Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Cultivating Creativity in the Classroom

As a student, you know that rote memorization is no way to learn something well if you want to remember it in the long run.

As a teacher, you know that overloading your students with facts during an hour-long lecture without giving them a chance to engage in discussion is no way for you to get your message across to them effectively.

As more and more medical students opt to not attend lecture and instead watch or listen to recorded lectures at their own pace, what is an instructor to do?

There are many debates going on in the world of higher education trying to creatively answer this question. There has been no magic solution to this recent conundrum. Educators are forced to be more creative.

Therein lies the answer - instructors must cultivate creativity in the classroom. The following presentation, Cultivating Creativity in the Classroom, was put together by Jamie Tubbs, a 5th grade teacher in Ohio.

As educators, I hope that we can find inspiration in how to engage learners at any age. Tubbs' ideas are well presented in this quick slideset. May it give you pause and food for thought as you think up ways to re-engage with your students and the content you are teaching.

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