7 Principles of Creative Thinking

1. You Are Creative

Artists are not special, but each of us is a special kind of artist who enters the world as a creative and spontaneous thinker. While creative people believe they are creative, those who don’t hold that belief are not. After acquiring beliefs about their identity, creative people become interested in expressing themselves, so they learn thinking habits and techniques that creative geniuses have used throughout history.

2. Creative Thinking Is Work

You must show passion and the determination to immerse yourself in the process of developing new and different ideas. The next step is patience and perseverance. All creative geniuses work with intensity and produce an incredible number of ideas — most of which are bad. In fact, more bad poems were written by major poets than by minor poets. Thomas Edison generated 3,000 different lighting system ideas before he evaluated them for practicality and profitability.

3. You Must Go Through the Motions

When producing ideas, you replenish neurotransmitters linked to genes that are being turned on and off in response to challenges. Going through the motions of generating new ideas increases the number of contacts between neurons, and thereby energizes the brain. Every hour spent activating your mind by generating ideas increases creativity. By painting a picture every day, you would become an artist — perhaps not Van Gogh, but more of an artist than someone who has never tried.

4. Your Brain Is Not a Computer

Your brain is a dynamic system that evolves patterns of activity, rather than simply processing them like a computer. The brain thrives on creative energy that results from experiences, real or fictional. The brain cannot tell the difference between an “actual” experience and one that is imagined vividly and in detail. Both are energizing. This principle helped Walt Disney bring his fantasies to life and also enabled Albert Einstein to engage in thought experiments that led to revolutionary ideas about space and time. For example, Einstein imagined falling in love and then meeting the woman he fell in love with two weeks later. This led to his theory of acausality.

5. There Is No Right Answer

Aristotle believed that things were either “A” or “not A.” To him the sky was blue or not blue — never both. Such dualistic thinking is limiting. After all, the sky is a billion different shades of blue. We used to think that a beam of light existed only as a wave until physicists discovered that light can be either a wave or a particle, depending on the viewpoint of the observer. The only certainty in life is uncertainty. Therefore when trying to produce new ideas, do not evaluate them as they occur. Nothing kills creativity faster than self-censorship during idea generation. All ideas are possibilities — generate as many as you can before identifying which ones have more merit. The world is not black or white. It is gray.

6. There Is No Such Thing as Failure

Trying something without succeeding is not failing. It’s producing a result. What you do with the result — that is, what you’ve learned — is the important thing. Whenever your efforts have produced something that doesn’t work, ask the following:

• What have I learned about what doesn’t work?
• Can this explain something that I didn’t set out to explain?
• What have I discovered that I didn’t set out to discover?

People who “never” make mistakes have never tried anything new. Noting that Thomas Edison had “failed” to successfully create a filament for the light bulb after 10,000 attempts, an assistant asked why the inventor didn’t give up. Edison didn’t accept what the assistant meant by failure. “I have discovered ten thousand things that don’t work,” he explained.

7. You Don’t See Things as They Are – You See Them as You Are

All experiences are neutral and without inherent meaning until your interpretations give them meaning. Priests see evidence of God everywhere, while atheists see the absence of God everywhere. Back when nobody in the world owned a personal computer, IBM’s market research experts speculated that there were no more than six people on earth who needed a PC. While IBM saw no market potential for PCs, two college dropouts named Bill Gates and Steve Jobs viewed the same data as IBM and perceived massive opportunity. You construct reality by how you choose to interpret your experiences.

Advice FROM Siblings of Special-Needs Kids

Natalie was just four when her brother Patrick, younger by two years, was diagnosed with autism. Even as a young girl, it was a blow for her. “I remember when he was born; it was so exciting. I was going to have a sibling!” she said. She soon realized, however, he wasn’t going to be a traditional brother like her friends had. “Why our family? Why us? Why me?” she asked.

Now, as a 22-year-old, Natalie accepts and cherishes her brother. But it took a long road to get there. “There are certain stages you go through.”

First, there was denial. She kept wishing the doctors were wrong or hoping he would have the kind of autism that doesn’t manifest itself so openly. As a child she used to draw fake, perfect families, hoping one day they would be real.

Then the anger. Her brother’s situation meant, she said, “you are not the most important person in your house. Your parents’ effort, and the people coming to your house, the therapist and the occupational therapist-all those people aren’t there for you, but for your brother.”

She would get frustrated that simple trips to the grocery involved stopping to tie shoes, crying, fits over which side of the car to sit on, complaints that the lights were too bright. She regularly thought about how unfair it all was.

