Top Ten "Takeaways" from CEP 882 "The Nature and Design of Compelling Experiences"

Before writing this post, I looked at my classmates' blogs to crystallize my thoughts and seek inspiration in their ideas. Seeing the value of a virtual forum in our blogs and FB discussions was my #1 "aha" from this class, but I'm getting ahead of myself here. Here is my top ten countdown:

• #10 Focus on keeping things simple when communicating ideas-- this idea from Ashley W.'s blog resonated with me. Plus, it is one of the important concepts from Chip and Dan Heath's book, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die and their article, "Teaching That Sticks"
• #9 "Heavy constraints can be a major catalyst to creative thinking"-- this piece of advice is a quote from Andrew L's blog. I agree that the strict time limits and the specific instructions for our CEP 882 projects helped to make me more creative and confident in my ability to try something new.
• #8 Understanding the elements of our own FLOW experiences will allow us to create more compelling experiences for others-- when I am looking for ways to create a classroom experience that is more compelling for my students, I need to tap into my "flow" experiences, such as writing in my journal, playing with young kids, hiking, etc.
• #7 It is important to learn the "vocabulary" for a specific art forms in order to appreciate the details of this art form-- I loved learning the descriptive terminology during our units on different art forms, especially interior design, photography and music. When I work with students, I need to focus on teaching some key terms from this art form so that the students can have a deeper understanding of this art form.
• #6 A system similar to Quadblogging would be a great way to increase communication between our blogs-- I found that I didn't take the time to look at my classmates' blogs, although I would have benefitted from their reflections. When I work with students and blogs, I want to create a system in which students take turns reading and commenting on each other's creative work. When writing my blog for this class, I felt less motivated to do these reflections since I felt that my audience was only 1 or 2 people.
• #5 "Light to walk towards" and other interior design ideas-- I loved learning Sarah Susanka's terminology for her interior design concepts. When I am setting up my classroom environment next year, I plan to review her ideas so that I can create spaces that inspire students and match their needs throughout the day.
• #4 Thinking about transformative experiences for my WOA project on Chris Jordan-- I enjoyed sharing Chris Jordan's work with my classmates with my WOA video. He does an amazing job of transforming powerful information into a creative, visually stunning, memorable format. As a teacher, I need to highlight the most important information and present it to students in the most compelling format possible. Chris Jordan's artwork provides an amazing example of this process.
• #3 Understanding the "Screenager" generation with resources such as the book Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal-- One art form that might be interesting to include in this course is the art of game design. Jane McGonigal's book shifted my thinking about the compelling (and addictive) games that my teenaged sons play on the internet with a virtual community of like-minded gamers. The game designers know how to create very compelling experiences. In her TED talk, Jane McGonigal provides some interesting historical and cultural context for the importance of games to a wide range of people.
• #2 It is important to ask "outrageous questions" in order to design and create compelling experiences-- This idea comes from Richard Gerver, who gave an amazing keynote speech at a technology conference in Anchorage this year. In order to transform the Grange school in Great Britain, he asked his staff an outrageous question along the lines of "why can't our school be as fun for kids as Disneyland?" I highly recommend reading articles about this school transformation and watching videos of his talks about his vision statement, "Living, Learning and Laughing"
• #1 In my future classroom, I want to create a compelling forum for my students that also serves to showcase their work over time-- In this class, it was wonderful to have the discussion forum of FB and our individual blogs to collect our work and personal reflections. Right now, I am unable to create this sort of forum due to my scattered teaching schedule (grades 2-12 in 3 different schools in a single day) and internet filter issues; however, next year I may be teaching in my own 3rd or 4th grade classroom. I plan to join the Quadblogger community and help my students share their work and respond to the creative work of their peers.

Revolutionary Fashion in the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins

In my previous post, I discussed the article, "Teaching That Sticks"(2010) by Dan and Chip Heath as well as the article "If Ideas Were Fashion" (2008) by E. D. Wong and D. Henriksen.

This post focuses on the current "buzz" in the movie world--The Hunger Games, based on the book by Suzanne Collins. In this dystopian movie and book series, the main character, Katniss, becomes a "lightning rod" for the forces of revolution. Katniss is "fashioned" into this symbolic head of the revolution by her stylist, Cinna. To increase her odds of surviving the Hunger Games, Cinna designs outfits that "brand" Katniss as the "girl on fire" and the "Mockingjay" in order to attract sponsors. (Spoiler alert....don't read further if you want to maintain the suspense of the second book, Catching Fire....) Ultimately, Cinna is killed for his role in "branding" Katniss as a leader of the rebellion. I hope that the young people who are reading this series and watching The Hunger Games will reflect on this revolutionary aspect of fashion and style. "Fashion" is sometimes regarded as synonymous with the superficial, ephemeral, inconsequential aspects of our culture. However, there is a way in which identity can be fashioned in a way that transforms our world. One real-world example of this would be the transformation of Mahatma Gandhi from an expatriate lawyer in South Africa to the iconic representation of the non-violent revolution for Indian independence. In his transformed state, Mahatma Gandhi embodied his fight for independence, his frame whittled down by his hunger strikes and wrapped in home-spun cloth. I hope to have discussions with my teenaged sons and their friends about their thoughts about fashioning a deeper identity, such as in Gandhi's life, and the potential for "fashion" to incite revolution, as in The Hunger Games.

The Aesthetic Design of "Teaching That Sticks" by Chip and Dan Heath

When thinking about effective design for ideas in the classroom, I highly recommend this article "Teaching That Sticks" by Chip and Dan Heath. This article echoes these statements in the 2008 article "If Ideas Were Fashion" by Wong, E.D. and Henriksen, D: "The experience of fashion is often characterized by intense imagination, motivation, emotion, and thought....Whether trying on a new outfit or designing a science project, the fashion experience evokes anticipating, hoping, dreaming, wishing, desiring, and becoming." One of the great ideas in the "Teaching That Sticks" article is the educational process of creating a satisfying "aha" moment that follows an motivational "huh?" moment. This "huh?" moment is the curiosity aroused by the "knowledge gap" engineered by the teacher. Instead of presenting students with concrete information, the teacher creates a mystery or a problem to be solved. For example, in a journalism class described by the writer Nora Ephron, "every assignment had a secret--a hidden point that the students had to figure out in order to produce a good story." In my "Work of Art" project, I am studying the graphic artist Chris Jordan who designs large-scale images to illustrate a specific statistic. For example, the 44"x 82" image above is composed of 50,000 plastic bags, which represents the estimated average number of floating plastic trash pieces in every square mile of the world's oceans. By integrating these 50,000 plastic bags into a large-scale, memorable and beautiful close-up of a whale, Chris Jordan has fashioned a "sticky idea" for his viewers. People who view this image are more likely to be motivated to take action on the issue of plastic trash in our oceans. Jordan's goal for his artwork is for people to increase their awareness of their negative collective environmental impact, then take actions on a personal level to reduce this impact.

These examples relate to the way in which the "fashion experience" evokes the mental and emotional processes of "anticipating, hoping, dreaming, wishing, desiring, and becoming." In the article, "Teaching That Sticks", the authors claim that "everyone speaks Sticky....The grammar of stickiness--simplicity, storytelling, learning through the senses--enables anyone to understand the ideas being communicated." When designing images that teach scientific concepts or illustrate statistics, the designer can use the "grammar of stickiness" to create these simple images that tell a story.