As a high school instructional technology facilitator, I enjoy leading workshops in which teachers are actively involved in the creative process. Typically after one of these workshops, I see teachers integrating the tools we used in their classrooms. After one such workshop I hosted recently a teacher said "I just love these small ideas I can take back and use right away. I know how to use the tools, its coming up with creative ways to use them I struggle with." From this conversation our first Creativity Lab was born.
What is a creativity lab?
A 30 minute, hands on session where teachers spend the majority of the time creating grounded in a practical strategy they can take back to their classrooms immediately. We end the lab by discussing ideas for use in their classrooms. That's it. Short and simple.
What types of creative activities do you include?
This is the fun part! It can be anything you would like. The example below highlights Keynote shapes and their versatility. We learned how to break apart and group, reformat, combine, and even add our drawings to create custom shapes. Teachers then chose a content topic and created a Keynote slide relating to their topic. See the video example below.
What's next?
The teachers enjoyed the bite sized creativity example and how easy it was to take back to their content area. I'm following up with each attendee to see if I can support them in their classroom. We will also be hosting a 2nd creativity lab in February.
The attached document is the slide deck I used for our creativity lab. I included the presenter notes so you could see how I structured the time. I would love to hear your ideas for similar mini pd opportunities in your schools.
February 01, 2023
I love this idea. Thank you for sharing!
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