CREATIVITY BY DESIGN
Welcome to Creativity by Design!
Creativity by Design is a resource that bridges the gap for the web 2.0 generation- for all teachers. It empowers teachers to better meet the needs of 21st century learners, regardless of whether or not they were a student in this digital age.
This resource website is intended to help provide a link for the participatory culture gap that often divides teachers and students. It provides ideas that incorporate technology and foster creativity in the classroom. Our hope is to promote a variety of media ideas which can be adapted across different grade levels. From filmmaking to animation, the tools on our resource site will provide a variety of creation and presentation ideas for both students and teachers.
We know that learning content does not happen in isolated core subjects. Learning, as with living, is a cross-curricular endeavour (Barnes, 2011). Therefore, the ideas presented also promote cross-curricular learning.
Our Philosophy
Youth today are growing up immersed in a new world of technology; a world that provides opportunities to collaborate, create, participate, and even evaluate. They seek out challenges and share their ideas with others around the world. Our youth live in a world where the culture is interactive- a participatory culture (Jenkins, 2009).
“Creativity is gaining recognition as a necessary component of K-12 education, but some contend that education is instead currently stifling children’s creativity” (Buelin-Biesecker, 2012). In a time when youth are more motivated than ever to be creative, a time when they have incredible tools at their fingertips, educators need to learn to embrace these tools and incorporate them into student learning. To make instruction even easier, many media programs are available that provide their own online teaching and support networks.
Although Creativity by Design fits many philosophies, we are focusing on theories of constructivism and constructionism along with participatory learning.
Constructivist approaches see education as a merging of information through the use of authentic tasks in a learning context. Both Vygotsky and Piaget encouraged the idea of inquiry oriented classrooms that are engaging and well scaffolded in order to activate and engage learners. Vygotsky argued that interdependence between the social and individual construction of knowledge leads to internalization of knowledge. These needs are met in the Creativity by Design setting.
Constructionism similarly sees learning as a scaffolding process through which students construct knowledge for themselves. In the Creativity by Design environment, students are afforded the freedom of design and creativity to enhance their learning along the way, while practicing the skills needed for the 21st century classroom.
Participatory learning is ever present in the web 2.0 generation who engage and interact with and in learning. The days of instructionism have been replaced with dynamic classrooms of co-production and co-participation. In design for learning, students are at the helm and each student is required to perform in an accountable and responsible manner.
Please click on the proposal below to read our detailed philosophy and rational.
Applications
Please click on the guide provided to see how you can apply Creativity by Design to different areas of the curriculum.
Please take a look at the slideshow below to see all of the applications of Creativity by Design that are covered in this website.
We Want to Hear From You!
Have we met the objectives that we outlined above? Please let us know how we can improve our web page to serve you better!