Matthew Worwood:
Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Matthew Worwood.

Cyndi Burnett:
And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood:
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:
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 need to infuse creativity into teaching and learning.

Matthew Worwood:
So let’s begin. Hello and welcome to our second debrief episode of season 10 of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast. And we’re recording this in the month of March, and it is a special month because it’s our is our fourth year or fifth year anniversary. Cindy.

Cyndi Burnett:
It’s our fourth anniversary, Matt. Four years ago, we started in 2021 of the podcast.

Matthew Worwood:
Wow. And we were a Covid podcast, wasn’t we? But we are still going.

Cyndi Burnett:
We are, and we are still going. And I think we’ve learned a lot along the way and I think there’s still so much more to learn.

Matthew Worwood:
There is, there is. And I, I, I mean, listen, this is a debrief episode, but I continue to enjoy this journey. And I think what I have enjoyed the most recently is how we are starting to challenge ourselves to go to the next level. Playing around with the videos, we developing some content for social media. The website’s looking great. We’ve got the Extra Fuel newsletter, which I think is absolutely brilliant. So I just have enjoyed how we’ve kind of continued to challenge ourselves year on year since we’ve created this podcast. And so, you know, part of the success is the professional growth that I know I’ve got from this experience.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yes. And Matt, I also want to emphasize just the fabulous job you’ve done on our website. So if you haven’t gone to our website, Fueling Creativity, podcast.com We now have collections. So if you’re interested in creativity and gifted or creativity and stem, or creativity and higher education, or creativity and the arts, we have collections of all of our past episodes under each of those collections. So you can go to a specific season or you can go to a collection. So make sure you check that out and make sure you subscribe to our newsletter, which we will link in the show notes.

Matthew Worwood:
So, Cindy, we are debriefing three of our guests, which is episode four, five, and six of season 10. And as you know, I’m not amazingly great with pronouncing some names so Cindy, who are our three guests?

Cyndi Burnett:
So we had Miriam Scott from Creative Visions out in Malibu, California, who talked about storytelling and social activism and creativity. Then we had Amanda Bickerstaff, who is the co founder and CEO of AI for Education. And then we had Santosh Zachariah, who is a technology specialist and educator at the Evergreen School in Seattle, Washington.

Matthew Worwood:
So what was your first takeaway of those three episodes?

Cyndi Burnett:
So, Matt, I was left with questions more so than takeaways, like pondering sort of philosophical, theoretical, practical questions around our three guests. So our first guest, Miriam Scott, if you remember, she talked about how they use art to teaching students about activism through creativity in the arts in California. And remember we interviewed her before January and her episode came out after those wildfires and her street was actually impacted, where her location is, was impacted by those wildfires. So I’m thinking about like how they’re going to change or modify their curriculum so that it helps students sort of cope and work through those challenges in their community out in la. And I was also thinking about how might we bring this type of creativity into the greater educational system so that when students see an issue or something that they’re passionate about, particularly in the middle and high school years, that they can really create something that will showcase their passion and the actions they want others to take. And I think that’s what I was really struck by with Miriam is giving students that agency and giving students that power to really say, this is what we need to do and here’s how I’m going to showcase it. And here’s the actions you can take because of that.

Matthew Worwood:
And to build on that, Cindy, we had interviewed Robert Sternberg, I want to say, two to three weeks before we interviewed Miriam Scott, who introduced that concept of transformational creativity and describing it of the type of new and useful values not just to oneself, but also to better the community and better humanity. And when we’re thinking about things like the wildfires, without getting too into climate change and drawing too many conclusions, but we obviously are seeing an increase in these natural disasters and we know that the climate change model suggests that, that we will continue to see these increases. And it can sometimes be quite overwhelming for students and young people, this climate crisis anxiety and what can we actually do? And within the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, they have the framework for this idea of kind of think global, act local. And you know, we’ve touched on this idea of being leaders in the community, supporting the community in lots of different ways. It does come in within the project based learning environments. When we’re trying to work on problems that expand beyond the four walls of the classroom. But I think that within Miriam Scott’s framework and the mission that she’s on, within, not just social activism, but this idea that we can, to your point, using the word student agency, empower students to go into their local community and try, and I’m going to use the word fix the world by working on problems within their own community. And if you imagine all these different schools around the country, around the world working to f of these really big problems at the local level, then hopefully we can go on to make a big difference.

Matthew Worwood:
And I think that’s that idea of, of transformational creativity. And so it was kind of like good to have that kind of theoretical perspective being spoken about from Sternberg and then being in the scenario where you’ve actually got a program that is, in essence, committed to that effort through Miram Scott. So totally agree with you. Very powerful story and of course, sadly, somewhat timely because of what she’s experienced in the program and her students that she would have worked with have experienced because of those wildfires.