Slowly, over many years, a shift occurred. She started seeing her brother not as a source of frustration, but as a unique person with his own strengths. “I looked at it from a different angle,” she said. “He’s an incredibly talented musician, and he has perfect pitch, and he can play the piano, he can play the drums, he is an excellent guitar player. When he started excelling at guitar, I realized I wasn’t dealing with a burden; he is an individual who is in some ways much more talented and much more capable than I am.”

Sibling challenges 

Siblings like Natalie are often deeply impacted by a brother or sister with special needs.

In addition to having anger and resentment, Natalie placed pressure on herself to be the perfect child to her parents. She hated softball and basketball but played them for years so her dad would have a team to coach and cheer for on the weekends. “I tried to really excel at sports because my father didn’t have a son who he could go outside and play catch with,” she said.

She wouldn’t ask her parents for a ride to the mall or $5 for ice cream because she didn’t want to be a burden on them in any way. Even now, she feels the pressure to be successful in her career (she works in sales for a tech startup) so she can one day support her parents and brother. She even graduated from college a semester early to get the money rolling in sooner.

Rache, a 17-year-old high school junior, felt embarrassed inviting friends over to her house after school in case there was an episode by her younger sister Sophie, who had a severe form of OCD. There were times, she remembers, “when I would get anxious when Sophie was anxious” If her sister was having a tantrum, she would run into Sophie’s room and take away the scissors so she couldn’t harm herself or others.

Rachel also felt an obligation to take care of her sister. “As her older sister I took it on as my responsibility. There are times when she calls me her mom because I act like it, and I want to help her. I want to do whatever I can to support her.” One of the scariest moments was when her sister attended a treatment center across the country. “I felt like I was in zero control of what was happening,” she said.

We asked older siblings of children with special needs to give advice on how to address some of these challenges. Here is what they told us:

Advice for parents 

Build a wide support system  

Laura, a 26-year-old advertising executive, has a younger brother who is 23 and has a form of autism that makes it hard for him to communicate. As one of four kids, she felt the best thing her parents did was create a wide support system for her autistic brother so the burden didn’t fall as much on the family.

“He had after school programs, he had teachers who came to our house during dinner time, he had a lot of support so that didn’t put as much pressure on us or my parents,” she said. “They were able to care for more kids,” she said. Aunts and uncles would also step in and help spread out the responsibility.

Be open with your children and include them in decision-making.

Parents often try to shield siblings from what is happening. Natalie says that approach is well-intentioned, but it can cause more harm than good. “You want to feel like a team,” she said. “You want to feel like you are in this together, because too often the parents feel like a team and you are siloed, so it’s just you by yourself. If you include your kids in the conversations and let them help you make decisions, it’s huge because you feel like it’s not just on you.”

Set aside special time for each of your children

Rachel feels that the most important thing for parents is to “just remind your kids that you are always there for them and maybe set aside time for siblings so they know they are still cared about and loved.” This can be a private vacation, a special activity once a week, or five minutes before bed. Your children will cherish this time, she added. “I took the time that I did get with my parents not as much for granted as I had previously.”

 Advice for siblings

Reach out to others

When she was younger, Natalie felt she was the only one in her situation, and that no one could possibly understand what she was going through. Once she got older and talked openly about it to friends, teachers, and boyfriends, she realized she was hardly alone. She even wrote an article about her challenges on a website and received thousands of responses.

“The more you hold it in, the worse it is,” she said. “When you put yourself out there, it’s scary—you don’t know what will happen. But you have to put yourself out there and find support and realize you aren’t by yourself.”

Laura agreed: “I can see that it can be isolating as a sibling,” she said. “I feel like the support network is very important for caring for someone with a disability. We especially need to reach out.”

Make special time for your sibling

The more siblings spend quality time with their brother or sister with special needs, the more they realize how remarkable that person is.

Laura realized how hard-working her brother was. “He is doing things all day and working all night, and he usually does it with a good attitude,” she said. “He’s taught me a lot.” She sets aside time to do special things with him so she can appreciate him more. He loves Aladdin, so she recently took him to see the musical on Broadway. They also regularly go to a theme park near the family home on Long Island.

Now that she can drive, Rachel likes to take her sister to Starbucks when she is getting frustrated with her schoolwork, to get a break. It’s a special time they can share, and it helps them grow closer and appreciate one another.

Make time for yourself

Many siblings feel guilty about wanting a break from their sibling with special needs, but getting time away is essential, said Rachel. “That was a major thing for me, and I had to step back at some points and have a break from it all. In the summer, especially, I get to be anxiety-free instead of worrying all the time. Just going out to dinner with my friends or going to see a movie helps.”

