21st Century Thinking: A "Talents" Approach

Talents Unlimited is based on Calvin Taylor's Multiple Talent Theory, and has been shown to be a successful means of getting children and youth to think both creatively and critically across all academic disciplines. Talents Unlimited, Inc. is based in Mobile, Alabama and has been around since the late seventies.

As a National Certified Trainer for the Talents Unlimited and the TU2 (Talents for adolescents), I have used and taught the specific components of this thinking skills program since the early 1980s, and I have seen first hand what it can do for children. Based on a foundation of Academic skills, Talents Unlimited focuses on five "world-of-work" skills:

Productive Thinking Talent: Thinking of many, varied and unusual ideas, and adding detail to those ideas (think E. Paul Torrance's fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration).

Decision Making Talent: Making decisions by--1) Thinking of many, varied alternatives; 2) Thinking of many, varied questions to ask about these alternatives (criteria); 3) Weighing each idea against each criterion; 4) Making a decision; and 5) Giving many, varied reasons for your decision.

Planning Talent: Creating a plan for doing something, by--1) Stating your project idea clearly so someone else can understand it; 2) Listing all of the materials and equipment needed to complete the project; 3) Listing all of the steps, in order, needed to complete the project; 4) Giving many, varied problems that might keep you from successfully completing your project; and 5) Making many, varied improvements in your plan based on the problems identified.

Forecasting Talent: Using cause/effect thinking to--1) Think of many, varied predictions about the causes of a situation; 2) Think of many, varied predictions about the effects of a situation.

Communication Talent: Using language to--1)Think of many, varied single words to describe something; 2) Think of many, varied single words to describe someone's/something's feelings; 3) Make many many, varied comparisons in the form of a simile; 4) Show someone you know how they feel by sharing a similar experience; 5) Make a network of thoughts using many, varied complete thoughts; and 6) Communicate your ideas, thoughts and needs without using words.

This is just the beginning. In my next blog, I will share some Talents activities and student responses to those. Very enlightening!

Need Ideas? Try "Splashes of Imagination"

I have created an additional blog as an "idea generating" site. It is for the purpose of posing any variety of "challenges, problems, or opportunities" and generating many, varied and unusual solutions. These can be real problems, or hypothetical ones, but could potentially be useful in the long run for many, different reasons, to many, different people. Should be fun and interesting.

Go to: Splashes of Imagination

Who Teaches the Teachers

Do you think that there is an expectation that teachers promote student creativity in the classroom? What does that look like/sound like in your classroom? Where did you learn about instructional approaches to promoting creativity in the classroom (e.g., in your teacher preparation program; professional development workshops offered by your school district; workshops you attended on your own; books and educational material in print)? I think that very often, expectations are placed on teachers for which no significant training is provided. Who teaches the teachers? How can we expect effective teaching for creativity if we have not provided adequate and significant professional development opportunities?


What do you need to get started?

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity | Video on TED.com

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity | Video on TED.com

Creative Challenge #1

This is one my favorite open-ended questions for brainstorming/creative thinking practice. See how many you can think of...How are a ball-point pen and a truck alike?

Preservice Teachers' Questions About Promoting Creativity

As this is intended to be place to discuss creativity and its application in many venues, I have posted here some questions that were posed to me by preservice teachers about "Teaching for Creativity." I think that these are important beginning places for them in their quest to promote creativity in their future classrooms and good topics to think about creatively:

• Do students learn better in classrooms where they have the opportunity to think creatively?

• Is it possible for there to ever be too much creativity in a classroom?

• Should creative/divergent thinking and learning be incorporated into everyday somehow?

• Is there a way for a creative project to include all the multiple intelligences?

• Can a student not only learn to solve a problem, but even create a new solution?

• How would a teacher be able to grade the creativity of the students? Should they?

• Can a student not only learn to solve a problem, but even find news ones and create new solutions to that?

