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

Cyndi Burnett:
And my name is Doctor Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood:
This is the fuelling 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. So, hello and welcome to our first debrief episode of season nine. We are back. And also, this is our first debrief episode of the new academic year. Cindy, how are you feeling?

Cyndi Burnett:
I’m feeling great, Matt, how are you? How was the start of your semester?

Matthew Worwood:
It was good. But I do need to tell you a little bit of a story because I think it’s a story that hopefully, I’m assuming some educators can relate with, but then also a story that I think speaks to some of the things we’ve spoken a lot about on the show. Are you ready?

Cyndi Burnett:
Yes.

Matthew Worwood:
So I am a huge fan of flip. I’ve been using flip since the pandemic, in fact, before the pandemic, because I think, or at least I thought it was a wonderful tool to facilitate the type of conversations that you can have in a classroom environment. And I think I’ve shared on the podcast, I’m a huge proponent of, of conversations dialogue. You know, you put out sometimes a contentious or kind of like, gray area theme, and you kind of, like, challenge yourself to think about and consider all the different perspectives around that topic. I’ve worked hard to try and be better at facilitating conversations, and I have to say, when I started teaching online and using flip, I found it to be one of the most effective tools for facilitating conversations because it kind of challenged the students, obviously, to have their say. They couldn’t kind of sit at the back of the classroom and not participate in the discussion because everyone has to participate and submit a video. And then I would also take the time to respond to each of the videos, as well as require that students listen to at least three peers as well. And so I’ve been doing it.

Cyndi Burnett:
So. Whoa, whoa. Matt, Matt, what is flip? I’ve never heard of it before. Can you share what it is and how you’ve used it in your classroom?

Matthew Worwood:
So, flip, video, I think it came, I think it was starting to emerge a couple of years before the pandemic, and it’s basically a tool that allows you to record a short video. I don’t use Snapchat, but I think it’s similar to Snapchat. You can record a short video. In essence, it’s a video message, and you put it on the online platform. But the platform’s really good at facilitating your interaction. With all of these different videos, you can, you know, you push record. As an educator, you can set it to a two minute, three minute, four minute, five minute response, which is great, because that means you’re encouraging students to kind of and myself to try and speak quite succinct when they’re responding to the prompt, and that means within the conversation, and you’re asking people to go and listen to their peers and not having to listen to five, six minutes of videos. So I really like that feature.

Matthew Worwood:
I like the fact that you can respond to an initial video as a video comment. So if I’ve posted a video talking about my definition of digital culture, for example, based on a reading, which is one of the assignments in my online course, I then will go and click comment and record a video response to that. And so you kind of, like, in essence, see all of these kind of video responses that represent the conversation that took place based on the initial video response from that student. So my hope is that, hey, you read a some material, you formulate your own definition of digital culture, and then you share it as a flip video. And there’s also a great app as well. And then students can go to the, in essence, the online forum in flip, and they can see all of the responses to that, you know, first question, and they choose someone, they listen to the video, and then you comment on it. And so when I’m grading, I see that initial video response and then all of the comments afterwards. And then I require students to then create a reflection video at the end of the conversation based on the response they’ve got from their peers, and based on them listening to other videos, they’re able to hopefully expand their knowledge a little bit.

Matthew Worwood:
And there’s some additional readings that I put in as the conversation unfolds over a one to two week period. Right. So, you know, now we’re going to read this. How does that change your view of digital culture? So it’s things like that, and it’s a great platform that does that. And it was originally called Flip video, and then it kind of, like, rebranded itself to flip. Now, it got purchased by Microsoft, and that was fine. You had single sign on through Google, single sign through Microsoft. But as we know, or I’m assuming, as many of us know, we’re kind of seeing this kind of trend away from Google and back towards Microsoft and Microsoft Teams.

