The Magic Circle of Shared Creativity

“Creativity scares us. There is so much uncertainty about it that we often reject it in favour of predictability and conventionality.” Bruce Nussbaum made this statement in an interview about his book in 2014. (What is Creative Intelligence?)

 

What do you think? Does creativity scare you? I would have said “a bit” or that creativity was for others and I do the best I can. However, after viewing it through the lens of how harnessing creativity exists because we gather our experiences and apply them, I would say I am creative. I have had many experiences as a curious world traveler and I remember many unexpected and unfamiliar tastes, smells, and feelings that travel has imprinted upon me. I draw upon these and the ideas and information they have brought into my world daily.

 

One thing that I find peculiar is that Nussbaum rejects the idea of brainstorming and instead recommends groups of a few trusted people playing and making around an idea, possibly even framing and reframing, in order to explore ideas and creativity. I would call this brainstorming in a safe space.

 

While I enjoy brainstorming - playing with farfetched, anything goes ideas or solutions, I have seen this make others uncomfortable.  Perhaps some folks don’t understand play can go be a part decision-making and lead to something that would otherwise have not been considered? With students, it is the same, brainstorming ideas to elicit a new idea is a hard concept for them to understand. I can see their discomfort with it. I think this is too bad. Nussbaum says that no good has ever come from big and uncontrolled brainstorming.

 

Nussbaum consider call a safe space for small scale brainstorming more desirable:

 

“I think we need to replace brainstorming with what I call 'magic circles'. These are environments where two or three smart people who trust each other can come together and 'play' at connecting disparate dots of knowledge in an open-ended kind of game.” (What is Creative Intelligence?)

 

Being with people who will not frown upon or reject far-flung ideas but instead grab part of them and explore them is essential for brainstorming. When people can do this, I do think it can have creative results whether lesson designing or exploring content.

 

 

Middle School Engineering and PROBLEM-Based Learning

Wind turbines designed by middle school students? Yes, wind turbine models.

 

Two middle school engineering teachers in Massachusetts have published a case study about the successful engineering curriculum they designed for their middle school engineering classes. I explored their case study as an example of students as designers.

 

Steven Cogger and Daniel Miley have designed curriculum for nine week semesters, and every student in the middle school participates in the classes for one semester each school year. They have had positive results, which is shown in the quantitative and qualitative data they share in their case study.

 

Cogger and Miley have prepared engineering lessons for their classes which pave a precise path for students to travel during 6^th and 7^th grades.  These preparatory project-based lessons enable students to creatively solve the problems they will face during their 8^th grade engineering classes, designing efficient wind turbine models. The students probably do not realize that the processes they are going through to develop their projects in 6^th and 7^th grades are providing them with the skills and knowledge they will need to create solutions for the problems they will be challenged with in 8^th grade.

 

Cogger and Miley identify their 6^th and 7^th grade years as implementing project based learning lessons. The project-based learning presents students with a task or tasks that lead to a final product. In project-based learning, materials and constraints are defined at the beginning, which aids students in achieving the final outcome. These steps are important because they provide students the skills and information they need to begin the wind turbine in their 8^th grade year.

 

While reading about the 6^th and 7^th grade lessons, I began to better recognize the differences between project-based learning and problem-based learning. These project-based lessons began by identifying the final outcome and include materials and constraints defined by the teacher. I had been thinking that designing project-based lessons would be the best way to create lessons that lead students to becoming designers. I now realize that problem-based learning would be more accurate. Cogger and Miley explain that problem-based learning is more open-ended and requires a higher level of student involvement in their learning. “Active learning is a way to introduce the design-process and engage students in the subject material, primarily in science classrooms.”  Lessons that are structured on problem-based learning include complex real-world problems (like how to design an efficient wind turbine to produce energy) and are used the processes that promote student learning of concepts and principles.

 

Can designing lessons with consideration and possible implementation of Nussbaum’s concepts of creative intelligence be helpful? Can the concepts aid in creating lessons in which students become the designers of their own learning?

