Breaking Free from Myths About Teaching and Learning: Innovation as an Engine for Student Success

Designing Tasks to Focus Student Work and Measure Mission-Driven Goals

Reflection Question

Students first arrive at the schoolhouse door full of wonderment, questions, and a desire to explore the world. But when the work of school turns to the coverage and testing of new knowledge in isolation from prior knowledge and the real world, students lose sight of the purpose of school. Instead of looking for satisfaction from the simple joy of learning, they begin to rely on less satisfying, more superficial sources of meaning, such as good grades or making parents happy. Robert Fried (2005) makes a moving case for ceasing "the game of school"—a game where teachers and students "earnestly comply with what they feel to be their duty":When we allow ourselves to gear ourselves up so as to complete school tasks that have little meaning for us aside from the value of getting them done and over with, we lose touch with our own learning spirit. We become alienated from the natural learning desires and inquisitiveness within us. We tend to become compliant rather than creative, docile instead of courageous, inwardly passive instead of assertively engaged, cynical at a time in life when we should be idealistic. (p. 14)

Students thrive when they have the opportunity to engage in curricular tasks as well as those that they personalize and pursue because of their own areas of passion, direction, and purpose. Rigor and relevance not only come from the prior knowledge, life experience, and cultural frame of reference of the learner, but also emanate from the work that experts do in the field and that citizens do as part of their civic responsibility.

making creativity a central component of student problem solving, product development, and expression;
providing opportunities for students to personalize the work based on their interests, preferred ways of working, prior knowledge, self-generated inquiries, and future aspirations;
making revision a universal policy of the classroom, school, or system so that all students have the right and the opportunity to improve their work based on clear feedback and support from staff;
developing grading and reporting systems that provide transparent measures of achievement; and
establishing electronic repositories that house completed tasks so that students graduate from school with a record of their accomplishments …

THEN we can engage all learners in the acquisition of key knowledge and skills and the development of connections so that they can pursue powerful questions, tackle complex problems, collaborate with diverse people, imagine new possibilities, and communicate their ideas.

Tasks should be authentic.
Tasks should meet a shared definition of quality.
Tasks should result in a record of accomplishment.
Tasks should engender struggle.
Tasks should be enjoyable.

When these characteristics are addressed through the design of tasks, scoring tools, and grading and reporting practices, assessment plays a much more meaningful role in the learning organization. It not only provides more powerful evidence for student achievement of mission-driven goals, it also strengthens clarity of purpose and the connections between schoolwork and "real" work.

Tasks Should Be Authentic

Authenticity refers to the degree to which the task mirrors the work processes and formats that govern the work of professionals in a field or discipline. This authenticity requires much more than a "hands-on" experience, integration of technology, or identification of an audience for the work. Learners must have the opportunity to develop their thinking and produce important work using appropriate tools and conventions. The three examples below illustrate the work that goes into creating authentic tasks and incorporating them into the curriculum; we will observe grades 6–12 school staff, high school academy staff, and K–12 science staff.

Authenticity in Grades 6–12

In this case study, middle and high school staff in several subject areas were working to improve the quality of summative assessments through the articulation of performance standards. While staff had extraordinarily high expectations of their students, school leaders believed that the existing assessment practices focused too much on recall, surface-level explanations of thinking, and decontextualized problem solving and communication tasks. We started by creating performance standards in each subject area to delineate what quality tasks—tasks that are authentic to the discipline, require transfer of learning, and incorporate 21st century skills—should measure. Listed below are the standards developed for math, science, English, and history.

Math

Analyze a problem situation to identify patterns and make predictions.
Create and execute a solution path(s) to determine the most effective or reasonable solution.
Analyze and justify the solution to effectively communicate results.
Create questions or goals based on (but not limited to) connections to prior knowledge that stimulate further exploration or analysis.

Science

Use observations and integrated knowledge to generate investigable questions and/or goals that stimulate exploration.
Generate and evaluate hypotheses that make testable predictions.
Design investigations using appropriate scientific tools, resources, and representations to generate evidence that addresses the original questions and hypotheses.
Analyze data and arrive at justifiable conclusions that are effectively communicated to an audience.
Engage in ongoing exchange of information, ideas, and approaches to develop a plan, communicate findings, and/or evaluate the validity of results.

English

Create questions or connections that enrich and stimulate further exploration/analysis.
Articulate the circumstances, evidence, and train of thought that led to the interpretation.
Evaluate the validity of a range of interpretations to deepen or challenge their own assumptions/conclusions.
Conceive a product that reflects individual voice and new insight.
Conceive, create, and revise a text to make sure it is appropriate for the audience.

History

Analyze a given situation to identify patterns and make predictions.
Assess the validity of information and the intent of the individual/organization presented in any text.
Adapt the way they explain and support their ideas based on audience and task.
Pose questions and examine underlying assumptions to construct meaning and broaden understanding.
Collaborate with people of various backgrounds and perspectives to generate ideas and achieve a common goal.

The next step was for each department to identify or create performance tasks that would provide students the opportunity to do this work. Staff adopted a critical friends protocol, which guided their conversations in subject-area teams as they evaluated good performance tasks in order to determine alignment with performance standards and, based on that analysis, discussed how to improve the task. Included below is one example of how this process triggered a redesign of an existing task in honors biology.