Matthew Worwood:
And so I got this email in June that said flip is going away in September. I mean, perfect timing. I mean, the start of the academic year, it’s going to go away on September 30, but don’t worry, because they kind of suggested it’s going to be incorporated into teams. So anyway, I went on holiday, came back about a few days before the semester started, and I said, okay, I better address this flip thing, assuming that it’s going to be in teams and it’s not going to be a big deal. Anyway, I went to it and it functions completely different and it’s not going to allow me to facilitate. It’s still great for one on one, but it’s not going to be great for facilitating conversations with other students. So three days left before the start of the semester, and I’m suddenly having to find a brand new technology to facilitate these online video conversations that I want to have. I’ve landed on a tool called Voicethread, which is a plugin for blackboard.

Matthew Worwood:
It’s not great, it’s a little bit clunky. And I share that story because it was kind of a rough start to the semester because you’re dealing with technology problems. But then I was trying to implement all of the things that we advocate for Cindy, which is that, oh, this is an opportunity, let’s think creatively. I have to say it was a tough start to the semester because of that. And I’ve had to be fielding a lot of voice conversations about this new platform. And actually I’m going to spend a lot of tomorrow going through and listening to all of the video responses. And hopefully it’s going to work effectively. But I think it’s an example about the fact that we can be all ready to go and we’ve got our typical setup and then we have that outside disruption, and of course AI is one, but we as educators have always having to be dealing with these outside disruptive technological forces that are forcing us to abandon and change.

Matthew Worwood:
And I think it’s how we respond emotionally to those and then problem solve those and determine whether or not we have to change our instructional practice. Or we can find a nice, easy alternative technology that allows us to continue to do the same things that we always do. But that’s that everyday teacher creativity that exists in all of us. And I’m sure people, I suspect lots of people listening right now who use flip know the pain that I’m suffering with right now.

Cyndi Burnett:
Well, Matt, hopefully some of our listeners might have the same exact problem and have already found a solution, and they might be able to contact you@questionsealingcreativitypodcast.com. and give you a solution or give you some potential alternatives to using Flipp in your classroom.

Matthew Worwood:
I would absolutely love that. 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, it’s time to debrief our first three episodes of season nine. So just to recap, we had the legendary doctor Ruth Richards and a double espresso talking about everyday creativity and win winning in the classroom. And then we had Ann Jacobi talking about the merger of her background in the performing arts with business and education. And then finally we had Neil Bergenroth. Yes, Neil Bergenroth, who talked about his passion for sports, particularly in rowing, and how he brought that into STEM learning. So let’s talk about our three key takeaways. What was your first key takeaway?

Matthew Worwood:
Well, lots of great takeaways from all of our guests. I think I’ll start off with Anne because feedback is huge. I’m in the school of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut, and I brought this up in the conversation that I think school of fine art programs, we have this setup where there’s this critique, and you stand at the front of the class and you have either you, your performance critiqued in front of everybody, and then also you can sometimes have the work that you’ve produced, and you’re very vulnerable in that moment. There’s that potential that you might feel a sense of shame if you’ve kind of not achieved the expectations that you set out for in that performance or in that piece of work. And I really like this idea of, and she was just talking about, wouldn’t it be great if we just kind of, like, normalize the social experience of providing feedback and just see it as taking a note into the future? And that’s what I really like, this idea of a note into the future. And I started to find myself, you know, how can we kind of take that experience of ultimately standing up within our peers? That’s very common in the school of fine Arts, and I think provides a learning experience for other people in that social setting that are hearing the feedback to a colleague, and they’re saying, oh, I never thought about this, or, oh, actually, that might apply to my work as well. So I think it’s a learning opportunity for anyone in the room, and I don’t think it happens in as many disciplines as it does in the school of fine Arts. So that was my really big takeaway from that episode.

Matthew Worwood:
What about you, Matt?

Cyndi Burnett:
That was the same exact reaction I had to Anja Cobe’s episode when I re listened to it again several months after we did the interview. And all I could think of was what stops us from normalizing feedback, especially in the classroom, because there’s such a sense of vulnerability. And it’s interesting, I was just reading a chapter that you’re working on for our book on feeling creativity in the classroom and a story about failure and feedback. And I just think it’s such a hard place to be because it’s not normalized. There’s shame that goes throughout all of it, and we don’t really know how. We really don’t know what to do with it because we just. It really goes to the heart instead of, like, the head and the growth. Right.

