Matthew Worwood: We talk a lot about engagement in education, but are we overlooking what’s right in front of us? In this final debrief of Season 12, we will revisit three ideas that challenge how we think about teaching and learning. Educators using social media not just to post, but to connect and co-create. Tabletop games that naturally invite dialogue, perspective-taking, and problem-solving.

Matthew Worwood: And music, something students already connect with deeply that we often fail to fully leverage in the classroom. None of these are new, but maybe that’s the point. Maybe engagement isn’t something we need to invent, maybe it’s something we need to recognize and use more intentionally. So come and join us for our final debrief of Season 12.

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

Cyndi Burnett: And my name is Dr. Cyndi 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 the 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. Hello and welcome back to the final debrief episode of Season 12 of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast, and also our final debrief of the academic year.

Cyndi Burnett: Yay, we made it.

Matthew Worwood: We did make it. I mean, listen, we should be mindful that, many of us continue to play out the end of the semester, but when we’re recording this we’re always a few weeks ahead.

Cyndi Burnett: Yes. And we have had three remarkable episodes, Matt. We had Adam Watson talking about the power of game-based learning.

Cyndi Burnett: We had the team from Crayola, Shari Steernman and Dr. Gerard Puccio talking about styles. And then we had Dr. Raven Baxter talking about the power of learning through music. So I can’t wait to debrief these three episodes with you.

Matthew Worwood: Neither can I. And we should just get straight into it. Who should we start off with first?

Cyndi Burnett: Ooh, let’s start with Adam, game-based learning. What was your key insight?

Matthew Worwood: Okay, my key insight. One, it- it’s been really fun with the game-based gamification conversation that we’ve had because, of course, we went back I think it was our last episode of Season 11, which would’ve been released sometime in December, when we had our first kind of real episode dedicated to games, and a lot of that was around world-building. And I have to say, I haven’t thought too much about world-building before, but once, after that episode, I suddenly was looking around, I was like, “Wow, world-building is something that we do all of the time.” And you can understand why there’s so much energy and conversation around world-building and why it’s relevant to creativity. Now, you might be thinking, Matt, this is a debrief for Season 12. Why are we talking about an episode of Season 11? And you would be right. But the reason why I want to make that connection is in our second episode dedicated to games with Adam Watson, we found ourself talking specifically about tabletop games, role-playing tabletop games.

Matthew Worwood: You and I thought it was great because, Stranger Things is still in many of our minds, and a lot of Stranger Things centered on the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop games. But I think what I really liked and took away with this is there’s a little bit of that world-building element within this kind of there’s an already an established story and setting for the game.

Matthew Worwood: But as Adam was talking about this idea of you assuming characters and you’re getting yourselves into these situations where one character is either fighting or interacting with another character- Mm-hmm … and you’re having this exchange of dialogue,

Matthew Worwood: but I couldn’t help but make the connection between Caroline Mell and the Constructive Dialogue Institute, which I think was around episode three or four of this season’s podcast. Because when you’re having that conversation about why this character wins or this character loses, or, “Well, I’ve got these powers,” “Well, I’ve got these powers,” and you kind of saw that playing out in the show Stranger Things, particularly during the final episode.

Matthew Worwood: That, one, of course, is highly imaginative, but two, once again, it’s another way of facilitating conversation, and constructive conversation. And I’m not gonna relive everything because we spoke so much about how much conversation is related to creativity and exchange of ideas, but that was my big takeaway

Cyndi Burnett: Matt, I love it, and I love the connection to Stranger Things.

Cyndi Burnett: As you know, I’m a big fan as well. But I love the idea of being able to work with students through some challenging dialogues through tabletop games, and I think it’s an interesting approach to doing that. It also builds on what I really appreciated, which is this distinction between gamification and game-based learning.

Cyndi Burnett: And I know for myself, I love gamification. I love gamifying things, and I also love games. So I love the idea of bringing in tabletop games or having students create tabletop games. And I think, I wouldn’t say I’ve become a little obsessed with it, but I will tell you that this morning when I set up my to-dos in Claude, I used a gamification system, to set up all of the things that I needed to do today so that I would get points every time I completed a task, because I think gamifying things can be motivational for some people, and it does for me.

