We welcome all educators to join #AppleEDUchat every Tuesday. Our ADEs host chats from both Europe and the Americas with an incredible lineup of topics to spark conversation. Share your ideas & stories and connect with this global community. Join at 6pm PST or 9pm EST.
Aloha! How do we inspire students' creativity within STEM classes that are traditionally seen as emphasizing content over student expression, like math and physics. Introduce yourself and tell us what STEM course(s) you teach! #AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
Aloha! How do we inspire students' creativity within STEM classes that are traditionally seen as emphasizing content over student expression, like math and physics. Introduce yourself and tell us what STEM course(s) you teach! #AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
Wes Molyneaux, Director of Technology Integration. Elkhart, IN. Taught Biology, Marine Biology and Anatomy and Physiology for ten years before this! #AppleEduChat
Aloha! How do we inspire students' creativity within STEM classes that are traditionally seen as emphasizing content over student expression, like math and physics. Introduce yourself and tell us what STEM course(s) you teach! #AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
Lucas Landherr from Northeastern - I've taught almost everything in Chemical Engineering, from transport to thermodynamics to process control. #AppleEDUchat
Hi Mike! Nice to "see" you again! Wow, pre-college engineering sounds interesting - you must have a lot to say about balancing creativity and content in your tech-heavy classes! #AppleEDUchat
A1: It means being open to identifying & solving problems in new ways, finding new meaningful ways to convey concepts, and reaching innovative designs. It’s at the core of what engineers actually do. #AppleEDUchat
Student creativity can mean a lot of things in STEM (all important!). It could be proposing and original hypothesis and designing an experiment to test it. Can also be the #storytelling involved in communicating your work to experts or a broader audience #SciComm#AppleEDUchat
A1. Creativity is how you get new solutions to unique problems. If you keep doing what you've always done, then you keep getting the same result. New results require creative thinking #AppleEDUchat
Student creativity can mean a lot of things in STEM (all important!). It could be proposing and original hypothesis and designing an experiment to test it. Can also be the #storytelling involved in communicating your work to experts or a broader audience #SciComm#AppleEDUchat
A1: Students can't be innovative if they don't have the freedom to be creative. This could be inquiry-based learning, where they design their own experiments and analyses, or it could be MacGyvering some tool together. It's expression in both learning and solving! #AppleEDUchat
A1: It also allows students to test solutions/routes/mechanisms that might be wrong but at the end will allow them to learn more than if they had found 'the working' answer #AppleEDUchat
Q2: What assignments or projects have you given that encourage students' to express themselves creatively within a STEM context? #AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
I emphasize it in some more traditional assignments such as review articles or grant proposals, but my favorites are using story telling when making science comics or infographics #AppleEDUchat
Student creativity in #STEM classes allows for both creative ways to make concepts & teaching more visual & for expressing what students are learning & how information is interconnected #appleeduchat
Q2: What assignments or projects have you given that encourage students' to express themselves creatively within a STEM context? #AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
A1: Ss learn and better retain info when they create content, not just consume it. Take the concepts, run with them, and make them their own. It promotes original thinking and creative problem-solving. #AppleEDUchat
A2: We do “Lights, Camera, Thermodynamics!” where we challenge students to explain a difficult concept from the course for a general audience. Lots of creativity both in metaphors & in filming! Ex: 1st Law: https://t.co/BvA3SkNGCD#AppleEDUChat 2/4
A2 cont’d: Applied Food Science is all design projects - A great way to get Ss to balance technical constraints w/ creative impulses in an authentic environment. Ex: new ice cream flavors: https://t.co/NlyI7Byup6#AppleEDUchat 3/4
A2 cont’d: You can engage Ss creativity even in pure calculation - for example, this assignment where I ask Ss to both calculate thermodynamic activity of a fresh food & then to design a shelf-stable version. They re-invent jam! https://t.co/pRHwUURTWk#AppleEDUchat 4/4
A2. Students use 3D printing to solve a problem in another teacher's class. Such as coming up with an age-appropriate protractor for 4th grade or a way to visually estimate mass in 10th grade chemistry. #AppleEDUchat
A2: There are some really great approaches you can take to creativity within STEM, whether that's integrating the arts into STEM communication, or whether it's a truly open-ended experiment / project. #AppleEDUchat (1/3)
Q2: What assignments or projects have you given that encourage students' to express themselves creatively within a STEM context? #AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
I ask my students to communicate a foundational experiment from the history of neuroscience in a comic form. Some students even submitted really amazing hand-drawn comics! #AppleEDUchat
More open-ended approach. I'll briefly demo a technique, like the basics of using an app, show some examples of previous Ss projects, and then set them loose! I try to avoid opportunities for them to copy previous work and let their ideas run wild. #AppleEDUchat
A2: I love this question so much I wrote a book about it! Check out my free multitouch book on @AppleBooks that showcases many of my anatomy students’ creative projects - videos, claymation, drawings, and more! https://t.co/x5uAtNCylh#AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
A1 coming in late! Creativity in STEM means allowing students to go through the design or engineering process, learn what works and doesn’t and fail forward. #AppleEDUchat
