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Thinking

Lesson Guide
Essential Question: What can be done to increase the understanding of process skills? Lesson Problem: How can I become a more creative thinker?
FAMILY AND CONSUMER SCIENCES STANDARDS
Refer to Crosswalk for Kansas Family and Consumer Sciences for Academic Curricular Standards Content: 13.5 Demonstrate teamwork and leadership skills in the family, workplace, and community. Competency: 13.5.1 Create an environment that encourages and respects the ideas, perspectives, and contributions of all group members. Basic Skills: Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Process Skills: Communication, Leadership, Management, Problem Solving, Thinking

KANSAS QUALITY PERFORMANCE ACCREDITATION STUDENT OUTCOMES


Student Outcome I: Essential Skills A. Read and comprehend a variety of resources. B. Communicate clearly, both orally and in writing, for a variety of purposes and audiences. C. Use mathematics and mathematical principles. D. Access and use information. Student Outcome II: Communication Skills A. Analyze, summarize, and comprehend what is read in all subject areas. B. Write and orally communicate for clear articulation, analysis, conceptualization, synthesis, and summarization of information. Student Outcomes III: Complex Thinking Skills A. Apply problem solving skills. B. Find information; process, analyze, and synthesize it; and apply it to new situations. C. Use creative, imaginative, and divergent thinking to formulate and solve problems, and to communicate the results. Student Outcome IV: Group Skills A. Work collaboratively in teams. B. Work together without prejudice, bias, or discrimination, using techniques to separate people from problems, focusing on interests not positions, inventing options for mutual gain, and using objective criteria. Student Outcome V: Physical and Emotional Well Being A. Have knowledge, skills, and behaviors essential to live a healthy and productive life.

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Thinking Learning Objectives: The learner will: 1) comprehend keys facts about creativity; 2) identify characteristics of creative people; and 3) comprehend the stages in the creative process.

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Instruction Introduction: Using the Vase and Faces problem, have students describe what they see. In each case, many people see one image quite readily but have difficulty seeing the other until it is pointed out to them. Once you have seen both, however, you are able to move back and forth between them freely and quickly. It is much the same with perspectives on issues. TEACHER NOTE: To see the vase, focus on the white object against a background of shadow. To see two faces, imagine a bright light shining through a window and two people standing nose to nose, in silhouette. Content: Discuss the Keys Facts About Creativity handout/overhead with students using the following examples. 1. Doing your own thing is not necessarily a mark of creativity. Being creative means combining knowledge and imagination. 2. Creativity does not require special intellectual talent or a high IQ. Creativity depends on using the talents you already possess. 3. The use of drugs hinders creativity. Drugs reduce judgment in control and direction of the mind. 4. Creativity is an expression of mental health. Creativity is an expression of a mentally or psychologically healthy person. Share the Characteristics of Creative People handout/overhead and use the stories as a point of reference. Knowing the five characteristics can help each student develop his/her creative potential. Studies of creative achievers have identified the following characteristics as the most prominent: 1. Creative People are Dynamic. Unlike most people, creative people do not allow their minds to become passive, accepting, unquestioning. They manage to keep their curiosity burning, or at least to rekindle it. One aspect of this intellectual dynamism is playfulness. Like little children with building blocks, creative people love to toy with ideas, arranging them in new combinations, looking at them from different perspectives. 2. Creative People are Daring. For the creative, thinking is an adventure.

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Thinking Because they are free of preconceived notions and prejudiced views, creative people are less inclined to accept prevailing views, less narrow in their perspectives, less likely to conform with the thinking of those around them. They are bold in their conceptions, willing to entertain unpopular ideas and zany, even outrageous, possibilities. Therefore, like Galileo and Columbus, Edison and the Wright brothers, they are more open than others to creative ideas. 3. Creative People are Resourceful. Resourcefulness is the ability to act effectively and to conceptualize the approach that solves the problem even when the problem stymies others and the resources at hand are meager. One dramatic example of this characteristic was reported in Scientific American more than half a century ago. A prisoner in a western state penitentiary escaped but was recaptured after a few weeks. The prison officials grilled him for days. Where did you get the saw to cut through the bars? they demanded. In time, he broke down and confessed how he had managed to cut the bars. He claimed he had picked up bits of twine in the machine shop, dipped them in glue and then in emery, and smuggled them back to his cell. Night after night for three months, he had sawed the 1-inch-thick steel bars. The prison officials accepted his explanation, locked him up, and made sure he never visited the machine shop again. That, however, is not the end of the story. One dark night about three and half years later, the man escaped again, the prison officials found the bars cut in exactly the same manner. Though he was never recaptured, the way he escaped is legendary in the underworld. Hed lied about using material from the machine shop the first time. He had been much more resourceful than that. He had used woolen strings from his socks, moistened them with spit, and rubbed them in dirt on this cell floor. 4. Creative People are Hardworking. Part of creative peoples industriousness is attributable to their ability to be absorbed in a problem thoroughly and to give it their undivided attention. They are competitive with ideas. They take the challenge of ideas personally. Lester Pfister is an example of such a person. He got the idea of inbreeding stalks of corn to eliminate weaker strains. He began with 50,000 stalks and worked by hand, season after season. After five years, he had only four stalks left, and he was destitute. But he had perfected this strain. Where others

