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Teaching and Learning as a Joyful Creative Process with Dr. Shamini Dias, director of the Preparing Future Faculty program at Claremont Graduate University // June 15 – 17, 2021

Kathy Hays

We are honored to welcome Dr. Shamini Dias as our Exchange Host. Dr. Dias works with graduate education students at Claremont Graduate University where she focuses on integrating ideas from complexity science to explore imagination as a creative, adaptive capacity and a critical aspect of human development and leadership. Her research locates teaching and learning in constantly changing, diverse, and inter-connected contexts that define life today. She incorporates this research to help graduate students develop identities as inclusive teachers who strive for educational equity for all learners. In addition to teaching English literature and writing, Dr. Dias is a teaching artist and works with museums, libraries, and schools to develop creativity and communication skills in people of all ages. 

In Chimamanda Adichie’s Danger of a Single Story, she talks about the danger of only looking at one part of the narrative. The same can be said for offering students only one format to share their understanding of information. It’s non-inclusive. Providing students with the sensory experience of incorporating art, role-play, dance, singing, poetry and other activities as a way to express their understanding allows them to connect with others while building a multi-literacy thinking process.    

There are many opportunities to incorporate creative expression in OER Project activities (Draw Your History, Star Comics, Active Accretion, Alphonse the Camel, Our Interconnected World, Traveler Postcards, and the many graphic biographies to name a few). How do you move beyond traditional instructional strategies to allow students the opportunity to creatively share their understanding?  Dr. Dias has shared two documents (see below) with suggestions on how to get started integrating creative learning practices. 

The Exchange will be “Live” June 15- 17 but go ahead and start posting your questions for Dr. Dias in the comments below. You may want to ask how you can incorporate sensory learning into a specific OER Project activity, or to ask for more information on how providing students the opportunity to express their understanding in multiple forms is beneficial. We’d also love to learn from you on strategies you incorporate to allow students to share their knowledge. How do your students respond? 

Whether you are currently incorporate creative expression in your class, or you want to try new strategies, but this is outside your comfort zone, Dr. Dias can answer your questions. Let’s learn from each other! 

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Parents

  • Hi Shamini - thanks so much for taking the time to be with us. My question is short, but (I think) complex.

    What are your thoughts about using art as assessment?

    In other words, many teachers certainly experiment with "art" in the classroom, but tend to do so as an activity - or as a pathway to learning / understanding. Can artistic expression be used as a form of assessment for students? If so, what recommendations do you have?

    Thanks again!

  • in reply to Erik Christensen

    My question is pretty similar to the one Erik posed. I like the idea of students having choices to employ various artistic media in class activities, but I’m not always confident on how to score assessments in a way that addresses content knowledge and artistic elements. I would welcome any thoughts you have! 

  • in reply to Anne Koschmider

    Erik and you pose a very important question. Art and Assessment ... what an unlikely pair! But what if we reframe "assessment"? We know that assessment - understood as gauging engagement and learning - is at the heart of learning. Knowing I am growing, seeing the my work emerge visibly in front of me can bring delight and excitement. But the way assessment is traditionally done hurts the heart of learning. No use doing creative holistic projects if we use the traditional punitive assessment frame. Some ideas I am playing with that I would love to hear everyone's ideas about:

    1. Separate out content knowledge from artistic elements. But scaffold content knowledge formatively - example. In a wall collage project on creating a timeline of world events during the era of Romantic Poetry, students have the opportunity to take a number of open book, multiple attempts quizzes for content knowledge mastery. Highest score taken end of project. Project has a guiding checklist (aka rubric) and students get to add and modify the rubric for final grading. 
    2. Holistic reflexive grading. Students have a guiding checklist or single point rubric as a formative tool through a project. Self and peer review as part of formative discussion (also builds metacognition of learning). Students do a final reflection on - what I learned, what challenged me and how I addressed the challenged, what I know and can do that I could not before. Everyone gets as A! Why? - the work is complete - there are visible signs of learning, they have checked off all the items on the guiding checklist, they have developed explicit knowledge of how they learn. 

    I am sure there are many more ideas ... the critical thing here is first dismantling the assumptions of traditional assessment. Would love to hear everyone's perspective on this important topic

Reply
  • in reply to Anne Koschmider

    Erik and you pose a very important question. Art and Assessment ... what an unlikely pair! But what if we reframe "assessment"? We know that assessment - understood as gauging engagement and learning - is at the heart of learning. Knowing I am growing, seeing the my work emerge visibly in front of me can bring delight and excitement. But the way assessment is traditionally done hurts the heart of learning. No use doing creative holistic projects if we use the traditional punitive assessment frame. Some ideas I am playing with that I would love to hear everyone's ideas about:

    1. Separate out content knowledge from artistic elements. But scaffold content knowledge formatively - example. In a wall collage project on creating a timeline of world events during the era of Romantic Poetry, students have the opportunity to take a number of open book, multiple attempts quizzes for content knowledge mastery. Highest score taken end of project. Project has a guiding checklist (aka rubric) and students get to add and modify the rubric for final grading. 
    2. Holistic reflexive grading. Students have a guiding checklist or single point rubric as a formative tool through a project. Self and peer review as part of formative discussion (also builds metacognition of learning). Students do a final reflection on - what I learned, what challenged me and how I addressed the challenged, what I know and can do that I could not before. Everyone gets as A! Why? - the work is complete - there are visible signs of learning, they have checked off all the items on the guiding checklist, they have developed explicit knowledge of how they learn. 

    I am sure there are many more ideas ... the critical thing here is first dismantling the assumptions of traditional assessment. Would love to hear everyone's perspective on this important topic

Children
  • in reply to SHAMINI Dias

    Thank you! While I absorb these notes, I want to tag in   for his thoughts. I think he would absolutely have some extending ideas to share. He has spent a significant amount of time reimagining "how things work" in his classroom. To be continued!

  • in reply to SHAMINI Dias

    I very much like both of your points above.

    For #2 holistice grading, would you say that such a model would fit well with "standards grading"?

  • in reply to Donnetta Elsasser

    Oh yes indeed! 

    If you use the standards as part of your criteria, and unpack as needed for detail and direction, you actually have a formative standards-based checklist. So students can self-assess and intentionally focus on the standards they have to meet as they work ... and at the end of the task/assignment, your assessment will be based not on a one-off moment of assessment, but as the culmination of some formative process of checking as they go. 

    The reflection is an added component that informs your grading and helps with developing students learning how to learn metacognition. 

    Sometimes, it feels odd that all students hit all the standards - but with the right scaffolding and feedback they potentially can. However, in reality, you might find that developmentally and situationally, they are not able to check off every criteria on a checklist based on the standards. But the approach works also to foster a growth mindset - rather than the grade telling them "I'm just not good enough" it leads to conversations and reflections of WHY -  "I did not do ___, or I was unable to because of ____" and a sense of "not yet" - maybe the next time, I will do ___. 

  • in reply to SHAMINI Dias

    This is really useful information. I’m going to have to wrap my head around this as I plan assessments for next year.