Original Question

Why is variation so important for evolution?
What are the molecular and genetic causes of variation?

Explanation for Redesign

The original question addresses some very important and fundamental aspects of evolutionary theory and the integration between molecular biology and evolution. When we first asked the question on a final exam, we received many tangential and unexpected responses, showing that the question was too broad and unfocused.

We wanted to rework the question entirely, still addressing some of the important concepts, but providing more focus and more connection to the performance-based assessment design standards. We also wanted the students to have the opportunity to be creative in applying the concepts they were learning over the course of the semester.

The idea for the redesign came from a scenario I remembered from my evolution course in graduate school, in which an entire population of Laysan ducks was founded from a single female. The redesigned question (below) emphasizes the process of evolution and the role of variation, and gives the students many options for approaching the question while applying evolutionary concepts. It addresses the science department design standards involving generating hypotheses, analyzing data, arriving at justifiable conclusions, and communicating effectively to an audience.

The next step will be to design a grading rubric to take into account the variety of possible responses that will still show correct application of the concepts. We will also end up having to rework the rest of the exam or come up with creative solutions for administering the exam (e.g., in parts over several days), because the performance-based tasks we are asking students to perform will take more time.

Redesigned Question

The Laysan duck is the most endangered species of waterfowl in the United States. There are approximately 500 birds living in the Hawaiian Islands, in two distinct populations. One of the populations, at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), was founded from only approximately 26 breeding individuals.

Does the small size of the initial population of breeding individuals pose a problem for genetic diversity in the Laysan duck? Why or why not?
Is there any aspect of the Laysan duck habitat that may help increase genetic variation in the species and aid in its recovery?

The Midway Atoll is an isolated island, 2.4 square miles, part of a chain of volcanic islands in the Pacific Ocean.
It is home to 18 different species of bird (2–3 million individuals) that nest on almost every available square foot of the island.
There are no natural predators on the island to threaten the adult birds, but the eggs can fall prey to rats.
Because the Midway Atoll does attract tourists, there are problems with pollution, especially plastic debris that can kill the birds if they ingest it.

Write your report to your superiors at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Note that you do not need to use every piece of information provided above. You can pick certain facts and use them as a basis for speculation about the future of the Laysan duck.

The value of this process is that it creates a common framework to both design and review performance assessments so that both the quality of the design work and the capacity of the students to do this work improve. Staff were able to give feedback to one another on the creation of a task without foisting their own preferences on the designer or making the designer feel personally affronted by the advice.

Authenticity in a High School Academy

The next example comes from a consulting project with the staff from a high school law and government academy. The goal was to identify essential 21st century skills that would address the theme of their magnet school and prepare students for postsecondary success.

Key Skills That Run Through Academy Tasks

Pose and respond to pointed questions.
Conduct oneself in a professional, intelligent manner: etiquette, appropriate language, technical vocabulary.
Calculate budget: estimate costs, propose ways to finance, and execute/revisit plan.
Collaborate with others to complete an assigned task.
Analyze range of sources/points of view to identify bias, logic in order to develop informed opinion.
Use evidence (information, data, statistics, salient quotations) to support thinking.
Develop an idea/position and advocate for it through the development of texts (written, visual, oral, multimedia).
Select appropriate language, techniques, processes, tools, and/or media that communicate the desired message and capture others' attention.
Think "outside of the box"—agile, innovative approaches to a given problem.
Make connections to current events at the local, national, and global levels.
Deliver a professional/publishable presentation.
Research a topic to gain background knowledge—ability to select pertinent information.
Collect data, analyze to determine patterns/trends, display appropriately so that decisions can be made.
Use key technology tools (software, hardware) to communicate with others.

It took the staff less than two hours to draft these skills and to achieve consensus. What proved much more difficult was determining how to embed them into the design of summative assessments. While the desirability of these skills was apparent to participants during the articulation process, they turned out to be tangential or missing from most of the major assessments that students had been asked to complete. The next step, then, was for us to identify or create new tasks that bridged the worlds of school and life in a 21st century world that will both motivate students and provide means to measure their achievement. Figure 4.1 lists several tasks developed by the academy staff.

Source: Law and Government Academy at Hartford Public School. Reprinted by permission.

The authentic messiness and rigor of these tasks require students to intensify their focus and become truly immersed in the work. Not only will these challenges result in improved performance, but they also provide students with the powerful opportunity to enjoy learning in the present moment and discover the relevance of their schoolwork.

Authenticity in Grades K–12 Science

Another approach to improve the authenticity of assessments and coherence of assessment design is to articulate the range of possible tasks that professionals "do" in the field. After collecting possibilities, teachers examine existing assessments to identify what type of task they are and/or revise the task directions and scoring tools to boost authenticity. Science staff in a school district in Texas worked together to delineate the assessment vehicles that scientists use as part of their inquiry and communication of findings. Prior to this work, they had typically written "lab" in their unit plans as an authentic assessment. However, it was abundantly clear to all of the participants that not all labs were equal in cognitive demand or authenticity expected. They established three types of inquiry tasks that reflect these differences (see Figure 4.2).

