Disposition 6

Inventiveness

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk - Thomas Edison

How do we encourage, teach and reward creativity and imagination in our schools?

We encourage creativity firstly by giving students opportunities to exercise and use it. If we use worksheets or other structured assignments all the time, students won't have to make their own choices or decisions. I think there are many activities that could be used to teach creativity. Personally, I would start with listening to and being aware of the body. Bringing students to a field or forest and asking them to go where they want. Give them time to get lost and have a sound that they have to find at the end of the time. Through this experience students would independently seek something, a rare occurrence in a classroom. Encouraging creativity and imagination is as simple as speaking and connecting with people. Asking them how they feel, what they want to continue learning, what makes them excited, what direction they are taking projects, etc. Each person has many capabilities, we just have to give students opportunities to exercise them.

How important is creativity as a skill for the 21st Century?

Unless we want the world to stay the way it is forever, people need to come up with ideas. Even if things stay the same, our living conditions and lives would change in a negative way. Solutions and new ideas require creativity and passion. Yes, answers can be found when people don't have a burning passion for finding them. However, I believe that the best answers are found when people have a connection or passion for what they're doing. They would be more likely to go one step further or look for one more option when they already have something satisfactory.

As a future music educator, I am aware that other countries in the world do better in the areas of reading, science, and math. As a nation, we certainly need to do well in those areas, but instead of seeing those topics as the main commodity in the world, we need to step up our education in the arts. With creativity and basic skill, you can do anything. With a higher training and level of skill in a concrete area, you can do those few things very well. In order for our children to be successful, they need to be creative and skilled. The rest will follow.

Disposition 5

On Monday, October 5th, three sections of Educational Psychology combined to complete a role playing activity. We were asked to respond to these questions for this week's blog, instead of completing a typical dispositional blog.

1) Is this method of role playing a legitimate way to learn what are some
of the important issues related to student learning and accountability?

I believe that role playing is a very legitimate and effective classroom method. I'm very interested in emotions and intentions and I found this activity very helpful in understanding other perspectives, points and persons. If the assignment had been given in simply an essay format, I would have had a lot less invested in this. When I was given this assignment, I knew that I would be held accountable by my peers and that I would be holding my peers accountable. Something public like this can be really high pressure but it can really help a lot of students come out of their shell or expend some energy in a classroom in a constructive way.

2) What would have been the advantages/disadvantages of using a more
direct/lecture approach related to teaching and learning and school
improvement efforts?

I don't really see any advantages to a lecture format in this situation. If your goal was to analyze it with numbers or just to have a bland, factual understanding, then a lecture would definately be effective and probably less work for the instructor.

3) What is your reaction to the common belief that before students are
asked to engage in complex learning tasks they need to have a solid grasp
of basic skills (i.e. they need to have a careful look at the information
about No Child Left Behind legislation)?

I think that people should have an understanding about what they are talking about. If you're talking and you don't know what you're talking about in this situation, you should be opening your mouth to ask questions. Learning is the pimary priority, and you simply cannot do that by speaking about things you don't know about.

4) How important is some level of emotional engagement in the learning
process?

In my opinion, it depends on what topic you're learning about. For science or math, I think learning how to relate it to your everyday life or current events would help me to remember and understand the topic. In social studies or other similar subjects, I find it very effective to have emotional investment in the topic, even if it is chosen for me or forced upon me.

5) Do we tend to pay closer attention and to listen to higher achieving
students, their parents, and to other influential people in the community
before others?

It has been my experience that the higher achieving students have more involved parents. Typically the lower achieving students aren't listened to because they have fewer opinions or their opinions are "less informed". I believe that people generally know themsleves and what is best for them. You cannot make a person care or force them to express their opinions.

Disposition 4

Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire. -W.B Yeats

Can you think of a time when you became more interested in a subject because of a teacher's enthusiasm?

As a high school sophomore, I was a member of my high school's chamber choir. Our director, Michael Shafer, changed my life forever. None of us knew much about him, and he was a really explosive, polar person. At first I was not a fan of him, I even thought he effected our choir negatively. Come time for our winter concert, our choir had never sounded better. Through all of my reactions to him, I failed to see the effects he was having on our sound. We grew together vocally and through our many conversations and experiences with our director.

We all changed together. Once we (including the director) knew that everyone way in it for the music, we were free to pursue it wholeheartedly. We connected not only with each other, but with our audiences. I naturally rose to leadership roles, and through them I got to know my director much more. We regularly spoke about his goals for us, issues within the group, musical selections, and other choral matters. I understood so well what he put into our choir, and wanted to do the same. We continually challenged each other and have become very good friends. I chose Luther College simply because I CRAVED choral excellence. I came here as a hopeful vocal education major and now have added on instrumental. This instructor has made an ever lasting impression on who I am and will be, simply because he shared his passion with me.