Focus on how your experiences have helped you

Looking back, Rachel realizes how having a sister with OCD made her the person she is today. She became more independent because she felt she couldn’t ask her parents, who were always so busy with her sister, things like how to solve a homework question. “I figured it out on my own,” she said.

She also thinks it made her a more aware and sensitive person. When her sister went into a treatment center she channeled her need to help into serving others. She “wasn’t able to do much,” she said, so “I took it upon myself to help others.” She joined J Teen leadership, a teen-led community service organization and soon started chairing it.

Laura believes having an autistic brother made her more curious and tolerant of people different than her. She spent a year in China teaching English, something she might not have done otherwise.

Natalie learned the life lesson of not measuring people against each other. “I think you are always comparing people to yourself,” she said, “And when you stop comparing someone to yourself and start thinking they are being the best person they can be, that’s when your eyes open and you are like, ‘Oh this makes sense and this is right and all is good.’ “

Effects of Parents’ Math Anxiety on Children’s Math Achievement

Previous research has established that when teachers are anxious about math, their students learn less math during the school year. The current study is the first to establish a link between parents’ and children’s math anxiety. These findings suggest that adults’ attitudes toward math can play an important role in children’s math achievement.

“We often don’t think about how important parents’ own attitudes are in determining their children’s academic achievement. But our work suggests that if a parent is walking around saying ‘Oh, I don’t like math’ or ‘This stuff makes me nervous,’ kids pick up on this messaging and it affects their success,” explained Beilock, professor in psychology.  “Math-anxious parents may be less effective in explaining math concepts to children, and may not respond well when children make a mistake or solve a problem in a novel way,” added Levine, the Rebecca Anne Boylan Professor of Education and Society in Psychology.

Four hundred and thirty-eight (n=438) first- and second-grade students and their primary caregivers participated in the study. Children were assessed in math achievement and math anxiety at both the beginning and end of the school year. As a control, the team also assessed reading achievement, which they found was not related to parents’ math anxiety.

Parents completed a questionnaire about their own nervousness and anxiety around math and how often they helped their children with math homework.  The researchers believe the link between parents’ math anxiety and children’s math performance stems more from math attitudes than genetics.

“Although it is possible that there is a genetic component to math anxiety,” the researchers wrote, “the fact that parents’ math anxiety negatively affected children only when they frequently helped them with math homework points to the need for interventions focused on both decreasing parents’ math anxiety and scaffolding their skills in homework help.”

Maloney said the study suggests that parent preparation is essential to effective math homework help. “We can’t just tell parents — especially those who are anxious about math — ‘Get involved,'” Maloney explained. “We need to develop better tools to teach parents how to most effectively help their children with math.”

A. Maloney, G. Ramirez, E. A. Gunderson, S. C. Levine, S. L. Beilock. Intergenerational Effects of Parents’ Math Anxiety on Children’s Math Achievement and Anxiety.Psychological Science, 2015

If You Want to Absorb New Information – JUST GO TO SLEEP

Kathy Rastle, Professor of Cognitive Psychology at Royal Holloway, said: “Teachers have long suspected that proper rest is critical for successful learning. Our research provides some experimental support for this notion.

Participants in our experiments were able to identify the hidden rule shortly after learning. However, it was not until they were tested a week after training that participants were able to use that rule to understand a totally new word from the fictional language when it was presented in a sentence.”

She added: “This result shows that the key processes that underpin long-term learning of general knowledge arise outside of the classroom, sometime after learning, and may be associated with brain processes that arise during sleep.”

The research, published in the journal Cognitive Psychology also found that participants needed time to consolidate this rule-based knowledge before being introduced to new words that did not follow the rule. If the exceptions were introduced during the initial vocabulary learning session, learners were unable to develop an understanding of the general rule.

The findings have important implications for language teaching in the classroom. It is not uncommon for teachers to introduce ‘tricky words’ or exceptions to the rule alongside rule-based examples when teaching children how to read phonetically. For example, children may be taught that that the rule for pronouncing CH applies to church, chest, and chess, but not to chef or chorus.

The research suggests exceptions should not be introduced until children have already consolidated the standard rule after a good night’s sleep, otherwise, they will not develop the necessary knowledge required.