Source: Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District. Reprinted by permission.

Immediately after these examples were articulated, a participant asked, "Do we have to do all three types of inquiry tasks? I don't know who, if anyone, has students do full inquiry tasks." I replied to the group, asking, "Is it reasonable that as part of their PreK–12 science education students have at least two to three opportunities to do this work?"

Another participant responded, "Well, of course. That's what science is." Then the first participant asked, "But how do we find the time to do that kind of science with everything else we have to do?" There was a long pause, then: "I guess I just answered my own question! We have to find time in the curriculum to do science." Participants then went on the hunt for meaningful places to build in full inquiry tasks. This exchange reveals the expeditious assessment "ruts" we have developed in lieu of keeping in mind the more robust learning goals that are fundamental to the discipline. Interestingly enough, many state standards documents have been revised in recent years to reflect these more global aims.

A Shared Definition of Quality

Authentic tasks require the creation of scoring tools that place appropriate emphasis on quality of thinking, the ability to execute the task, and the effectiveness of the result. It is important to teach our learners that grades are not personal, but a description of their current achievement. When we provide learners with candid feedback based on an established and consistent set of criteria, they can focus on what they can do to improve their work instead of trying to "work the system" or hope the rules change to curry more success. Therefore, scoring tools and grading policies should not be impersonal as well. Rubrics should be collectively developed and adopted by classroom teachers so that learners trust that their performance is driven by the nature of the discipline, not the personal preferences of the teacher.

A school district in Virginia developed an impressive collection of rubrics to evaluate 21st century skills. The premise was that if these skills were measured on a K–12 continuum, then teachers would work to embed them in a meaningful way in assessment design and grading and reporting systems. An excerpt from their continuum can be found in Figure 4.3.

Source: Virginia Beach City Public Schools. Reprinted by permission.

This continuum was developed by a heavyweight team (see Chapter 3) composed of individuals who represented a range of expertise in curriculum content, knowledge of diversity of learners, and expectations for postsecondary success. This mix of curriculum specialists, school leaders, and community members devoted four full days to craft language that was coherent, multidisciplinary, and ambitious. Once the design task was completed, the team disbanded and the work became the responsibility of existing middleweight teams (curriculum content area teachers, division leadership teams, school faculties) to determine what existing tasks would provide evidence of student learning on the continua and to develop new tasks that would provide additional evidence and opportunity to learn.

Record of Accomplishment

While a high school diploma and transcript indicate the completion of necessary course credits and examinations, they do not provide learners (or their future employers) with clarity about what students accomplished during their time in school. Perhaps one of the most powerful but most overlooked components of authentic assessment is the documentation of student work in portfolios. Portfolios have had moments of popularity (most notably in the areas of English language arts and visual arts); ideally, they comprise a collection of a learner's work throughout his or her time in school demonstrating the achievement of mission-driven goals. The collection should include both required tasks designed by the teacher and self-generated tasks pursued out of genuine interest, curiosity, and passion.

Recent improvements in the ability of districts to warehouse data and the ability of adults to effectively access electronic information will contribute to the potential power of these records. Imagine if every learner led an annual conference with teachers and parents to explain what pieces best exemplified his or her current achievement (as measured by an established continuum or set of criteria), which was followed by a strategy session identifying what goals, approaches, and opportunities would best support the learner's continued growth in the following school year. This conference could take place as a physical meeting or a virtual discussion to provide periodic updates based on new work completed and to review the effectiveness of personalized plans. This collection of work would also provide valuable information to potential employers, admissions officers, coaches, and mentors about a learner's demonstrated achievement.

Encouraging Students to Struggle

For authentic tasks to motivate our learners, students must come to accept those tasks as challenging, achievable, and worthy of the attempt. The challenge of the task comes from requiring something deeper than a memory-based response. Learners must apply what they already know, are able to do, and understand to make sense of an unfamiliar or daunting situation. It should be explicitly clear to everyone in the classroom that there will be no speedy answers, no instant gratification, and no quick fixes. Teachers should openly discuss the frustration, obstacles, and roadblocks that are to be expected and embraced.

Nevertheless, it is important that the task be achievable, and carefully designed by staff so that students have the appropriate space to succeed. Rubrics and exemplars should communicate clear expectations about what quality looks like, informing the development, reflection, and revision of work. Learners should receive feedback about their work based on rubric criteria that provide them with clarity needed to improve performance. Teachers should emphasize the importance of revision through their grading policies and allocation of time (both within scheduled class time and outside of class).

Finally, the task must be worthy of effort to learners, helping them see the connection between what they are doing and the real world. While they may feel anxious about their ability to be successful, they can trust that their attempts will teach them more about the subject and about themselves. They will also find worth in the notion that what they are doing has the potential to benefit a larger community: their words, ideas, solution paths, data, and products could add value to the lives of others. With authentic tasks, they will experience kinship with other students and professionals in the field who engage in similar tasks and experience similar highs and lows.

Making Learning Enjoyable

Authentic tasks are worth the struggle for students not just because they lay the groundwork for future success, but because they are enjoyable in the present. In order to deeply enjoy an experience, the learner must become immersed in the work. This conception of enjoyment is quite different from pleasure, according to Csikszentmihalyi (1990): "A person can feel pleasure without any effort, if the appropriate centers in his brain are electrically stimulated, or as a result of the chemical stimulation of drugs. But it is impossible to enjoy a tennis game, a book, or a conversation unless attention is fully concentrated on the activity" (p. 46).