A2: For this project students used design thinking and dabbled with STEM to create a 3D design to solve a problem. This student created a Braille toy box. #AppleEDUchat
While learning 3D modeling and Vector graphics, students built #cosplay Wonderwoman costumes for patients at a local hospital. #AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
A3: I’ve observed that a project dropped on students all at once can tap their creativity, but then often skips the *content* parts - when rushing, they sometimes answer off the top of their heads #AppleEDUchat 1/2
Creating podcasts allows students to explain content in their own words & gives them an audience to share their knowledge with #AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
A3, continued: So I scaffold with intermediate assignments that ask for outlines, storyboards, sample calculations - anything that helps them remember the processes for both creativity AND for content are important! #AppleEDUchat 2/2
A2: While learning 3D modeling and Vector graphics, students built #cosplay Wonderwoman costumes for patients at a local hospital. #AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
A2: While learning 3D modeling and Vector graphics, students built #cosplay Wonderwoman costumes for patients at a local hospital. #AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
A3. We use "design guides" created in Numbers to help manage the process and organize all of the information. They help a lot and are easy to make. We use them for so much... design projects, presentations, activities, podcasts... #AppleEDUchat
While learning 3D modeling and Vector graphics, students built #cosplay Wonderwoman costumes for patients at a local hospital. #AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
A3. Provide student with real challenges that they can sink their teeth into. Give them resources and strategies to tackle the problem but let them struggle to come up with the correct questions to ask. #AppleEduChat
This is sooooo good. And I can't help but notice that the lecturer is wearing a familiar outfit...... "I'm getting a good grade, just use Fourier!" Nice! #AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
We spent an entire class period doing a "rhetorical analysis of audience" to think about how to explain water quality results to community member. Students came up with a template for a written report, but next time might try other mediums. #AppleEDUchat
A3: Baby steps all the way. Mini-projects to learn and practice skills. #Keynote and #Clips are the faves. They all tell me they can't draw at the start of the semester, and now at Week 12 they are creating comic strips! #AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
A3: It can be so hard to find time in the year to hit content benchmarks and scaffold the skills needed to make thoughtful projects. #AppleEDUchat How do you do it?
A3: For many assignments (writing or designing), the first draft is "low stakes" where submitting a complete draft gets full credit. It really enables students to take risks AND I don't have to sit there and determine the minute difference btw a 1 or 2 pt deduction #AppleEDUchat
A3: Students always want more examples of past work so they "know" what to do. But endless examples might stifle their creativity in favor of mimicking past approaches. Encouragement, guidance, intermediate check-ins - all these are just as good if not better! #AppleEDUchat
Thanks! It has been helpful so far for current Ss for ideas/confidence building, and to show colleagues what is possible in PBL in life sciences. #AppleEDUchat
That's a great idea; it's very easy to miss who you're communicating with if you aren't intentional about it. This is so important for Ss (and all of us!) to learn and practice. #AppleEDUchat
Q4: What are some challenges you have encountered when incorporating creativity into test-oriented curriculum (AP classes/college level, to name a few)? #AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
A3 (cont): I also allow students to take full ownership of the topic by allowing them to pick their topic very early with several check-ins along the way. Try to emphasize my comments are merely suggestions and that the student makes the decisions #AppleEDUchat
A3 I always think that #STEM activities that meet objectives are just an alternate way of getting to the desired end result. And they are more meaningful for kids because giving them skills they need for the future!! #AppleEDUchat
A3: Start young and make sure there's always space for self-directed projects for students. Starting in 2nd grade we have a maker space @scratch, @PlayCraftLearn, laser cutting and @makeymakey. Students with more experience become mentors #AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
A4: If the point of STEM is teaching people to be problem-solvers, then ideally students should be able to apply concepts and theories they know to problems they haven't seen before, instead of regurgitating solutions. This can be a big ask on a test! #AppleEDUchat (1/2)
Q4: What are some challenges you have encountered when incorporating creativity into test-oriented curriculum (AP classes/college level, to name a few)? #AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
A4: But seriously, we have a responsibility to address the required outcomes for the class while engaging Ss and cultivating their understanding. It helps to demonstrate outcomes are still being achieved even when time is devoted to creative projects. #AppleEDUchat
A4: Balancing time demands for learning content and teaching use of creative tools/apps. My blended class structure allows more 1:1 time with individual Ss to address their specific tech needs, and office hour time helps for deeper dives. #EveryoneCanCreate#AppleEDUchat
A4: Biggest challenge is time! An hour is too short to allow for the creative critical thinking I want from my students. Have recently removed all 1hr-long exams from my course in favor of weekly take-home assignments to develop skills higher up on Bloom's Taxonomy #AppleEDUchat
So true - sometimes creativity in the classroom can be seen as adversarial to standardized learning objectives. #AppleEDUchat It's our job to help people to see otherwise!
