Learning Creative Learning

Creative Learning - Week 1
Former student and learning pal Nick Smith found the Creative Learning course from the MIT media lab. It didn't take too long for me to shout "I'm in!" and join the par-tay.  The leader of the course is Mitch Resnick, one of the leaders of Scratch development.

• Course Page and syllabus (lots of great readings linked there)
• Google + community and twitter feed
• Lifelong Kingergarten Project Home

I never did get around to writing my reflection of the nice Python course I took from Rice on Coursera in the fall. So when I saw Dave Ferguson's reflection on week 1, it  was the prompt I needed to try to be better about keeping record of this course.

Video - First seminar (youtube of a Google Hangout)

Media Lab model for
creative thinking spiral

• overview of online component. Materials by email, idea of the weekly seminar (mostly panel discussions), Google+ for the course and small groups. (25,000 students)
•  Resnick: anecdote about current state of learning - fun stuff is for after school. School is for drill and information delivery. This course should be about rethinking learning.
• Question traditional model, how to prepare people to be adaptive learners.
• Inspiration from kindergarten. [Ironically was talking to a K teacher this weekend about how Michigan's new all day kindergarten is making it much more academic.]
• Goal is to provide information and resources, but also a chance to create and make. We'll be using Scratch for that. (Brief explanation about Scratch.)
• Great story about a scratch user who went from making a card, making and sharing sprites, working as a consultant making sprites for others, to a teacher making a sprite tutorial, to a collaborator on an adventure game.
• Course will have weekly readings, Mon morning (10 am ET) panel conversations, design & learning activities, small group discussions. Overview of the course week by week.
• He also shared the Marshmallow Challenge, which also has a TED talk.

A little long winded. I'd watch Resnick's TEDx talk first and you'll hear a lot more of his ideas in a lot less time. If you have more time, watch the Marshmallow Challenge TED talk.


Article All I Really Need to Know (about Creative Thinking) I Learned (by Studying How Children Learn) in Kindergarten (pdf), Mitchel Resnick

• Expansion of the Imagine Spiral framework above.
• "The goal is not to nurture the next Mozart or Einstein, but to help everyone become more creative in the ways they deal with everyday problems."
• "As we develop new technologies for children, our hope is that children will continually surprise themselves (and surprise us too) as they explore the space of possibilities."
• This excellent advice from 12 year olds for kids about to start a Crickets workshop. (The MIT media lab project that inspired Lego Mindstorms.)