Jakke Tamminen, Matthew H. Davis, Kathleen Rastle. From specific examples to general knowledge in language learning. Cognitive Psychology, 2015; 79: 1 

Teacher Tested & Kid Approved – MATH HELP

Help your students understand mathematical concepts and reinforce their skills.   Here are some teacher-tested tools that can help, from calculators to study groups to fun games.
Mathtopia

Addictive like Candy Crush, but nutritious Math Facts and assessments for the brain.

Base Ten BINGO

Play a bingo game using base ten blocks as virtual manipulatives.

Scalar

A calculator that saves all of your past calculations on a virtual piece of paper.

Jasymchat

Chat with classmates and share mathematical equations represented accurately.

NumberShire

A series of math games set in an animated whimsical Renaissance-style kingdom.

Math Manipulatives/Games

This one is curated by associate professor Brandi Leming.

Free Math Apps – All Grades

This one is curated by media paraprofessional Natalie Thomas.

“I wish that I could be like the cool kids,” – Maybe NOT!

While cool teens are often idolized in popular media — in depictions ranging from James Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause to Tina Fey’s Mean Girls — seeking popularity and attention by trying to act older than one’s age may not yield the expected benefits, according to the study.

Researchers followed 184 teens from age 13, when they were in seventh and eighth grades, to age 23, collecting information from the teens themselves as well as from their peers and parents. The teens attended public school in suburban and urban areas in the southeastern United States and were from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds.

Teens who were romantically involved at an early age, engaged in delinquent activity, and placed a premium on hanging out with physically attractive peers were thought to be popular by their peers at age 13. But over time, this sentiment faded: By 22, those once-cool teens were rated by their peers as being less competent in managing social relationships. They were also more likely to have had significant problems with alcohol and drugs, and to have engaged in criminal activities, according to the study.

“It appears that while so-called cool teens’ behavior might have been linked to early popularity, over time, these teens needed more and more extreme behaviors to try to appear cool, at least to a subgroup of other teens,” says Joseph P. Allen, Hugh P. Kelly Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, who led the study. “So they became involved in more serious criminal behavior and alcohol and drug use as adolescence progressed. These previously cool teens appeared less competent — socially and otherwise — than their less cool peers by the time they reached young adulthood.”

Joseph P. Allen, Megan M. Schad, Barbara Oudekerk, Joanna Chango. What Ever Happened to the “Cool” Kids? Long-Term Sequelae of Early Adolescent Pseudomature Behavior. Child Development, 2014

“What Makes a Great Teacher?” – 10,000 Students Answered…

Nearly 10,000 students responded to a recent KidsHealth online survey about the qualities of great teachers.

What Kids Said

We asked kids, “What’s the No. 1 thing that makes a teacher great?” Here’s how 6,460 students answered:

1. The teacher explains things well and makes the subject interesting: 32.3%
2. The teacher is funny and has a lot of personality: 25%
3. The teacher is patient, understanding, and willing to answer questions: 24.6%
4. The teacher is interested in what students have to say: 8%
5. The teacher is tech savvy (uses Internet, SMART Boards, etc.): 5.3%
6. The teacher is smart and knows a lot about his/her subject: 4.8%

Charlotte said her favorite teacher is known as “Mrs. Frog” because she does a good frog impression. And Mrs. Frog is very encouraging. “She always gives you ‘Good Job’ notes when you do something that impresses her,” Charlotte said.

Chayna loved the way her fifth-grade teacher joked all the time. And he knew when to look the other way. “When my friend and I were passing notes, he looked at me, but the thing is he IGNORED us passing notes!!”

One student said a favorite teacher “never makes me feel dumb or left out of the group. We have 33 kids, but my teacher makes time for each of them.”

Another favorite teacher “cares for us and makes sure we leave school safely. She is very serious about bullying and doesn’t accept it in our class,” a student said.

What Teens Said

We asked high school students, “What’s the No. 1 thing that makes a teacher your favorite?” This is how 3,320 teens answered:

1. The teacher explains things well and makes the subject interesting: 33%
2. The teacher is funny and has a lot of personality: 26.2%
3. The teacher is helpful with things other than class work (with career and other guidance): 13%
4. The teacher is interested in what students have to say and is happy to answer questions: 12.2%
5. The teacher is willing to spend time outside of class with students who need extra help: 8.3%
6. The teacher is smart and knows a lot about his/her subject: 4%
7. The teacher is tech savvy (uses Internet, SMART Boards etc.): 3.3%

Ela said, “A great teacher inspires you to learn more about the subject.”

Allison said her teacher demonstrates his concern: “My favorite teacher actually cares about me. I have chronic back pain, and every time I leave early or skip a day, he calls in the afternoon and checks up on how I’m doing. It’s nice to know he cares. Not only that, but he makes Latin class fun, from the rhymes about conjugation, to the times when he jumps on tables and when he threw chairs across the room when he was Polyphemus.”

