Working Creatively With Stories And Learning Experiences

Stories are a valuable vehicle for practitioners in research, education, human services and the arts to enable individual and cultural change. The authors describe and deploy a variety of methods that can be used by teachers, researchers, artists, youth and community workers, and other professionals to analyse stories in ways that can promote learning and wellbeing and enhance professional practice. Offering a concise and user-friendly assemblage of techniques on how to creatively engage with stories, the authors explore and exemplify these techniques through the narratives of Queerly Identifying Tertiary Students. This practical and innovative volume will appeal to readers, researchers and practitioners alike.

This book builds on conversations between the author educators and other experts in the field, including authors, illustrators and teachers, to explore the benefits of discussions around quality literature within a classroom context that exercises the imagination and generates new ideas and discoveries. The book focuses on a range of strategies that can be utilised to reimagine literacy learning in a 21st century context including parent and teacher talk; active listening; fostering student driven questions; building vocabulary and imagery; and metacognitive talk. These are argued to have a hugely beneficial impact on how children learn to solve problems, engage in complex thought processes, negotiate meaning, as well as learning how to wonder, explore, create and defend ideas. The book also defends the importance of parents, teachers and academics as ‘storytellers’, using their bodies and voices as instruments of engagement and power. It will make compelling reading for students, teachers and researchers working in the fields of education and sociology, particularly those with an interest in creative methods for improving literacy.

How lessons from kindergarten can help everyone develop the creative thinking skills needed to thrive in today's society. In kindergartens these days, children spend more time with math worksheets and phonics flashcards than building blocks and finger paint. Kindergarten is becoming more like the rest of school. In Lifelong Kindergarten, learning expert Mitchel Resnick argues for exactly the opposite: the rest of school (even the rest of life) should be more like kindergarten. To thrive in today's fast-changing world, people of all ages must learn to think and act creatively—and the best way to do that is by focusing more on imagining, creating, playing, sharing, and reflecting, just as children do in traditional kindergartens. Drawing on experiences from more than thirty years at MIT's Media Lab, Resnick discusses new technologies and strategies for engaging young people in creative learning experiences. He tells stories of how children are programming their own games, stories, and inventions (for example, a diary security system, created by a twelve-year-old girl), and collaborating through remixing, crowdsourcing, and large-scale group projects (such as a Halloween-themed game called Night at Dreary Castle, produced by more than twenty kids scattered around the world). By providing young people with opportunities to work on projects, based on their passions, in collaboration with peers, in a playful spirit, we can help them prepare for a world where creative thinking is more important than ever before.

Educators and education policy has increasingly acknowledged the value of creativity and creative approaches to education in particular. This book highlights a range of innovative teaching techniques successfully employed by teachers from a range of disciplines and education levels in order to share knowledge regarding creative education.

How lessons from kindergarten can help everyone develop the creative thinking skills needed to thrive in today's society. In kindergartens these days, children spend more time with math worksheets and phonics flashcards than building blocks and finger paint. Kindergarten is becoming more like the rest of school. In Lifelong Kindergarten, learning expert Mitchel Resnick argues for exactly the opposite: the rest of school (even the rest of life) should be more like kindergarten. To thrive in today's fast-changing world, people of all ages must learn to think and act creatively—and the best way to do that is by focusing more on imagining, creating, playing, sharing, and reflecting, just as children do in traditional kindergartens. Drawing on experiences from more than thirty years at MIT's Media Lab, Resnick discusses new technologies and strategies for engaging young people in creative learning experiences. He tells stories of how children are programming their own games, stories, and inventions (for example, a diary security system, created by a twelve-year-old girl), and collaborating through remixing, crowdsourcing, and large-scale group projects (such as a Halloween-themed game called Night at Dreary Castle, produced by more than twenty kids scattered around the world). By providing young people with opportunities to work on projects, based on their passions, in collaboration with peers, in a playful spirit, we can help them prepare for a world where creative thinking is more important than ever before.

This book is based on the premise that story making and storytelling are fundamental human activities, shared by all cultures. The power and potential of stories in learning has been recognised by practitioners of the Storyline Approach since the 1960s. As can be seen from the scope and variety of contributions to this book, educators from across the world continue to employ the pedagogies and strategies of Storyline to complement and extend the educational opportunities they offer to the learners in their care. They demonstrate that story can be a medium for developing skills and making connections; a means of social and cultural bonding and of sharing culture and belief systems; and a way of sharing in common human experiences, often by uniting both the cognitive and the affective domains. It can tap into the imagination and emotions to form new and meaningful connections between existing areas of knowledge than can often be neglected in conventional educational practice. The book provides educators and learners with examples of creative, meaningful and powerful educational experiences, and is the result of the extending and crafting of some of the presentations and ideas offered by delegates at the 5th International Storyline Conference held in Reykjavik in 2012.

Provides information on integrating digital storytelling into curriculum design.

This practical, user-friendly resource provides a step-by-step process for restructuring blocks of learning time to improve student-teacher relationships and promote more positive learning experiences.