Season 9, Episode 5
Beyond Technology: Enhancing Creativity in Education
– Dr. Marci Klein
Episode Transcription
Beyond Technology: Dr. Marci Klein on Enhancing Creativity in Education
Marci Klein:
In this country, there’s too much me, me, starting from the level up. I’m not talking about like most of the people, but if you go to the top and you look at our politics, it’s about us and them, me and me. Like there’s no us. And we’re trying to create a sense of us and a sense of community and not just designing. And that’s kind of what I did with my kids when they were little, not designing for myself. Really think about the other person and what their needs are.
Matthew Worwood:
Hello, everyone. My name is Doctor Matthew Worwood.
Cyndi Burnett:
And my name is Doctor Cindy Burnett.
Matthew Worwood [00:00:30]:
This is the fueling Creativity in Education podcast.
Cyndi Burnett:
On this podcast, we’ll be talking about various creativity topics and how they relate to the field of education.
Matthew Worwood [00:00:40]:
We’ll be talking with scholars, educators, and resident experts about their work, challenges they face, and exploring new perspectives of creativity.
Cyndi Burnett:
All with a goal to help fuel a more rich and informed discussion that provides teachers, administrators, and emerging scholars with the information they need to infuse creativity into teaching and learning.
Matthew Worwood:
So let’s begin. If you are a parent or an educator and you’re looking for a simple way to bring creativity in your home or classroom, then you’re going to absolutely love this episode because we are speaking with Marcie Klein, who is an entrepreneur with her two children and also was once a pediatrician. So stay tuned.
Cyndi Burnett:
So today, we welcome to the show Marcie Klein, MD, who is a pediatrician and founder of Three Ducks Design, a certified woman owned small business that creates innovative STEM education solutions. With over 25 years of experience in early childhood development and education, doctor Klein integrates her expertise in pediatric growth and development to design engaging hands on learning projects that connect play with real world problem solving, something that we talk a lot about on the show. Her work focuses on empowering educators to implement project based learning that supports academic growth and social emotional development. And under her leadership, three ducks design has expanded its reach globally, offering educators tools and resources that inspire the next generation of thinkers and change makers. Welcome to the show, Marcy.
Marci Klein:
Hi. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Cyndi Burnett:
We are thrilled to have you. Now, you mentioned before we got started that you were a pediatrician for 20 years. So as a former pediatrician, what value do you see in creativity?
Marci Klein:
Yeah, I feel like it is critical. I mean, to me, the younger a child is, the more creative they are. And it’s almost like as they get older, they become less and less creative. But my favorite part about early childhood is there’s so much openness and creativity in their mindset, almost anything is possible, and they’re not limited in any way. And that’s when they’re the most innovative as well. They’re testing out the worlds and trying to figure out what the laws of nature are. Sometimes they work in their favor, like, I think I can fly when they jump out of a tree, and it doesn’t always work so well, but that openness and that creativity of, like, trying to figure out how am I going to get to fly and testing out, like, you know, I mean, I know I’m going off on a little bit of a tangent, but that innovator and that creator and the problem solver is so strong in youth, and I just think something that needs to be harnessed throughout a child’s life and taken advantage of. And all too often I think it’s limited and diminished through school based on certain constraints and through project based learning.
Marci Klein:
We’re trying to kind of break that habit.
Matthew Worwood:
I do want to follow up on the pediatrician piece. We’ll move away from it relatively quickly, I assume. But I enjoyed going to see the pediatrician. Obviously not when I’m finding out that we’ve got flu going around the family or something like that, or at least thinking that’s a possibility. But the annual checkups I found really fascinating because I’ve got three boys and I typically go to the annual physicals, and I really enjoy our family doctor. She comes in and she immediately talks to the child and engages them in a conversation. And she seems to do a really good job of remembering them and what’s unique to them and seems very particular, making sure they’re different conversations and it’s about them and not their brothers, for example. And I always sit back and I find it so fascinating because through her questions, she typically gets them to express their personality, and they get quirky and funny, and they talk about the different instruments that she’s talking about.
