# data[].attributes.headline
Creativity is comprised of four factors. Just remember this equation: Creativity = Surprise + Originality + Beauty + Utility.

# data[].attributes.subject
Creativity is comprised of four factors. Just remember this equation: Creativity = Surprise + Originality + Beauty + Utility.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Synopsis

Creativity is comprised of four factors. Just remember this equation: Creativity = Surprise + Originality + Beauty + Utility.

Today I want to talk about the components of creativity or the underlying factors of the creative process. One way to approach the problem is by looking at how we measure or evaluate a creative product.

Creativity is sometimes broken up into divergent thinking and convergent thinking; though I argue that essentially same processes are involved in both.

Divergent thinking is measured using Torrance test of creative thinking (TTCT). TTCT consists of both verbal and figural parts. Divergent thinking is also measured by Guilford's Alternate uses task in which one has to come up with as many uses as possible for a common household items (like brick).

These creativity test results are scored keeping in mind a number of different creativity criteria. The most common (common to all of the above) criteria are:

1. Flexibility: This captures the ability to cross boundaries and make remote associations. This is measured by number of different categories of ideas generated.

2. Originality: This measures how statistically different or novel the ideas are compared to a comparison group. This is measured as number of novel ideas generated.

3. Fluency: This captures the ability to come up with many diverse ideas quickly. This is measured by the total number of ideas generated.

4. Elaboration: This measures the amount of detail associated with the idea. Elaboration has more to do with focussing on each solution/idea and developing it further.

Convergent thinking is measured by tests like remote associations test or insight problems. These problems are solved when you apply one of the methods below:

1. Make unique association between parts of the problem. This looks again similar to flexibility or how fluid is your categorisation schema enabling you to think out of the box and not be limited by typical categories or associations.

2. Take a novel approach (and not the typical approach) to problem solving. To me, this again looks similar to o riginality.

3. See problem from a different perspective. To me this looks like how quickly you can adopt multiple perspectives - the speed with which you can take alternate perspectives and is similar to fluency.

Creativity is also defined as coming up with something that is both novel and useful. At which point I am reminded of a quote by Oscar Wilde: "We can forgive man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless." I understand Wilde to mean that art need not be useful or fulfill the criteria of utility, but is more measured by whether it fulfils the criterion of aesthetics or beauty. As long as one considers art as an integral part of creativity, I think we need to make room for beauty as part of defining what is creative: creativity = utility + beauty + novelty.

Now, to me novelty itself can be either because the thing in purview is really new or original or it can be familiar yet enigmatic (like Monalisa's smile) and thus be surprising, or novel/ captivating in that sense.

Thus the modified equation looks like: creativity = surprise + originality + beauty + utility

Taken together I argue that these criteria/strategies/definitions that are used to measure and define creativity and solve creative problems, also hint at the underlying factor structure of creativity.

I propose that creativity is made of four factors:

1. The first factor is SURPRISE: whether one produces something that continues captivating attention, even though it becomes familiar over time. This may result from rare and remote association of ideas or a recombination process that brings familiar things together in an unfamiliar/unexpected way. This is the ability to think beyond conventional boundaries or categories, loosen up the associations and make remote associations between and within categories. This is also related to flexibility with which you can walk across categories and disciplines. An example might be Mona Lisa by Da Vinci or putting a urinal in an art gallery.

2. The second factor is ORIGINALITY: whether one produces something that is really unique and novel and unheard of before. This is creativity that is not just combinatorial but perhaps associated with transforming and transcending. As pre Pribram novelty is a result of new rearrangements of old ideas. If the first factor is about combination, this may be thought of as permutation or reordering. This is related to originality scores. An example might be cubism by Picasso where the face/familiar objects are rearranged, sort of.

3. The third factor is BEAUTY: whether one produces something that is appealing and aesthetically satisfying. Beauty lies in the eyes of beholder and is related to subjective preferences. Identifying beauty is a fast and frugal process and as per one conception, we find something beautiful, if we can process it easily (that is why average faces are more beautiful- ease of processing). This is related to fluency scores or the ease with which you can ideate. Expressionisms by Monet et al looks beautiful because it's easy on eyes.

4. The fourth factor is of UTILITY: whether one produces something that is useful. As evident from the alternate uses task the utility of something is ambiguous and context dependent and yet measured objectively and not subjectively. Creativity is the ability to deal with this inherent ambiguity, be comfortable with it and look at things from multiple simultaneous perspectives to find useful contexts in which to use/ apply it. This is the ability to see if the solution actually solves the problem. Also the ability to elaborate an idea and add details to it, so as to make it useful/ relevant. Here, one can focus on one stream of thought/ idea and take it to logical conclusion, adding details and making it complex. The Miniature art of India, that has elaborate details, is an example of this form, and is useful in reconstructing history.

To put in simple words, creativity is generation of new, unexpected, likeable and useful/complex ideas/ things etc. Creativity happens if something 'stands out' from the crowd.

To take an analogy, in many psychological tasks, a stimulus stands out, if it is 'surprising, novel, rare or complex'. Similarly, a creative product stands out if it is surprising, original, aesthetic (rarity is linked to beauty in some accounts- the rarer it is, the more beautiful/ art-valued it is) and useful (sufficiently complex/'designed' to be useful).

I have also earlier alluded to Blind Variation and Selective Retention (BVSR) theory of creativity.

As per my latest thinking, factors 1 and 2, unexpected recombination (surpisability) and new permutations/ transformations/ mutations (originality) lead to blind variations that lead to novel products/ ideas. These are then selected using the lens and criterion of Beauty and Utility, the remaining two factors. Akin to sexual selection, factor 3 or beauty or subjective aesthetic preferences drive the selection process in this case. Akin to natural selection, factor 4 or utility or objective adaption criterion drives selection by this means.

Together the 2 factors that create variation (recombination/ mutations) and the 2 factors that select as per subjective and objective criterions (sexual-preferences (context-invariant) based/ natural- utility/fitness (context sensitive) based) ensure that creative products are original and surprising, as well as beautiful and useful.

Note: Some parts of the above ideas were developed and elaborated in my earlier Psychology Today blog and The Mouse Trap posts.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Creativity is comprised of four factors. Just remember this equation: Creativity = Surprise + Originality + Beauty + Utility. Today I want to talk about the components of creativity or the underlying factors of the creative process. One way to approach the problem is by looking at how we measure or evaluate a creative product.

# data[].attributes.headline
“Never before has there been a more powerful influence on human behavior, irrespective of country or culture, than the combined effect of digital technologies.”

# data[].attributes.subject
“Never before has there been a more powerful influence on human behavior, irrespective of country or culture, than the combined effect of digital technologies.”

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The digital world offers tremendous benefits to us all. It provides platforms that allow us to connect and collaborate. It opens up opportunities to learn about new and important issues, and it empowers innovation in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago.

Today, the advancement of technology has permeated every aspect of our lives. Employers expect their workforce to have the skills needed to live, work, and thrive in a digital society. So, when preparing pupils for the world of work, digital literacy is essential. But what exactly is it?

What is digital literacy?

Making sure pupils are employable is an obvious driver for schools. So, developing technical skills is crucial. But digital literacy doesn't just mean IT proficiency (although knowing how to use tech is now an essential life skill).

In fact, digital literacy is separate from computer literacy. It requires critical thinking skills, an awareness of the necessary standards of behaviour expected in online environments, and an understanding of the shared social issues created by digital technologies. Or alternatively: digital literacy = digital tool knowledge + critical thinking + social engagement.

The need for digital literacy in the classroom

Digital literacy is necessary to become digital citizens; individuals responsible for how they use technology to interact with the world around them.

However, despite facing a fourth industrial revolution that is set to impact all industries and economies, UK education policy is currently failing to prepare pupils for a new breed of workplace. And a new world.

What's more, there is a worrying rise in unhappy and anxious children emerging alongside the upward trend of childhood internet use. So, according to a recent report by the House of Lords, teaching students how to thrive and survive in our internet dominated world is now as important as reading and writing.

Deep learning and digital literacy

One essential component of digital literacy when it comes to the field of pedagogy is deep learning; of which there are six core skills:

Collaboration. The ability to work collaboratively with others, with strong interpersonal and team-related skills.

