Saturday, September 27, 2008

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September 17, 2008

Neuroscience Sheds New Light on Creativity

Close your eyes and visualize the sun setting over a beach.

How detailed was your image? Did you envision a bland orb sinking below calm waters, or did you call up an image filled with activity -- palm trees swaying gently, waves lapping at your feet, perhaps a loved one holding your hand?

Now imagine you're standing on the surface of Pluto. What would a sunset look like from there? Notice how hard you had to work to imagine this

scene. Did you picture a featureless ball of ice with the sun a speck of light barely brighter than a star along the horizon? Did you envision frozen lakes of exotic chemicals or icy fjords glimmering in the starlight?

What you conjured illuminates how our brains work, why it can be so hard to come up with new ideas -- and how you can rewire your mind to open up the holy grail of creativity. Recent advances in neuroscience, driven by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that lets scientists watch brain activity as never before, have changed what we know about key attributes of creativity. These advances, for example, have swept away the idea that there is a pleasure center in the brain that somehow acts as an accelerator to the engine of human behavior. Rather, chemicals such as dopamine shuttle between neurons in ways that look remarkably like the calculations modern robots perform.

Creativity and imagination begin with perception. Neuroscientists have come to realize that how you perceive something isn't simply a product of what your eyes and ears transmit to your brain. It's a product of your brain itself. And iconoclasts, a class of people I define as those who do something that others say can't be done -- think Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, or Florence Nightingale -- see things differently. Literally. Some iconoclasts are born that way, but we all can learn how to see things not for what they are, but for what they might be.

Perception and imagination are linked because the brain uses the same neural circuits for both functions. Imagination is like running perception in reverse. The reason it's so difficult to imagine truly novel ideas has to do with how the brain interprets signals from your eyes. The images that strike your retina do not, by themselves, tell you with certainty what you are seeing. Visual perception is largely a result of statistical expectations, the brain's way of explaining ambiguous visual signals in the most likely way. And the likelihood of these explanations is a direct result of past experience.

Entire books have been written about learning, but the important elements for creative thinkers can be boiled down to this: Experience modifies the connections between neurons so that they become more efficient at processing information. Neuroscientists have observed that while an entire network of neurons might process a stimulus initially, by about the sixth presentation, the heavy lifting is performed by only a subset of neurons. Because fewer neurons are being used, the network becomes more efficient in carrying out its function.

The brain is fundamentally a lazy piece of meat. It doesn't want to waste energy. That's why there is a striking lack of imagination in most people's visualization of a beach sunset. It's an iconic image, so your brain simply takes the path of least resistance and reactivates neurons that have been optimized to process this sort of scene. If you imagine something that you have never actually seen, like a Pluto sunset, the possibilities for creative thinking become much greater because the brain can no longer rely on connections shaped by past experience.

In order to think creatively, you must develop new neural pathways and break out of the cycle of experience-dependent categorization. As Mark Twain said, "Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned." For most people, this does not come naturally. Often, the harder you try to think differently, the more rigid the categories become.

Most corporate off-sites, for example, are ineffective idea generators, because they're scheduled rather than organic; the brain has time to predict the future, which means the potential novelty will be diminished. Transplanting the same mix of people to a different location, even an exotic one, then dropping them into a conference room much like the one back home doesn't create an environment that leads to new insights. No, new insights come from new people and new environments -- any circumstance in which the brain has a hard time predicting what will happen next.

Fortunately, the networks that govern both perception and imagination can be reprogrammed. By deploying your attention differently, the frontal cortex, which contains rules for decision making, can reconfigure neural networks so that you can see things that you didn't see before. You need a novel stimulus -- either a new piece of information or an unfamiliar environment -- to jolt attentional systems awake. The more radical the change, the greater the likelihood of fresh insights.

Some of the most startling breakthroughs have had their origins in exactly these types of novel circumstances. Chemist Kary Mullis came up with the basic principle of the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR -- the fundamental technology that makes genetic tests possible -- not hunched over his lab bench, but on a spring evening while he was driving up the northern California coast. Walt Disney was a decent illustrator, but he didn't imagine the possibilities of animation until he saw his advertising illustrations projected onto the screen in a movie theater. In an extreme example, the preeminent glass artist Dale Chihuly didn't discover his sculptural genius until a car accident led to the loss of an eye and literally forced him to see the world differently. Only when the brain is confronted with stimuli that it has not encountered before does it start to reorganize perception. The surest way to provoke the imagination, then, is to seek out environments you have no experience with. They may have nothing to do with your area of expertise. It doesn't matter. Because the same systems in the brain carry out both perception and imagination, there will be cross talk.

Novel experiences are so effective at unleashing the imagination because they force the perceptual system out of categorization, the tendency of the brain to take shortcuts. You have to confront these categories directly. Try this: When your brain is categorizing a person or an idea, just jot down the categories that come to mind. Use analogies. You will find that you naturally fall back on the things you are familiar with. Then allow yourself the freedom to write down gut feelings, even if they're vague or visceral, such as "stupid" or "hot." Only when you consciously confront your brain's shortcuts will you be able to imagine outside of its boundaries.