Matthew Worwood:
And just listening to what you said in the early years, you do actually get that creativity on display through those conversations. Not necessarily the traditional way we talk about creativity, but just their imagination. She seems to get it out of them, and it’s so fascinating. I just wanted to make that connection. And I don’t know if that was a part of the job that you loved, but it’s something that I certainly enjoy sitting back, and it’s like my kids and the doctor are putting on a show for me around, like, just funny things.
Marci Klein:
Absolutely. I think too much in life is like, people are so rushed that directed conversations are just more efficient, but they’re so limiting. And one of the things you do actually learn in medical school and when you’re a resident, you kind of cringe about it because you just don’t have the time. But really asking those open ended questions, because if you ask a very specific question, you’re going to get a very specific answer. But if you ask a question that allows the child to really take it and interpret it and add their own individuality and thoughts, number one, it’s empowering to the child. They feel like they’re sharing something that somebody wants to hear so they feel important and it really opens a window up to a child as opposed to asking a very specific question. And it just doesn’t feel like the person really cares about the answer. So they’ll just literally answer exactly what you said.
Marci Klein:
So we’re really trained to really open it up so that the conversation can go any direction.
Matthew Worwood:
Do you want to bring more creative and critical thinking into your school? Look no further than our podcast sponsor, Curiosity to create.
Cyndi Burnett:
Curiosity to create is a nonprofit organization dedicated to engaging professional development for school districts and empowering educators through online courses and personal coaching.
Matthew Worwood:
And if you’re craving a community of creative educators who love new ideas, don’t miss out on their creative thinking network. Get access to monthly webinars, creative lesson plans, and a supportive community all focused on fostering creativity in the classroom.
Cyndi Burnett:
To learn more, check out curiositytocreate.org, comma or check out the links in the show notes for this episode. Now, Marci, Matt and I, well, speak on behalf of myself. I have a bit of parent envy because as I was going through your website in preparation for this interview, I noticed that you built a company with your two children. And so I love that idea. I love this idea of having a problem, and then you solved it. So can you tell us a little bit about this journey you’ve had with your own two children and this company that you’ve built?
Marci Klein:
Sure. So for starters, I mean, I think it’s all sort of a part of that child empowerment component. So, and I did mention this a little bit before we got online, but when my kids were little, we had a rule in the house, you could not buy holiday presents for other people. You had to make them. And what I was trying to do is give them the chance to really think about the end user who they’re giving that gift to. And instead of going to the store and just buying jewelry for all the girls and, I don’t know, sneakers for all the boys like, really think about that person, what their needs are, what they like to do, and create something from your heart, not from your pocketbook. And it was very empowering for the kids because they spent a lot more time designing projects or designing toys, gifts for each other. So it builds up that whole sense of empathy, but also empowerment and pride, because you actually put your heart and soul into something and you cared about it, and, like, it just shows.
Marci Klein:
So, moving ahead, a lot of what I did with my kids was really about following that same concept, like, something that you’re passionate about. Create a change the world. Don’t just be a part of it passively, but just actively participate. Create and build something that’s going to change, whether it’s for one individual person or extended with our company. The company itself actually was the inception of my daughter. She took a high school architecture class one summer, and as a self proclaimed creative, but not really a techie person, she had to go through learning different tech programs, like CAD and rendering programs to design her architectural project. And she came out of the program not thinking that she wanted to be like an architect, but, like, if she had learned those tools through architecture as a little kid, she really would have been more open to learning those tech tools and engineering concepts because of what she was creating. And she was so passionate about it.
Marci Klein:
So it was really a blending of the arts and the sciences at an early age that really, like, interested her. But she didn’t see any open ended, really, truly creative architectural modeling sets for kids. The closest she could get was Lego. But even Lego, even though it’s like a box of Lego and creative, like, you’re still limited by the shapes that you’re given. To where cardboard is completely open, you could create any shape you want. She took everything she learned from her childhood years creating cardboard models and what she thought was valuable to kids through her architecture class and designs a cardboard based modeling system that allows kids to use the structure of cardboard, but not limited by, like, the requirement for tape and glue and, like, kind of crazy stuck together, dilapidated structures. But the connectors really allow kids to create prototype model and then take it apart really quickly and recreate it. So, I mean, I know that this is not a visual experience for the listeners, but the connectors basically, literally are like hardware that connects pieces of cardboard, but allows them to be separated really quickly.
