"Grading Smarter, Not Harder" week 5: Creativity (Part 1)

Creativity

In this final week of "Grading Smarter, Not Harder" we look at creativity in regards to assessment and grades.  This review/summary will be broken down into three parts:  I.  Creativity, Engagement, and Motivation, and Potential Problems with Creativity; II.  Strategies for Grading Creative Projects; III.  Using Modern Technology to Encourage Creativity.  

Part I.  Creativity, Engagement, and Motivation

"Creatvitiy is going to be required by future generations to solve both current problems and those yet unseen."  (Ken Robinson, 2001, 2009)

It has been proven that learning and mastery occur much more readily in environment that promote autonomy through self-direction and purpose.  According to Behetto & Kaufman (2013), "creativty must be task appropriate in order to be effective."  Medina (2008) adds that creativity is an aid to understanding.   Many educators have witnessed learning is greatly enhanced through individual creativity, ownership, and empowerment.  The key is engagement to unlock the intrinsic motivation to learn in students.  "Allowing students to be creative in the classroom is a way of personalizing learning." (Robinson, 2001, 2009).

Additional research:

• Geary, 2001: "we draw meaning from interaction more so than from homework or lectures."
• Engel, 2013: "when people are spurred on by curiosity, they learn more."
• Engel, 2013, Garner, Brown, Sanders, and Menke, 1992:  "when intrigue and surprise are added to the mix, they remember more.
• Lamer and Mergendollar, 2012:  Project-based learning activates enhanced learning; it blends organization, visual aids, and public speaking.

Potential Problems with Creativity

1.  Creativity is unpredictable

• more creative avenues can make teachers feel as though their control of the classroom will be compromised.
• highly creative people thrive on disorder, contradiction, and imbalance ( Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014)
• creative interest is often extinguished by the prevailing winds of familiarity, normalcy, and repetition

2.  Creativity can distract from prescribed learning outcomes.

• creative projects can engage students, but they can also be a waste of class time.
• unlikely preparation for learning targets

3.  Creativity can lead to inflated grades for more artistically minded students.

• increased time and effort perfecting the aesthetics of a project and teachers often are tempted to reward such through grading
• the students are missing the learning targets on test and standardized testing when projects are not assessed properly.

4.  Creativity can lead to deflated grades fro at-risk students

• students might not have materials, or creativity, to create such projects (at home or in school)

5.  The search for resources can be anarchic.

• searching for materials, items, and the such around the school, and classroom, can become chaotic

6.  Levels of creativity are difficult to assess.

Part 2: Strategies for Grading Creative Projects will be posted tomorrow.