Cyndi Burnett: And it was really easy to do in Claude. But I also think, if you’re working with students and you say, “Okay, I want you to create a game about this topic,” I think you can have so much more impact than just standing there and lecturing. Because it really makes you think through all of those details, and it makes you think through how they interact with one another, as you mentioned, as he talked about in terms of chemistry, I believe.

Cyndi Burnett: And so I think there’s just so much potential for play with games and gamification that we really haven’t talked that much about on the show around play. So different types of play, what kind of play can you bring in? How does play nurture and develop our creativity, especially when we get into middle and high school years?

Cyndi Burnett: Because oftentimes it sort of shifts from play-based learning into, middle school, where it’s much more, taking tests and getting grades and meeting certain areas of content and criteria. So I think games can really enhance our learning experience, bring in the play and bring in the fun and ultimately bring in the creativity

Matthew Worwood: I absolutely love that.

Matthew Worwood: And of course, it also connects back to our conversation we had in our previous debrief about engagement. Yes. Because you’re talking about the fact that you’re motivated through bringing in game elements. So even just a scoreboard. I remember when I was a young kid, I think I would probably would’ve been the equivalent of fourth, maybe fifth grade, and it was very simple, but if there was enough time at the day our class throughout the entire academic year was split into the left side, right side of the room.

Matthew Worwood: And, you’re doing worksheets or whatever, but it might be the first person who finished would get a point for their team. Um- Oh … at the end of the day, if there was enough time, it would be, set up some Skittles and whoever knocks all the Skittles over, you’d get a point for your team.

Matthew Worwood: You’d get a point for your team. Right, the left side of the room, put your, pick your chairs up and put them on the table. Who’s the quietest? Right side. Now you go. Oh, the point goes to the right team, and it just made the whole day more fun, and it made- Mm … the classroom environment I think ultimately a little bit more engaging.

Matthew Worwood: So I love that. And then, As you were talking and I, and I’m going back to my point, but it’s also different, uh, expressions of modality. When you’re having these dialogues or imagining these settings, you mentioned the chemistry conversation we had around creating a game, tabletop game around chemistry, and there you are engaging in a conversation about why this molecule is better than the other molecule.

Matthew Worwood: I think I made this- Mm … in this episode, but you have to really know about that molecule in order to engage in that conversation. So I’m kinda like you. I’ve been really thinking about this a lot, and I can see you and I probably finding ourselves with some workshops, developing some tabletop style games for our workshops and our teachers, because I am busting to integrate more of this into my practice.

Matthew Worwood: I tell you that. So thank you to Adam Watson.

Cyndi Burnett: So who should we talk about next? Let’s talk about Crayola and the work they’ve been doing around their style, and taking the style and, using it with teachers, and having this language that you can use around these different kinds of styles

Matthew Worwood: I don’t know if it’s a takeaway per se, but, Gerald Puccio at the end, I can’t remember the context to why it came up, but to your point, it was about conversation, how these, these creative styles can help facilitate a really great conversation, Mm-hmm

Matthew Worwood: about creativity, about your preferred style as an educator, what that might mean- Mm … if you’ve got a certain preferred creativity style, and may be an advantage to some students in your classroom who share that style versus a disadvantage to other students who don’t share that style. I think that was something that I started to bring into the conversation.

Matthew Worwood: It was when Gerald Puccio at the end, we were talking this idea that creative styles may relate in some way to creative confidence. And- Ooh … if you’ve got a better understanding of your creative style, might that do better for your creative confidence and willingness to engage in a task, particularly if you are in a better position to say, “All right.

Matthew Worwood: This is how I’m being encouraged to approach it, but actually, this is not so much of my creative style.” So maybe there’s an understanding it be may be more of a challenge. So I’m not saying you don’t engage in that way, but similarly, if you have that choice on how you choose to express something or interact with something, maybe you can shift it toward that creative style.