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Thinking would have succumbed to frustration and disappointment, he persevered because he was unwilling to accept defeat. 5. Creative People are Independent. Creative people look within themselves for approval of their ideas, instead of looking to others for acceptance and support. For this reason they are less afraid of appearing eccentric or odd, are more self-confident and are more free or speak and act independently. (From Ruggiero, Vincent Ryan, (1998). The Art of Thinking- A Guide to Critical and Creative Thinking. New York, New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc.) Using Stages in the Creative Process handout/overhead, apply the stages in the creative process. Being creative means more than having certain traits. It means behaving critically, addressing the challenges we encounter with imagination and originality. 1. Searching for Challenges 2. Expressing the Problem or Issue 3. Investigating the Problem or Issue 4. Producing Ideas Learning Process: In a Think-Pair-Share activity read the following case studies and identify which characteristics of creative people are described. TEACHER NOTE: A Think-Pair-Share activity involves the student working alone to think about the topic; then partners share their individual ideas and compare notes. Finally, the students share ideas with larger class to discuss further. a. The Humane Society inspectors who found two dogs in a closed car in brutal 92F heat used a novel approach in dealing with the dogs owners. They offered them an alternative to being charged with cruelty to animals: spend an hour inside the closed car themselves in the same heat the dogs endured, while the dogs spent the hour in the air-conditioned Humane Society building. b. A judge in a divorce court took an approach to the issues of custody and the right to live in the family home. He awarded the house to the children until the youngest reached age 18. The Process Skills, Thinking 1, p. 5

Thinking parents would take turns living in the house and paying the bills. To instill in students a sense of obligation to help those in need, a law school set the unusual graduation requirement of performing at least twenty hours of volunteer legal work for the poor. In 1845, a man needed money quickly to pay a debt. What can I invent to raise some money? he thought. Three hours later, he had invented the safety pin. He later sold the idea for $400. New ideas are occurring everyday. One is the Graffiti Gobbler, a chemical compound that can remove ink or paint from wood, brick or steel. A particular firm markets a computer device that measures a person for a suit of clothing and then telephones the information to a factory where lasers cut the fabric. Scientists have found new uses for the largest surplus crop in the United States: corn. These uses include adhesives, disposable bottles, and biodegradable garbage bags.

c.

d.

e.

f.

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(From Ruggiero, Vincent Ryan, (1998). The Art of Thinking- A Guide to Critical and Creative Thinking. New York, New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc.) Using the creative process, individually or in cooperative groups, choose the following exercises to complete: a. How many uses can you think of for old socks, stockings, or panty hose? b. List as many ideas as you can for new products or services; that is, products or services that do not now exist but for which there is a need. c. Some high school athletic teams have rather predictable, uncreative, and sometimes, offensive names: Bulldogs, Indians, Warriors, and so on. Think of as many creative names as you can for high school mascots that you have never heard used before. d. Divide a circle into as many parts as you can, using four straight lines. e. Create and describe a city of country that you have never been to. f. Old toothbrushes are usually thrown in the trash. Think of as many

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Thinking uses as you can for toothbrushes to be recycled or reused.. g. Create as many new food recipes as you can. Include ingredients and preparation instructions. h. Think of as many creative names as you can for a restaurant. Consider all types of establishments from the high-priced cuisine to the hometown caf. Debriefing Questions: How did you apply the creative process in the exercises? How do you use the creative process in your daily life? What are the characteristics of creative people? What characteristics can you utilize to become a more creative person? What are the keys facts of creativity? Share a story about yourself or someone you know who used creativity to solve a problem. How was creativity used to solve the problem? Assessment: Group discussion and participation Journal Entry/ Learning log from the debriefing questions. Resources: Ruggiero, Vincent Ryan. (1998). The Art of Thinking- A Guide to Critical and Creative Thinking. New York, New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc. Materials: Transparency: Vase and Faces problem Handouts: Key Facts About Creativity, Characteristics of Creative People, and Stages in the Creative Process.

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Being creative means combining knowledge and imagination. Creativity depends on using the talents you already possess. The use of drugs reduce judgment in control and direction of the mind and hinders creativity. Creativity is an expression of a mentally or psychologically healthy person.

Creative People are Dynamic. Creative People are Daring. Creative People are Resourceful. Creative People are Hardworking. Creative People are Independent

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Thinking

Searching for Challenges Expressing the Problem or Issue Investigating the Problem or Issue Producing Ideas
hindered by the use of drugs

is require special intellectual talent or a high IQ

"your own thing" is not necessarily a mark of creativity

doing

Key Facts About Creativity

does not

is an expression of mental health

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CHARACTERISTICS OF CREATIVE PEOPLE

Independent

are

Hardworking
are

Creative People

are

Resourceful

are

are

Daring

Dynamic

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