Creativity. Being able to weigh up opportunities in an entrepreneurial manner and ask the right questions to generate new ideas.

Critical thinking. Being able to evaluate information and arguments, identify patterns and connections, and construct meaningful knowledge and apply it in the real world.

Citizenship. The ability to consider issues and solve complex problems based on a deep understanding of diverse values and a worldview.

Character. Traits such as grit, tenacity, perseverance, and resilience; alongside a desire to make learning an integral part of living.

Communication. Being able to communicate effectively through a variety of methods and tools to a range of different audiences.

However, while the concept of deep learning is not new; over the years, sustained political interference and policy changes have hindered deep learning in our schools; with a focus on helping pupils to pass exams at the expense of all else. So much so that UK schools are now among the worst in the world when it comes to nurturing deep and lasting understanding.

But, if we are going to do more than pay lip service to the importance of digital literacy, a refocus on deeper learning competencies is now a must. Find out more about why the UK education system needs a return to deep-learning.

Digital literacy and e-safety

While it has the potential to deliver immense value, our online world also comes with inherent risks; particularly for children. The truth is, while younger generations are being labelled as digital natives when it comes to safety they are often no more literate than their parents.

Digital platforms make children vulnerable to criminals and bullies. They can cause students to compare their existence to the often fabricated online lives of others; leading to feelings of inadequacy, detachment, isolation, and even the development of mental health issues. They can also leave pupils open to misinformation, manipulation, and fake news.

So, against such threats, what can teachers do to make sure their students are safe from harm?

The House of Lords thinks it has the answer. And, in a recent report, argued that lessons about online responsibilities, risks, and acceptable behaviour should now be mandatory in all UK schools. What this means is that rather than schools teaching standalone digital citizenship lessons, a new digital literacy curriculum could be just around the corner.
Here are some practical examples to help you introduce digital literacy into your lessons:
Teach students about online safety

To teach pupils about staying safe online, and the threats of internet grooming, sexting, cyberbullying and identity theft, the NSPCC has collated a number of lesson plans and online guidance. This includes advice on the importance of protecting personal information, including passwords and the distribution of photographs. Students should also be taught never to give out personal data as part of e-safety education.

Introduce students to "fake news"

Fake news isn't just for politicians; it has now crept into the classroom. So teachers must teach their students that not everything we see and read online is true. Here are some top tips to help you fight fake news in your classroom.

Challenge covert advertising

There is clear evidence that advertising and promotions have an impact on children. For example, junk food TV ads have been shown to make children hungry and tempted. So it's no wonder that the UK Committee of Advertising Practice's non-broadcast marketing code states that communications addressed to, targeted directly at, or featuring children (those under 16) must contain nothing that is likely to result in their physical, mental or moral harm. But protecting children from online advertisements is harder. Especially when it is not always obvious what constitutes an ad.

To teach children how to spot online advertisements, teachers can ask students to explore the pervasiveness of online ads in their own lives. Once they have examined the commercials aimed at them - and identified what they are trying to sell and how - they can create new ads with positive, age-appropriate messages.

Think critically about body image

Teachers can use digital photography, and snapchat filters to encourage children to think critically about the images they are seeing. Pupils could also be invited to speak positively about themselves and others. There is a range of different body image resources available to teachers on ClassFlow Marketplace.

Share emotions

For young children, emojis can be used to encourage them to share how they are feeling. The oldest form of literacy, these symbols provide access to a living language that enables them to express themselves in ways that words cannot always do.

Image source: Jennifer Fane

Encourage pupils to think ethically

Teaching digital literacy requires an ethical dimension. Students need to understand what it mean to behave well online and how to act in environments where the public and private worlds are blurred. One way teachers can approach this is by challenging their students to think about what information is readily available about them online, and how others including any future employers might view and react to this.

How to improve digital literacy in your school

With limited time and increasingly squeezed budgets, getting your school's SMT to commit to developing digital literacy can be challenging. So, what advice and support can you give to your SMT to help them get on board - while boosting your reputation as a digital leader?

Collaborate with colleagues

Consider an audit to find out who in your school is already teaching digital literacy as part of their lessons. Such collaborative planning has been shown to improve cross-curricular learning and maximise resources across departmental boundaries, as well as fostering cooperation and trust amongst teachers. Find out how to create more collaborative lessons with ClassFlow.

Focus on the curriculum

It's understandable that teachers might get frustrated at "yet another thing" for them to add to an already busy teaching schedule. But digital literacy doesn't exist in isolation. Context is key, and the best way to teach digital literacy is to figure out what that means to a particular discipline. For example, English teachers can use blogging to advance digital literacy while Citizenship teachers can present their class with real world problems and encourage pupils to use their computational skills to come up with solutions.

Create "modern" classrooms

New pedagogical methods -such as collaborative learning, student-led learning, and flipped classrooms - are gaining popularity thanks to the rise of edtech. And, by helping teachers to instil deep learning, such evidence-based pedagogy supports digital literacy. Find out more about what makes a classroom modern.

Make your lessons digital

It is hard to teach pupils about what's needed in the online world without using digital tools. So teachers themselves must embrace digital literacy. Consider using ActivPanels and free educational software such as ClassFlow to help pupils become engaged in the art of learning online.

Review your Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

It's important that everyone in your school knows what is and isn't acceptable when it comes to using tech in schools. As such, your Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) probably already covers things like inappropriate Facebook communication and not sharing images of pupils online without parental permission. In addition, your policies and procedures should also take into account the latest guidance from the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS). This includes things like carrying out regular training to ensure that everyone is aware of the online safety rules and expectations and establishing monitoring and evaluation processes to ensure understanding of, and adherence to, online safety policies.
Access the latest and full UKCCIS guidance here.
Create digital ambassadors

In any school, there are digital innovators. Harness their passion and knowledge by creating a digital literacy focus group to help drive and inspire change, while increasing awareness of digital literacies across your school.

Engage your teachers

Teachers are time poor, so many schools are avoiding their responsibilities to educate students about digital literacy due to anxieties about their own staffs technical abilities. Engage with teachers early on in the process to find out what they need to teach digital literacy. This could be bite-sized guides, case studies, videos, training, or regular drop-in sessions. Ensuring buy-in is vital to your school's overall success.

Engage your pupils

Build robust and productive student-staff partnerships to help develop your school's digital environment in a way that adds real meaning to them. Encourage older students to express their views on what digital literacy means to them, and what skills they think they need to live, work and learn in an online world. To get your students started, get them to test their abilities in this quick quiz: what type of digital learner are you?

In conclusion

When it comes to introducing digital learning into the curriculum, educators can't bury their heads in the sand. Instead, it is up to the government, online providers, parents, and teachers to work together to support and protect pupils online.

The digital world is here to stay. Our pupils will have to face the challenges and threats that come with living with technology whether we expose and prepare them for it or not. So, surely it is better to teach them the skills they need to stay safe and thrive?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Digital literacy in the classroom. How important is it? - ResourcEd

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The digital world offers tremendous benefits to us all. It provides platforms that allow us to connect and collaborate. It opens up opportunities to learn about new and important issues, and it empowers innovation in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Today, the advancement of technology has permeated every aspect of our lives.

# data[].attributes.headline
Why did I worry?In my last blog post, I wrote about my fears surrounding a new project. 

# data[].attributes.subject
Why did I worry?In my last blog post, I wrote about my fears surrounding a new project. 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A MiddleWeb Blog

Why did I worry?

In my last blog post, I wrote about my fears surrounding a new project. My eighth-grade U.S. history students had chosen an issue they cared about in the news, and they were about to write and film spoken word poems about it.

I was nervous, and the project seemed a little overwhelming. The serious tech use, extensive free time to write and film in class, and lack of specific guidelines for the poems unsettled me.

But after the dust began to clear - after I dealt with videos that wouldn't upload, talked with kids who didn't want to hear the sound of their own recorded voice - one of those rare magical teaching moments happened.

We watched the poems in class. After each one, students shared what they liked: the power of a repeated phrase, specific words that rang true for them, a classmate's intense tone.

And with each additional poem, on topics as disparate as Pakistani women's education, the threat of nuclear warfare, and the importance of cybersecurity - the room felt like a stronger community.