Cyndi Burnett:
And it just made me also think, Matt, about April, and this episode is going to be released in early April, but April 21st is actually world Creativity and Innovation Day, which is recognized by the United nations and what people might do and teachers listening might do really to bring home some of these ideas. And I encourage you to go to the Creative Visions website and use it for inspiration and think about what you might do with your students in your classroom to help them identify some challenges that are happening and to express their creativity to spark action in others. So I just thought I’d mention that as well, Matt, because it’s also relevant for what’s happening this month. And if you don’t remember anything about world creativity and innovation, we will link to the episode with Jim Friedman, who is the current steward of the day and the week, and you can learn more about what’s happening around the world and get involved.

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 or check out the links in the show notes for this episode. So, Matt, why don’t you give me yours? What are your takeaways?

Matthew Worwood:
Well, Cindy, I’ll go with our episode with Santosh because I think that episode came in after Miriam Scott’s episode and there was a lot of information packed in there. And it was great to have Santosh on the show because Santosh is someone who has been listening to most of our episodes, if not all of them on the podcast. Actually, one of the things that we asked Santosh was what was his favorite episode and he referenced his favorite efforts episode was with Heather Lyon, which was around Compliance is not Engagement. I was thinking a little bit about that and then connecting it to some of the conversations that Santosh was talking about. One, the fact that he’s working in a school that doesn’t have grades, but though they still have to have some system of having a benchmark, right? Setting a goal for the student and then measuring whether they’ve reached that goal. But really the conversation centered on how much emphasis we place on grades and likewise how much emphasis we would place on meeting a goal. And I suppose in some ways it always comes back to this idea of growth mindset. But trying to cultivate this culture where students recognize where they are in September, reach set a goal, and reach that goal by the end of December.

Matthew Worwood:
And you see that within a lot of the personalized learning frameworks as well. It’s about setting individualized goals for the students and then measuring their success and whether or not they reach that goal. So trying to bring all of this together, my takeaway, and it’s still kind of forming. Grades aren’t necessarily bad, but we don’t want to place too much emphasis on them. But grades perhaps could support a system where we set an individualized goal for a student and then we work towards meeting that goal. And it doesn’t even matter if you don’t meet that goal. It’s really about that journey that’s taken place. And if we can teach students to value that journey, then they’re more likely to engage in their learning experience.

Matthew Worwood:
And that’s why I’m tying it back to Heather Lyons. Compliance is not engagement because I think that concept is I’m engaging in that journey because you told me that’s the direction I have to head or I’m going in that journey because you’ve dangled the fact that that’s the only way for me to achieve this AA and what does that a mean to me? Whereas if a becomes more like a goal that I’ve set for myself, and I’m motivated, I have intrinsic motivation to a certain extent to meet that goal, then I think we’re going to get a lot more engagement and less compliance to the system. So that was my takeaway.

Cyndi Burnett:
Matt, that’s really interesting because I’ve been thinking about the grades as well. What would an environment look like in schools if grades weren’t at the forefront of what students are trying to achieve? And I was thinking about my own students, my own children. I’m sorry, my own children being in high school. And would they be as motivated to get their work done if it wasn’t grades driven? And I’m not sure they would be. However, I think they would be more engaged in school if they were pursuing their own projects. And I also wonder if it was embedded in them at an early age. I mean, they started getting actual grades in third grade. So if early on in third grade and fourth grade and fifth grade, they were actually getting, you know, improvement scores or feedback sheets and that’s it, would that just become the norm? So if we started with that and we continued with that, would it really make an impact? And I think there’s a lot to be said for what Teresa Mobley said in our interview with her, but I’m just going to heighten the anticipation there and say you’re gonna have to listen to those two episodes, which are fantastic, by the way.

Matthew Worwood:
Yes. And Santos did a really good job of heightening that anticipation because, of course, he was talking about Teresa and Marbley when we was actually in the process of organizing that interview. And a great job of summarizing that, because you’re reminding me to. Of the point, which is that the emphasis of grades quite often is established at a really early age within the system of schooling, so it’s a lot harder to break it further down the line. So maybe this is a problem that we need to be looking at addressing at elementary school level. And the idea of kind of like, you know, measuring or, you know, that your. Your process towards me in a goal as more representative of what you’re aiming to achieve, I think is brilliant. Absolutely.

Matthew Worwood:
What about your final one, Cindy?

Cyndi Burnett:
Well, the final one is with Amanda Bickerstaff, and that was around AI literacy. And I’ve been thinking a lot about AI literacy and what are the skills we need to teach students to work in effective and meaningful and ethical ways with AI. And I was thinking about what that future will look like. Will it look like. So these are my questions, so I’ll just pose these questions to you, Matt, what do you think it will look like in the future? Even just like the next year in terms of teaching students? Will it be a separate course like you take an AI literacy course? Will it be embedded into the curriculum? Will it be something that is, you know, are there after school programs for high school students? And I remember, and something I liked about what she said is, when do you bring it in into the schools or into the classrooms? And she said, typically, like ninth grade. They were talking about ninth grade. So high school. So in high school, when you’re boys who I know, you have, you know, eighth grader, a sixth grader and a second grader.

