Atlanta Creativity Exchange
Education Track

The Education Track will offer a variety of sessions to enhance classroom instruction with elements of creativity and problem solving. It may be taken for credit. The symbol * denotes a required session for course credit. Otherwise you may take any of the following sessions. Sessions are an hour and a half.

Sessions

1) CREATIVITY 101 – Learning to Think Differently *
Instructor: Mary Ann Hoffman
Everything that you ever wanted to know about creativity will be explored in this session. Both critical and creative thinking skills will be investigated. Divergent thinking, convergent thinking, and elaboration will be presented in a variety of original lessons. Lessons using Blooms' Taxonomy and the Creative Process will be introduced for classroom instruction. Educators will learn how to structure creative problem solving lessons on a daily and yearly basis. Participants will also learn how to be more creative themselves. This sessions is for all grade levels.

2) CREATIVE TEACHING TECHNIQUES
Instructor: Jack Wolfe
For any age level. During this session teachers, administrators and staff developers will experience a series of exercises that teach methods used by Dr. Wolf is his Accelerated Teaching certification course. Participants will receive background materials and facilitators guides necessary to utilize these valuable teaching tools once back in the classroom. Each participant will experience:

1. 3 creative methods for getting and keeping a student's attention
2. How to prepare students for test taking
3. How to increase short and long term memory
4. How to prepare a child to learn through non-sensory inputs
5. 3 creative methods for reviewing lessons
6. Creating a class of Accelerated Learners

3) BRAIN JUMPS! *
Instructor: Mary Ann Hoffman
This session will engage educators in a series of quick activities to jump start their students' brains for the day, to start a creative problem solving lesson, or to fill those hard-to-fill tens minutes in any given school day. Your mental juices will be flowing in these sessions for all grade levels!

4) CREATIVITY LESSONS FOR CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
Instructor: Mary Ann Hoffman
It is said that good thinking precedes good writing! This session will show how to use literature to generate creative thinking that will springboards into creative writing pieces. Educators will leave with a large inventory of ideas to use in the classroom. The creative process and mind mapping will be introduced in this session as well. Session can be used by all grades but best for elementary age children.

5) APPLIED CREATIVITY IN THE CLASSROOM *
Instructor: Mary Ann Hoffman
A variety of original creative problem solving lessons developed by the instructor will be shared in this sessions. See how analogies, multiple intelligences, and inventions can be turned into creativity lessons for the classroom. For all ages.

6) 25 ANSWERS TO THE QUESTION 1+1!
Instructor: Alan Black
In our classrooms every day we can help reinforce the natural creativity of students and also teach them many creative and analytical thinking techniques. Starting with simple BRAINSTORMING, ATTRIBUTE LISTINGS, OPTIONAL THINKING, and FUTURE PROBLEM SOLVING techniques, we can turn the excitement levels in our classrooms. Once our students automatic think more creatively, we can take them higher and higher with many other CREATIVE THINKING TOOLS and TECHNIQUES. The result is much more fun and learning for students and teachers.

7) WHAT IS OUT THERE! *
Instructor: Mary Ann Hoffman
This session will concentrate on the commercial creative problem solving programs on the market. There are lots of resources for anyone to be more creative, A variety of creative problem solving competitions will be shared as well. For all ages.

Instructors

Mary Ann Hoffman, M.Ed., is an elementary principal at Heathwood Hall Episcopal School in Columbia, South Carolina. She has 29 years in the education field where she has been Teacher of the Year three times, principal of a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence, and has developed gifted and talented programs in both in elementary and middle schools in PA and SC. She has written a thinking skills program for her elementary school that uses both original lessons and commercial programs. She has coached both Odyssey of the Mind and Destination Imagination teams, and her students have garnered two national Invent America first place awards for the fourth grade. She has presented her Thinking Skills Workshops at national conferences for the National Association of Independent Schools, The National Center for Independent School Renewal, and The Commonwealth in Education in VA, and numerous other local and state conferences.

Dr. Jack Wolf is a Goals 2000 Teacher for the U.S. Dept. Of Education and is certified to teach Learning Styles, Accelerated Teaching, Whole Brain Learning Strategies and Educational Leadership. His experience with large and small school districts, schools, and faculties for over 31 years has created a large number of satisfied participants in his various classes. Jack is also a former Jack Canfield Self Esteem teacher and was on the faculty at his annual teacher's conference

Dr. Alan Black, Ph.D., CSP. In 1976 Alan was challenged by his two sons' elementary school principal when she asked: "Mr. Black, I have some students, a room and a little money. Do you have any time?" She asked him if he could become a volunteer gifted education teacher. He did for the next two years, and his life has never the same. Those Tuesdays with 22 highly academic students led him on a journey that has lasted 32 years and taken him through 3 degree in education and 24 years of working as a creative thinking consultant. His various experiences has taken him all around the US and around the world 8 times.

Program

Applied Creativity for the Classroom

Goals Addressed

Participants will:

1. Gain an understanding of critical and creative problem solving strategies and how they can be used in the classroom to enhance student achievement.
2. Develop creativity lessons that will be used in their classroom to help students use their minds well.
3. Discover how to use more creativity with classroom lessons to enhance student achievement.