These middle schoolers were rooting for each other. They shot up their hands with props for classmate after classmate. They leaned forward to make out the words when a video had too much background noise. They demonstrated the power of language to inspire action, to surmount compassion fatigue, to generate "hard empathy."

So why did I worry?

To give myself confidence with future wide-ranging projects, I'll look back at the questions I had in my last blog post and answer them.

Am I spending too much time on this project? Will students get enough out of it?

The length of regular periods at my school is 43 minutes. We spent a period and a half introducing the project, including watching and discussing successful elements of model spoken word poems.

Then students explored topics in the library for a day or two, spent a day learning NoodleTools and creating a bibliography, and took a day or two choosing, printing and annotating three news and feature stories about their topic.

Then we had two days in class to draft the poem, one day for peer response and revision, and two days for rehearsing and filming.

In giving so much in-class time to work, I hoped to mitigate the students' homework load and also give feedback and trouble-shoot. All of this ended up happening.

And even though we took so much time in class, many students said in an anonymous survey afterward that they would suggest more time for peer editing and writing, possibly shortening the topic brainstorming at the beginning to make room. Their comments included: "More time for feedback because I felt a little rushed during the editing part" and "I would add some more time to work with partners and do proofreading in class."

Should I be doing a model poem of my own? I didn't write one deliberately, because I didn't want the structure or content of my model to influence them too much - but should I be making myself vulnerable too?

Before we started writing in class, I did end up showing students a poem I had written at the Get Lit - Poetic Convergence conference I attended. It wasn't a spoken word poem, but it did show me as a flawed human being and definitely made me feel vulnerable!

I'm pretty sure I'm giving enough guidance on how to find news and feature articles on subscription databases and newspaper websites. But for the poem itself, am I giving too much guidance? Too little?

The several spoken word model poems we watched at the beginning of the project gave a strong sense of the genre, and I would add even a few more examples next time. In addition, going over poetic devices beforehand in students' English classes turned out to be invaluable.

Should this kind of assignment come later in the year, once we've read more current events and have more background in them? Or will doing the project now spark students' empathy for current issues during the rest of the year?

The second question turned out to be much more accurate. Now I think that doing a project like this at the start of the year will prime the pump not only for current events, but also for any historical primary source that requires empathy. I can't wait to see how this understanding plays out in our regular history units.

On a related note, given that we jumped into this project in September, at times I've felt as if I've blown through the entire "fun quotient" of my year already. But I imagine that knowing students better from the beginning - their passions and capabilities - will only make the rest of the year richer. I hope!

Of course I'll tweak details for next year - for example, taking into account a student's comment that "it should be a requirement that all the poems should be in first person" because "I found that the poems that had the most impact on me were in first person."

But as of now, this is a project I want to do again and again, both to learn about my students and to be inspired myself.

In fact, I would love to showcase the eighth graders' videos online so that people beyond our campus could see them. I'd even like to see other teachers do this project with their students and upload their poems to a searchable database of spoken word poems by topic, so that many more people can be inspired to act.
So why did I worry?

Because I believe in scaffolding skills and don't always know when to let students lay the planks or install the elevator themselves.

Because too often I feel I need to be prepared to give all the answers at the beginning, even with a student-centered and open-ended project like this.

Because I thought my expectations might be too high and I didn't want to be disappointed.

When our wonderful tech support specialist checked during the final presentations to see how everything was going, I sent him a debrief about how we fared with technology during the project (pretty well, overall).

At the end of the email, I wrote, "I feel much more flexible and daring as a teacher than I did before."
Note to self: Next time, don't worry.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Stepping Back and Letting My Students Go

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A MiddleWeb Blog Why did I worry? In my last blog post, I wrote about my fears surrounding a new project. My eighth-grade U.S. history students had chosen an issue they cared about in the news, and they were about to write and film spoken word poems about it.

# data[].attributes.headline
Use this flexible approach to build students' critical thinking and literacy skills.

# data[].attributes.subject
Use this flexible approach to build students' critical thinking and literacy skills.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Use this flexible approach to build students' critical thinking and literacy skills.

With a recent focus on "fake news" and the realization that many of us (adults and kids alike) get our news primarily through social media, the concept of "media literacy" is buzzing. And the #medialiteracy community is responding to this buzz with gusto. Below are a few framing ideas, planning tools, and media-literacy-infused project examples that can help you leverage this momentum, expand media-literacy education in your classrooms, and coordinate a media-literacy program school-wide.

"Media literacy is defined as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and communicate using information in all forms." -- Common Sense News and Media Literacy Topic Backgrounder

Simply put, media literacy is literacy expanded to include all forms of communication -- whether that's a paperback book or a Twitter chat. Embracing that broader definition of literacy is essential for the development of curricula that can empower students to fully participate in all aspects of life these days. Given that schools vary in their priorities, digital resources, and student and teacher backgrounds, it can be difficult to prescribe a cookie-cutter approach to school-wide media-literacy integration that works for all. The good news is that this reality allows us to develop unique pathways to student media literacy within K-12 schools. These pathways all stem from teacher passion, student need, and school philosophy.

Finding a Path to Media Literacy

As you consider how to integrate critical media analysis into your teaching, try this four-step approach.

1. Imagine the profile of a media-literate student.

Outline a simple target profile of a student who is empowered with adaptable and flexible modern literacy skills. Work backward from the objective you have in mind. (See example to the right.)

2. Use media literacy to reinforce your existing teaching objectives.

Media literacy doesn't need to be a separate subject -- instead, it can be layered on to support your current curriculum. Chances are you have ideas for a media-infused project or two, or for routine classroom activities that use computers or tablets. Think about how, with a little mindfulness of media-literacy concepts, those practices could help move students toward the target profile while also adding a new dimension to your core curriculum.

3. Work backward from your most sophisticated media-infused teaching plans.

It's challenging to have students learn a new tool while also thinking critically about the subject matter. To set up students for success, build in time for them to acquire new digital skills and to familiarize themselves with new tools, content, and concepts before putting it all together.

For example, your idea may be to have kids do a close reading of news media video clips and add annotations using Screencastify. The objective may be for students to demonstrate their understanding of the content and identify any bias in the way the content was presented. However, in addition to core content skills, students need time to play with the features of the new tech tools and read up on key questions for analyzing media before they can put it all together.

4. As pockets of media-literacy practices build in your school, look to align them vertically.

Once media literacy is authentically taking hold in pockets around your school, use a curriculum planning template (see The Media Spot's Media Literacy Scope and Sequence Template) to ensure that across and within each grade level, you're incorporating digital skills and media-literacy concepts that build cohesively toward the media-literacy profile you have envisioned for your students.

Examples from K-12 Teacher Plans and Student Work

Here are some examples of K-12 projects with notes on how they emphasize media literacy alongside their core curricular goals on the path toward a media-literacy profile.

Tiny Bop Robot Factory provides open-ended exploration and play that can lead to learning about engineering design.

Curriculum Enhancement: This project supports generating content for poems and sparking creativity and engagement.

Media-Literacy Focus: Students learn adaptable digital production skills connected to literacy fundamentals. They explore and build with an app, connect details in an image to generate text, and introduce elements of poetry.

Takeaways: The backward plan from this project includes responsible use of classroom media, introduction to motor skills for operating the iPad, routines for working together, and basic operations through center time using academic apps.

Whole-class Padlet walls create stories of American history decade by decade using found news, commercials, political ads, and movies.

Curriculum Enhancement: This project supports inquiry-driven historical research.

Digital Skills: Students learn to find and embed media artifacts in a shared online space as they create screencast tours of the decades.

Media-Literacy Focus: Students learn how media messages affect the ways people see the real world as well as how they see themselves.

Takeaways: Digital skills are in place, and students are analyzing the relationship between new and traditional media texts. They are also mindfully producing their own artifacts and reflecting on media bias, personal bias, and audience response.

ELA students write a persuasive essay, then adapt it into documentary videos to express their perspective on community policing. Screening the videos for police at a town hall can begin a face-to-face dialogue.

Curriculum Enhancement: This project help students convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

Digital Skills: Students learn to produce videos using iMovie, accessing found video and images connected to text.

