
Resources Mentioned:
Listen to the episodes with Ron Beghetto
Listen to the episode with Dr. James Kaufman
Listen to the episode with Sally Reis
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!