Take a few minutes and think about YOUR most creative educational experience. Perhaps it was a high school photography class where your final project encapsulated the skills you were learning with whatever you could dream up in your mind. Or maybe it was a middle school English class where the teacher challenged you to be a better writer through her humor, playfulness, and ability to model mistakes. What were some of the key characteristics of YOUR experience?
We asked seventy-five people to tell us about their most creative educational experience, and when we turned this into a word cloud, this is what we found:
“Dr. Sigfried was smart, a little bit goofy, and always wore a button-down and tie. He had a great sense of humor and appreciated a good joke. The most important attitude that contributed to my creativity was his creative assignments, and his willingness to say, “Yes, AND.” His assignments were listed on the syllabus, so we knew what was expected from us. The first assignment was to write a letter as if you were an actor from the 1700s. That helped me understand that this professor didn’t want to read boring papers, and I was allowed to be creative. I just had to stay within his parameters and check off all of the boxes. From there, I could fly”.