Well in the Concepts of Algebra class the fraction projects were a challenge. I had several groups hit the ground running and designed wonderful lessons and activities for the students in the class to participate in. I really enjoyed seeing what these students had to offer to the lesson and the other students seemed to really enjoy playing the games or participating the activities. I also had students that had no idea of anything to do. I had to help them come up with ideas of things that they could do in order to tie in the fractions to things that they were interested in.
Many students in the Advanced Algebra and Trig classes were not all too enthused about doing a project. We brainstormed about putting together a digital newspaper in which different students take on different spans of years and research the mathematics that occured during that time and its significance of what we know and do today. We brainstormed about the types of ways that individual students could display or write up their time period. We discussed short stories, obituaries, cartoons, classifieds, etc. Students posed ideas based on what they were interested in and what they enjoyed doing. I was thrilled with the ideas of a lot of the students. Several were obviously anti-anything. They did not want to think or be creative at all, they just wanted to be taught the curriculum and move on. I still need to work with them.
The characteristics of creative people that we read about that applied to me were: I thought that I was intelligent which seemed to overlap creativity quite a bit. I never considered a persons intelligence to be related to their creativity. I have always been flexible in my thinking and loved to hear and explore new and insightful ideas about anything. I have always been a risk taker and would say that I would do anything once. I am by nature curious. Especially as my son gets older and starts questioning everything. His curiosity encourages me to be more so.
My flexibility and intelligence I hope helps me to continue to create and think of new creative tasks for the students to do. I want to spark their interests and their ability to think outside the box. As a risk taker that will try anything once allows me to try new things whether they work well or not. That is what I have done so far. I have tried new lessons and activities and noted what worked well and what did not so that the next one may be better. Maybe by the end I will have developed lessons and projects that I will be able to use again the next semester.
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People often resist change, especially when they are pushed outside of their comfort zone. Keep pushing. IF some of them see that there is a place for creativity in mathematics, you will have won a major battle.
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