Marci Klein:
They’re little clips of all different angles. So with those angles and any cardboard that you have at home, anybody can just create really rapidly projects, structures, prototypes for inventions, but architectural models, or just creative open ended free play.
Matthew Worwood:
And I think there’s a lot of connection here to be had around previous conversations we’ve had around design thinking and some of the design thinking principles. I remember in your response, you’d reference thinking about the user. So developing that empathy at a young age, the rapid prototyping and iterative design is also things that we typical principles that we promote when we’re doing some type of design thinking process. But I also think that to promote our effort to produce this book that we keep talking about, one of the chapters, in essence, is making use of our environment. And in some of our past conversations, we’re constantly reminded about things like makerspaces. It doesn’t have to be high end technology. You don’t have to have a super duper big budget. Sometimes it’s a case of purchasing some additional objects, resources that not necessarily cost a fortune, and it allows you to suddenly repurpose and make use of available resources that you already have in your classroom environment.
Matthew Worwood:
And I think it’s important to make that connection because there’s lots of ways to which we can engage young children, particularly in rapid prototype and creating and making things, as well as sometimes just grabbing a pencil and a paper 100%.
Cyndi Burnett:
So when I first learned about your product, Marcy, a big smile came across my face, because while my kids are now 14 and 16, when they were younger, we actually had a whole room in the basement just for boxes. And so on the weekends, they would pull out all the boxes and they would just start building. And we have built some amazing structures. But one of the challenges we always had was this connection piece was, you know, we’ve got the duct tape or we’re trying to carve it in one certain direction. It wouldn’t bend. And. And so having something simple like that and identifying that need and building it, I think, is just so impressive. And I’m going to buy some now, and I’m sure we’re going to have a family, you know, even though my kids are older teenagers.
Cyndi Burnett:
And I know you’ve done some work in the high school area with this product as well. So I’d like you to talk about that. But I will say I’m planning a weekend with three ducks and, you know, trying to build some things in our house because we love creating stuff. And I think it’s such a fun way. Like, even if you’re going away on a camping trip with your kids or you’ve got an empty lesson and you want to do something fun on a Friday, you just bring in the Amazon boxes and you give them these little products. And I think you even, you know, in a previous conversation that we had, you mentioned that you show how you could do things without even using your product.
Matthew Worwood:
So I do want to come in with the camping piece because I had this in the summer. Like I mentioned, my youngest loves to build, and all of them, actually, you know, it’s interesting because I think it. I bet you so many of us can relate to young children liking to construct, liking to build, sometimes as part of their game. So many different ways of using cardboard boxes. And so I do, you know, we go away camping. It’s a case of getting them off the devices, which I would love to get your opinion on in a moment. But we went to Home Depot and bought all the kind of like, you know, the door shimmies. You know, you put the little tiny woods, and I said, all right, let’s go to get these packs.
Matthew Worwood:
They’re like, $1. And we kind of. And I said, oh, you can buy this rod and this rod. But do you know what? Sure enough, I’m like, I’m not sure I can do nails. And I’m like, do I bring hammers to the camping trip? And. And I was having problems with the connection piece. So in the end, my youngest was the only one he played it, but he tried to use normal sellotape, and he was really struggling to build. He wanted to build a house for his tiger, his little tiger, and he couldn’t make it because of the ability to connect the wood to.
Matthew Worwood:
It wasn’t happening with the sellotape. So, like, Cindy, I love it, and I love the fact you provided a specific example, Cindy, that I experienced just two months ago.