Let's take a look at problem-based learning:

 

Comparing the steps of Problem-based learning to the five concepts of create intelligence:

Problem-Based Learning	Creative Intelligence
Present with a Problem	Knowledge Mining to research and gather information from past and present experiences and resources.
Develop a Plan	Frame a story of how the problem is a problem, who it is a problem for, and scenarios for how it can be solved.
Implement Plan	Play and Make with ideas and materials in safe environments that bring about a solution.
Evaluate Implemented Plan	Pivot according to Nussbaum, would mean to take the solution from theory to product. However, problem-based learning does not demand a final project, it is solving a problem.

 

The students certainly spend time mining knowledge. Throughout the 6^th and 7^th grade years they are introduced to the math, science, and engineering processes to apply to the wind turbine design. Can they frame or create a story as they look for a solution? Yes, the students can complete the wind turbine project knowing information about what powers a community but can create their wind turbine for any context and design how they like. Plan and making? Definitely. Students are given iterative opportunities to create and test the wind turbines, which they do. And finally, pivoting. Well these students might not be able to take their ideas and create a profit from them but I certain they are envisioning scenarios in which they could.

 

I think that more than anything this case study shows a successful way to develop students as designers. These lessons, over time, scaffold on the students’ knowledge so that they can then design. This is a good example of how to incorporate steps from project- based learning to  problem-based learning that will enable students as designers of their own learning and build a base of knowledge that sets them up for success.

 

Cogger, Steven D., and Daniel H. Miley. “Model Wind Turbine Design in a Project-Based Middle School Engineering Curriculum Built on State Frameworks.” Advances in Engineering Education, American Society for Engineering Education.

Anyone Can Be Creative

The fact that creativity can be learned is an important concept for many people. Well, at least I had never thought of it this way! Somewhere along the way, maybe from hearing the phrase “They are so creative!”, I perceived it was something that people were or were not.

 

It is reassuring to read Nussbaum’s book on creative intelligence and comprehend that a person can accumulate the tools needed to think creatively and that creativity comes in many forms. I think that the concepts that make up the creative intelligence that Nussbaum writes about are worthy of being incorporated into student learning and can have an impact on creating lessons for students as designers of their own learning.

 

Research supports the idea that students learn best when they are interested and engaged in their learning. The American Psychological Association website hosts a terrific page with information and resources that support this:

“Developing Responsible and Autonomous Learners: A Key to Motivating Students.”

Students who are taught to act with agency and design their learning by finding ways to get the information they need and apply it, are students who are excited about learning and will retain and apply knowledge.

 

Including Nussbaum’s concepts of knowledge mining, framing, playing, making, and pivoting, teachers can create lessons based on authentic problems. To encourage students to design their own learning, teachers can provide pathways for students to search, sort, create, communicate and synthesize their learning in a way that gives it meaning - enables them to frame it in a context that they understand.

 

I think the current trends in students as designers can be seen in the renewal of interest in Project Based Learning (PBL). PBL  is a teaching method in which students learn by actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects. With the right set of supports students can be successful designers of their own learning –  powerful.

 

Where to begin designing for students as designers?

“What do I want my students to be able to know and do as a result of this lesson?” 

“How can I design an activity in which students can search for the answers for themselves?”

 

Beth Pandolpho cites these two questions that she asks herself when beginning to design lessons in an article for Edutopia.

 

Pandolpho wants her students to have agency in their learning by creating lessons that afford them autonomy. Research is on Pandolpho’s side because it shows that when students have control over their learning, or design their own learning, they are more likely to experience “deep learning and mastery of both transdisciplinary and subject matter” along with acquisition of other 21st Century Skills (Levinsen and Sørensen). 

 

And thus we know that “students as designers” works, so the question becomes “How do teachers design lessons that give students the desire and tools to design their own learning?”

 

Levinsen and Sørensen suggest designing lessons that provide stages to scaffold how to do this and use a modified version of the Dale’s model of competence levels:

 

1.	Practice	teacher  student
2.	Organization and Planning	teacher  student
3.	Situated and practice based reflection	teacher  student
4.	Theory based reflection	teacher

 

Reflecting on Nussbaum’s concepts of five creative intelligence, let's explore how he might view a teacher’s role in creating lessons that enable students to design their own learning.