Adapted from the book Iconoclast, by Gregory Berns, by permission of Harvard Business Press. Copyright 2008 Harvard Business School Publishing Corp. All Rights Reserved.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

21st CENTURY CLASSROOM DESIGN with the GENERATIVE END IN MIND!



























21st Century Classrooms: What's the Look and Feel?
by Leslie Wilson

We've talked to death the characteristics of the able 21st century learner. We can well name the skills and qualities required for students to successfully engage and contribute today and for the future. Let’s not forget to mention the shift in pedagogy that must occur to accomplish all of this. And, of course, there’s the great need to infuse technology in a seamless manner.

But what does this mean – practically and tactically? It’s time to commit this conversation to authentic models of real-live schools, classrooms, students, teachers and tools. One-to-One Institute has begun the process of pulling around concrete examples so that we have working archetypes of the 21st century education environment. Following provides an outline of this effort. For this blog, I’ll provide this overview. In upcoming pieces I will dive deeper into key concepts.

First, why is there this imperative to create this ramped up and retooled environment? Aside from the numerous reasons we can recite, consider the huge increases that globally exist for accessing the Internet over the past eight years. Statistics follow.

Country
Population 2008 est
Internet Usage Growth 2000-08
Africa
955,206,348
1,031.2 %
Asia
3,776,181,949
406.1 %
Europe
800,401,065
266.0 %
Middle East
197,090,443
1,176.8 %
North America
337,167,248
129.6 %
Latin America & Caribbean
576,091,673
669.3 %
Oceania / Australia
33,981,562
165.1 %
Total
6,676,120,288
305.5 %

(Source: Internet World Stats - Miniwatts marketing group 2001-08 ©)

If we aren’t compelled by the Internet effects in our own neighborhoods and communities, think about the numbers of people in all parts of our world who are accessing, sharing, collaborating, purchasing, downloading, and adding information. The train is traveling so fast that we are pressed to get on at any one station!

Other reasons? How about the manner in which our world has shrunk due to emerging technologies and the ‘twitch’ factor of today’s learners (and me) meaning ‘I want the information now and fast’ with precious little tolerance for even a minimal delay in exchange? How about the fact that today’s students will have around 12 to 15 careers in their life spans – requiring skills for adapting and flexing to be successful in those shifts and within unique environments? These students/workers will be ‘producers’ of content and knowledge – not passive recipients. The entrepreneurial spirit will be required for successful innovation and accommodation within the work world.

Second, pedagogy has to retool to get at 21st century skill development. The move to student-centric instead of teacher-centric classrooms is required. Teachers become facilitators, organizers – really orchestra directors if you will. They need to know each student’s sweet spot in order to accordingly organize the day’s learning experiences and resources. Students will become self-directed and engaged as evidenced by recent research.

Third, the leadership required for the ‘new’ environment must be ‘generative’ (Klimek, Ritzenhein, Sullivan 2008). Beyond developing the shared vision, supporting and empowering, today’s leader must construct opportunities for creating.

Defined, generativity is ‘the capacity or ability to create, produce, or give rise to new constructs, new possibilities’. The generative leader understands that the 21st century school is a dynamic system. Each person within it is integral to the present and future. These leaders focus on innovation, ideas and creativity and are able to be directive when needed. They possess a productive spirit with a focus on the future.

Fourth, the classroom has no walls. Maybe this is true from a physical standpoint. It is definitely true from a virtual perspective. Because technology is ubiquitous, it is part of the fabric of teaching, learning, exploring, problem-solving, collaborating, seeking and sharing knowledge. It is a busy, often noisy, robust environment.

Students are sharing and moving about the school and classroom to devour their daily learning. Collaborative relationships and partnerships are apparent across the globe, region, throughout the school and community. Learning is relevant through a constructivist approach.

Project-based learning is a common foundation for instruction. What adults call Web 2.0 tools, students engage for relationship building and networking on a variety of fronts.

There is more to share about the ‘reality’ of a 21st century learning and teaching environment. I will share that information in my next blog. As always, I welcome your comments and questions!

Leslie Wilson is President of One-to-One Institute (OTO), a national not-for-profit serving schools, districts, states and countries in their implementation of 21st century teaching and learning. OTO’s genesis is Michigan’s Freedom to Learn, one-to-one teaching and learning program. Ms. Wilson’s consultancy, Wilson Public Sector Consulting, LLC, serves the education industry. She holds a BS Ed and completed Ed Leadership doctoral work from the University of Michigan, Sp Ed Administration endorsement from Eastern Michigan University and M. Ed in Instructional Technology from Wayne State University.
lesliew@one-to-oneinstitute.org

Saturday, September 06, 2008