Marci Klein:
Yeah, no, I mean, it just. It is. It’s a bit of a game changer, and that’s what I saw. Like, when we started the company, my kids were 3d printing these connectors, and we literally were cutting up Amazon boxes, painting a couple, and then, like, leaving just loose parts play out for kids at, like, the local farmers market. And we set up these little tiny Ikea tables that were like, you know, 18 inches off the ground. And this will actually connect to your brief comments about devices. So with the pediatrician’s eyes and just kind of, like, fly on the wall, watching, like, everything go down. Number one, kids of all ages and parents, I actually saw dads sitting on the Ikea chairs, co playing with their children.
Marci Klein:
So that was really interesting. And moms, of course, but, like, it’s more common for moms typically to, like, sit and integrate, like, the coplay and. But for the dads, we’re building structures. Moms were playing with their kids, coloring, and it was like, this family experience that was just like, we didn’t tell people to come over, they just came. But the other thing that I saw was, like, kids that didn’t even speak the same language were, like, not just coplanding or actually building together. So I called it the United nations of the farmers market. It was like, world peace. Like, this is the solution to world peace.
Marci Klein:
From the technology side of it, it’s really interesting. So I was a pediatrician, as you said, for over 20 years. So I was a pediatrician before the iPad and the iPhone, believe it or nothing. And the transitions that I saw, just not as an outsider, but just observing dynamics with, even in the exam room space, was just like, kids don’t know how to communicate the way they used to communicate. They know how to communicate on phones, which is like, that’s a skill for sure. But families have very much lost the eye contact, the body movement. Subtle nuances that kids pick up from an early age are being lost because they’re on their device. And even if you’re coplaying with your child and you’re doing something, quote, educational on an iPad, they’re poking, they’re not coloring, they’re not cutting with their fingers, they’re not getting that fine motor, and they’re not looking at someone’s face and picking up that raised eyebrow or the aversion of the eyes to the side.
Marci Klein:
Really little subtle things. And that was actually one of the challenges that I had with electronic medical records, is that I’m typing. It wasn’t my students at that time. My patient was typing. The parents on their phone kind of, like, tuned out on Facebook, and, like, nobody had that ability to really look at each other. And one, as a pediatrician in particular with young kids, because they can’t communicate verbally. And with teenagers, as you alluded to Cindy, they don’t necessarily want to communicate, but they can’t help the facial movements and the body postures and these subtle nuances that make me say, even though she said no to that question, there’s more to that, because I just saw her look down for a second, or, like, people will miss that, that nonverbal communication component and all of this technology in the classroom and all of this personalized learning. I worry that, like, it’s just about the amount, like, when you’re exposed to this and how much time you have.
Marci Klein:
And if you only have a half hour day to actually look at someone else’s space. You’re not learning those skills, those body movements and those communication skills that make us human. And that’s one of the things that I think is like, so cool about our product. There is no device and you can tie technology. We have lots of project based learning experiences that say, build the structure, prototype it, collaborate, use a design process, and then create a presentation. And now use your technology tools. Make a TikTok video, make a commercial, use canva to create a flyer for the town zoo. But use technology for a reason.
Marci Klein:
But it shouldn’t start there. And a lot of classrooms too. What you said, like they buy that 3d printer and that laser cutter and now we’re a stem lab. And then they go and they make 150 little green frogs. That’s not stem. Every kid gets a frog, it takes 5 hours to make it. And nobody has designed anything, solved any problems, or been creative in any way other than maybe picking the color of their frog or like changing the name on their name tag to their own name. But that’s not really the design process.
Marci Klein:
So I agree with you. Give kids no technology in the makerspace. Give them straws, give them pipe cleaners, tell them to go into their junk drawer at home and come out with five totally random things like cleaned cat food bowls, whatever it is, come in and figure out how you’re going to use that. That’s where real creativity and innovation comes. Not from, like following the Book of Lego and coming out with the same project for every student.
Matthew Worwood:
I completely agree, and I think some of our regular listeners are probably worried that I’m going to go off on a tangent about devices and the importance of unstructured place. So I’m not doing it. I’m not going down that route.
Marci Klein:
I already did it for you.
