TBers,
This is a reminder that we have a Teaching Breakfast outside of Starbucks in Hunt Union tomorrow, December 5, from 8 - 9:30am.  Bring your drink or grab something at Starbucks and come on over.  We will keep the conversation going till 9:30 so come any time in there that you can.
Here is a part of a conversation from the POD Network about awakening students abilities to be creative and critical thinkers.  I like this idea of "awakending" and thought the reflection below does a good job of looking at it.  For the full conversation on this you can go here: https://groups.google.com/a/podnetwork.org/forum/#!topic/discussion/J-dhe0QAqK4

The statement is similar to a fixed-mind statement that insists: "People 

don't change."  If it is true, it's not just the Eastern Kentucky Center 
that is in trouble--it's all of us who claim to be able to teach. 

The early psychologists' proclamations that people cannot do metacognition 
and that affect and emotion get in the way of clear thinking seem similar to 
a claim that creativity can't be taught. The statements that "students can't 
self assess," are still being pushed as gospel in behavioral science 
journals and faculty development workshops. These examples reveal something 
we do know about in higher education -- evidence operates at painfully slow 
rates to dislodge popular misconceptions. 

But "awakening" does happen eventually. We know from brain scan studies that 
we can see brains change through learning, and we can explain at the 
cellular level some of what is occurring. Bob Leamnson was the first to 
really bring this to the attention of higher education faculty and 
developers. Now, there's a nice video about this that uses images not 
available when Bob was writing in the late 1990s. See 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W81CHn4l4AM>. 




Basically, if a brain can develop neural connections and communication 
systems between parts of the brain and retain the connections, it can learn. 
We certainly accept that cognitive knowledge & skills and motor skills 
develop through instruction and practice. We now know that "emotional 
intelligence" isn't fixed either --- a normal brain can also gain emotional 
capacity with informed practice. 

Regarding creativity, we are starting to get brain images about what's 
operating during creativity (<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29656437>) 
--- G-rated version is here: 
<https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-new-study-suggests-link-creat 
ivity-brain-structure> and reveals "... that creativity is the product of 


reduced control over what is happening inside of your mind, leading you to 
entertain new ideas and think more fluidly." 

The early research thus indicates "openness"  as a useful--perhaps 
essential-- quality to cultivate for increasing creative capacity. Openness 
involves an ability to let go and watch an idea or understanding develop as 
opposed to "making it happen" with control from past experience.  Openness 
seems to be a quality just now getting some attention by bringing practices 
rather foreign to higher education into the college classroom, such as 
mindfulness. We have some places that emphasize increasing the capacity for 
letting go developed in meditation, some forms of yoga, and internal martial 
arts, but not much yet ongoing in college classrooms that are focused on 
disciplinary content and evaluative thinking. 

Probably we need to let go as faculty developers on getting too fixated on 
formulaic approaches and pedagogical coaching teaching of content as if 
these were the best approaches for teaching everything. Instead, development 
of comprehensive teaching philosophies that change as an instructor grows 
are probably a lot more valuable. This would recognize that producing an 
optimally educated person includes awareness of increasing capacity for 
cognitive knowledge and skills, but ALSO increasing affective capacity for 
empathy and awareness of others AND awareness about increasing creative 
capacity. That doesn't mean that cooperative structures, concept maps, 
scratch cards, clickers etc. should be less valued. However we might need to 
recognize the necessity to develop very different pedagogies to promote 
success in the "ALSO" & "AND" areas. 

For this reason, Centers for Creativity are especially valuable now in these 
early exploration stages. 

Ed Nuhfer 




Chilton Reynolds
Teaching, Learning, and Technology Center
SUNY Oneonta
Email: [log in to unmask]
Phone: 607-436-2673