From Creative Learning to Creative Teaching

Course Code: CLCT

What is this course about?

The course aims to empower adults in general, and especially, parents, student teachers and teachers to find their own creative potential in order to live a fuller life in seeing old things in new ways, in seeing the joy in doing and in seeing the glory in thinking in more original ways. It hopes to help people to get out of the box of traditional responses triggered by traditional lower order thinking skills. The natural corollary to this is that parents and teachers will go on to teach their wards ways in which they can learn in a more natural way how to keep their inborn creative responses nurtured through stimulation and willing practice. In this way we may move more towards a culture of creativity.

What are the aims of the course?

• To change perceptions about the way we learn and the way we teach
• To practise techniques to develop good habits for life in being life long learners and seekers of a more creative culture, through journal writing and preparing a portfolio.
• To understand the importance of learning by reading, thinking and doing.
• To analyse the concept and the behaviours of creativity through looking at creativity itself, creative thinking and modes of evaluation.
• To select from a given list of exercises, and from your own further reading, those exercises which you can try out and evaluate as a small piece of action research, either in your family, with your friends or in your classes.

Who is this course for?

• Parents, teachers, student teachers, and anyone who is interested in analysing creativity and becoming more aware of the creative potential in the human being.
• People who wish to learn about holism and holistic methods
• Parents, teachers and anyone who wishes to change his relationships with his peers and wards.
• Parents and teachers who see the value of extending the present rather dry learning systems into more exciting, happier, motivating environments
• People who wish to develop either personally or professionally but who live in places where resources and courses are sparse.
• People who really want to change and are prepared to try out the exercises for themselves and learn to self evaluate.

How long is the course?

Six weeks

Contents:

Module 1: Introduction

1. Who is this course for?
2. How will the course be organized?
3. Portfolio Assessment
4. How to write a Portfolio
5. Learning Strategies for the Portfolio
      a) Interactive Journal Writing
      b) How to go about preparing the Small Scale Action Research
      c) How to go about Think Time
      d) How to do Musings
6. Starting to work

Module 2: What is creativity?

1. Examining definitions
2. Applying definitions to real-life situations
3. Breaking down myths
4. Relating creativity to chaos theory
5. Some fun examples to relate the theory to the practice.

Module 3: Creative Thinking

1. What is "thinking"?
2. Why do we need to discuss "THINKING "?
3. How many types of thinking exist?
4. What is thinking in life compared to thinking in "school"?
5. The role of creativity in problem solving and critical thinking.
6. How is creative thinking different from other forms of thinking?
7. How does creative thinking relate to higher order thinking skills?
8. Some fun examples to try out.

Module 4: Evaluation procedures for creativity

1. Integrating evaluation techniques into creative teaching and learning.
2. How to devise criteria
3. Summative and Formative Evaluation
4. A peek at PALMS (Parent and Active Learner Meetings) and portfolios.

Methodology

• This course will be taught on the Internet through the NET-LEARNING System. It is all on-line
• It will be structured around questioning, thinking, speaking, reading and writing.
• Interactive Journal writing will be an integral part of the course.
• Portfolio production will be taught and will form part of the evaluation.
• Weekly forums will be held, moderated by the tutor
• A small piece of action research will be set up, designed around the suggestions for specific activities and will form part of the evaluation

Evaluation

The course is evaluated by continuous assessment of the journal and a final assignment in two areas:
1. Continuous assessment of Interactive Journal Writing
• The journal of a minimum of 500 words should be sent by e-mail at the end of each week, on the following Monday morning. ( 25 marks)

2. Submission of a portfolio in week 6 (50 marks)
• Interactive Journal writing (6 items)
• Think Time Responses for all exercises.
• Musings (evidence of extra thought recorded with date)
• Rough Work for Action Research
• Glossary, vocabulary, idioms
• Bibliography (articles, websites, books etc)

3. A report on a small action research project of approximately 700 words (25 marks), submitted in the portfolio.

4. Accreditation will be recognized by a certificate at the following levels Grading
Distinction: 90-100%
Merit: 75-89%
Pass: 60-74%

Instruction and Tutorials

Reception and delivery of the materials and the forum will be through the Internet on NET- LEARNING. The tutor is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Tutor

Susan Hillyard B.Ed.
Susan Hillyard was awarded a B.Ed.from Warwick University (U.K.) in 1972 in Dramatic Arts and Sociology and has lived and worked, since then, as a classroom teacher, a coordinator or Head of Sector and a teacher trainer in five different countries; England, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Spain and now, Argentina. Most recently she has taught Language IV at both the National Teacher Training College in Buenos Aires (I.S.P. en Lenguas Vivas) and at the National University of Technology (U.T.N) She was the Director of the ESSARP Teachers´ Centre, Buenos Aires, for five years from 1993-1998 where she organised professional development courses and conferences for teachers in bilingual schools from KG to Secondary in both English and Spanish.
Her most recent full-time post was as Secondary English Headmistress at Wellspring School , Del Viso, Argentina . She is now working as a freelance teacher trainer, speaker and educational consultant. She is educational advisor for "The Performers", an educational theatre group which produces plays for three levels in English and performs all over South America and beyond. She has co-authored a Resource Book for Teachers (edited by Alan Maley, Oxford University Press) entitled "Global Issues".