Media-Literacy Focus: Students learn how when translating their writing into video format, their image choices can change the message. What lifestyles, values, and points of view are represented? How might different audiences read our messages differently?

Takeaways: Adding specific images of police to student writing added significant meaning that triggered student and police audience members differently. Students had rich discussions around their media choices.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
4 Ways to Integrate Media Literacy in the Classroom | Common Sense Education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
With a recent focus on "fake news" and the realization that many of us (adults and kids alike) get our news primarily through social media, the concept of "media literacy" is buzzing. And the #medialiteracy community is responding to this buzz with gusto.

# data[].attributes.headline
The mere presence of other people can boost your performance, and 8 other research-backed findings about collaboration and teamwork.

# data[].attributes.subject
The mere presence of other people can boost your performance, and 8 other research-backed findings about collaboration and teamwork.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Look behind any creative success story and you'll usually find a great team, a group of passionate people who raised each other's game. When thinking about productivity we often focus on the individual, yet it's by optimizing teams that we can truly take our projects to the next level.

How? One secret weapon you have is to appreciate the psychological factors that turn a group of individuals into a cohesive team unit. To help you optimize your team selection and working habits, here are nine facts that can help you get the most out of working with others:

1. The mere presence of other people can boost your performance.

One the earliest findings in social psychology was the "social facilitation" effect - the way the mere presence of other people engaged in the same task as us can boost our motivation. In 1920, social psychologist Floyd Allport showed that a group of people working individually at the same table performed better on a whole range of tasks even though they weren't cooperating or competing. Allport's research illustrates how the energy of other people can act as a substitute team even if we're working solo (this is why many creatives enjoy working at their local café surrounded by industrious strangers).

2. A familiar team has benefits like a home stadium.

Everyone knows that sports teams enjoy an advantage when they compete in the familiar surroundings of their home stadium. Less recognized are the benefits of having familiar faces around you. Consider a 2006 Harvard study that showed the performance of heart surgeons improved over time when working at their main hospital surrounded by their usual team. Crucially, this improvement didn't translate to other hospitals with unfamiliar personnel when the surgeons would cover for other doctors. The surgeons knew these other hospitals well, but didn't have the same tacit understanding with the local personnel as they did with their main team.

By working repeatedly with the same people, you get to know their strengths and weaknesses; you have shared experiences to draw on; and you develop unspoken habits and rules that aid your mutual understanding. A related lesson here: take a star performer out of their usual team environment and you might find their performance disappoints.

The mere presence of other people engaged in the same task as us can boost our motivation.

3. Virtual teams can outperform face-to-face teams.

A 2009 survey by Cisco of thousands of teleworkers found 69 percent said their productivity was higher when they worked remotely and 83 percent said their communication with other team members was either unaffected or enhanced by being dispersed. And in 2009, a research team led by Frank Siebdrat assessed the performance of 80 software companies around the world and found that more dispersed teams often outperformed "co-located" teams.

Siebdrat and his colleagues said the most important factor in the success of a remote team was having processes in place to make sure each member contributes fully, including adequate support and communication. Other good practices include scheduling time for virtual camaraderie building, including chatting in an informal context (see point 9).

4. A balance of extroverts and introverts makes for a better team.

When Corrine Bendersky and Neha Parikh Shah at UCLA organised hundreds of MBA students into five-person teams for ten weeks of group assignments, they found that introverts started off with the lowest status: their peers didn't think they had much influence, nor did they expect them to contribute as much to the team as the bolder, brasher team members. Yet, by the end of the quarter, the students had seen what introverts have to offer - their status had climbed while the extraverts' status had fallen.

While extroverts will grab your attention and showcase their abilities, you might need to search a little harder to spot the talented quiet types. But don't go too far the other way and ignore extroverts - a balance of complementary personalities is often the most effective mix.

More dispersed teams often outperformed "co-located" teams.

5. Most good teams have one analytic thinker on board.

Team members with a big picture thinking style are great for brainstorming and creative problem solving but when it comes to idea execution a study published this year suggests it's a good idea to have at least one focused, analytic thinker on your team - that is, someone who can focus on the details of your project.

Ishani Aggarwal and Anita Woolley at the Tepper School of Business found that teams with an analytic thinker tended to perform better on "execution tasks" because they paid more attention to "process focus" - identifying sub-tasks and the resources needed to complete them. Aggarwal and Tepper warned this benefit needs to be balanced as big picture thinkers and analytical thinkers can disagree on strategic priorities, harming team performance. To avoid this, foster a team-wide appreciation of process focus and get team members to agree explicitly on strategic priorities. Recruiting a rare individual with a mixed cognitive style (big picture and analytic) can also help foster communication between team members with different thinking styles.

6. Teams perform better when they include both men and women.

In 2012, Credit Suisse published an analysis of nearly 2,400 international companies, finding that those with at least one woman on their boards tended to be the strongest performers. The benefits of having both men and women in the controlling team were especially apparent in tougher operating conditions and was attributed by the report authors to issues such as better team diversity (see point 5) and a balance of leadership skills.

What's the optimum gender balance to aim for? An experiment published in 2011 by European researchers found that teams of business students with a 50-50 mix of men and women performed best at a business venture game. The researchers said this was at least partly due to mixed-gender groups engaging in more "mutual monitoring" - making sure everyone pulled their weight for the team's benefit.

7. There's a danger of teams splitting into sub-groups.

It's inevitable that allegiances and friendships will form within teams. Research with space crews and arctic explorers has shown how these "micro-cultures" can be particularly strong when they're based on forms of social identity - such as ethnicity or gender - that predate the creation of the team. For multi-disciplinary teams, these divisions can also form along shared professional identities.

A study led by psychologist Doris Fay investigated this problem in the UK's healthcare system. Fay found that diversity was a bonus - multi-disciplinary teams produced better quality innovations than more homogeneous teams - but only if certain processes were in place to help prevent internal splits. These included making sure all team members were committed to the same cause; ensuring everyone felt listened to; the team reflected on its own performance; and there was plenty of communication between team members (see point 9).

Companies with at least one woman on their boards tended to be the strongest performers.

8. Effective teams depend on "social sensitivity."

Research has shown that the "collective intelligence" of teams (as judged by their ability to perform well across a range of challenges) is based not on the average IQ of individual team members, but on the way team members take turns during conversations, and having a higher proportion of women in the group (see points 6 and 9).

The research led by Anita Woolley suggests we should road-test our teams for these characteristics - known as "social sensitivity" - just like we assess individuals. If a team flops at this assessment, then adjust the personnel to find a better mix, or train the team in better communication.

9. The best teams communicate outside of formal meetings.

Researchers at MIT's Human Dynamics Laboratory have found conversations outside of formal meetings are the most important factor that contributes to team success. Their research showed that the energy and engagement of these informal interactions accounts for one third of the differences in productivity between groups.

There are simple steps we can take to increase these valuable encounters, including scheduling coffee breaks so that all team members get to chat with each other and planning social events. Related to this, the most productive creative teams are those that strike the perfect balance between "exploration" and "engagement" - sourcing new ideas from outside the team and integrating ideas within the team.

-

How about you?

What conditions do you think lead to better collaboration?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
9 Facts Every Creative Needs to Know About Collaborative Teams

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Look behind any creative success story and you'll usually find a great team, a group of passionate people who raised each other's game. When thinking about productivity we often focus on the individual, yet it's by optimizing teams that we can truly take our projects to the next level. How?

# data[].attributes.headline
Includes a video of thinking like a problem solver with high school students.

# data[].attributes.subject
Includes a video of thinking like a problem solver with high school students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
October 2017 | Volume 75 | Number 2
Unleashing Problem Solvers Pages 83-84

Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey

Three strategies can help students become future-proof problem solvers.

A cross grade levels, teachers work to ensure that students develop their thinking skills. Becoming educated is much more than collecting facts and details. We all hope our students will become thinkers who can work out solutions to the complex problems they will face, problems we may not even have thought of yet. When students become problem solvers, they become future-proof. We see this as much more than future-ready. Future-proof students know how to learn, and they know what they still need to learn. They also know they'll be faced with a variety of challenges and that they'll need to rally resources and figure out ways to meet those challenges. Over time, and with practice, they will become quicker at problem solving to the point that it will become a skill they own and can transfer across time and space. That's when we are rewarded.

