Transformative Leadership: The Creative Educator

Great questions. Thinking out loud...Creativity in Education - combining critical and creative thinking (divergent and convergent) followed by constructive thinking from all that thinking/learning. I often think of it like head, heart, hands. And with choice - even limited, providing choice in both process and product cultivates autonomy.

Big questions, Liv!

1. What does creativity mean to you in the context of education? Creativity means approaching questions in new and novel ways. How can we try to do something in a way haven't before, whether that's representing content differently or changing the context in which learning happens by trying a new strategy or tool to support learning.
2. How do you encourage creativity and innovation from educators that may be married to the way they have always done things? Often, we have to attempt to minimize the risks involved in trying something new. Maybe that looks like co-teaching a lesson, so if things get "off the rails," we can problem-solve together. Maybe it means incentivizing the risk-taking involved in trying innovative and creative approaches to learning.
3. How do you provide choice to educators and learners? Technology opens so many doors for how we can show what we know! A great entry point for choice is to encourage multimodal content creation. Audio, video, drawing, and writing can all help us illustrate what we know in unique ways, and changing format helps us find the benefits in each medium.
4. How you make teaching a more personal and meaningful experience to both the educator and learner? That's a really big question! But I think the answer may be tied to #3. When we empower educators and learners to step into their agency and have space for choice and voice, we make learning more personal and more meaningful.

Thanks for this opportunity to reflect!

1. What does creativity mean to you in the context of education?

Creativity is like the wheels of a car.

1. How do you encourage creativity and innovation from educators that may be married to the way they have always done things?

Innovation is the vehicle

1. How do you provide choice to educators and learners?

Where do you want to sit? Driver? Navigator? Back seat?

1. How you make teaching a more personal and meaningful experience to both the educator and learner?

Everyone chooses as a few favorite songs to add to the playlist to listen to while on the trip.