Matthew Worwood:
You did, you did. But I think one of the things that you’ll bring into the conversation that I think is new for the podcast, relatable to other things, is really designing these shared experiences. Listening to you talk about the 3d printer, for example, it’s possible that some of our listeners have done similar activities that you’ve done, and maybe you’re challenging them to kind of rethink. What are your objectives in that moment? Maybe to a certain extent it’s about teaching manufacturing and production pipelines. Nothing wrong with that. You’re also teaching them about technology. But to your point, it’s not necessarily a shared experience of creating a making in that moment. And I think it there’s something to be had on don’t use technology and utilize all the resources that you have in your classroom.
Matthew Worwood:
But also, when you’re designing or facilitating the project which is leading to the creation of something, try and make sure it’s not individualized and it’s a shared experience as well. And I’m hearing that, and I think that’s really important. Shared experience with the children in the class. But then you also shared examples about how you can have a shared experience as a family as well. And we’re obviously talking specifically about cardboard, but it’s probably not the only resource that exists to have a shared experience of creating and making.
Marci Klein [00:21:24]:
Absolutely, absolutely. And a lot of, you know, we started with physical product, but over time, we’ve created, like, project based learning experiences. And instead of, like, the design thinking or the, quote, human centered design process, we came up with our own term called community centered design. And basically what it is is instead of, and I give this example when I do professional development with educators all the time, human centered design, perfect example is a disposable plastic water bottle. It’s great for humans, right? It’s very convenient. It changes our lives tremendously, but it’s not good for the community because nobody really thought about its downward impact on the environment. So with community centered design, we’re not thinking about how to make our own personal life better, but we’re thinking about the community of the whole. So all the people that live in our community, the different cultures, the different needs of different people in our community, babies, older people, different cultures, different ethnic groups, whatever, but we’re also thinking about the animals, we’re thinking about the climate, we’re thinking about the natural resources, and then we’re designing solutions, thinking about all of those parameters.
Marci Klein:
And I feel like you have an english accent. I don’t know where you live, but, like, in this country, there’s too much me, me starting from the level up. I’m not talking about, like, most of the people, but if you go to the top and you look at our politics, it’s about us and them, me and me. Like, there’s no us. And we’re trying to create a sense of us and a sense of community and not just designing. And that’s kind of what I did with my kids when they were little, not designing for myself. Really think about the other person and what their needs are, whether it’s a hamster or stuffed animal or a little one of those little hex bugs. Like, think about the other perspective and that person or whatever, and designed for them.
Marci Klein:
And that’s how you really build a sense of empathy and community, which we embed into all of our projects. We don’t hit people over the head with it. We just inspire kids to think about it rather than specifically lining it out and telling them, this is what you have to do. Like, you have to use the design thinking, and you have to come up with a solution for this specific problem. Let them kind of digest, interpret the problem, work with other people, and come up with a common solution that’s good for all.
Cyndi Burnett:
There’s so many pieces of this that you’re talking about, Marcy, that relate back to previous conversations we’ve had, participatory creativity with Edward Clapp, where he talked about how creating isn’t just about one person, it’s about everyone that’s involved and everyone that was involved before even cardboard was invented. So the person who invented cardboard and then, you know, so there’s so many elements of what you’re talking about. The empathy piece, the social, emotional learning, the steam stem piece, the maker space. There’s just so many aspects and elements of what you’re speaking of that relate to past episodes, which I really, really value because it sort of pieces it all together. I don’t know if it does that for you, Matt, but it pieces it all together for me in terms of my own perception of the importance of creativity. And we met with Doctor Ruth Richards, who is one of the legendary researchers in the field of creativity. And she kicked off season nine talking about creativity and meaning. And one of the things I love about what you’re speaking of is when you talk about community and building a better world, and looking at the world from a perspective of we, instead of just me, you’re building meaning within that community.
Cyndi Burnett:
And so that’s what I find so lovely, is it doesn’t necessarily have to be useful if you’re building something, it doesn’t have to be useful for that person at that moment, but it’s going to be meaningful for you and all of the other people and the experience alone. And then the usefulness comes as a secondary element to bring home the innovation piece. So you’re designing for meaning for the community, and then you’re designing for innovation, for usefulness.