It is important to underscore that enjoyment does not supplant intensity or rigor. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Students' immersion in a task results in higher-quality work because they are committed to what they are doing instead of just being committed to getting it finished. Csikszentmihalyi notes, "What counts is to set a goal, to concentrate one's psychic energy, to pay attention to feedback, and to make certain that the challenge is appropriate to one's skill. Sooner or later the interaction will begin to hum, and the flow experience follows" (pp. 190–191). Enjoyment is absolutely intrinsic—it cannot be invoked by a gold star, a report card grade, or a pizza party.

Emphasis on Creativity in Task Design

Creativity depends upon a strong knowledge base and ongoing rigorous skill development.
Creativity is quantified through research as a predictable process.
Creativity is developed through habit.

While creativity is only one of the established 21st century skills (think back to Chapter 2), it is often the most undervalued or marginalized in school curricula. Educators and policymakers have primarily delegated creativity to the fine arts (which students may engage in for as little as 20 minutes per week) and to a handful of grade-level expectations in English language arts. The more robust definitions of creativity come from 21st century skills initiatives. Figure 4.4 shows the way the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2009) incorporates the definition of creativity and innovation as part of its learning framework. Upon reading definitions like this one, many educators struggle to figure out how to engage students in this type of thinking and working. Not only are there other curricular and assessment priorities, but educators also are genuinely confused about how to develop creativity within their subject-area coursework.

Source: From "P21 Framework Definitions," by Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2009. Available online: www.p21.org/documents/P21_Framework_Definitions.pdf. Reprinted by permission.

To address this confusion, let's begin with a basic working definition of creativity. Sir Ken Robinson (2006) suggests a simple but powerful one: "the process of having original ideas that have value." These ideas are generated by the learner as a result of the connections they create, often through capturing information, ideas, and flashes of insight.

Grounded in Knowledge

Many children and adults alike underestimate the role of skill and hard work in the development of creativity. The "greats" in sports, science, the arts, and business are viewed by many as mythological legends who are able to see and do what is impossible to mere mortals. Carol Dweck (2006) points to classic childhood stories that perpetuate this notion that effort is what the less capable resort to because they lack natural ability:The story of the tortoise and the hare, in trying to put forward the power of effort, gave effort a bad name. It reinforced the image that effort is for plodders and suggested that in rare instances, when talented people dropped the ball, the plodder could sneak through. The little engine that could, the saggy, baggy elephant, and the scruffy tugboat—they were cute, they were often overmatched, and we were happy for them when they succeeded. … The problem was that these stories made it into an either-or. Either you have ability or you expend effort. And this is part of the fixed mindset. Effort is for those who don't have the ability. People with the fixed mindset tell us, "If you have to work at something, you must not be good at it." They add, "Things come easily to people who are true geniuses." (pp. 39–40)

The truth is much less fanciful. While some are born endowed with great capacities, all humans are natural learners who have the capacity for creativity and intelligence. Consider the joy so many young children experience when they are given the opportunity to paint. They imagine vivid stories in their heads that take form on the paper. They use their brushes, their fingers, their colors to bring those ideas to life. They are fearless. And then one day, many of them change. They become reluctant to pick up a paintbrush, worried when what is in their heads doesn't "look right" on paper, fearful that their work does not measure up to that of other students. They often decide that they are not artists and stop engaging in the production. Creativity requires the innocence and/or tenacity to remain fearless so that the mind remains open to an array of possibilities.

Creativity also requires the commitment to mastering key skills, procedures, and terminology that are the basis of a discipline. Teachers must openly challenge the misconception that creativity falls out of the sky or is accessible only to a select few. This point is critical to improving the receptivity of teachers, students, and parents to including creativity instruction in the curriculum. Following are several quotations that speak to the need to study the work of creativity "masters" intensively as a foundation for one's own creative developments.It is a mistake to assume that creativity and rote learning are incompatible. Some of the most original scientists, for instance, have been known to have memorized music, poetry, or historical information extensively. (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, p. 123)Mozart once said, "People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not studied many times." (Tharp, 2003, pp. 8–9)

These notions about creativity, espoused by great artists and scientists, are also supported by neuroscientists. When learners work until the point that a skill becomes automatic and knowledge is instantly accessible, working memory is freed up to think about more interesting ideas. Here are two key scientific findings put forth by Daniel Willingham (2009) about the necessity of acquisition of knowledge and practice of skill in order to become more advanced: You practice not only to get faster. What's important is getting so good that [it] becomes automatic. If it's automatic you have freed working-memory space … that can now be devoted to thinking about meaning. (p. 87)All of the information in long-term memory resides outside of awareness. It lies quietly until needed, and then enters working memory so it becomes conscious. … Thinking occurs when you combine information (from the environment and long-term memory) in new ways. That combining happens in working memory. (p. 11)

While deep knowledge and fluent skills are vital to learning, they are not the ultimate goal of one's education. The purpose of deep study and diligent practice is to cultivate one's own ideas—to be able to apply learning to make sense of new problems, challenges, and inquiries. The challenge comes in determining how to balance learners' need to engage in deep study and practice with their need to "play" and apply what they have learned through creative problem solving and expression.