But hope isn't a plan. We cannot simply hope that students become problem solvers; we need to offer intentional and targeted instruction that builds their skills. Learners need teachers to guide their strategic thinking-which is much more purposeful, slow, and conscientious than everyday thinking-so that this mode of thinking becomes enshrined as habit.

Preparing for a Prompt

In the video accompanying this column, Nancy engages a group of 10th grade students. From a choice of several books that explore the question of how our social and cultural community or context shape who we are, the students in this group have selected to read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Little, Brown and Company, 2007). These students have yet to demonstrate their skills in drawing conclusions from texts. In previous lessons, they made guesses or used their personal experiences to respond to questions and engage in discussion on texts. Nancy is concerned that they won't perform well when given a writing prompt (which is a type of problem a student needs to marshal resources for and solve), particularly this upcoming prompt:

How does our social and cultural community or context shape who we are? After reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, identify one or more themes (big ideas) and provide specific evidence from the text to support your analysis. Remember to apply insight by citing small but important details, and address the complicated issues that Alexie raises in the short story.

As you watch Nancy support four students' learning, note the actions of the other students. Some are working on computers, drafting their responses to the writing prompt. Others are reading in their selected books or talking quietly in their book clubs. Nancy works with four students who've all read the same text. Other students are reading this text, but their assessment data indicates that they are drawing conclusions with evidence and don't need the small-group lesson at this time.

Strategic Guidance

Guiding students' thinking requires that teachers be strategic. To ensure that students develop the habits needed to be successful on their own, teachers should refrain from telling students what to think. Direct explanations are problematic and can result in adult-dependent learners who wait on their teachers (and parents, employers, or friends) for an answer. Teachers can use three tools-questions, prompts, and cues-to be sure students are cognitively engaged in their learning.

Questions

When guiding students' thinking, it's important to ask questions that probe knowledge gaps and misunderstandings. Questions help uncover students' thinking, and sometimes that thinking has gone astray. Questions about content should be followed up with ones that probe beneath a student's answer. In other words, guiding students' thinking cannot be solely based on elicitation questions drawing on information you've already taught.

Strategic teachers often ask an elaboration question, as you see Nancy do with students in the video. Such questions invite students to share their reasoning, which can focus their attention on considering a range of possibilities as they respond. Elaboration questions can be generic ("Why do you think so?") or more specific ("What do you think motivated the character to act that way?"). The point of asking an elaboration question is to identify reasons for students' thinking. If their reasons don't flow logically, they may need prompting or cueing to reconsider their response.

Clarifying questions are also useful in uncovering thinking. These questions-queries like, "Where did you find that?" or "What evidence did the author provide that would support your claim?"-invite students to provide an example or evidence. It's also useful for students to ask one another these types of questions as they learn to think about their reasons and explanations; this helps them solve problems when their teachers aren't around.

Prompts and Cues

When an answer to a question reveals confusion, an error, or a misconception, teachers should avoid providing direct explanations. Instead, use prompting and cueing to guide thinking.

Prompts are designed to get something happening in the learner's mind. Sometimes prompts draw on background knowledge ("Remember when we talked about ... "); other times, they involve processes or procedures learners have been taught ("There's something we usually do when there's a word we don't recognize"). Prompts can also be reflective (for example, "Is that making sense?" or "Have you considered an alternative?").

Teachers can also use cues to guide their students' thinking. Cues are more direct than prompts. They generally shift a learner's attention and include a range of strategies such as verbal, gestural, physical, visual, and environmental cues. As you watch Nancy interact with the four students, you'll see her use a number of cues. She cues them to specific passages in the text, changes her voice to emphasize specific parts, and gestures to help them notice ideas and information.

These three strategies-questions, prompts, and cues-help teachers catalyze students' strategic thinking. A one-time lesson isn't going to ensure that students develop the habits necessary to become problem solvers, but multiple interactions like these will build the skills necessary for students to assume greater responsibility for their learning. Imagine students having 100 or so lessons like this with Nancy-those learners almost can't help but become text analyzers and problem solvers. They will soon integrate evidence into their discussion and writing. They'll use various approaches to arrive at a solution, and be able to defend it. They'll learn to value the perspective of others as they analyze problems and work out ways to address them. These students are being apprenticed into a way of thinking, but not told what to think. There's a big difference. That's how problem solvers are created: one interaction at a time.

Endnote

The opening question of this prompt, which all students in this classroom will eventually be posed, is based on the essential question that's the focus of the class. Details in the rest of the prompt vary based on the book each student selected.

Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey are professors in the Department of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and teacher leaders at Health Sciences High and Middle College. They are ASCD authors, and their work inspired ASCD's FIT Teaching® program.

KEYWORDS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Apprenticing Students into a Way of Thinking - Educational Leadership

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
October 2017 | Volume 75 | Number 2 Unleashing Problem Solvers Pages 83-84 Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey Three strategies can help students become future-proof problem solvers. A cross grade levels, teachers work to ensure that students develop their thinking skills. Becoming educated is much more than collecting facts and details.

# data[].attributes.body
Types of Empathy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
World-renowned game designer, Jane McGonigal, defines two different types of empathy and how we can practice being more empathetic to imagine a better future.

# data[].attributes.headline
Overly prescriptive project-based learning can be just as guilty of convergent, right answer–oriented thinking as a multiple-choice test. 

# data[].attributes.subject
Overly prescriptive project-based learning can be just as guilty of convergent, right answer–oriented thinking as a multiple-choice test. 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Projects Without Borders: Divergent Problem Solving in PBL

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A student at St. Mary's IB school in Aliso Viejo, California, watches the video from her international partner. ( Courtesy Level Up Village)

Many schools are moving to project-based learning as a way to help students make meaning about content in deeper and more lasting ways than a lecture can provide. While those goals are clear to educators, and inspiring examples of schools successfully implementing the pedagogy exist, it can still be a challenging shift for many teachers. It is difficult to design projects that both help students learn required content and that genuinely interest them. Some educators are finding that connecting projects to a global community is a powerful way to make a project feel meaningful to students.

"I'm very much interested in how we can encourage young people to be active, engaged members of community," said Mike Gwaltney during a presentation on project-based learning and global citizenship at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). Gwaltney is now the principal of Rocky Hill School in Rhode Island and has been teaching for 25 years. His specialty is history, but he doesn't think that should mean teaching the Gadsden Purchase anymore.

"We ought to be teaching stuff that has real meaning for people," Gwaltney said. He believes students are more keyed into global issues and current events than many adults know. The young people he has worked with care about what's happening in the world around them. When teachers tap into that passion, students are capable of producing work that impacts the world beyond school. In 2014, Gwaltney was teaching at the Oregon Episcopal School in Portland when a shooting took place near the school. He knew that one way to handle the issue would have been to facilitate a discussion about the shooting with his class. But he wanted to localize the bigger issue of gun violence for his students.

"Project-based learning is about doing something; it's about active learning," Gwaltney said. "It's about getting involved in the subject. It's not learning about math or about government, but how can I be someone in those fields." After the shooting it became clear his students didn't just want to talk about the pros and cons of gun control - they wanted to do something to make their local community safer. So they wrote legislation and introduced it to the Portland City Council. When it failed, and various adults patted them on the back before sending them on their way, the students were indignant.

Instead of giving up the idea, they partnered with other interest groups to sponsor and testify in support of a bill in the state legislature that would require background checks on private gun sales and close a loophole in Oregon state law. The bill passed; the governor signed it into law, and those students learned an indelible lesson about how government works. Their work had an impact; and along the way they came to understand it takes persistence to see results. They practiced less tangible skills like effective communication and collaboration with outside groups. And, perhaps most importantly, they also began to empathize with responsible gun owners through conversations with citizens and lobbyists testifying on the other side of the issue.

"Wherever I go, I see the desire for opportunities to build citizenship," said Suzie Boss, a journalist and project-based learning advocate who has worked with educators around the world on globally connected projects. "That's one of the universals. How can we change the world together?" She sees many opportunities for this type of important work because there are so many thorny problems affecting every person on the globe.

