21st Century Skills

Promoting Creativity and Innovation in the Classroom

Narrator: A creative and innovative curriculum emphasizes big ideas and conceptual patterns rather than discrete information taught in isolation.

John L. Brown: How do we get kids to see the purposefulness of what they're learning, what's been called the "compelling why?": Why am I learning this? Where am I going? Why am I going there?

Teacher: I've been in this classroom, I've had this class on a dark, cloudy day when I couldn't see. The next students are going to come in next year, they're going to flip a light switch and say, "Wow, how'd this happen?"

Narrator: Students in successful classrooms understand not only what they're doing, but why they're doing it and how it connects to the world beyond the classroom.

Teacher: The process of installing things, finding out where to place things, where to place a switch, where to place an electrical box, that sort of deepens their understanding of how technology works with people.

Brown: Really making students see how what they're doing in the classroom connects to the world beyond it.

Lance Baldwin, Technical Education Teacher: All the materials you'll need are right over there. OK? Let's kick it.

Student 1: So at first when we were assigning the houses, a lot the architects, we decided to think of previous houses that we've been to and how they're structured. And then we had some requirements, a bedroom, bathroom, closet, kitchen, and you'd have to have a little laundry room.

We were divided into teams of three. We had one engineer, one builder, and one architect. The engineer was responsible for how best we could save energy. The builders, they had to do a lot of cutting; I think that's the most painful process of this entire job. And the architect, me, and the builder, we'd have to do a lot of communicating with each other to make sure that everything went properly.

Student 2: We all have to work together to get it, the whole house, together.

Student 3: It's kind of interesting to learn how to design stuff and make them actually fit into a real 3-D model of that. For example, if I was going to be an engineer when I grow up, it's nice to know how everything can be put together.

Christina Martin, Elementary Teacher, Sargent Shriver Elementary School: As the year moved on, I gave them different responsibilities, just using role cards for their literature circle. So there's a discussion director, and that person's in charge of asking the questions and making sure that the conversation keeps moving.

Student 4: Some of the questions I have: What are examples of the problem?

Martin: And there's a connector who actually reads the book and tries to make personal connections to their lives and to the other students' lives.

Narrator: Innovative corporations, such as Intel and Google, use progressive workspaces to promote collaboration.

Cole Camplese, Director of Education Technology Services, Pennsylvania State University: We put in a new studio space that's not for digital media or anything. We call it Café ETS. And it used to be a little multimedia center, but now it's just a place with some chairs. The lighting's a little softer. It's a place where you can go and sort of chill out.

Cheryl Lemke, CEO, Metiri Group: The Metiri Group was launched with the idea of moving into 21st century learning, and our vehicle for doing that is technology. It's podcasting, and it's social networking, and it's research online, and it's digital storytelling.

Anna Levin: When they present their stories, they'll have a choice in how they do that. They might do a podcast. If they want some visuals with their story, they could do Movie Maker or Photo Story. If they want to, they can do a PowerPoint. If they want to just get up and tell their story, they can do that.

Student 5: So I decided to do an audiobook, and so I recorded it on the computer and then I submitted it through the Blackboard and to Miss Levin. So basically she can just play it on Monday. Right now, I'm deciding if I want to make a visual to go with it.

Student 6: What I'm doing today is making a podcast to show how families have traveled on the Oregon Trail, like the dangers and things that could have happened.

Student 7: I'm thinking of doing a blog where people can post their favorite characters, because I've been doing the Harry Potter series lately. I'm going to put Ron Weasley from the book because he's really funny.

Levin: I want them to come up with their own ideas and feel like they have ownership.

Source: From 21st Century Skills: Promoting Creativity and Innovation in the Classroom, (DVD), 2009, Alexandria, VA: ASCD.