The Four-Step Process of Creativity

Creativity appears to be an amorphous concept to many, but the elements of the creative thinking process are actually quite consistently documented in both research and in autobiographical and biographical descriptions of accomplished creative individuals in their respective fields. To delve deeper into the nature of creativity, it is useful to break it down into its component parts: Many researchers see creative thinking as a four-step process: preparation, incubation, illumination and verification or revision. Preparation is consciously studying a task, and perhaps trying to attack it logically by standard means. Incubation, the "mystical" step, is one in which both the conscious mind and the subconscious mull over the problem in hard-to-define ways. Illumination, the "Eureka!" step, is seeing a new synthesis; and verification and revision include all the work that comes after. (Florida, 2004, p. 33)

These four steps are explored in more detail below through a deliberate pairing of two very different authorities on the subject: Dr. Robert Epstein, a prominent researcher on creativity, and Twyla Tharp, a renowned choreographer. The intent of the pairing is to model how fresh thoughts arise when we broaden the scope of our inquiry beyond current areas of expertise.

Preparation

Creativity requires seeking out knowledge through deliberate actions as well as being open to intuitive ones. While there may be a defined task to complete with an expected deadline, the preparation phase can be unpredictable as an individual begins to discover the nature of the problem. A key challenge for the individual is to develop a plan or process that provides some structure for the endeavor while remaining receptive to new ideas and directions. According to Tharp, Your creative endeavors can never be thoroughly mapped out ahead of time. You have to allow for the suddenly altered landscape, the change in plan, the accidental spark—and you have to see it as a stroke of luck rather than a disturbance of your perfect scheme. Habitually creative people are, in E. B. White's phrase, "prepared to be lucky." … Remaining open to "fresh thoughts" is vital as many new imaginings can become inflexible. It's tempting to try to rein in the unruliness of the creative process, especially at the start. Planning lets you impose order on the chaotic process of making something new, but when it's taken too far you get locked into a status quo, and creative thinking is about breaking free from the status quo, even one you made yourself. That's why it's vital to know the difference between good planning and too much planning. (2003, pp. 120–122)

Preparation, then, requires the opportunity to inhabit a problem and make sense of it. The work involves practicing existing skills, acquiring new knowledge, capturing snippets of ideas (whether partially developed, random, or vividly apparent), developing and following a direction, and investing the effort to get ready to "get lucky."

Incubation

Incubation requires the space to play with ideas and sit with questions without worrying about the quality or reception of the end result. Space is multidimensional here—it is the emotional space to think without fear or self-doubt tearing down new ideas; it is the time to think without deadlines (arbitrary or actual) determining when the work is to be done; it is the physical space to think that provides comfort, structure, and inspiration to do one's best work; and it is the space in time where one lives that connects the present attempt to the deep knowledge of the masters that have come before this and the imagining of the greatness yet to come. Consider the following description of how Beethoven developed his ideas for musical compositions: Beethoven, despite his unruly reputation and his wild romantic image, was well organized. He saved everything in a series of notebooks that were organized according to the level of development of the idea. He had notebooks for rough ideas, notebooks for improvements on those ideas, and notebooks for finished ideas, almost as if he was pre-aware of an idea's early, middle and late stages. … He might take an original three-note motif and push it to its next stage by dropping one of the notes a half tone and doubling it. Then he'd let the idea sit there for another six months. It would reappear in a third notebook, again not copied but further improved, perhaps inverted this time and ready to be used in a piano sonata. He never puts the ideas back exactly the same. He always moves them forward, and by doing so, he re-energizes them. (Tharp, 2003, p. 83)

During this phase, the individual seeks new connections from an overwhelming array of thoughts, ideas, and sketches. The construction of these connections provides the possibility for breakthroughs in our knowledge of the world, our ability to tell a story, our development of a new product, and our capacity to empathize with others.

While the possibilities may generate excitement, this phase also can feel painful. Stress, anxiety, fear, and confusion can depress the individual who has invested tremendous attention and time into an endeavor that remains elusive. Neurologically, we are in fact "overloaded" as we work to create new meaning. Epstein elaborates: According to Generativity Theory, novel behavior (including the verbal and perceptual behaviors we often call "ideas") is the result of an orderly and dynamic competition among previously established behaviors, during which old behaviors blend or become interconnected in new ways. … The computational complexity of the process alone is probably enough to make it seem mysterious. New ideas often seem to come out of the blue, mainly because we cannot track the antecedent events or processes. (1999, p. 763)

Emotionally, we become worried that the combinatory play won't materialize, won't work, won't be well received, won't be worthy. Fears, cynicism, and self-doubt can halt the creative process because individuals give up too soon or worry too much about how others will judge them and their work. This phase requires tolerance for unpredictable paths, unexpected roadblocks, and unfortunate delays. Amid all of this cognitive and emotive frustration, there is a perceptible sense that the solution is almost within reach—that we have somehow gotten closer to what we have been searching for all along.

