1 Fostering ‘Beginner’s Mind’Assessing Creativity/Creatively Assessing
2 Framing Inquiry How do we address this in the SS/HUM division?“Students will communicate clearly, express themselves creatively, interpret thoughtfully and logically, and engage actively in dialogue and discussion, while paying attention to audience, situation, and (inter) cultural context. Communication and expression may be written or oral, verbal or nonverbal, informational or artistic.” How do we address this in the SS/HUM division?
3 Framing Inquiry How do we address this in the SS/HUM division?“Students will communicate clearly, express themselves creatively, interpret thoughtfully and logically, and engage actively in dialogue and discussion, while paying attention to audience, situation, and (inter) cultural context. Communication and expression may be written or oral, verbal or nonverbal, informational or artistic.” How do we address this in the SS/HUM division? Obvious intersections: Papers, class presentations, speeches, etc.
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5 Framing Inquiry How do we address this in the SS/HUM division?“Students will communicate clearly, express themselves creatively, interpret thoughtfully and logically, and engage actively in dialogue and discussion, while paying attention to audience, situation, and (inter) cultural context. Communication and expression may be written or oral, verbal or nonverbal, informational or artistic.” How do we address this in the SS/HUM division? Less obvious: How do we foster/encourage creativity?
6 HUMI 1: “Creative Minds” The ‘Personal Experiment’ AssignmentThe Prompt You will choose any idea from the class or the books, and then test it out in your personal life, studies, or work environment by making some changes in your behavior over a 2-3 week period. The intention is for you to actually apply the concepts you are learning. After you actively experiment with your idea, you’ll write a 2-page report (2+ full pages typed, double-spaced). Due on turnitin.com only. Include: 1) the class concept you chose to test in your everyday life (home/school/work) 2) a detailed description of the specific actions you took over a 2-3 week period 3) the results you got 4) your analysis of the results 5) your conclusions (what you learned about your original concept).
7 HUMI 1: “Creative Minds” The ‘Personal Experiment’ AssignmentPoint (1): “I believe that asking students to apply and actually LIVE their learning is a way to invite deep, embodied learning and higher order thinking.” PHIL08 (Ethics), SLO4: Formulate an application of this discourse to one’s own personal decision making.
8 HUMI 1: “Creative Minds” The ‘Personal Experiment’ AssignmentPoint (1): “I believe that asking students to apply and actually LIVE their learning is a way to invite deep, embodied learning and higher order thinking.” What does it look like to assess ‘lived learning?
9 HUMI 1: “Creative Minds” The ‘Personal Experiment’ AssignmentSample submission The next behavioral change that I made in my same old routine was to walk barefoot on the ground either of my backyard or the park right next to my house. As our skin is a living organism it breathes and absorbs many useful elements such as vitamins and minerals from the earth to grow and revitalize. Last weekend, I went to Santa Cruz boardwalk, and decided to go barefoot on the beach. I simply dug my feet inside the cold sand and that felt extremely relaxing. These elements such as negative ions from the natural salts, vitamins and minerals in the sand and sea have magnificent healing effects on the skin and body, and also act as a relaxing agent for our minds. In short, I loved the experience of the direct touch of earth, sand, soil, grass and water on my feet, as direct experience was the actual truth for me, I find truth in the things I experience directly in the form of touch, sight or smell rather than looking at drawing of a beach or watching a documentary on nature on television.
10 HUMI 1: “Creative Minds” The ‘Personal Experiment’ AssignmentSample submission On Wednesday, I had to stay in class for a longer period of time so by the time class ended, it was late at night. As I entered the highway, it was packed because of rush hour so I finally arrived home over an hour later. Once I arrived, I was in a bad mood because I was tired and hungry so I used Eisenstein’s theory acknowledge the way I felt. Once I acknowledged my feelings and did nothing, I strangely felt calm. I don’t know why I felt this way but once I walked through the front door I wasn’t in a bad mood, I felt happy that I eventually made it home. I didn’t have an argument with my mom and I talked more with my family instead of hibernating in my room. I think the reason why we have the habit to be moody and take it out on others is because we are in a routine of acting a certain way. I feel that if I don’t react a certain way, I won’t feel better but it’s the opposite. I should acknowledge how I feel in order to be calmer.