Marci Klein:
And that’s what’s so cool, sort of about architecture, because it’s about not just, like, the functionality on a concrete, but like it is. It’s about, like, the feeling and, like, the sense that people get when they’re around something like that, how they use a space and what it makes them feel like. And that’s I think some of the magic of architecture that I think is so cool about the modeling system and creating, like, a lot of our projects are based on architecture. They’re not all. Sometimes we’re designing like, a zoo or engineering a bridge, but, like, a lot of it is based on architecture and thinking about spaces from multiple perspectives and.
Matthew Worwood:
Just to build on that as well, because I think this is something that can be easily incorporated into existing project based learning environments, even if you’re not in a position to maybe make drastic changes that focus more on community, et cetera, et cetera. But the example of the water bottle, we don’t always do enough to talk about the unintended consequences. Sometimes you can identify unintended consequences whenever you’re designing something. And I’m pulling from innovation diffusion theory here, but typically when you go into implementation, you want to challenge the team or yourself to say, okay, I’m looking to solve this problem. And it might be, it’s going to bring in lots of money. You’re right that, that monetary aspect that is such a significant part of us culture and to a certain extent, western culture. But what’s, what’s the unintended consequences? And we do live, I think, in a society, particularly in technology, where we, we brush that off. Right.
Matthew Worwood:
We’re still continuing to produce loads of, you know, even artificial intelligence. Right. There’s a huge discussion right now taking place around the unintended consequences. Here are the unintended consequences that may happen. There’s conversations about mitigating those, but we don’t necessarily, we’re not really prioritizing mitigating, are we? We’re actually talking about them. It’s more a case of, well, if they do emerge, how are we going to deal with them? Right. And I think that just incorporating that piece and saying, you’re designing this for one thing, for one particular group, but where are the unintended consequences here? I think just posing that question, potential unintended consequences, I think, is huge. And maybe the design of the water bottle would have been a little bit different had we asked those questions, for sure.
Marci Klein:
Yeah. And it’s just, I mean, even things like AI, like, yeah, it’s great. It’s going to transform the world. Like, how much energy is he consuming? Like, I don’t think people understand how much energy it requires to run AI or even electric cars. Like, electric cars came out and everybody thinks that they’re the solution to the world. But, like, are we thinking about what’s going to happen in 50 years? And I don’t know the answer. I’m not implying that I do because I don’t know that the research is even out there on, like, where are all these batteries going to wind up? And, like, who’s actually mining the materials for all these batteries? And, like, what do those communities look like? There’s so many different parts. And, like, I didn’t mention this here, but there was a short period of time when I was actually making furniture.
Marci Klein:
And it is somewhat related to pediatric because the whole EMR made my office space not functional anymore because I couldn’t look at my patients, had a type. But anyway, it’s a separate issue. But I got into product design and engineering design, and there’s a concept in the design world called cradle to cradle. And you really have to think about just because even a product, if it’s made in America, it must be better. But where did all the parts come from that the company used to make it in America? Or, you know, there’s so many parts to, like a product from birth, like its inception to its death that people don’t necessarily think about. And, like, kids should be thinking about that when they’re designing things or at least be aware that it’s not like, oh, it’s electric, so it’s green. Like, think a little deeper about it. And I think adults need to do that as well.
Marci Klein:
But certainly inspiring kids to really think a little bit deeper. And they are completely capable. We as adults don’t necessarily give them enough credit for this kind of stuff, but they’re very capable.
Cyndi Burnett :
Well, Marcy, our time is just about up, but before we go, we’d love to hear your three tips to help educators or parents bring creativity into the classroom or home.