• How do you approach teaching creativity to reach the minds of ALL your students, especially an inclusive classroom?

Getting Started...FFOE

In my classes, from the elementary grade through college, when I want my students to begin using creative thinking, which include the elements of fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration (FFOE), I have to define and explain the distinction between divergent/creative thinking and convergent/critical thinking. I usually do this by providing what I call a "Big Test." The test consists of only three questions that can be answered divergently and/or convergently. I use questions similar to those found in Sidney Parnes's (1981) book, The Magic of Your Mind, like:

1. What is half of 8?
   
2. A _____ of horses went by. (Choices: a. stream b. team c. steam)
3. How many squares are there... (I provide a square broken into 16 smaller squares.)

The test is followed by a discussion of the student responses. Most respond instinctively with convergent responses; this is how most of us have been trained to think. Often, students realize that I am up to something, and think beyond the obvious. Whatever the responses provided, the next question is, "How did you arrive at that answer? What was your thinking here." This opens up our whole discussion about the differences between the two types of thinking being emphasized here.

DIVERGENT THINKING—Points to include:

• When you are involved in divergent thinking you generate many, varied and unusual responses to an open-ended question or problem. Use it any time you need to generate a number of creative alternatives or options.
• There are many (many, many...) "right" answers in a divergent activity.
• FFOE is the goal here.

CONVERGENT THINKING—Points to include:

• When you are thinking convergently, you are considering (analyzing and refining) a number of alternatives down to find your "best" or most correct answer based on specific criteria.
• In convergent thinking, there are only a few best answers or sometimes ONE correct response.

For each type of thinking there are GUIDELINES to follow that will help to make the thinking most successful. These guidelines have been published in many places and often referred to by different terminology, but they boil down to this:

• When diverging: no judging of ideas is allowed; push for quantity of ideas; let ideas flow freely; hitchhike or piggyback on the ideas of others.

• When converging: be deliberate, state ideas and challenges to ideas affirmatively, beware of jumping too quickly to a conclusion; keep your goals in mind as you work.

Once students have been introduced to these two concepts, it is important that they be provided with opportunities to practice. You will need to "cue" students in to the type of thinking they are being asked to do. Sometimes just using the words many, varied and unusual is enough to cue student in to recognizing that they need to think divergently. For younger students, sometimes people have found it helpful to use something a visual clue (e.g., this is "green light" thinking). For convergent cues, using the word "best" or "right" answer often is enough (or teach the "red light" thinking cue).

There is an ongoing question posed in the field about whether students should be taught thinking skills in isolation or if it is important that they be embedded in content. My answer to this question is always, "YES!" In my experience, students need the opportunity to practice their thinking skills in activities that focus on the thinking as the objective. Then they should be required to use these new skills within and across content areas. These are real skills intended for real use for real purposes.

Suggested Procedure for Divergent Thinking Activities:

1. Organize into small groups.
2. Decide how ideas will be shared and recorded.
3. Review the guidelines (see above).
4. Be sure that all groups members are clear on the question they are responding to.
5. Remind the group of the time limit if there is one.
6. Encourage all members to contribute.
7. Begin...conclude.

Practice Activities:

• List many, varied and unusual uses for an old bathtub.
• List mvu things that protect.
• Generate many, varied, and  unusual things as sturdy as a castle.
• Generate many, varied, and unusual ways our lives would be different if all cars were painted yellow.
• What if...we could only see in black and white?

Content Connections:

• As a part of a health unit, students are asked to generate many, varied and unusual ways to help reduce the spread of colds.
• Math students are asked to think of many, varied and unusual situations that might require them to make change.
• Students think of many, varied and unusual ways that explorers might secure financial resources for their explorations.
• Students list many, varied and unusual places to get information on a research project.

This kind of thinking can be encouraged at any age/grade level and is the basis for many other types of creativity activities. That is why I suggest that this a great place to begin providing "creative spaces for all." I would love to hear about your creativity adventures.