Matthew Worwood: And when you’ve made that shift towards that creative style, perhaps there’s a connection to creative confidence. And as I said, there was something with, Gerald when he was talking about that. I found myself thinking all the way back to, Marjetka Kowalski that we I think maybe it was episode two of this season, which we, we didn’t debrief, I think.

Matthew Worwood: I know I didn’t share as much in that debrief episode on that particular episode, as I’ve been thinking a lot about. But this idea of creative confidence and self-efficacy, and ultimately how important it is in the classroom, and then to what extent does it diminish as we progress through the grades.

Matthew Worwood: And ultimately, it’s that connection I’m making to creative styles right now. I don’t know if I’ve got a specific takeaway that I’ve latched onto. So that was where I was at. What about you?

Cyndi Burnett: Well, mine’s similar to that, Matt, because it is about building the creative confidence. But for me it was about building creative confidence through the language of the different types of styles.

Cyndi Burnett: So having that common language, having discussions around that language, and as obviously you know, we’ve written a chapter in our upcoming book about initiating discussions around creativity. And I think if older students as well as teachers, were to look at this style measure and take it, it starts a conversation which I think can be really beneficial.

Cyndi Burnett: That your creativity looks different than my creativity, that looks different than, Bob’s creativity and Josie’s creativity. So it’s important to have those conversations and to really go into the depth of understanding ourselves as creative individuals and how they can all look different and still be creative, I think could be really beneficial to the educational sector.

Matthew Worwood: Yeah. I love that. And, of course you can go and take the measure. It’s free to access. Yeah. So anyone listening to this could go and do that with their students. The one thing we should add on caution, I know you and I felt that it’s, the language used in the measure is probably gonna be a little bit challenging for people before high school.

Matthew Worwood: Would you agree? Yes. I agree. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And absolutely awesome, Cyndi, because, we talk a lot about the different stereotypes and things like that and, , I agree. Maybe there’s ways for some people who start their workshops off with what is creativity to actually maybe invite that conversation , and have your existing approach to that.

Matthew Worwood: But then bring in this measure where you can, to your point, recognize how that definition of creativity relates to all these different ways of expression, shall we say?

Matthew Worwood: All right. Cyndi, I always go first, let’s have you.

Cyndi Burnett: I had so much fun with Dr. Raven Baxter. She is just a bundle of happiness and energy and, I remember when I was originally researching her and looking at her Instagram, I instantly felt joy and I instantly felt wow, I can’t imagine what it would be like to be sitting in her classroom.

Cyndi Burnett: Because she used- singing and music as part of the learning, and turn science into music. And, I work with a lot of scientists, and for many of them, they’re always asking the question, how do we make this so that people… How do we make science something that every person can understand?

Cyndi Burnett: And I think a great way to do that is through music. And I have to say that listening to you beatbox and jump in with her singing was one of the top five highlights of doing this podcast. It was just so much fun and joyful. And if you missed that episode, I encourage you to go back and listen to it to hear Matt beatbox, as well as to hear just how Raven improvised.

Cyndi Burnett: And we did an episode a long time ago, I don’t know if you remember, with Izzy Giselle on improvisation in the classroom. But I just, I felt it was joyful, it was spur of the moment. And doing something like that inside the classroom or even creating, having students create songs out of the content that they’re learning, I will say if I had learned that way, I probably would remember a lot more.

Cyndi Burnett: I still know all the lyrics to We Didn’t Start the Fire, because we used that in terms of having to sit down and record everything that was in that song and why it was in that song. Like, what was the purpose, and what happened in history. But I can still sing the whole song, and I still understand all the context of what was happening because of that song.

Cyndi Burnett: So I just wonder if we had more opportunities for students to learn in that way if learning would stick a bit more than it currently does.

Matthew Worwood: Well, I think the learning science would probably support that. And of course I’m not a historian, but, I think music’s and storytelling through songs has been one of the main ways we have translated events and knowledge from one generation to the next before we obviously had all of the wonders of technology. So you’re right, seems like we lost something that seemed so effective. And I, I- Mm-hmm … do sometimes find myself wondering, things like the, ring around a rosie is a pocket full of posies.

