#edfuture: What's your next move?

What's your next move? | Open Course in Education Futures

Repeated:

Dave's slide presentation , specifically slide 6, reminded me of the importance of divergent and convergent approaches to creativity. "Choosing" and "using scenarios" really is what creativity and innovation is all about. Schon and Rein (1995) allude to this same notion when they view actors, participants, students, etc. as "seeing, moving, and seeing" their way through an ongoing change process that requires problem setting and solving skills. So instead of the teacher creating a problem that students need to solve, the instructional design is set so that learners can "see" the situation or context and set the problem or problems that are applicable to that particular scenario. Then the students "move", or do something that leads to both intended and unintended outcomes requiring them to adapt, adjust, reflect, etc. before making another move. This ongoing process then becomes a "playground" for students to exercise what they know, what they can do, and what habits of mind are they developing.

This is the essence of critical and creative thinking. Building professional learning communities within schools should work towards developing instructional designs that require learners to gain perspective and interpretive skills as they plan their moves in how they will interact with content, processes, and products. The process of "seeing", "moving", and "seeing" promotes divergent thinking that leads to a variety of possible outcomes. At this point, learners reflect on these outcomes, looking for patterns, trends, or tendencies thus promoting convergent thinking skills as well.