So incredibly proud of my team @MYWorldMexico! +5000 actions in almost 2 years of hard work! #Act4SDGs 🇲🇽❤️ @mtoomeyUN @SDGaction @UN pic.twitter.com/qcll14JN3H

- Karol Arámbula (@KarolArambula) September 25, 2017

"My bottom line when you think about designing PBL, with global competency as one of the goals you want to get to, there needs to be passion," Boss said. "You need to activate that passion in them by opening their eyes to issues they may not be aware of, or by listening to them about what they care about." She said good projects usually start with an entry event that helps activate that passion and curiosity in students. After that, the second most important element is that the problem be actionable.

"If we teach kids about the problems of the world without giving them a recipe for doing something, that's just a recipe for depression," Boss said. The problems need to be big enough to matter, but actionable enough that students feel they can make a difference. One of her favorite examples of this type of teaching has developed around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. These are big, lofty goals, like eliminating poverty, that will affect the future of the world. Crucially, they are works in progress - the global community has not yet been able to solve these problems, which means there's an opportunity for students' work to make a difference.

"These are [opportunities for] project-based learning for the world," Boss said. She's found that working with the Sustainable Development Goals has helped even the most content-first teachers she knows to embrace project-based learning. Boss worked with Jason Welker, an economics teacher who at the time worked for a rigorous private school. He didn't want to do project-based learning because he didn't think he could fit all the content he needed to cover into the short school year. Finally, he decided to give PBL a try in his environmental economics class.

"He challenged his students in an economics class to pick one of those [U.N. Sustainable Development] goals that they care about and propose an action project using economic theory," Boss said. One group got interested in climate action, researching carbon offsets as an economic mechanism to help solve the problem of climate change. Their theory of action was so well researched that their school ended up investing in their proposal.
MONUMENTS PROJECT
Tom Neville had a hunch that taking his eighth-graders to the cemetery would spark some powerful history learning, but he had no idea that what started as an effort to offer his students at the American School of Paris (ASP) an authentic project-based learning experience on World War I would take off the way it did.

"The introduction to the project was folks from the American Battle Monuments Commission saying, 'Look, we have all these folks buried here and we don't know anything about them and we think you can help us with that," Neville said. Students broke into groups, each taking the names of several American soldiers who fought in Europe, died and were buried in Suresnes American Cemetery. They began trying to figure out the back stories of the soldiers, intending to build an app for the cemetery so visitors could learn about who was buried there.

Neville was lucky to have the support of administrators at ASP who were looking to push the school's pedagogy toward these types of projects. Soon the Monuments Project was much more than history. Theater students were writing and directing plays based on the research; French students were helping translate documents students found in local archives; and students wrote about their research in English class.*

As the project was getting off the ground, Neville read an article about two teachers on Lopez Island whose students had developed a gamified history app about sites around Washington state. Neville recognized a kindred spirit and reached out to Anthony Rovente and Tim Fry to see if they'd like to partner on the Monuments Project. Soon, Neville's students in Paris were working with the Lopez Island students in the U.S. to find out what had happened to the 23 Washingtonians buried at Suresnes.

"There is an excitement in the sense of scale," Neville said. "Anytime we are engaged in something bigger than ourselves we feel that sense of camaraderie." The U.S. students were emailing and calling local archives in Washington state while students in Paris were plumbing the French archives. Both classes shared their research and contributed to the app. In some cases, the students' efforts prompted local archives to digitize their content for the first time. In others, family members of soldiers buried far away shared their personal memories, records and mementos with the students. And students collaborated with historians and archivists in many parts of the world to learn research tips and how to navigate archives.

"The level of energy and investment I saw was really powerful," Neville said. "You just want to bottle it." He was impressed that his students persisted in their search, even when they made no progress for several weeks. But, Neville's careful to point out that he had prepared his students for this type of uncertainty, a lesson he learned early in his efforts to do big real-world history projects.

"It's really more about developing a mindset and a culture within that learning space," Neville said. He always starts the year using Eleanor Duckworth's concept of Critical Exploration. The exercise forces them to accept uncertainty and to back up what they think they know with evidence, and gets them thinking like real historians. "Without that mindset you'll have different reactions from kids who are hitting walls," Neville said. He uses Critical Exploration as a touchstone for students when they get frustrated, reminding them that valuable learning is happening even if they're stuck.

Despite the success of the Monuments Project, it was messy and logistically challenging. The nine-hour time difference between Paris and Lopez Island made global collaboration difficult. Partway through the project a teacher at Stuyvesant High School in New York City wanted to join, further complicating matters. But as interest about the program grew among educators in the U.S., Neville decided to try to scale the project. He's now working with an old co-worker, Patrick Cronin, to create a nonprofit that can support social studies teachers to do similar projects based on the soldiers in their local cemeteries.

"The goal of finding out how to scale this effectively is not just to expand the Monument Project, but to expand the pedagogy," Neville said. He knows not all teachers work in environments as supportive of global projects as APS - he's even worked in some - but he's convinced when teachers experience the level of engagement and quality of work he saw in his students, they'll be excited to jump on board. And, he can't think of a better way to instill the importance of history in students than by introducing them to the tools real historians rely on to discover untold stories that resonate beyond the classroom.

Student reflections on the process and the power of adding to the world's knowledge are a bit motivator for Neville. In a blog post for the Monuments Project a Stuyvesant student, Dawei Huang, writes: "Simply said, the experiences of individual soldiers are often overlooked by historians, and Stuyvesant students were now helping do the work. For myself, I feel like there is great significance and satisfaction lifting the lives of soldiers reserved for the footnotes of history to the forefront of our attention and appreciation."
LESS CONSUMING GLOBAL PROJECTS
Tammy Dunbar has been connecting her fifth-grade students at Lincoln School, a public K-8 in Manteca, California, with international classrooms for years now. It's become a standard part of her teaching. She got interested in collaborating across continents through her own global community of peers and brought that enthusiasm to her class.

For example, an educator friend in Belgium told her about his plan to do a big project on gender equality. Around that time, Dunbar was hearing a lot of anxiety from her students about President Trump's campaign promise to build a wall between Mexico and the U.S. Dunbar's students, about 70 percent of whom are Latino, were worried about what would happen to their families. The two teachers joined their themes in the Human Differences project where they explored the visible and invisible walls that humans put up. Eventually, classrooms all around the world joined the project, sharing the walls that characterize their countries and cultures.

Impressed! Nigerian students developed a small biogas plant in the school chemistry lab to fight carbon monoxide! https://t.co/KmUrV5pgzO pic.twitter.com/joPdtioF1v

- Koen Timmers (@zelfstudie) September 26, 2017

In week one of the project, students explored the various kinds of walls they notice in their communities, both physical and invisible. They researched and discussed with their classes, but then made videos to share on the Human Differences site that other classes could watch. The second week focused on gender equality, a topic Dunbar's students didn't think was a problem at first. Then they watched the videos uploaded by partner classes in China and India.

"It kind of opened their eyes to what's going on in the world," Dunbar said. Those videos prompted students to think more critically about gender equity in their own homes and communities, leading to a good discussion. In the third week, classes discussed real walls. They studied the Berlin Wall and the Great Wall of China. Dunbar's fifth-graders talked about what makes a wall good or bad, and they talked about the wall President Trump wants to build, as well as what their class might do about it.

When they shared their reflections on physical walls with other classrooms around the world, they learned that the leaders of countries in Latin America live in houses walled off from the people. Dunbar's students were sympathetic to their faraway peers, and felt validated in their own concerns about a wall along the border.

In week four, classes explored the idea of bridges and how people can build bridges instead of walls. Dunbar's class Skyped with students in Canada and Nigeria to learn about their lives.

"The teachers really took the questions and ran with them because every country has their issue and things that are happening," Dunbar said. "This gives them a platform to talk about it with their kids." The project was flexible, but still provided contact with students in other parts of the world with different worldviews and realities. Along the way, Dunbar knows her students were honing skills like respectful listening, questioning, communication, presenting, research, writing and critical thinking.

"If we want kids to be 21st century learners, then they have to think globally; everything is connected," Dunbar said. "I like to think that by doing this we're building the bridges that make people more tolerant, more willing to accept more people."

