References

Csikzentmihalyi, M. (2007). A Systems Perspective on Creativity. In J. Henry, Creative Management and Development (pp. 2-17). Sage.

Cullen, E. (2013, October 23). Science vs. The Arts - Is There Any Contest? Retrieved from University Times: http://universitytimes.ie/?p=20689

Department for Children, E. L. (2008). Creative Development. Cardiff.

Film Agency for Wales. (2006). Education Strategy. Retrieved from Film Agency for Wales: http://www.filmagencywales.com/education-strategy-full.php

Interdisciplinary Education. (2011). Retrieved from The Leonardo Effect: http://www.leonardoeffect.com/

Jemison, M. (2002, February). Mae Jemison: Teach Sciences and Arts Together. Retrieved from TED: https://www.ted.com/talks/mae_jemison_on_teaching_arts_and_sciences_together/transcript#t-851806

Richard Miller, Keith Randle & Sally Graham. (2012). Making the Case for Film Education.

What is MoE? (n.d.). Retrieved from Mantle of the Expert: http://www.mantleoftheexpert.com/about-moe/introduction/what-is-moe/

Introduction

In this blog I have explored different ways and strategies which allow different people to explore their creative capacities. I have included video clips and passages from transcripts to help explain the views of influential people in the topic areas I am talking about, as well as including my own opinions and experiences.

Film Education

The way I define film education in the most simply way is that it is a way of using film to enhance study. In the report ‘Making a case for Film Education’ ten key positive messages about film in education are included. The ones I thought were the most important were;

• The type of film education would include discussion, presentation, critical thinking, working in teams and filmmaking as well as watching.
• Film engages young people in learning. Film stretches the most gifted and engages the hardest to reach.
• Film education teaches young people many skills. The most valuable film education strategies enhance critical, cultural and creative abilities

(Richard Miller, Keith Randle & Sally Graham, 2012).

Digital literacy has come to the attention of educators as it becoming a bigger part of how young people socialise, work, communicate, spend their leisure time and how they learn and share knowledge. Therefore educators are appreciating that the role of teaching isn’t just to prepare children for the digital world but that a continued engagement with technology is now vital to the development of children’s knowledge across different subjects and disciplines. After the lecture on film education I looked to see how popular film education was in Wales. I found the film agency for Wales’s website. The film agency for Wales support film and media education projects for students aged 3 to 19 years and through to lifelong learning and adult education. Their website says that National research shows that there is a benefit from using film across the curriculum as well as through informal learning contexts. By watching, learning about, understanding and then making film it supports people of all ages by increasing cultural and social awareness, as well as building transferable skills and knowledge in a digital media age (Film Agency for Wales, 2006).

After learning more about film education from the lecture and seminar I realised that at times in my education some of my teachers had used these techniques to enhance my learning. In a different module I am studying in University we often watch video clips and are asked to take notes, to give our opinion and to share what we have taken from the clip in groups. As I am more of a kinaesthetic and auditory learner I find this type of learning more beneficial for me. I find that with films or videos things are more likely to stick into my mind rather than when I read a passage of text.

Mantle of the Expert

The mantle of the expert was established by Dorothy Heathcote in the 1980’. It is defined as a system for learning through active imagination and enquiry methodology. The children behave as if they are experts, they work from a specific point of view when they are learning which brings special responsibilities, language needs and social behaviours. Through the activities and tasks the children participate in they gradually take on some of the same kinds of responsibilities, problems and challenges that would be experienced by the real people who do the jobs they are pretending to do (What is MoE?, n.d.). I looked into the mantle of the expert further and from the research I did I define the mantle of the expert as an approach where all of the learning is done as if the class was a company or an enterprise. The learning begins by devising a company for the children to be part of, this captures the children’s imaginations. The teacher would base the company on the curriculum content. The next step is to build up a history of the company and explain to the children when it was first created, how many employees there are etc. so that the children buy into the idea of it. In the mantle of the expert there must always be a client and then learning is done in response to the needs of the client.

Over our seminars on the mantle of the expert we split into groups and within those groups created our companies whose area of expertise was designing and building bridges. We had to get into our individual roles within the company and come up with the history of our company and projects that we had previously worked on. After receiving an email from our potential client we held a meeting with them to discuss the client’s needs. After making a plan of how our bridge was going to be made and how it was going to look we started the construction of our bridge. Using the mantle of the expert approach to complete this task really helped us keep focus and take each of our roles seriously because it became realistic rather than just being talked at or asked to just simply research. After taking part in these seminars I can understand how using the mantle of the expert approach in classrooms would help the pupils learn, especially younger children as the can be very enthusiastic about becoming part of a company and completing something for a client. 

The Leonardo Effect

The leonardo effect is a new way of teaching, primarily based around synchronized integration of subjects. The leonardo effect is producing amazing results in primary schools as it allows the pupils to be creative whilst developing ideas and they become more confident as collaborators and contributors. As the leonardo effect allows children to run with their curiosity and allows teachers to be more creative and flexible in the classroom it fuels autonomous learning and permits the pupils to make their own connections across the curriculum (Interdisciplinary Education, 2011). I think that the leonardo effect fits in with what Sir Ken Robinson said in the clip ‘Changing Education Paradigms’. In the clip we saw in our seminar, he expresses his belief for the need of a change in the way that the curriculum is presented to children and the way in which children are educated.