Cyndi Burnett:
So how do we shift feedback from the heart and the vulnerability to the head and the growth? And how do we allow ourselves to really think about feedback that other people give us? A is just that feedback. It’s just information. If we think about it as just data, like this, data could be something that worthwhile or something that we don’t think is worthwhile, right. Because not all feedback is equal. We also have to consider the source of feedback, so we can’t take those.

Matthew Worwood:
Yes, that came out.

Cyndi Burnett:
And I think, especially when it comes to creativity, it’s very easy for us to take feedback as something that belongs to us instead of something that we do, that it’s a part of us. So when it’s a part of us, I think it leaves us much more vulnerable than if it’s just something we did that we could improve. So there’s all sorts of things I’ve been playing with in my head around that particular episode, and I just remember my, you know, my theater days, just like your theater days, where we used to stand in front and people just used to spout out all that all those notes to make the overall show better. It wasn’t just like, I’m going to be better, it was, you’re going to be better and you’re going to be better. And we’re all going to work together to make this a more cohesive experience. What if we did that in every different domain and discipline to really enhance what we’re doing?

Matthew Worwood:
And I think just to very quickly build on that, I think the exposure to that, it was uncomfortable. And I think also comes back to. You’ve referenced shame vulnerability without that first season episode with Ron Begetta. When we’re talking about sometimes learning is uncomfortable, but the more we can get exposed, exposed to feedback, I think we can get more comfortable. I think it’s better at normalizing it, because I’m sure a senior who’s been through multiple critique sessions is more comfortable than a first year student who’s experiencing that for the first time. And I think the other thing within the school environment, because it exists in industry, when you’re designing a product, part of the design experience is continuing to obtain feedback from your users and different people. But I think in the classroom, I think one of the things that we can consider doing is making sure that it’s not in any way connected to the grade or that we’re giving the impression it’s connected to the grade. And actually, I think that if it becomes the end experience.

Matthew Worwood:
Right. We need to be very careful if it’s the final presentation, if it’s the end experience, and you save all of the feedback for that moment, and then the students know that a grade’s coming the following week. I think that’s where you’ve got to be careful, because even though you’re saying it’s not necessarily connected to a grade, there is a sense of judgment associated with grading, and therefore it kind of. I don’t think it is about a note in the future. I know one of my colleagues constantly said is that work is never finished and you’ve got to remember, even at the end of the semester, it’s a case of, I suppose, receiving a note for future iterations, whether it’s on this work or not this work. But I think that’s very important, is if you can integrate these experiences of feedback, one on one feedback or class feedback, to an individual that is taking place multiple times during the semester, and do your best not to give the impression it’s connected to grades. I think that’s important.

Cyndi Burnett:
All right, so let’s talk about our second insight. What’s your next one.

Matthew Worwood:
Oh, me again. Going first, you know, passion, Neil’s episode about passion. And I think, I am not going off on a tangent about sports, but I’ve got my youngest now playing sports. My middle son has now gone to three training sessions a week. He’s ten years old. We are flat out with soccer. And you’ve got this culture, you’ve got that wonderful book you shared with me that, you know, it’s never enough. I’m sure there’s parents listening right now that you kind of get sucked into this culture of you’ve got to give your child more and more and more and more and realistically, I’m sure what people know what I’m saying.

Matthew Worwood:
I don’t want to kind of like Jinx my son or anything, but realistically, I don’t know how long he’s going to continue to play soccer for. So it’s like we’re really limiting the chances for them to do other things when we’re kind of immersing ourselves in all this sport. But the flip side of it, which I enjoyed with Neil’s episode, is that sport is highly passionate. It’s such a passionate thing to be doing. And what I noted in Neil’s episode, and he said it is that he was passionate about rowing and it’d been a big part of his life and he wanted to find a way to bring that passion into the classroom experience. And he also liked app development and he was teaching StEm. So he set off on a journey to combine his passion and then his interest in app development and then fit it into his classroom environment, which was teaching Stem. And that’s where he came up with the rowing Stem app that he designed.