This year, Dunbar is kicking off the school year by reading Lois Lowry's book "Number the Stars" with her class and her friend Emma Naas' class in Sweden. The two classes have different perspectives on the story based on their geography and history, but are learning a lot from one another by reading together.
LEVEL UP VILLAGE
Many of the teachers doing the most elaborate globally connected projects are anomalies in their schools. They are individually invested in helping students develop global competencies and have taken on the extra work of connecting with international educators interested in Skyping or finding education-based programs that include a global dimension. Not all teachers have the inclination or time to do that legwork.

There are several organizations working to smooth the way for schools that value global projects. One such company, Level Up Village, focuses on providing science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) content through an online platform that also connects U.S. classrooms to those abroad. The founder and CEO, Amy McCooe, realized that kids in Kenya were learning about electricity at the same time as kids in the U.S. She saw the curricular connection as an opportunity to create connections between U.S. students and international students.

Kids are partnered up and each week they upload videos talking about the issues in their own communities. They start off by sharing personal details, but eventually end up communicating about what they're learning and how it is connected to issues in their local communities. In the model, the U.S. schools pay $55 per student for the service, and part of that fee goes to the partner school to pay for the technology and curriculum there.

The Level Up Village program intentionally includes introductory online courses for teachers to help them increase their own global competency before being asked to teach it to students. The course talks about equity and empathy, emphasizing that respect is conveyed differently in different cultures. They talk about how important it is for students to learn to say their partners' names correctly and how different body language cues might be misunderstood.

Carrie Brown teaches English and History to sixth-graders at Girls Academic Leadership Academy (GALA), an all-girls STEM school in Los Angeles Unified School District. When her principal said they would be using Level Up Village, she was initially skeptical. As a 27-year veteran teacher she doesn't like being told how to run her class, but she checked it out with an open mind and decided it was worth a try.

"I did not expect to love it as much as I did," Brown said. She doesn't feel particularly tech-savvy, but found the three hours of introductory work provided by the program sufficiently prepared her. She can't imagine doing all the work to find a partner class in Kenya, ensure the quality of the videos, enlist translation services and make sure the experience drives toward academic goals.

"I liked that [my students] were very independent," Brown said. "I loved the interactions. I liked the self-directed projects." She liked that the curriculum was flexible enough that she could spend a lot or a little time on it each week. Like many teachers, she's careful what she spends class time on, but found the conversations, revelations and enthusiasm of this international partnership to be well worth the time investment.

While many Level Up Village courses focus on STEM, they also have a course on leadership taught through Malala Yousafzai's autobiography "I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban." Reading the book and talking about it with girls in Kenya upended some of the preconceived notions students held - like the assumption that everyone gets to go to school for free.

One student's partner didn't upload a video by the deadline. When Brown inquired, she found out that the girl was no longer in school because her parents couldn't pay the school fees. That prompted an important discussion in Brown's class. And students took the experience home to their families as well. Brown says it's the first time in her career that she got emails from parents about the engaging, lively discussions they were having over dinner about school.

While teachers continue to discern the most impactful ways to use technology in classrooms, one fact is inarguable: Technology makes the world smaller. Teachers can find inspiration in the work of colleagues across the world and students can learn together. That powerful capacity can bring new dimensions to classroom learning when leveraged by a skillful teacher.
*A previous version of this article stated that students at American School of Paris built the Monuments Project app. In fact, they used the same platform Lopez Island students used the year before.
How Making an Impact on the World Motivates Students

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Making an Impact on the World Motivates Students

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Many schools are moving to project-based learning as a way to help students make meaning about content in deeper and more lasting ways than a lecture can provide. While those goals are clear to educators, and inspiring examples of schools successfully implementing the pedagogy exist, it can still be a challenging shift for many teachers.

# data[].attributes.headline
Students can often solve the puzzles of a text through their own writing.

# data[].attributes.subject
Students can often solve the puzzles of a text through their own writing.

# data[].attributes.headline
Here's what educators need to know about teachingstudents to read in the disciplines.

# data[].attributes.subject
Here's what educators need to know about teachingstudents to read in the disciplines.

# data[].attributes.headline
Language arts, science, social studies, mathematics—the craft of argumentation belongs in every discipline.

# data[].attributes.subject
Language arts, science, social studies, mathematics—the craft of argumentation belongs in every discipline.

# data[].attributes.headline
Five strategies to help students respond well to uncertainty—and foster complex problem-solving skills.

# data[].attributes.subject
Five strategies to help students respond well to uncertainty—and foster complex problem-solving skills.

# data[].attributes.headline
How place- and community-based education can broaden the classroom—and your students' viewpoints.

# data[].attributes.subject
How place- and community-based education can broaden the classroom—and your students' viewpoints.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Making a World of Difference by Looking Locally

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Reading, writing and empathy: How Denmark is a leader in teaching social skills - CSMonitor.com

# data[].attributes.headline
Problem Solving, Critical Thinking & Creativity

# data[].attributes.subject
Problem Solving, Critical Thinking & Creativity

# data[].attributes.body
What are the importance and benefits of critical thinking?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What are the Importance and Benefits of “Critical Thinking Skills”?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Critical Thinking is the ability to analyze the way you think and present evidence for your ideas, rather than simply accepting your personal reasoning as sufficient proof. You can gain numerous benefits from mastering critical thinking skills, such as better control of your own learning and empathy

# data[].attributes.body
Towards a social understanding of self-regulated learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Educational policy research in the last decade has placed increasing stress on the need for students to develop skills or competencies to compete in the knowledge-based economy, where production involves conceptual innovation, rather than routine manufacturing. The 'Next Chapter' of the IBO, a comprehensive alteration in the practice, if not the principles of the IBO framework, reflects the influence of these policy findings. Approaches to Learning (ATL), designed to help students "learn how to learn" (MYP: From Principles to Practice, p. 20), is now a core component of the curriculum. The ultimate aim of making these ATL an explicit part of the curriculum is to develop "self-regulated-independent and autonomous" learners (Ibid., p. 21).

In what follows I hope to expand on the definition suggested by the term "self-regulated" learning (SRL), and the "self-management" ATL that is meant to support its development. By placing the development of (SRL) in a social context, teachers can remain consistent in their constructivist approaches to instruction, and use collaboration as a scaffold to help the "self" better regulate its learning. First a bit on the relationship between (SRL) and metacognition.

What is the relationship between metacognition and self-regulated learning?

(SRL) has been defined as the control, management, monitoring, reflecting, and adapting one's cognitive processes and learning activities for improvement. Examples of (SRL) occur when learners monitor and direct their own progress, asking questions such as "What am I doing now?," "Is it getting me anywhere?," "What else could I be doing instead?"

These definitions depend on the learner being aware of themselves as a learner, with the ability to notice strategies as they occur, to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, to reflect on and ultimately to adapt these strategies for future improvement. To monitor, control, regulate, reflect on, and adapt one's learning, it is first necessary to be aware of learning as learning, an awareness of learning above the subject matter itself. A learner needs to have a metacognitive awareness of their own learning, before the self-regulatory processes mentioned above can be initiated. In How People Learn (click link for full text. It's a synthesis of decades of educational research published by the the National Research Council in 2000) metacognition was identified as a key element for improving student learning.

The upshot for teachers, particularly those involved in implementing the ATL of the Next Chapter, is that it might be helpful to develop the metacognitive awareness of your students, before focusing on developing strategies for improving these processes. I found some great thinking routines for developing metacognitive awareness in Making Thinking Visible, though I'm sure there are plenty of other excellent sources available.

Is it really up to the learner to "self" regulate?

Since the 1970's when the notions of metacognition and (SRL) first gained prominence, (SRL) has been conceived as an individual, cognitive process. Our language continues to reflect the belief in an isolated ego, manipulating their thinking in a context-less void. We speak of "self-management,"and "self-directed" learners. With the constructivist turn in educational theory initiated by Vygotsky, research into the processes of (SRL) are identifying the social factors supporting, and often driving the (SRL) process. These changes are also reflected in the language now used to describe the processes. There is talk now of 'co-regulated' learning (see the research being done by Allison Hadwin), socially-shared cognition, and distributed cognition (for more on this see ' Cognition in the Wild '.