 

It seems to me the Project Based Learning (PBL) provides opportunities for students to design their own learning. How can I apply Nussbaum’s ideas of knowledge mining, framing,  playing, making, and pivoting into lessons for students?

 

Combining Nussbaum’s concept of knowledge mining with Levinsen and Sørensen idea that students will need to practice designing, I might begin by introducing students to exemplar PBL project products. Students could explore the rubric for each exemplar PBL and then reflect on a series of questions about the choices the PBL student designer made and if they were effective. Some of the questions that might help the students assess a project are:

 

• When you first viewed the project, did you recognize it’s meaning?
• What details were helpful in recognizing the meaning of the project?
• How did the project make you feel?
• Do you want to learn more about the meaning of the project?
• What might you have done differently?

 

I think these questions would help students make memorable connections to the project while they collect information and ideas about what details make an effective PBL product. I believe that immersing the students in the exemplar PBL is a bit of knowledge mining and that it also fits with the Levinsen and Sørensen recommendation that the first step in designing a lesson in which students become lesson designers is practice.

 

 

Levinsen, Karin Tweddell, and Birgitte Holm Sørensen. “Teachers’ Designs for Learning Practices When Designing for Students as Learning Designers.” Designs for Learning, vol. 11, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp. 30–39. EBSCOhost, doi:10.16993/dfl.111.

 

Pandolpho, Beth. “Putting Students in Charge of Their Learning.” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 4 May 2018, www.edutopia.org/article/putting-students-charge-their-learning.

Harnessing Creativity: Project Based Learning?

In this continued discussion of Creative Intelligence: Harnessing the Power to Create, Connect, and Inspire, written by Bruce Nussbaum, the focus is on the main idea of the book: creativity can be learned and given direction. Nussbaum presents concepts and shares true stories as concrete examples to support his idea and convince readers that, indeed, creative intelligence can be learned by individuals who are willing to open their minds and engage in the possibility of a different story. The author’s first illustration of his point is an excerpt from the biographical prose of rock legend Keith Richards. Richards modestly concedes,

“What I found about the blues and music, tracing things back, was that nothing came from itself. As great as it is, this is not one stroke of genius. This cat was listening to somebody and it’s his variation on the theme. And so you suddenly realize that everybody’s connected here. This is not just that he’s fantastic and the rest are crap; they’re all interconnected” (p. 9). 

Nussbaum presents his ideas as five competencies: knowledge mining, framing, playing, making, and pivoting. This review focuses on the first two steps of Nussbaum’s concepts to cultivate creative intelligence: knowledge mining and framing. The later concepts of playing and making are now quite popular and easier to understand. The final concept, pivot, is also clear. Pivot means to find a way to take an idea from creativity to creation; a final step (which does not mean finished) in being able to use creative intelligence in a business sense. “...taking the intangibles that money can’t buy -  our dreams, our desire – and turning them into the things that it can” (p. 183).

Beginning, like Nussbaum, with knowledge mining, the author makes clear to the reader that a person does not need to be a native of a group to understand its culture enough to glean important and utilizable ideas from that culture or group. The act of being open and appreciative of a group or culture cannot make an outsider a member, however, what is learned from exposure is something that can be applied to other situations. Knowledge mining makes it possible to recognize similarities among different groups and enables a vision to apply new knowledge in unique ways. Exposure and acceptance of a group’s collective knowledge invites wisdom and understanding. Nussbaum uses the example of Steve Jobs interest in calligraphy leading to Macintosh computers having the first “beautiful” typography. Not wanting to be an expert in calligraphy, but simply appreciating and learning about calligraphy as a young man led to Jobs’ desire to create a product with something unique and “creative” (p. 43). Knowledge mining involves a person finding what is truly meaningful to themselves and combining it with experiences and their own aspirations (p. 33).

The next concept of creative intelligence relies on the ability to “frame” a situation. Nussbaum explains that framing comes in three variations: narrative, engagement, and what-if (p. 34).  A problem with no evident resolution can take on new meaning if set within a different narrative or story. How an individual interacts or engages can change the lens of a situation. And, when given a safe environment and time, the sky can be the limit with what-if thinking which dreams about what the future may hold.