Illumination

The mystical component of creativity appears in the illumination phase. From seemingly out of nowhere, the solution, formula, phrasing, story, composition, or idea appears and the work and the individual are forever changed. Notable authors describe being "taken over" by the story as they create, as if the fictional characters use them as a medium. Notable musicians describe hearing the composition in their head and working feverishly to capture the fully realized sound as it plays in their minds. For a window in time, something has become unlocked in the mind of the creator that reveals truth, beauty, opportunity, and/or the powers of the universe. Knowing that this moment of illumination is possible drives the creator to remain vigilant in his or her expansion and refinement of skills and playful with the exploration of new ideas and materials, so that when the moment reveals itself, it is possible to capture it.

Verification and Revision

This final phase of creative work requires meticulous execution of the creative conception so that it can have the desired impact. The refinement of the product, reworking of the text, modification of the strategy, or adaptation of the original idea requires as much tenacity, skill, and perseverance as was demonstrated before the illumination phase. Elation with the concept can be overwhelmed by real obstacles in the production of the work and communication to a larger audience. Just because an individual figured something out does not mean that the rest of the world is prepared for it. In addition to honing the final product, the individual must also be prepared to defend, explain, and contextualize the evolution of the work so that it is more likely to be understood. The intent is not to justify the effort, but to clarify the value of this new synthesis of information and ideas. Ultimately, the worthiness of the work is not measured by accolades or financial rewards but by whether the creator believes that the work was meaningful.

Moving to Action

Now that the steps in the process of creativity have been established, it is appropriate to consider how to embed this progression into all levels of the learning organization.

What Can One Teacher Do?

While all individuals have the capacity for creativity, it must be cultivated through the thinking we engage in and the time we commit to the work. Art Costa (2008) explains:Like strenuous movement, skillful thinking is hard work. And as with athletics, students need practice, reflection, and coaching to think well. With proper instruction, human thought processes can become more broadly applied, more spontaneously generated, more precisely focused, more complex and more insightfully divergent. (p. 21)

Let's look at four competencies of creativity (based on the research of Robert Epstein) in light of learning how to meet the challenge of embedding creativity into the daily work of the classroom: capturing, challenging, broadening, and surrounding. By translating these competencies into instructional habits, teachers can more consistently provide students with meaningful opportunities to play with ideas and produce original works.

The first instructional habit to encourage creativity in the classroom is to train students to capture their thinking. Whether they use a box, a sketchbook, a journal, or a collection of scrap papers, the habit of capturing puts students in the fascinating pursuit of engaging in work with no established purpose, deadline, or format. Far from being a waste of time, this eclectic collection becomes a constant source of inspiration for students in their own writing, experiments, and solution paths. They learn to tinker with their thinking, adjust their perspective, and hone their use of language because they are intrinsically motivated by the power of the idea. The first habit is the easiest to implement—ideas are everywhere once we become attuned to noticing them when they show up. Train students to notice them by creating a formal capturing time in the class period as well as a designated repository for their ideas (notebook, file folder, etc.). In addition, openly encourage students to add to this repository whenever inspiration strikes so that they can then resume focus on the task at hand. This collection does not need to be formally graded or evaluated. Instead, it provides a rich context for teacher-student conferences as well as a treasure trove of ideas for teachers and students to develop projects that provide the opportunity to explore an idea more deeply.

The second instructional habit is the creation of challenging problems for students to contemplate that push them beyond what they already know how to do. Epstein (2010) describes the importance of taking on such open-ended challenges. Teachers not only need to design problems that push students beyond their comfort zone, but also must teach students how to stay "stuck" for a while instead of giving up, looking for someone to do the thinking for them, or misinterpreting the struggle as a sign of stupidity.

Again, it is vital that students become acclimated to struggle as a sign of learning instead of a sign of weakness. Creative people view failure as important feedback in the development of their ideas. This does not make failure more pleasurable, but rather an unavoidable aspect of the endeavor. Twyla Tharp explains, "Failure creates an interesting tug of war between forgetting and remembering. It's vital to be able to forget the pain of failure while retaining the lessons from it" (2003, p. 214). Many teachers (and parents) flinch at the notion of students failing. Schools have become so averse to failure that they have attempted to scaffold learning to the point where failure is not an option. Problems are likely to have answers and set solution paths. Research assignments are likely to have a set structure to steer how and what students explore. Communication tasks have specific directions about format and content. Revision opportunities are about fixing errors more than understanding the nature of them. We reinforce a fixed mind-set in our learners because we don't have the time or intestinal fortitude to do otherwise. Instead, as teachers, we should re-instill the "childlike fearlessness" students possessed when they were younger and more keen on exploration of the unknown. Epstein (1999) contends that students are in fact most creative in their kindergarten year, and that by the end of 1st grade they have had their creativity socialized out of them by the demands of the curriculum. An important part of the instructional habit of challenging students, then, is creating the space for them to struggle. That means that the problem or question will endure regardless of students' desire to dismiss it and move on. It also means that the way we evaluate student work must be based on the knowledge they construct and the connections they develop, instead of the amount of time it takes to solve a problem or whether they arrive at a predictable result.