Improvement Practices

With the world in need of creativity, problem solving, and innovation to face the challenges of the 21st Century, schools need to develop these skills with their children. Yet in today's educational environment, the emphasis, energies, and resources have focused on testing and accountability. How do you meld creativity into a curriculum and yet be accountable for the instruction? This course is designed to help teachers enhance their own instruction with various strategies, tools, and techniques to develop creativity in their classrooms. Today's students need to be agile learners who can use their minds well. They need to know the creative process. Students need to know how to generate ideas, to converge on possible solutions, elaborate on ideas, and implement them. This course will prepare teachers to bring fresh, creative approaches to their classrooms.

Competencies

Participants will be able to:

1. Consistently use the fundamentals of creative problem solving and critical thinking that include divergent, convergent, and elaborative thinking, Blooms' Taxonomy, and the Creative Process.
2. Design and implement classroom lessons that will deepen thinking and encourage creativity with their students.
3. Use literature from picture books to novels to generate creative thinking in the classroom.

Performance Indicators

As a result of this course participants will demonstrate their ability to:

1. Use basic creative and critical thinking skills by infusing them in their various curriculum areas.
2. Use a variety of divergent and convergent tools, techniques and processes to enhance creativity in the classroom. They also will be use various tools, techniques and processes presented in the elective sessions provided at the conference.
3. Enhance classroom lessons with critical and creative problem solving strategies. An example — when using a basic reading skill such as cause effect, teachers would help students generate more possible results using the higher level thinking skills.
4. Use Brain Jumps — quick mental warm-ups to spark curiosity and creativity in classroom.
5. There will be more indicators once the new sessions are determined. Example: Through children's literature, teachers will develop creativity and higher-level thinking skills to help their students be better writers and will generate a list of picture books and the like to use for teaching thinking skills.

Preparation Phase

Date and Location:
May 16-17, 2008
Kennesaw State University Center
3333 Busbee Drive, Kennesaw, GA, 30144

Strategies – The sessions will be interactive with lectures used as a foundation for understanding. Participants will be doing many hands-on activities to enhance creativity in the classroom. For example in the Brain Jump session participants will do 20 plus hands-on activities that they can use in their classrooms. The final project will involve participants creating lessons, developing a notebook of ideas, and writing reflections. There will be classroom discussion throughout the sessions with Pair & Share and group activities for the participants.

Instructional Time:
1 PLU – 10+ hours of instruction and participation. Students will attend 6 one and half hour sessions (9 hours).

• Creativity Basics – divergent, convergent, and elaboration thinking, and the like
• Brain Jumps – mental warm-ups,
• What is Out There – a session on the commercial creative problem solving programs in the market.
• Applied Creativity in the Classroom – original lessons developed by the instructor to teach creative problem solving and enhance creativity.
• Creativity Lessons for Children's Literature. It is said that good thinking precedes good writing! This session will show how to use literature to generate creative thinking that will springboards into creative writing pieces. Educators will leave with a large inventory of ideas to use in the classroom. creative process and mind mapping will be introduced in this session as well. Session can be used by all grades but best for elementary age children.
• 25 ANSWERS TO THE QUESTION 1+1! In our classrooms every day we can help reinforce the natural creativity of students and also teach them many creative and analytical thinking techniques. Starting with simple BRAINSTORMING, ATTRIBUTE LISTINGS, OPTIONAL THINKING, and FUTURE PROBLEM SOLVING techniques, we can turn the excitement levels in our classrooms. Once our students automatic think more creatively, we can take them higher and higher with many other CREATIVE THINKING TOOLS and TECHNIQUES. The result is much more fun and learning for students and teachers
• CREATIVE TEACHING TECHNIQUES For any age level. During this session teachers, administrators and staff developers will experience a series of exercises that teach methods used by Dr. Wolf is his Accelerated Teaching certification course. Participants will receive background materials and facilitators guides necessary to utilize these valuable teaching tools once back in the classroom. Each participant will experience:
  1. 3 creative methods for getting and keeping a student's attention
  2. How to prepare students for test taking
  3. How to increase short and long term memory
  4. How to prepare a child to learn through non-sensory inputs
  5. 3 creative methods for reviewing lessons
  6. Creating a class of Accelerated Learners
• An additional evening session with the entire Atlanta Creativity Exchange Conference is scheduled for May 17 (2 hours) and a working lunch time Pair & Share Session (1 hour) will be scheduled as well to discuss the enhancement of classroom lessons that teachers are currently using.

Course Assessment (Mastery Verification)

The participants will demonstrate their knowledge of the presented materials learned at Atlanta Creativity Exchange Education Track by doing the following activities:

1. Design at least two lessons or enhance at least two lessons with critical and creative thinking skills.
2. Develop a Creativity Notebook with ideas, strategies, tools, and techniques to use in the classroom.
3. Write a reflection on how this conference will influence their future teaching.