Matthew Worwood:
And so that passion piece and making those connections, specifically the passion exist in sport, was my big takeaway from that one.

Cyndi Burnett:
I’m going to build on that, Matt, because I think for me it was about the passion, but it was about the passion of Neil as a teacher and bringing his passion into the classroom. And as I referenced in that episode, like, it reminded me of Bea Lederman talking about her passion for bugs. And it just makes me wonder for those educators out there listening, do you have a passion? Do you have an interest in something, anything? It could be really anything that you have an interest in? And how can you bring that interest into the classroom, into what you’re teaching? So it brings an authentic part of you as an educator into the space so your students understand you better and you can connect with them in meaningful ways. And that’s what I loved so much. About his episode was this, like, I have this passion for rowing now I’m going to bring that passion for rowing into the classroom through stem, and I’m going to teach them all these different skills that they might not necessarily think that they can connect to, but all of a sudden we’re making those connections. And so it just. It reminds me of just various conversations we’ve had over the last nine seasons of this podcast where teachers have shared with us that passion for something. And it doesn’t have to be teaching.

Cyndi Burnett:
You know, it can be bugs, bug photography, like it was with bee that they bring into the classroom. And all of a sudden, it transformed that space into a new life. And plus, you’re bringing something that you’re passionate interested in and how much joy that can bring into the classroom.

Matthew Worwood:
And just to build on one thing, I think you said something really important as well, is that that authentic piece, Neil said students can recognize passion. And I’ve seen that on feedback. Sometimes I’m teaching something that maybe it’s new or I’m struggling a little bit to teach it effectively, but the feedback that I’ve got is that my passion still engages students.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yeah.

Matthew Worwood:
Because they can relate to passion.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yes.

Matthew Worwood:
So I think that’s important. Absolutely. Now, Cindy, I know time is getting a little bit tight, and I know you’ve got a string of meetings today, but Doctor Ruth Richards, we finally brought her onto the podcast. It was an incredible episode. Two double espressos, or rather not two double expresses, but two episodes, because it’s a double express.

Cyndi Burnett:
If we had two doubles, we could.

Matthew Worwood:
Have done it, though. We could have done it.

Cyndi Burnett:
Absolutely could have done it.

Matthew Worwood:
Full of knowledge. Yes.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yes. A lifetime of knowledge with Ruth.

Matthew Worwood:
Yeah. So your takeaway with Doctor Ruth Richards.

Cyndi Burnett:
So I think I loved when she really defined everyday creativity as the generation of novel and meaning. It really struck me because it went back to so many of the conversations we’ve had on the podcast. I was thinking about James Kaufman and the health and wellbeing that comes with it and how it really brings creativity into a different dimension, into not having to be something that’s useful to others or useful or innovative or all those sort of business type terms, but it’s like it’s meaningful. So making something. This weekend was my husband’s birthday, and we put together legos. We did flower legos together, and I bought all these different sets. And it was so much fun. We sat around and we’re building these things and they’re new and they were meaningful to us because not only do we all enjoy doing Lego as a family? But we were sort of reigniting the spark of, you know, remembering all the times that we sat around tables and built things together.

Cyndi Burnett:
And it was just this, this lovely, you know, moment in time with my older teenage children and reflecting on our past. And so no one would say, oh, that was useful, but it was meaningful to us because it was just a wonderful, delightful few hours that we had together in building this. And I think it’s those moments that really make life joyful. And so that’s what really resonated with me and Ruth Richards episode.