The teaching methodology is split into four stages;

1. The first stage is capture the learner’s imaginations, this involves using the learner’s personal experiences where relvant in order to stimulate self-generated questions. I believe that this is definetly a good way of getting the learner to involve themselves as people feel more willing to share their opinions and ideas when its on a topic they are comfortable with and know something about. By drawing on the natural curiostiy of the learner discovery based learning can begin, this involves research with multimedia, books, experts, fellow pupils etc. The process leaves learners feeling empowered and teachers feeling energised to learn with them.
2. The second stage is development, for this stage learners explore in depth, they also develop ideas further and conduct experiments through visual, aural and kinesthetic means. This stage is all about allowing the children to make connections, drawing out the learning process to aid the development of all the learning capacities including skills, knowledge and understanding. What I interpreted this stage to be about was the learning process helping the children who had different capabilities.
3. Stage three is creation. In this stage the learners are tested to apply their skills and knowledge in an original and creative way, which will take their learning to a higher level, beyond usual curricular requirments. I think that this is a really important stage because this isn’t something that children are often required to do when following the curriculum, and by giving the children the opportunity to try and be as creative as they can they also begin to understand what it is to be creative.
4. Stage four is reflect and communicate, in my opinion I think that this is the most important of the stages because this is the stage where the children evaluate their work and share the knowledge they have gained with others, whether this is within the school or to a wider audience. During this stage the children are also able to begin a new learning adventure based upon the new skills and knowledge they have aquired. By having the children evaluate their work to a wider audience it allows them to build confidence, to share their ideas and to understand what they have done well and what improvements they could make. 

The Arts vs Science Debate

During our lecture on the arts vs science debate we came up with two lists of things we related to science and the arts, below are a few ideas we came up with.

By people who don’t engage in either the arts and science are typically seen as polar opposites, which is the view I held before we looked at the arts vs science in this module. I viewed the arts as a way for people to express themselves and science as something technical and of logic. However it is argued that the arts and science aren’t that different at all. You can be creative through the arts as well as science, and both can be used to express yourself. I watched Mae Jemison’s tedtalk ‘Teach arts and sciences together’. Mae Jemison who was the first African-American woman to go into space is a great believer in the need for developing a new vision of learning that combines the arts and sciences. In her talk Mae expresses the importance of rejuvenating and joining the arts and science. She says that decisions are being made about society with the thought in mind that science and the arts are separate and she believes that this is going to cause problems for society in the future. She goes on to say that the arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity and that as humans it is our attempt to build an understanding of our universe. She states in her talk that science provides an understanding of a universal experience, and arts provide a universal understanding of a personal experience (Jemison, 2002).

Sir Ken Robinson - Do Schools Kill Creativity?

https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity

After seeing a clip of Ken Robinson’s Tedtalk in the seminar I wanted to look into his views further and find out what the education system in Wales had in place to encourage pupils’ to be creative.

In this particular talk Ken Robinson states that he believes that creativity should be treated with the same status as literacy. I believe that if children are encouraged to be creative from a young age it will always be something that they naturally try to do. However the problem with education systems around the World is that children are being educated out of their creative abilities, as Ken Robinson says. I think that the point Robinson makes about children not being scared of being wrong is valid and that it’s a good thing. This is similar to the way I was going through school as the older I got the less confident I became to have a go at answering a question in my classes in case I was incorrect. I think this is because of the reason Ken Robinson gives which is that within schools being wrong is the worst thing you can be. I believe that children should always be encouraged to have a go at whatever is available to them and that they should never be afraid of being wrong or not doing something correctly. From my school experience I always remember not being confident with maths, I was taught that the only way of working out an equation was the way I had been showed by my teacher and if my parents tried to explain something in a different way I wouldn't accept that they were right because it wasn't the same as the way my teacher had used. I definitely agree with the view Robinson has of children being educated out of creativity. I also think that his view of the hierarchy of subjects being the same in education across the world is correct. Mathematics is definitely the most desirable subject to succeed in, throughout school it was always emphasized to us more than any other subject how important getting a C or above in our maths and English GCSE was. It also seems as if when applying for sixth forms of colleges that if you have good GCSE grades in maths and English they tend to accept you regardless of what other grades you have.

I did some research to find out how children’s creativity was being developed within our education system in Wales. I found a guidance report for creative development within the Foundation Phase. Through the curriculum children are supposed to be given opportunities to develop, apply and extend their creative ideas in different media, such as ICT and to use tools safely with an awareness of danger (Department for Children, 2008).  Even though the Welsh Assembly Government have tried to incorporate ways for children to be creative I think that it is still restricting how creative children can be because with regards to media and ICT there are only so many resources available to them. Also it seems that children are given specific times to be creative. I spoke to a nursery and reception teacher who said that within the foundation phase the areas which are considered to encourage the children to be creative are when they are doing art, drama and music. Which again only limits them to particular times of the school day to explore their creative capacities.