The third instructional habit is broadening one's existing knowledge base to seek out new areas—the more uncharacteristic for the learner, the better. The value of breaking down boundaries between disciplines has become popularized in business literature by Frans Johansson (2004), author of The Medici Effect. Johansson contends that the discoveries that will change the world will come from the combinatory play of seemingly disparate fields of study. Consider the following illustration, posted by Frans Johansson on the Medici Effect blog on February 22, 2009 (www.themedicieffect.com/2009/02):<BQ>Volvo has delved into a new, fascinating, and intersectional initiative. The car company's vision is to develop a collision safety system for automobiles based on the African grasshopper's ability to not collide when it flies in swarms. Jonas Ekmark, preventive safety leader at Volvo Safety Division, points out how amazing it is that these grasshoppers can fly around in a chaotic swarm, looking for food, yet never once collide with each other. He feels that the discovery about the locust's radar system has the potential of yielding information that could be used to develop new technology to cut down on road traffic accidents.The connection between the locust's sensory system and a potential road traffic safety system was made by Dr. Claire Rind at Newcastle University, in the UK. When asked how she came up with it, she answers that she thinks it came from her own experience as a driver and a pedestrian . The Volvo safety division heard about Dr. Rind's research, and thought it could be of use particularly in regard to pedestrian safety. The automobile company hopes to reproduce the locust's radar system onto a computer chip, and install it inside a camera, which would compose the car's safety system—although, so far, current hardware and software systems have proved unable to replicate the locust's sensory system.The notion of interdisciplinary projects is familiar to many educators. Though appealing in theory, the creation of such designs can overwhelm teachers and students as they try to implement and manage the tasks. It is complicated work to find true interrelationships instead of obvious topic matches. It is also complicated to predict the most fertile opportunities for students, determine who is responsible for students' achievement, re-conceptualize one part of school without causing a ripple effect in the rest of the organizational structure, or find teachers who have the curiosity, passion, and growth mind-set to shift away from the current way of working in pursuit of something amorphous. Despite these and dozens more complications (funding, facilities, urgency to improve test scores, and so forth), the fact remains that the creative combination of diverse fields, peoples, and cultures engenders fascinating results.There are ways to embrace broadening as a habit without restructuring the design of school. For example, students can research fields of study (majors in college, research and development projects at companies, new careers) that didn't exist 10 years ago to determine how those branches of thinking emerged and learn about the aspirations of individuals engaged in the work. Students also can listen to TED Talks, a powerful collection of more than 450 speeches lasting 18 minutes or less by the world's most inspired thinkers. TED Talks are designed to allow these experts to share their specific area of expertise with a diverse audience. The talks are available online at the TED Web site (www.ted.com) and are sure to intrigue teachers and students alike about new areas of knowledge. Students also can be given access to experts within their own community via robust extracurricular offerings and specially scheduled events or blocks of time. A monthly guest speaker program could provide a valuable opportunity to learn from community members; a “special activity” block could provide staff with the opportunity to offer mini-courses in their individual areas of expertise, academic or otherwise (hobbies, culture, etc.). It is amazing how diverse these mini-courses can be and how passion can spread to the work within regular class periods. Of course, those educators who truly want to broaden learning for students could tear down the walls that separate the disciplines and create more interdisciplinary learning environments centered around student inquiry, exploration, and communication. The projects students would pursue would become the guide for developing the requisite skills and the areas of knowledge they chose to explore. In a standards-based, test-driven world, broadening to this extent seems next to impossible. For those who have the courage to disrupt their organization, though, there are schools that have embraced this approach and that can provide powerful models, such as High Tech High School in California (http://hightechhigh.org) and Big Picture Schools in Rhode Island (www.bigpicture.org/schools). Both schools center their integrated curriculum programs around inquiry, authentic tasks, and problem solving. The constant of their curricular programs is learning how to learn, how to collaborate, how to access information, how to reason, and how to communicate. The knowledge base itself can be as fluid as the interests of the students. The fourth and final instructional habit is “surrounding.” Epstein's (1999) research reveals that changing a static learning environment can stimulate creativity: “The individual changes his or her physical and social environments on a regular basis. Resurgence gets multiple repertoires competing, and so do unusual or diverse environments” (p. 765). Many individuals develop patterns in how they think and work that unintentionally inhibit fresh thoughts. They tend to gravitate toward peers and colleagues who have similar preferences and world-views. They tend to sit in the same location during meetings. They tend to follow similar processes for the development of a task. They tend to expect a similar result, commensurate with previous efforts. Shaking up this constancy produces the disequilibrium necessary to see things in a new light. As simplistic as it sounds, try asking participants who are developing a plan of action, working to make sense of a difficult problem, or drafting a concept to stand up and change their seats partway through the meeting. When I pull this stunt, many participants openly resist relocation because they are comfortable with where they are. After their initial annoyance subsides, participants resume their work, but the dynamic shifts. The collaboration that ensues is fed through large-group exchanges as well as by exchanges between participants sitting next to each other.Another strategy is to bring new materials for participants to play with and explore without any expectation of implementing them. The goal is for them to explore possibilities and inspire one another with their imaginings and connections. For example, if I purchased a class set of pocket-sized video cameras (now available for approximately $50), what would students be able to create? How might the cameras inspire their thinking? What impact might they have on the school community? On the world? Some educators dismiss such fanciful thinking because of a lack of money, time, energy, faith in students to care for the equipment, and so on. Whether the class set of video cameras materializes or not is not the point—what is relevant is the ability to consider how a potential change in the way we work could revolutionize our notion of what is possible.A third strategy for surrounding is to learn about how and what students learn in schools around the city, country, and world. For example, there is a primary school in Australia that demonstrates how to change the world in five minutes a day through their class projects on topics such as recycling old cell phones and cultivating a school vegetable garden; videos of their projects can be found online. Students could also compare the education practices, policies, and curricula of the nations whose schools score in the top five places on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to practices in the United States to seek good ideas for how to make schools work better for students. A final example is to watch Two Million Minutes, a documentary about how students around the world spend their time between the end of eighth grade and their high school graduation and what effect their choices have on the trajectory of their lives.</BQ>