Cyndi Burnett:
Was I right? Second grader.

Matthew Worwood:
Close. Yep. Yep. Fifth. Fifth grader, Yep.

Cyndi Burnett:
Okay, so when your boys are all in high school, let’s say when you’re, when your middle child is in high school, so your fifth graders in high school, will there be an AI literacy class? What do you think?

Matthew Worwood:
Well, I mean, the. What’s funny is I’m just working on the, the AI roundtable for the Teacher Roundtables project right now, and actually the more extended version is now available. We should link to it in the show and maybe the shortened version will be available by the time this comes out. And there’s a great quote in that film from one of the participants who is an English teacher. Her name is Melissa. And she kind of talks about. Because a lot of what you’re talking about is what was discussed in the film. And she says that we are still working towards addressing the challenges of the Internet.

Matthew Worwood:
And really, when you talk about information literacy, media literacy, if you unpack all of those things, they’re all associated with this. The ambiguity of information that’s come about as a consequence of the World Wide Web and digital ethics has been something that has been emerging in higher education for the last couple of years. So I think if you were to ask me, right, like, we need to be better at teaching media literacy in general, and that includes the capacity to generate content and do that in an ethical way. And that’s going to continue to be at the forefront with generative AI. To what extent does media literacy morph into AI? Like, I think it’s going to be a natural transition. I’m not sure it’s going to look radically different. We can have conversations about hallucinations, we can have conversations about, you know, making sure that you recognize that generative AI may not be coming from a trusted source, but these are all the same conversations we’ve had around media literacy. So what was interesting, what came out in the film, is that some of these skills aren’t being taught now because there’s levels of assumption that the students have already kind of had them either in the prior year or they already know them because they’re interacting with this technology on a regular basis.

Matthew Worwood:
So the pessimist in me says, why are we going to see a change regenerative AI when we haven’t really kind of mastered the Internet yet? But that being said, there is a lot of kind of AI literacy stuff emerging within higher education. I can speak to that and I’m working with a group at the moment. We’re starting to identify those skills. I think they are being taught in, you know, informally in the classroom as well. But whether or not there’s going to be a structured lesson per se, I think it’s going to be one of those things that’s probably going to be infused and integrated, you know, in research lessons, in LA lessons, in history lessons, as we continue to utilize this tool and this tool becomes more integrated into our classroom experience. But again, whether or not we master deep fakes and the fact that, you know already, my wife sometimes shows me social media videos. Look at this. And I’m like, I don’t think that’s real.

Matthew Worwood:
And we have to like, no, it’s not real. Right. Like you can’t tell the difference now. So I think AI is just going to exasperate a problem that we’re all already dealing with in general. So that’s probably, I’m probably being a little bit pessimistic, but I think that we will see. I think we are seeing it already being integrated and hopefully we continue to make progress. And I’m sure by the time we master it, then we’ll have the next technology come along that will then just blow everything up again.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yeah. And it’s interesting that you say that, Matt, about integrating it into the curriculum. And I think that it might emerge more as courses in college. So my son is actually, who’s a junior, he’s going to be taking a pre college course this summer on mathematics and artificial intelligence, which I think is really interesting. And it’s sort of a pre college course. So it’s a course they actually teach at the university and he’s really interested in mathematics. And I thought, wow, like five years ago this wouldn’t have been a course. And all of a sudden, you know, here it is emerging.

Cyndi Burnett:
So will there be AI and other things? You know, AI and writing literature, AI and writing, you know, nonfiction, AI and marketing, you know. So as we see AI continue to emerge, there might be more classes even in your digital media and design program. You might see AI and digital media and design, right?

Matthew Worwood:
Well, I’m teaching a class in the fall called Generative AI for Creative Minds.

Cyndi Burnett:
There you go.

Matthew Worwood:
So, yep, definitely, I think we could continue to see it emerge. What’s funny is that when we created our digital media and design department, at the time it was being created, digital media was really hot. And we kind of said, there’s going to be a point where digital media actually just becomes media. And the word digital media is not cool anymore. And I would suspect even when I was writing the curriculum for Generative AI for Creative Minds, I actually called it, the course number is 2030. And I said, by 2030, I suspect this course will be old and dated by them. So that’s actually the hidden reason why I called it 2030 is because I only envisioned that the title, not necessarily the content, but the title, would kind of stay alluring and cool for about another five years.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yeah. So, Matt, I think it’s time for us to wrap up, but thank you so much for joining us today. If you like this episode, please please share it with a colleague or friend. And again, be sure to sign up for our newsletter if you go to our website. FuelingCreativityPodcast.com My name is Dr. Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood:
And my name is Dr. Matthew Worwood

Cyndi Burnett:
You’ve been listening to the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast hosted by Matthew Worwood and Cindy Burnett. Our creative producer is Catherine Fu. And this episode was made possible thanks to our sponsor, Curiosity to create.