The Windwalker Project: An Open-Ended Approach

Leszczynski, Eliza; Monahan, Ceire; Munakata, Mika; Vaidya, Ashwin

doi:10.2505/4/jcst17_046_06_27

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…This course has been taught using the project-based learning model and is centered around a final project, inspired by questions posed by artists. In one iteration of the course, students worked on building a bicycle powered generator which was utilized in an artistic production (Leszczynski et al, 2017) while in a newer version of this course, students worked on building a Windwalker, also referred to as a "Strandbeest", the brainchild of the well-known kinetic artist Theo Jansen ((http://www.strandbeest.com/). The development of the bike-generator was part of a bigger project called the Art of Making Sustainable Science funded by the American Physical Society, where students from physics, mathematics, english, communication and theater worked alongside faculty members and a visiting artist to create a peformance and short films (see https://handspuncinema.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/diane-sawyer-live-anexclusive-interview-with-miss-piggy/).…”

Section: Art Of Science Projectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Evaluation of the courses was conducted using focus group interviews and the tests of creativity (pre and post), as well as surveys on students' perceptions about mathematics. Students in all of these courses reacted to the course showing an awareness and appreciation of creative problem solving, diversity of ways of thinking, acceptance of failure and comfort with open-endedness (Munakata and Vaidya, 2015;Leszczynski, et al, 2017;Monahan, Munakata, and Vaidya, in press).…”

Section: Outcomes and Student Responsementioning

confidence: 99%

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Creativity as an Emergent Property of Complex Educational System

Monahan¹,

Munakata²,

Vaidya³

2019

NEJCS

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The importance of creativity in education has been discussed often in the literature. While there remains no agreed-upon definition of creativity, the psychological literature points to traits of a creative person. These include the ability to think outside the box, make connections between seemingly disparate ideas, and question norms. The literature provides several examples of classroom experiments to help foster creativity in the classroom.In science and mathematics, we can start by getting students to recognize mathematics and the sciences as being creative endeavors. While these attempts are noteworthy, they are not necessarily aligned with instructional practices. In this article, we propose that to promote creative thinking in our classrooms, we need to see our educational system as a complex system or a network of connections between different disciplines. The 20 th century notion that school and college education is rooted in discipline-based reductionism and that learning leads to specialization caters to a few, leaving a large number of students to fail out of the system. The American liberal arts educational model prides itself on giving students a holistic perspective by exposing them to various disciplines. However, merely exposing students to different ideas without having them realize the deep, underlying connections is like expecting interesting dynamics in a collection of disconnected nodes. We propose that the education system is a complex system composed of various nodes, representing different disciplines with the edges representing the flow of unifying ideas between them. Connections between the nodes allow for flow in these paths, resulting in greater opportunity for creativity, which is an emergent property of such a network. The abstract notions discussed above are illustrated by deliberate attempts (ambitious though small) made at the authors' institution to build an educational experience focused on creativity.

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Section: Art Of Science Projectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Outcomes and Student Responsementioning

confidence: 99%

Creativity as an Emergent Property of Complex Educational System

Monahan¹,

Munakata²,

Vaidya³

2019

NEJCS

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Effective Learning Through Project-Based Learning: Collaboration, Community, Design, and Technology

Will

2022

Digital Communication and Learning

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Aquaponics Project-Based Learning at the Secondary School Level

Hopkins¹,

McKinney²,

Saam³

et al. 2019

Advances in Early Childhood and K-12 Education

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Authentic learning is a powerful means of creating a reason for why the information being learned is important to the older student. Situational interest stems from being stimulated by new things. However, as children grow mentally and emotionally, situational interest is replaced by individual interest. As educators, we often focus on the situational interest to quickly focus our students, but it is the individual interest that makes the learning applicable to the student that is most needed by secondary students. Authentic learning bridges these two interests. It is the purpose of this chapter to present ideas of project-based learning in the authors' secondary school that addresses the “need to know” through cross-curricular instruction and authentic learning.

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The Windwalker Project: An Open-Ended Approach

Cited by 3 publications

References 8 publications

Creativity as an Emergent Property of Complex Educational System

Creativity as an Emergent Property of Complex Educational System

Effective Learning Through Project-Based Learning: Collaboration, Community, Design, and Technology

Aquaponics Project-Based Learning at the Secondary School Level

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