Matthew Worwood:
Well, you’ll like this, because I know we spoke about this a lot on the podcast. I had a class with my students yesterday, and I was getting them just to throw out some words that they associate with creativity. And one of them said, fun. And there is this kind of personal experience, personal relationship that you, of course, have with the thing that you’re doing. We see it within theories such as flow. And I think Ruth certainly brought that back into the podcast, into the episode, because there are times that we do kind of, I suppose, within the science of creativity, think a little bit more about the function of creativity, on how it serves other people and to a certain extent serves the economy, and it helps people prosper. And to build on what you said, what my takeaway, this idea of talking about win win creativity, you know, it can be a bit be a win win. And you know this within the conversation, Ruth got me thinking that typically when, you know, within some of the, I want to say typically, but on occasion within the school experience, you know, when you’ve done well at something and someone’s celebrating that success, there’s sometimes a feeling that that means that someone else wasn’t as good as that.

Matthew Worwood:
Right. And I understand, you know, I’m flirting with this idea of everyone gets a trophy and I’m not. And I don’t think I’m talking about sports and necessarily competition, but I’m just simply saying that people can go and have different perspectives or different takes on a project and actually everyone can win from the outcomes that are created in these projects. We don’t have to set up a scenario where because this individual has been super duper successful, theres a sense of, oh, well, I wasnt as good or im going to compare my outcome to that outcome. And clearly, based on the feedback, it felt short. And I think that the best way to do that, and it actually goes back in some ways to our first discussion on feedback, is that its about the individual, its about their growth, its about what theyre bringing to the table. And whatever that is, is celebrating that as their everyday creativity. And I think every educator, we’ve got opportunities to do more of that in our classroom environment, celebrate the everyday creativity of each individual student and not necessarily kind of like identify an example of creativity that all should be inspiring to achieve.

Cyndi Burnett:
Right? And really in the classroom to find those moments of meaning and moments of joy every single day, you know, and I know as an educator, some days are really tough and it’s hard to find even a moment of joy, but even just to look around and maybe it’s something that a student creates or maybe they finally understood a concept that they were struggling with, or look for those moments of joy and meaning inside of your classroom each and every day. And then when you go home, it’s interesting, Matt, like my kids, my daughter just went into high school a couple of days ago, and all of my friends, and they are talking and it’s like, oh, my gosh, this is it. Like, I want to spend every moment with them. And sometimes we sort of take for granted the time that we have in the classroom and this time that we have to educate students and this time that we have with our children at home, if that’s what we choose to do. But really just to take that mindful, and we talked a lot about mindfulness in Ruth Richards episode, really be mindful in the present moment, even right now, talking to you, not thinking about, yes, I have a string of meetings today, but oh, my gosh, like, we have this opportunity to share our thoughts around three interviews with people who were just delightful and insightful and enlightening, you know, did so much for my brain. And so I think, you know, having even those, like, micro moments of joy throughout the day and looking for them, like deliberately looking for them every day, something that you can do in your classroom and really on those worst days, just to find even the smallest thing that can make you smile.

Matthew Worwood:
I love it. And I think that’s a wonderful way to finish the podcast. I’m hoping that something we’ve shared in this podcast has made some of our listeners smile today. It’s great to be back. I’m exciting for the new academic year. And if you’ve enjoyed this episode, first of all, we want you to subscribe. Go check. Make sure you subscribed.

Matthew Worwood:
We are also on YouTube. You might be watching this on YouTube. So if you’re watching this on YouTube, subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform. Or if you’re listening to us, and you’re on YouTube, then maybe you want to see us smiling now, because we are smiling now. And you may want to check out and subscribe to our YouTube page as well. Got some great guests lining up, so three more interviews coming up as part of season nine, and then we’ll follow that up with another debrief. And don’t forget, we’ve got our scholar in residence, Jimmy Wilson, who is posting content and has posted on Ruth Richards episode. And that is fuelingcreativitypodcast.com.

Matthew Worwood:
my name is Doctor Matthew Werwood.

Cyndi Burnett:
And my name is Doctor Cindy Burnett. This episode was produced by Matthew Warwood and Cindy Burnett. Our podcast sponsor is curiosity to create and our editor is Sam Atkinson.