SESSION DESCRIPTION: Have you been feeling a little uninspired, crunched for time, or just plain burned out lately? Do you find it increasingly difficult to keep students actively engaged during class time? In this webinar, you’ll learn some simple, practical strategies for infusing, creativity, fun, and playfulness into your lessons in ways that encourage cultural inquiry through authentic resources, (2) invite communication through critical thinking and collaboration, and (3) foster creative self-expression in the target language.
PURPOSE: The purpose of this Best of Utah session is to re-energize language teachers by demonstrating small, simple steps that leverage the power of creativity to support student engagement. RATIONALE: Language teachers are being asked to do more than they ever have in less time and with fewer resources. Budget cuts, teacher shortages, changing requirements, decreased student engagement, and shifts in technology are making teaching even harder. As a result, teachers are in survival mode--too overwhelmed and exhausted to try anything new. This highly interactive session invites participants to play with key principles of creativity as tools for increasing student engagement and reigniting their enthusiasm for language teaching. STRUCTURE & CONTENT: The session will be divided into three major segments. During the first segment, participants will iteratively define creativity and consider common misconceptions about it. In the second segment, attendees will analyze potential sources of creativity, how the creative process works, and characteristics of creative people. They will also evaluate their own creativity and examine pedagogical examples of three pre-requisites for creativity: perception, cognitive flexibility, and associative thinking. During the third segment, participants will experience 9 simple, low-prep strategies for generating creative language learning activities (including copying, combining, elaborating, interacting, iterating, reframing, reinterpreting, varying, and visualizing) and will try more than 25 different creative language learning activities based on these strategies. The session will conclude with a link to a website containing materials shared during the session, including free downloadable activity templates, games, handouts, and other resources shared during the session. This session will explore guiding questions such as:
Session Can Dos: I can... 1) Define creativity 2) Identify characteristics of creative people 3) Apply principles of creative thinking to WL teaching & learning I can also use simple, creative strategies to: 1) encourage cultural inquiry through authentic resources. 2) invite communication through critical thinking and collaboration. 3) foster creative self-expression in the target language. |
Activity Menus, Protocols, & TemplatesLinks to activity protocols and templates for language teachers (still in process)
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Examples of CreativityLinks to examples of creativity from different domains
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GamesLinks to blank game boards and templates
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Readings about CreativityReadings about creativity from professional newsletters and the popular press
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Research on CreativityA bibliography of research on creativity
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Research on Creativity in World Language ClassroomsA bibliography of research on creativity in world language classrooms
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Resources on CreativityLinks to resources such as children's books about creativity and the creative process
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