11 HUMI 1: “Creative Minds” The ‘Personal Experiment’ AssignmentPoint (1): “I believe that asking students to apply and actually LIVE their learning is a way to invite deep, embodied learning and higher order thinking.” What does this tell you about how the student’s coursework affects his lived experiences? Do you do anything similar to this (formally or informally) in your own courses?
12 HUMI 1: “Creative Minds” The ‘Personal Experiment’ AssignmentPoint (2): “We define creativity as having access to the field of infinite possibilities in any situation, so their experiments are an exercise in practical creativity both in terms of the design and also of the application of their experiments.” “Our ‘original mind’ includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. You should not lose your self-sufficient state of mind. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.” -Shunryu Suzuki, from Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
13 HUMI 1: “Creative Minds” The ‘Personal Experiment’ AssignmentPoint (2): “We define creativity as having access to the field of infinite possibilities in any situation, so their experiments are an exercise in practical creativity both in terms of the design and also of the application of their experiments.” "You have to be careful about control… You have to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places. You have to break them of their habits or you don't explore, you only play what is confident and pleasing. I'm learning to break those habits by playing instruments I know absolutely nothing about, like a bassoon or a waterphone(4)…Play it… There are no experts or beginners." -Tom Waits, From “The Music of Chance”, Mark Richards, Spin Magazine June 1994
14 HUMI 1: “Creative Minds” The ‘Personal Experiment’ AssignmentSample submission On Tuesday, my mom came home in the evening so she was tired from working all day. At some point, we argued over something small and I kept jumping to conclusions whenever my mom spoke. I was experiencing fortune-telling when I assumed what my mom was going to say. I challenged this cognitive distortion when I remembered an idea told in my creative minds class, everyone continuously changes. I applied this to my mom and realized that her ideas are constantly changing everyday. I can’t assume and jump to a conclusion on what she’s going to say if her comments are different, compared to the past. This challenge is called identify the distortion, where you realize your negative thoughts and see if it is involved with one of the distortions. I noticed that once I stopped jumping to conclusions, my mind opened to my mom’s changing perspective and I started to sympathize and understand. After realizing one of my distortions for the first time, I concluded that it may be difficult but it is possible.
15 HUMI 1: “Creative Minds” The ‘Personal Experiment’ AssignmentPoint (2): “We define creativity as having access to the field of infinite possibilities in any situation, so their experiments are an exercise in practical creativity both in terms of the design and also of the application of their experiments.” What does this tell you about how well/sincerely the student has embraced ‘beginner’s mind’ in her chosen topic? How do you encourage students to ‘become beginners’ in your own courses?
16 HUMI 1: “Creative Minds” The ‘Personal Experiment’ AssignmentPoint (3): “The students often choose to experiment with different ways of learning, studying, and thinking in their math, physics, history, English, etc. classes - cutting quite across the board in terms of disciplines.”
17 HUMI 1: “Creative Minds” The ‘Personal Experiment’ AssignmentSample submission First, starting off by incorporating play in my studies is that I am taking spanish this year for the first time. I think that one of the best ways to incorporate to learn language is by playing. Taking an example of how children learn english at an early age. So, I did a bit of digging and looked up a few songs such as a spanish song with the alphabet to help remember pronunciation and a few verb songs to help remember the different conjugation of verbs. I also had a test this week and I ended up doing better than the last exam I took in the class about 2 weeks ago. Some other few examples of incorporating play is that I made flash cards, But I didn’t just read off of flash cards I decided to make a game out of the flash cards to see if I can play with the words. By writing them into cards I can make Spanish kind of like something I can touch and move around with. So I decided to play a memory card game where you put all cards face down and try to match cards. This was a unique way I haven’t done before to study but it did make studying a lot more engaging.
18 HUMI 1: “Creative Minds” The ‘Personal Experiment’ AssignmentPoint (3): “The students often choose to experiment with different ways of learning, studying, and thinking in their math, physics, history, English, etc. classes - cutting quite across the board in terms of disciplines.” How do create opportunities for your students to see relationships between the learning outcomes of your course and others they might be taking? How often are you surprised by interdisciplinary connections that your students call to your attention?