Fueling Creativity in Education

Looking Ahead to Creativity and Innovation Week with Dr. Jim Friedman

How are creativity and innovation related? In this episode of the Fueling Creativity podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with Dr. Jim Friedman, a Wordsmith/Dreambuilder best known for creating television shows and movies. He is a serial creative entrepreneur, teaches Creativity and Entrepreneurship at Miami University, and is a frequent speaker on creativity and personal branding. Jim’s also the Chief Steward for World Creativity & Innovation Week and Day, supporting a team of students and professionals creating around the world. The theme in 2021 is creativity and education.
Tune in to learn about the history of Creativity and Innovation Week, upcoming events, and other topics related to the teaching and facilitation of creativity in education.
Jim shares his candid thoughts on what types of experiences and discussions are important in facilitating creativity and innovation, along with his hopes for World Creativity & Innovation Week and Day (taking place in April 2021). Stick around to hear his advice for teachers and parents on fostering creativity and innovation at home and in the classroom.
“Creativity is the thinking part and innovation is the doing part. So, people have creative thoughts all the time. How do we empower them to actually take action and move it forward?” - Dr. Jim Friedman
Jim’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
We need to reinvigorate our own creativity, empower students who have lost their creativity, and maintain those who are actively using their creativity.
Create a “failure bonus” in your classroom or home. If your kids are willing to go further beyond the risk, share their mistakes, and identify the learning they had to make their learning better, they get a bonus or a grade boost.
About Dr. Jim Friedman:
Jim Friedman is a Cincinnati native and resident Wordsmith/Dreambuilder who may be best known for creating television shows and movies.  He is a serial creative entrepreneur.  In addition to his broadcasting ventures, he has been granted multiple patents; written books; written, recorded, and performed music; and danced the hokey pokey at age three on television.
He teaches Creativity and Entrepreneurship at Miami University and is a frequent speaker on creativity and personal branding. He is also the Chief Steward for World Creativity & Innovation Week and Day, supporting a team of students and professionals creating around the world.
He holds a doctorate in communication (Ph.D.) which he earned - and a doctorate in Creativity (Cr.D.) which he made up himself.   He has won 65 Emmy Awards, has been inducted into three Halls of Fame.
Besides wordsmithing, Friedman enjoys asking questions, finding second right answers, silencing his voice of judgment, taking risks, and failing often and well.
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Resources Mentioned:
Learn more about World Creativity & Innovation Week
 
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!
 
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!

A Scholarly Journey to Redefining Creativity with Dr. Marta Ockuly

What is the definition of creativity? Is there only one right answer? No way! In this episode of the Fueling Creativity podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with Dr. Marta Ockuly, a humanistic psychologist and heuristic creativity researcher focused on the lived experience of human creativity. She’s also the founder and CEO (Chief Encouragement Officer) of the Creative Potential Institute.
Tune in to learn about her redefined definition of creativity, which has been adopted by UN-sanctioned World Creativity & Innovation Day/Week.
You’ll gain insight into the incredible experience that led her to redefine creativity, the qualitative research she did to identify that definition, and her lexicon of creativity terms. Marta also shares a few activities you can do at home or in your classroom to foster creativity.
“I really never looked at creativity as something to be evaluated by certain criteria. I looked at it as a process to test and put out in the world and enjoy or explain something phenomenally. It’s a multi-phenomenon construct and it’s also dynamic, not static.” - Marta Ockuly
 
Marta’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Marta’s universal definition of creativity: “Creativity is the person-centered process of imagining possibilities and taking bodied, expressive action that makes your ideas real.”
All art requires creativity, but NOT all creativity is art.
When you take away the fear of evaluation, you take away the fear of failure. Kids will feel safe to take risks and fail forward when there’s no evaluation. Give extra points for failing forward!
The one characteristic of all creative people is an awareness of their creativity. They self-identify as creative. When you understand you are creative, you practice doing what you most enjoy or find meaningful.
No definition of creativity is the only definition. Marta encourages you to come up with your own definition. She asks you: What is the future you’re imagining?
About Dr. Marta Ockuly:
Dr. Marta D. Ockuly is the lead consultant with the Creative Potential Institute. She serves as a creativity catalyst/coach working with organizations, leaders, and individuals looking for future-focused strategies for disrupting conformity in the workplace, higher education, and creativity training initiatives. Her project interests range from on-site to remote programs for building creative confidence and competence, custom-designed creativity courses, and certification programs relating to the lived experience of human creativity, Awakening Creative Potential with J.O.Y., and "Actualizing Creative Potential for Personal and Professional Growth." Dr. Ockuly's research focus is the lived experience of human creative potential across the lifespan. She speaks and teaches internationally promoting imagination and embodied action as essential components of human creativity. Her new definition has been adopted by United Nations sanctioned World Creativity & Innovation Day/Week celebrated globally April 15-21st.
Connect with Marta on LinkedIn
Follow her on Twitter
 
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!
 
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!

Infusing Creativity into the Classroom with Dr. Susan Keller-Mathers

How do you find joy in your classroom and infuse creativity into your students’ curriculum? In this episode of the Fueling Creativity podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak 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 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!
 
 
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!

SEASON 1: Introducing The Fueling Creativity Podcast

Welcome to the Fueling Creativity Podcast! In this debut episode, hosts Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood share their mission and goals for the podcast. They shed light on their professional backgrounds and why they value the integration of creativity in education and at home, especially during the pandemic.
 
“We’ll be talking about creativity topics and how they apply to the field of education. We’ll be speaking with scholars, educators, and resident experts about their work, challenges they face, and digging deeper to new and varying perspectives of creativity – all with the goal to help fuel a more rich and informed discussion that provides teachers and parents with knowledge they can use at home or in the classroom.”
- Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood
 
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!