Usually I try to give students problems that are juuuuust a bit weird but still entirely within the concepts they know, so they can apply established approaches to a new system. Helps assess how well they know the concepts and can recognize how to apply them! #AppleEDUchat (2/2)
A3. Providing rubrics and project deliverables first and then spending time in class when we storyboard together with an example. I let them digest for about two weeks and then I provide details for the project. No intermediate work but sharing project with pauses. #AppleEDUchat
It's a required course for juniors; their target audience for the videos is (depending on topic) 1st year ChemEs or HS students! #AppleEDUchat#EveryoneCanCreate
A4:I meet my A&P I Ss for 4 hours, where I fuse "lecture" and lab time into one block. I don't lecture in that class, save for a few brief "power" lectures LOL. 95% of time is spent on PBL, collaborative learning, low-stakes assessments building up to exams. #AppleEDUchat
Not yet, I've received full support from my dept. I also think I can point to several assessments to show it's working better. I routinely ask them to dive into primary lit, design experiments, analyze data, etc (difficult to do well in a time crunch). #AppleEDUchat
A5: I try to embed demonstration of understanding in my rubrics so that they can be used on student creations from video to writing to physical designs. Do they demonstrate they *get* the content? Communicate well? Do they surprise or impress me? #AppleEDUchat
I'm seeing a lot of comments on time in this discussion; a benefit to taking more of the assessments out of class time is greater time on task and student engagement with the material. Win-win! #AppleEDUchat
A5: Grad Thermo this semester - we have a big project - so to get more buy-in we spent class time creating rubrics, they worked in groups and we then compared the groups' rubrics with mine and we then created a composite rubric. #AppleEDUchat
This is so cool - I can't wait to try this! Students creating their own assessment guidelines... how innovative!! #AppleEDUchat They probably feel very invested in these projects!
A5: Making the rubrics as a class really helps! After doing a writing workshop where we analyze some samples, the students create a rubric on the board of the important things in assessing that type of writing. It's also amazing how it's almost identical to mine #AppleEDUchat
A5: How do we assess creativity? We need to focus on the approaches rather than on a 'right answer'. A final answer might not show how much a student knows versus the approach put together - be it creative or innovative - how well they can apply what they know! #AppleEDUchat
A5: I also have the creative/ownership/what makes it yours section in the rubric. We also share projects and at the end even if they were not able to truly explore within themselves they see examples that worked and we can try again in a different class. #AppleEDUchat
A5: Also I'm really getting into having my student submit a self-reflection/self-assessment with their assignments. The metacognitive aspect helps them take charge of their own learning! #AppleEDUchat
Q5: I love the idea of giving Ss ownership in the shared creation of the rubric. I'm sure it can help motivate them and elevate the quality of their projects. #AppleEDUchat
A6: One way communicate the importance of creativity in STEM is by example; Celebrate what our Ss accomplish when they apply both their technical and creative minds! Like: https://t.co/u4PzGnEwYL#AppleEDUchat
A6: Student word of mouth is best. No need to tell anyone if the students are going around excited about the projects in your class and talking about it outside. I get more enquiries that way than any PD sessions I've run. #EveryoneCanCreate#AppleEDUchat
On exams, this is why partial credit was created and why all exams should state "show your work"!
On projects/presentations, it's a little more visible! We just need to stress the importance of effective communication so that we as the audience know it's there.
#AppleEDUchat
A6: A mix of formal & informal communication. Conversations w/ colleagues, open-door policy in my lab for visitors, PD workshops, & presentations. Collect & share data on student success. Invite Ss to present with us to speak in their own words about value of PBL! #AppleEDUChat
We're seeing lots of great examples centered on science communication, intended for a public audience. This authentic student voice shares not only the content, but also the importance of creativity. #AppleEDUchat#Everyonecancreate
I hope they are 😀, they turn in a status report tomorrow before the break. I am looking forward to their final deliverable a short TEDtalk. #AppleEDUchat
A6: Seeing creativity can inspire other creativity!
One of the most creative approaches I've seen from students is when a group of students have all taken notes together at the same time in a single Google doc. Does it work well? No idea. But it's interesting! #AppleEDUchat
A6: Shout it from the rooftops! Don't stop talking about creative assignments/learning approaches/assessments. Turns out there are so many educators who are looking to change things up. Often the only hesitation is how it differs so much from how they were educated. #AppleEDUchat
We post projects in shared drive with a goal as having them be tools to study for the final and we share last day of class a few of them for all to see at the same time. Usually the groups that volunteer are the ones that took the creativity part seriously. #AppleEDUchat
Why would collective Google doc notes arise? Maybe in part because the classroom instruction was endless sage-on-a-stage, and a more creative approach might have been necessary. #AppleEDUchat