What Can One Department or Program Do?

Colleagues can collaborate to identify contemporary developments in their respective fields that drive new research studies, new interdisciplinary niches, new products, and new forms of expression. As part of this work, staff will become well-versed in changes in working conditions, technology tools, and future directions. They can use this knowledge in turn to inspire the design of authentic tasks as well as to seek out partnerships with professionals in their field who could use the assistance of their students. They can also use this information to reframe existing course or grade-level curricula, as well as propose new areas of focus. Keep in mind the point made at the beginning of the discussion: creativity must remain grounded in knowledge and skill development. Therefore, it is imperative that curricular documents be thoroughly reviewed for an appropriate balance of preparation and creativity and ample space for students to engage in the four-step process. Expect that an increased emphasis on creativity will supplant other topics and tasks that currently exist.

What Can One School or School System Do?

Hire smart people who think. The company's interview process is designed to separate the people who think from those who simply perform tasks.
Expect employees to fail. If you work in an environment in which the best route to job security is by working to outdo the company's competition, you focus your energy on developing new products and new ways to solve problems.
Keep repercussions small when conquest-oriented employees make mistakes. If employees don't fail, they're not taking enough risks. In some cases they've even been promoted because of what they learned from their failures.
Create an us vs. them mentality. Microsoft employees are constantly reminded that their competition is other companies, not colleagues.
Sustain the company's start-up mentality. There's an ever-present sense of urgency that the business must succeed. Make it everyone's responsibility to watch costs.
Make the office feel like home. Create a work environment that is as nice or nicer than home, and employees will want to be there. … There's a big connection between enjoying your work and doing good work. (Cited in Florida, 2004, p. 131)

Do we treat our staff as "smart people who think"? Or do we treat them as cogs in a larger K–12 curricular wheel?
Do staff fail gloriously when trying something ambitious and/or new and improve based on the experience, or do they avoid failure at all costs?
Do we create a sense of urgency around finding a way to support every learner, or do we decide success is not possible for some?
Do we make the school feel like a family, or do staff retreat from the building as quickly as possible?
Do staff celebrate the accomplishments and successes of other staff, or do they begrudge them the honor?

Staff must become reinvigorated by the possibility that their school can be a true learning organization, not just for students but also for themselves. They must model the courageous pursuit of the unknown, the willingness to develop new capacities even when existing ones seem sufficient, the fascination with areas of expertise outside of their own, and the grace of growing from failure instead of becoming devastated by it.

Leaders can create a research and development committee in their school to explore new opportunities for students to engage in their schoolwork. These fledgling ideas can be shepherded through their development by a handful of enthusiastic staff and students. Staff can create a shared reading library based on a blend of education literature and other genres that inspire their thinking, with a breadth of titles that will inspire a range of new connections. Staff can adopt journaling as a fixture of their professional work to capture new ideas that occur to them in the midst of designing and facilitating learning for students. They can seek feedback from their colleagues based on the inspiration for their ideas as well as how to improve upon them. During part of their assigned meeting or preparation times, staff can create their own pet projects with the potential to improve the quality of learning in the organization. Google management is renowned for its creation of the "20 percent rule," under which employees can spend one day per week working on a project of their own choice. Workers share their special projects with their colleagues, and the most promising ideas are pursued at a larger scale. This trust in the employees to work hard on the company's pursuits for 80 percent of their time and chase small and large dreams during the other 20 percent nourishes the creative, upstart spirit of this powerful company. The percentage of time is not as significant as the sincerity of the intent and the transparent and deep commitment to growing ideas. Whatever directions you pursue or choices you make, know that the work of education is by nature a dynamic, collaborative, creative endeavor that requires the voluntary dedication of staff in order to achieve the desired achievement results.

Conclusion

Learning organizations measure their success by the demonstrated ability of learners to achieve mission-driven goals. Authentic tasks must play a dominant role in an assessment system so that students can experience true rigor in the disciplines they pursue. This chapter reviewed five characteristics of this type of task design as well as the significance of creativity to this work.

An important subtext throughout the chapter has been challenging the nine myths from Chapter 1. You may want to reflect on what you have learned in light of that connection. Can you see how learners would need to rethink those axioms if the nature of the work they were asked to do was more authentic? You may also want to think about the extent to which the content of subsequent chapters has influenced your thinking about the original reflection question.

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