As teachers, when we encourage our students to aim higher, ask for clarification of meaning, recommend apps for managing information, we co- regulate with our students. More significant and often overlooked in the literature is the co-regulating role played by peers during collaborative projects. I have experimented with different forms of social media to make the process of collaboration visible to my students. This enables me to identify effective collaboration, rather than vaguely defined "group work." I could see students motivating their peers- "maybe consider this.." " I know it's hard, maybe try reading this...", " ...summative is in three days, we can do this!!" Conversation threads also reveal students asking each other for clarification of meaning- " what do you mean by 'better'... "can you explain this more, I don't understand.." In other words, the affective and organisational traits we often associate with "self" management and "self" regulation occur within and are fostered by interactions, resulting in meaningful collaboration.

(I also show these conversations to students, so they can see and understand what co-regulation is, to see what it means to be a team-player, a collaborator in the deeper sense of the term.)

If there's a "take-away" to speak of here, it's to see metacognition, self-regulated learning, and collaboration as related and mutually reinforcing, and leveraging the power of ICT can support the development of all three by making the process visible to the teacher and student.

Thanks for reading...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Towards a social understanding of self-regulated learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Educational policy research in the last decade has placed increasing stress on the need for students to develop skills or competencies to compete in the knowledge-based economy, where production involves conceptual innovation, rather than routine manufacturing. The 'Next Chapter' of the IBO, a comprehensive alteration in the practice, if not the principles of the IBO...

# data[].attributes.headline
Empathy Is Academic: Lessons from Lotus Slippers

# data[].attributes.subject
Empathy Is Academic: Lessons from Lotus Slippers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Empathy Is Academic: Lessons from Lotus Slippers

Naomi Priddy

In 2015, The Field Museum-Chicago's museum of natural history-opened the Cyrus Tang Hall of China, an exhibit surveying 5,000 years of Chinese culture and history. As social studies instructional design specialist for the museum, I was tasked in creating teacher resources to accompany the exhibit. I immediately thought of my former 5th and 7th grade students. What would help them connect to this material? Most of my students had no personal experience with people of Chinese descent, outside of the Chinese buffet in their neighborhood. Growing up in rural California, I could relate; most world cultures I studied were completely outside my personal experience. I sat in classrooms, as a student and as a teacher, where common misconceptions and biases were maintained, both passively and actively. I knew that students would need help understanding the rich culture and history represented in Cyrus Tang Hall of China. With the support of a teacher advisory board, I created the China Educator Toolkit to support learning about China and to engage, challenge, and overcome cultural misunderstandings.

Common Concerns, Different Solutions

The Field Museum seeks to engage its audience in a journey of discovery across time to enable solutions for a brighter future rich in nature and culture. Anthropologists at the museum present different cultures as equally valuable expressions of the human experience. A guiding principle of Field Museum exhibitions is "Common Concerns, Different Solutions," meaning that all humans share the same needs and concerns: food, shelter, community; the way we pursue these needs both reflects and builds our cultural identity. The China Educator's Toolkit was designed for students and teachers to experience this journey of discovery, across time and cultures, firsthand.

What I really wanted was for students who study culture and history to cultivate empathy. Empathy can sound like an education buzzword and another layer added to teachers' workload. But it is an important component of social and emotional learning and a challenging academic skill. To empathize requires understanding others in their own context, overcoming personal biases, asking important questions, and seeking new learning.

Three Empathic Lenses

The idea of historical empathy is familiar to social studies teachers. Part of historical study is building connections to the past to understand what it was like to live and make decisions in different historical contexts. But historical empathy alone is not enough in understanding world cultures. Isolating a historical lens runs the risk of silencing contemporary voices. Most natural history museums face this challenge; exhibitions on Native American cultures are often rooted in historical contexts, and many visitors walk away with the myth that these cultures are all but dead in the contemporary United States. Similarly, studying world cultures with a purely historical focus may leave students with the belief that other cultures are backward or stuck in time.

To address this potential problem, I divide academic empathy in the social sciences into three categories: historical empathy, pushing students outside presentism to understand people living in other times; cultural empathy, engaging with contemporary cultures outside of students' experiences and challenging students' cultural biases; and social empathy, building activities by which students learn to listen to one another's perspectives and collaborate to build new learning. These lenses can be found throughout the China Educator's Toolkit.

Approaching Empathy Through Inquiry

The skills required for the three lenses of empathy overlap, and they also complement the critical thinking subskills of connecting, clarifying, comparing, evaluating, interpreting, questioning, and suspending judgment. Elizabeth Yeager and Stuart Foster (2001) present an inquiry-based approach to engaging empathy by providing students with a paradox to overcome. First, teachers present a paradox. For example, "How have charismatic leaders enabled decent people to contribute to genocide?" To address the paradox, students research historical context, analyze a variety of historical sources and interpretations, and construct reasonable historical conclusions that include multiple perspectives.

The concept paradox presents a challenge. How can we introduce a paradox without contributing to misunderstandings and the formation of new biases? And particularly, how can we do this with middle school students, who can be quick to make judgements? One paradox from the Cyrus Tang Hall of China exhibit that draws a lot of attention is a pair of lotus slippers belonging to a woman whose feet had been bound. When introducing the concept of foot binding to students, or simply observing them encounter the slippers in the museum, I heard a similar set of comments: "How could they do that?" "They hated women." "That is so gross." This paradox-that a beautiful cultural artifact also caused pain and physical deformity-led students to ask questions, but the answers they came to confirmed stereotypes of Chinese culture without conveying anything new. One key instructional strategy, when introducing a paradox, is to do it in a way that draws out and directly addresses biases before students form arguments that affirm the supremacy of their own cultural lens.

The Empathic Paradox

When presenting paradoxes, I have learned to bring cultural biases to the front of discussion and have students address them directly. Here's how that played out when I worked with middle and high school students visiting the museum on field trips. Together, we looked at the lotus slippers, and I prompted, "What do you already know about foot binding? What do you think and feel about it?" The voices that came out in the exhibit automatically came to the front: "It's disgusting." "It looks painful." "It's sexist."

After students had a chance to air their opinions, I offered a frame that would extend the conversation into new territory. I said, "It's natural to have opinions, even biases, about cultures and time periods that are different that our own. We grow up with our own cultures, and what we do seems like the natural way. What anthropologists do is try to overcome their own cultural biases to understand other cultures in their own terms." I then introduced a new piece of information and asked a question: "We know that foot binding was practiced in China for around a thousand years. I don't think anyone does anything for a thousand years without a reason. What do you think are some reasons foot binding lasted so long? What purpose did it serve?"

Almost instantly, the empathy switch was turned on. Students who previously flinched at a "backward," "disgusting" practice were comparing it to present-day beauty standards in their culture, wondering how the practice was reflected across social classes, and reaching for their phones to learn more. Simply posing the question "why?" gives students an opening to empathize with paradoxical issues. Now they were ready to seek new information, analyze a variety of sources, and create new arguments rooted in empathy and the desire to truly understand another culture and time.

Reference

Yeager, E., A., & Foster, S. J. (2001). The role of empathy in the development of historical understanding. In O. L. Davis, E. A. Yeager, & S. J. Foster (Eds.), Historical empathy and perspective taking in the social studies (p. 13-20). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Naomi Priddy developed curriculum for The Field Museum in Chicago as a social studies instructional design specialist. Before that, she taught 5th and 7th grades in Chicago's Brighton Park neighborhood. She currently serves as the multicultural learning librarian at Oak Park Public Library.

ASCD Express, Vol. 13, No. 1. Copyright 2017 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
ASCD Express 13.01 - Empathy Is Academic: Lessons from Lotus Slippers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Empathy Is Academic: Lessons from Lotus Slippers Naomi Priddy In 2015, The Field Museum-Chicago's museum of natural history-opened the Cyrus Tang Hall of China , an exhibit surveying 5,000 years of Chinese culture and history. As social studies instructional design specialist for the museum, I was tasked in creating teacher resources to accompany the exhibit.

# data[].attributes.headline
Empathy Through Academic Inquiry: A "Controversial" Approach

# data[].attributes.subject
Empathy Through Academic Inquiry: A "Controversial" Approach