{"id":19,"date":"2016-01-18T17:22:59","date_gmt":"2016-01-18T17:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itec-ubc.ca\/wordpress\/green\/?p=19"},"modified":"2016-01-18T17:22:59","modified_gmt":"2016-01-18T17:22:59","slug":"does-assessment-kill-creativity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mrgreenreports\/2016\/01\/18\/does-assessment-kill-creativity\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Assessment Kill Creativity?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Does Assessment Kill Creativity?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Pre-Read<\/p>\n<p>Before I read this article my inclination is that assessment, in some ways, kills creativity. In my opinion teachers, like all people, attach a lot of ego to their work. It is almost a pathological narcissism that many, but certainly not all, teachers demonstrate when then judge the work of their students. I do not believe, at the elementary level, teachers should be participating in traditional assessment. Surely, there is a lot of institutional and parental pressure which encourages the use of grades but in my mind placing a number or a letter next to a student\u2019s work is in many ways wrong.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Some notes during my read<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Creativity requires novelty and usefulness\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li>creativity is often viewed as that which is unique, out of the ordinary, bizarre or deviant &#8212; without the additional criterion of creativity can become a euphemism for bad work<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>creativity has 2 stages\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li>divergent stage: brainstorming, generating ideas, problems\/solutions<\/li>\n<li>convergent stage: evaluating, choosing, assimilating ideas<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>turning to \u201cmotivational sciences\u201d &#8212; sounds scary!!<\/li>\n<li>This is interesting to me:\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li>by sharing only the best student work, teachers put pressure on students to perform to that social norm, instead of working towards their best\n<ul>\n<li>I think there is a parallel here with instagram\/other social media. students see the best of everyone, not the \u201cnot perfect\u201d situations<\/li>\n<li>students are more likely to view errors as a lack of ability<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>conversely a mastery goal which focuses on self development, skill development, creativity and understanding &#8211;what if students see other\u2019s being very successful at mastery goals? same problem?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>assessment does not necessarily kill creativity &#8212; how the students perceive the message sent by the teacher in assessment that matters.<\/li>\n<li>minimizing social comparisons<\/li>\n<li>minmize the pressure of assessment &#8212; if students feel pressured by \u201cevaluative surveillence\u201d their willingness to express creativity will suffer<\/li>\n<li>do not throw praise around for empty, or bad ideas<\/li>\n<li>teachers play an instrumental role in shaping students\u2019 perceptions of how much creativity will be tolerated<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A few thoughts, after reading the article<\/p>\n<p>In general I agree with what Ronald Beghetto had to say. I find myself quite skeptical of assessment. I do not really want to do it, at this point. Mostly because I do not feel like I have the right to place such a judgment on someone else\u2019s work. I feel that an opinion, an insight, or a connection has a lot more to offer the student from a learning perspective as well as a practical one.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mastery goals are a very interesting way to look at education. By encouraging students to work towards improving their skills\/abilities instead of working towards completing a rubric, I think students are empowered with more agency and should find schools less meticulous and rigid. I, of course, am pretty biased. I do not like rubrics, I had a disdain for \u201cbusy work\u201d back in the school days, and I am a big fan of inquiry style teaching.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, if as teachers, we can create an environment which fosters creativity and critical thinking I think a fantastic job has been done. Maintaining high level engagement throughout the year &#8212; or even the week &#8212; is easier said than done. Working towards these ideals, however, teachers can do a lot to make school more interesting for students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Does Assessment Kill Creativity? &nbsp; Pre-Read Before I read this article my inclination is that assessment, in some ways, kills creativity. In my opinion teachers, like all people, attach a lot of ego to their work. It is almost a pathological narcissism that many, but certainly not all, teachers demonstrate when then judge the work [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39918,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mrgreenreports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mrgreenreports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mrgreenreports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mrgreenreports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39918"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mrgreenreports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mrgreenreports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mrgreenreports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mrgreenreports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mrgreenreports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}