Developing 21st Century Skills (specifically 4C's) through Inquiry: Part I- Creativity

Conversations are happening all through the district and beyond about 21st century skills and the skills that future employers are looking for in their workers. When looking at 21st century skills a person can get overwhelmed with the number of skills that fall under that umbrella. There has been emphasis lately focusing on the 4 C's: Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication and Collaboration. When looking at these 4 C's it makes addressing 21st century skills more manageable. It becomes even more manageable when you think about addressing 21st century skills, specifically the 4 C's, through inquiry.  Each of the 4 C's can easily be built into the WISE(R) model of Inquiry.

I thought that over the next 4 blog posts I would showcase how each one of the 4 C's are successfully being addressed within our building. It is my hope that you can get some ideas from each other by putting them in one place.

Creativity
I wanted to start with creativity because as I work within the classrooms, I tend to be most impressed when I see how creative students are being with the tools that they have learned. I also see some of the most excitement out of kids when they are creating.

When I think about creativity I typically think about the synthesize phase of inquiry, although it certainly does happen in more than this stage.

The kindergartners recently finished a guided research on hedgehogs in the library in which they systematically walked through each stage of the inquiry process with Mr. Bizan and my support. Then the kindergarteners were set out to do their own inquiries on a topic of choice. When being introduced to the new inquiry, one of the students raised their hand and asked, "When sharing my information, do I need to use Book Creator?" I paused and said, "No. Why, what were you thinking?" She instantly said, "I would rather use Doodle Buddy to share what I learned." Of course, I said, "Yes!"


This to me is the perfect example of how choice can allow for creativity. Students at any level need the opportunity to be creative. During the synthesize phase of inquiry where students are creating "knowledge products" choice can allow for creativity to shine through. Of course providing your students with a toolbox of resources that allow for creativity is important, after all, that kindergartner would have never known about Doodle Buddy if we hadn't used it earlier in the year for a different inquiry.

What digital creativity tools is LGES classrooms finding success with?

Fourth Grade:


In 4th grade students built persuasive i-movie commercials to convince an audience to support either the loyalists or the patriots. We have been working on this inquiry for years and each year it gets better and better. This years success fell in the area of "creativity." Since these students have now been working on the i-pads for 2 years their toolbox of tools is much fuller than previous classes. So when we ran into the issue (as we do every year) of not being able to find "fair use" images that were exactly the image that the students were searching for, students got creative and began app smashing. They would take a "fair use" image, say of a patriot flag, and drop into the Skitch app and draw a red "X" over the image. Some students wanted to add text on top of multiple images and would then pull their images into PicCollage. Other students just wanted to draw the entire image and they used Paper 53. Student creativity shined through and in many cases it allowed for the teachers to address media literacy skills.

Example Projects:

Third Grade:

In 3rd grade teachers are having students use Explain Everything for the first time. Students were giving the following task, "Create a path to get around the world using all the oceans and continents. You must use cardinal directions, and both continent names and ocean names to explain your path." Students were giving time to explore the app in the beginning and were able to discover the different tools and features. Once the students learned the tool, they were given the autonomy to use the tool however they saw fit to complete their challenge. It was amazing to watch their creativity prevail as they not only completed their challenge, but conquered it. Some students chose to find a map online and add it to the Explain Everything App, some students took a picture of their map that they used as a planning sheet, other students asked me if I could air drop the map I used in the example to them. Students were very creative in how they chose to complete their challenge. This creativity was possible by placing the learning on the students and giving them personal choice.

New Tools to Explore: 
Here are some new tools that you might like to explore. Each of these tools can foster creativity and help to add to the students' toolboxes!

Buncee- This is a creation and presentation tool that allows you/students to bring together all types of content (artwork, photos, videos, drawing, audio, links & more) in one place. It can be used both on the i-pad and on a PC. In addition it has a built-in management tool that allows for teachers to review and grade student work. 

BeFunky- This tool allows students to be photo editors, graphic designers and collage makers. Students will be able to take their creativity to a new level with this easy tool. 

Watch the video to get a general idea of how to use their "graphic design" tool. As you can see it is very professional and allows for students to be creative.

Is creativity being fostered in your classroom?

Above are just a few examples of how student creativity is being fostered in the classroom. If you have an example you would like me to add, please share it with me and I would be happy to showcase it. The more we share the more our ideas grow as a building.

In addition, if you are using a new tool that allows for student creativity, please add it in the comments below. Everyone, especially the students, appreciate new tools for their toolbox!