A change in perspective, looking at the situation from a different angle, gives a person power and control over their situation.  “Knowing that you have the power to frame your interactions and your place in the world opens up opportunities to interact with people in new and creative ways and rethink the way you see everything” (p. 111).

It seems that setting a new narrative or story is an important concept that other authors have also pondered. In his book A Whole New Mind, Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future, Daniel H. Pink also discusses the importance of story as a concept by which design can take on meaning. According to Pink, the essence of the aptitude of story is context enriched by emotion (p. 101). Both Nussbaum and Pink believe that stories can stimulate emotional connections that create stronger links to understanding and that the story is important. Where Pink sees opportunities for stories to inform design, Nussbaum avers that the story is a stepping stone on a path that begins with knowledge mining and ends with pivoting creativity into a creation.

Within framing, Nussbaum’s idea of engagement is particularly relevant as a concept because the ways people engage is always evolving. Tom Standage points out that the telegraph brought with it, “...a technological subculture with its own customs and vocabulary...” in his book The Victorian Internet; and so has social media. Engagement through social media, according to Nussbaum, has now led to burnout and people seeking more authentic experiences and real engagements (p. 113). Like every culture or group, taking the time to foster engagement or communication in a way that makes sense and has value for your target audience is another way to frame a situation, get to the heart of it, and understand it.

Framing through story, engagement, and pivoting means “Changing the way we see the world, connect with people, and think about the future” (p. 110).

Playing is the fun iteration of ideas trying without the long-term consequence of failure. Playing requires trust. Playing encourages risk taking by letting people not have to worry about consequences that are real life.

Making was identified by Nussbaum as a movement. Individuals being able to step away from large scale manufacturing and instead being able to create or make and produce their own goods or services through more open markets and  more opportunity. Not necessarily inventing things that are new but reinventing things to have quality, value, and meaning.

Finally, pivoting is typically used to mean able to change quickly, however, according to Nussbaum pivoting is a means to go from creativity to creation. Often, pivoting takes the skills of someone outside of the circle of the creator. 

I find value in Nussbaum’s competencies for harvesting creative intelligence. I believe knowledge mining would be similar to scaffolding and that students learn best through narrative - or framing. I especially see options for project based learning (PBL) designs. It is possible that PBL will afford a better chance at successful online learning for students who have not ever considered online learning as an option and are hesitant to engage in it. I look forward to exploring more of Nussbaum’s ideas through a teaching lens in future blog posts.

Nussbaum, Bruce. Creative Intelligence: Harnessing the Power to Create, Connect, and Inspire. HarperBusiness, 2013.

Pink, Daniel H. A Whole New Mind: How to Thrive in the New Conceptual Age. Cyan, 2006.

Standage, Tom. The Victorian Internet: the Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's Online Pioneers. Phoenix, 1998.

Book Review

Book Review 

 

Have you ever thought that creative geniuses are born that way and therefore, having not been born a creative genius, you do not have the same opportunities?

Creative Intelligence: Harnessing the Power to Create, Connect, and Inspire is a nonfiction book that discusses how creativity can be learned and how creativity is used in business and industry. The 351 page book is written by Bruce Nussbaum and published by Harper Business copyright 2013. It can be purchased most easily from Amazon books as a hardback only for about $19, or as a Kindle read for around $12.

 

With his book, Creative Intelligence, Nussbaum would have you put that idea to rest and uses examples from the life stories of successful individuals who have been regarded as somewhat genius in their fields, to show how the experiences we surround ourselves with and the ability to harness and use them are what to surmount to being deemed “genius”.

 

            “...we all have the capacity to be creative. We just need to search a little deeper to bring             it out. Indeed, we have been searching for the source of creativity for some time”. (p. 9)

 

Told in first person format, Nussbaum leads a discussion riveted with examples of how creativity comes about; it is not one thing but a composite of experiences, interactions, and exposures. Building a knowledge base of these singular incidents can lead to implementing solutions that are recognized as creative.

 

“The Five Competencies of Creative Intelligence” that Nussbaum classifies on his own accord are: knowledge mining, framing, playing, making, and pivoting. I will be looking at the author’s ideas not through the lens of capitalism, as the author intends, but as a school librarian and teacher who wants to find a path to lead students on so they can journey through life and learning mining for their own creativity.