Marci Klein:
Yeah. So, first of all, I think that removing some, and of course, you can’t remove all the structure from the classroom, but saving a little time for unstructured, whether it’s play or guided play or just open ended conversation, like, step away from the, quote, curriculum and give a little agency. A little bit of freedom is one key, I think flexibility, if you have a lesson plan and it’s following a to b to c, but the kids are excited at b and want to take it a different angle to d instead of c. Like, have a little bit of flexibility in there, and it leads into the third one, which is passion. Like, if the kids don’t care about it, they’re not going to learn as well as if they’re, like, if they’re passionate about something and that agency and that flexibility is all kind of part of the same thing. Let loose a little bit and let the class kind of dictate which way it goes to as much of an extent as you can. I know that there’s time constraints, but, like, the memories that I have and my kids have and many kids have of, like, every single thing that happened in all of elementary school, like, if you ask them ten years later what their favorite part is, it’s always a project, and it was always something, literally that they were excited about. I mean, unless they got in trouble with the principal.
Marci Klein:
But other than that, it’s usually things that they’re passionate about. And the unexpected and the unknown, I think, are much more impacting. So those would be kind of my three suggestions all rolled up into one.
Matthew Worwood:
Well, marcie, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you. And I just really, your story is really fascinating as well. We won’t revisit it, but it almost sounds like you actually missed your calling, found yourself as a pediatrician, but it kept calling you back. I don’t like this space. I don’t like my environment. Let me try and fix it. So I wonder, just there, if there’s an opportunity for a teacher to say, you know what? I’m not sure I like my classroom space.
Matthew Worwood:
I’m not sure I like my desk chair. And maybe that’s a call to action. Where might that take you as you ask those questions? I think there’s lots of different connections to which you can find in this episode. But if you’re seeing those connections, maybe it’s within the maker movement where maybe it’s with early years education. Please take this episode and share it with a colleague. Don’t forget for you to subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and also to encourage your colleague who you’re sharing the episode with, to subscribe as well. My name’s Doctor Matthew Worwood, and my.
Cyndi Burnett:
Name is Doctor Cindy Burnett. This episode was produced by Matthew Worwood and Cindy Burnett. Our podcast sponsor is curiosity to create, and our editor is Sam Atkinson.
How might a cardboard box help our students be more creative?
Throughout the conversation, Marci and the hosts explore the broader implications of product design and the necessity of considering unintended consequences, referencing innovation diffusion theory. Klein advocates for creating learning experiences that are passion-driven and flexible, giving students the room to explore their interests. The episode calls on educators to rethink traditional methods, prioritize empathy, and foster environments where creativity can flourish.
About the Guest
Her work focuses on empowering educators to implement project-based learning (PBL) that supports academic growth and social-emotional development. Under her leadership, 3DuxDesign has expanded its reach globally, offering educators tools and resources that inspire the next generation of thinkers and changemakers. Dr. Klein is passionate about creating inclusive learning environments and has presented at numerous educational conferences, sharing her insights on the intersection of STEM, SEL, and community-centered design.
Episode Debrief
Collection Episodes
Why Relationships Matter Most: Creativity and Student Readiness with Jonathan Garra
Season 10, Episode 10 Why Relationships Matter Most: Creativity and Student Readiness “People talk about the three Rs of education, and typically that's reading, writing, arithmetic. Three Rs of education are relationships. Relationships. Relationships like hands...
Thinking Critically and Creatively in Math with Dr. Jo Boaler
Season 10, Episode 9 Thinking Critically and Creatively in Math“I think something like 60% of kids going into STEM drop out in the first year. And a lot of the times that's because of maths courses. And does that reduce the diversity of the people taking stem?...
Innovation in the Classroom with Jaap Haartsen and Jayme Cellitioci
Season 10, Episode 7 Innovation in the Classroom“I think it goes back to looking at what is needed and when and what is the value and what is the impact. And so just because things are at our fingertips doesn't mean that they should be the first choice of use if they...
Podcast Sponsor

We are thrilled to partner with Curiosity 2 Create as our sponsor, a company that shares our commitment to fostering creativity in education. Curiosity 2 Create empowers educators through professional development and community support, helping them integrate interactive, creative thinking approaches into their classrooms. By moving beyond traditional lecture-based methods, they help teachers create dynamic learning environments that enhance student engagement, improve academic performance, and support teacher retention. With a focus on collaborative learning and exploration, Curiosity 2 Create is transforming classrooms into spaces where students thrive through continuous engagement and growth.