Abundance or Abandonment?

 

As parents, we’ve given them lots of possessions, but not much perspective.

As educators, we’ve given them plenty of schools, but not plenty of skills.

As coaches, we’ve taught them how to win games, but not how to win in life.

As youth workers, we provide lots of explanations, but not enough experiences.

As employers, we’ve told them about profit and loss, but not how to profit from loss.

As adults, we’ve done too much preventing and not enough preparing.

 

Five Truths about Leadership

1. Leadership is about team progress, not personal statistics. The cliché is true: It’s about the name on the front of the jersey, not the back of it.
2. Leadership is about doing the right thing when no one is watching, not just during a game or performance. Good leaders have pure motives.
3. Leaders lose the right to be selfish. They see the bigger picture and focus on the whole. Their measuring gauge:  Did I make my teammates better?
4. Leadership begins with an attitude of service, sacrifice and passion. It is more caught than taught to others.
5. Healthy leadership always adds value and is never toxic. It works like the tide on the ocean: As it rises, all the boats go up. Leaders improve team culture.

4 Free Web Tools to Boost Student Engagement

 

(FREE) motivational tool technologies that you can use (along with thorough instruction) to help boost student engagement.

 
myBrainshark
myBrainshark is a superb tool that allows students to add a voiceover to PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, videos and photo albums — or to simply produce podcasts. It then blends the visual and audio components together into a video presentation. In the classroom, your students can present completed projects using myBrainshark, rather than face-to-face, or they can use it for mock presentations allowing the teacher to give feedback before the real presentation. The former can help bolster the confidence and communication skills of introverted and/or passive learners. Teachers can also turn their PowerPoint presentations into narrated video presentations (e.g. explanation of concepts) that students can watch outside of school hours. The most immediate limitation of this tool is that presentations cannot be downloaded in the free version. If you are looking for a tool that also allows for video narratives along with PowerPoint presentations (instead of basic audio), I would suggest Present.me.

 
PosterMyWall
PosterMyWall is a fantastic tool for creating artistic, high-quality posters, collages, photo calendars and/or photo cards that can either be shared online or printed out and inexpensively shipped home. Students can upload their own pictures or simply search for photos on the same site through a search function that is connected to Pixebay and Flickr, which provides access to photos licensed for educational purposes. Perhaps the best use of PosterMyWall for teaching purposes is to have students create posters as the culmination of a project to demonstrate what they have learned. Another interesting idea would be creating a poster as a means of introducing the students to a specific topic in an innovative way that stimulates discussion. PosterMyWall is slightly restricted in terms of the amount of options available for customization (mostly pictures and text), but other services, such as Glogster, offer a wider range of options.

 
Screencast-o-matic
Screencast-o-matic is a powerful screen recorder that allows users to capture anything happening on their screen, as well as voice and video from the webcam for up to 15 minutes in the recorder’s free version. Regarding its pedagogical use, students can record their own videos describing how they solved a particular problem step-by-step (e.g. a trigonometry problem) or explaining their thinking process about the structure of an essay. Teachers, on the other hand, can create video tutorials on virtually any subject, perhaps explaining how to use a certain piece of software for students. These can be watched at home, saving teachers valuable time that can be used for other activities in the classroom. Also, teachers can use Screencast-o-matic to provide multimedia feedback on written work (e.g. essays) both at the personal or class level. Unfortunately, Screencast-o-matic requires Java 1.5 or a later version for reproduction, which some users may need to download. However, this can be easily downloaded for free. Some high-quality alternatives to Screencast-o-matic are Jing and Ezvid, both of which are very powerful and offer unique features.

 
Padlet
Padlet is another free program that facilitates the creation of virtual walls where students and teachers can post sticky notes with almost anything they want. These notes can include (but are not limited to) text, images, videos or files. Posts can be arranged in a stream or scattered around the wall. Owners can moderate newly added posts through an extensive set of privacy settings. Padlet is an excellent place for collaborative work since it supports many people working together in real time. In a collaborative writing project, students could present their writing in a stream, embellished with related videos, links or images for deeper understanding. Students can also use Padlet to assemble an e-portfolio where they can organize, archive and display pieces of their work. Perhaps the most noticeable disadvantage is that visibility of walls is not set to “full private” by default. You can simply encourage students to select an appropriate level of privacy when creating personal walls. Other similar sites are Linoit or NoteApp.