Matthew Worwood: I don’t know all of the history to that, but I hear that’s connected to the plague or the Black Death from- Mm-hmm … from the UK. And you still can go to elementary schools and hear some of these songs being sung that are actually capturing historical events. Now, I know that’s not exactly- what you’re saying per se, but it demonstrates the underlying value that we have within our culture of learning for song and music. So I totally agree.

Matthew Worwood: Before we do move on I love the fact you brought up Izzy Giselle. I never thought about that, but, we find it so hard to work out what is our favorite episode, but that episode with Izzy Giselle putting us on the spot…

Matthew Worwood: I mean, it’s not the only episode that we’ve done it in, but when we’ve been on the spot and kind of done an activity as a demonstration, and it’s an activity that works through audio, it has been a really fun episode to record. So, I agree with you. It was kinda cool putting together a song.

Matthew Worwood: And I feel like we’ve gotta maybe think about getting together and collaborating with Raven on a song over the summer around creativity.

Cyndi Burnett: I think that would be fun.

Matthew Worwood: Yeah. Scary. Sign

Cyndi Burnett: me up.

Matthew Worwood: Okay.

Cyndi Burnett: Did you say scary?

Matthew Worwood: It would be a little bit scary. You know- No

Matthew Worwood: the idea of us coming up with a song with us in it and going on social media.

Cyndi Burnett: Okay, maybe a little scary.

Matthew Worwood: Yeah. Um-

Cyndi Burnett: Wait, you almost… I just wanna tell our audience, Matt almost joined a boy band many years ago.

Matthew Worwood: Oh, yes. Good. Yeah. And we’ll stop it there. We’ll stop it there. And, and if you’re not watching the YouTube video on this, you wanna go to it because he is turning a bright shade of pink.

Matthew Worwood: We’ll stop it right there. Fun story. Fun stories to bring up over the holidays. So switching, it was somewhat connected to social media. I was not expecting the conversation to go like this, but because Raven’s obviously… You, would define her as a, an influencer on social media- Oh, absolutely

Matthew Worwood: doing some, yeah. So, I was sitting there and I’m like, “Well, this is kinda like our first real influencer,” in the kinda social media sense, shall we say, that we’ve had on the show. And I was really, drawn to the parts of our interview where we started to talk about the role of social media with teachers and how teachers utilize social media to potentially extend the learning.

Matthew Worwood: And I will say again, as I said in that episode, we are very sensitive, Cyndi and I, because we’re not huge fans of social media, but we are very sensitive to the fact that there is obviously an age where this is appropriate and an age where this is not appropriate. But it was fascinating to start thinking about, creating content that’s distributed on social media about a particular topic, for example, with the specific goal and intention to let parents, for example, know what’s happening in your classroom, or parents can be more aware of the topic or the basic premises of the concept that your children are gonna be going home and working on as part of their homework.

Matthew Worwood: And similarly, when the age is appropriate, students potentially being able to follow their teacher and have that additional, resource, that piece of content that might motivate them or help them see something in a new way. And I, for the first time ever, the connection between teachers and social medias, I started to be a little bit more open and receptive to.

Matthew Worwood: And I think Raven was kinda suggesting this, alluding to this, the intention of why you’re using it is something that we have to ask ourselves, because I… There’s sometimes soc- I’ve seen some social media, I’m like, “You’re being a little bit negative about your students right now.” It’s like you’re kinda sharing some stuff that’s kinda like maybe w- what, like what’s your intention with this content you’re sharing?

Matthew Worwood: And then when you realize that it’s being shared from the classroom environment as well, you’re like, is that appropriate or not appropriate? So, I’ve always wrestled with that. And, I think Raven, for any teacher that does use social media , in an active way or wants to use social media and they’re trying to identify what I think is an effective way to use it, I think it’s a great episode to listen to.

Cyndi Burnett: And Matt, I just wanna build on that because I think the teacher influencer is an interesting piece, particularly when they are teaching content. Because I was just talking last week to a group of high schoolers, and one of the young women that I was talking to, she was talking about her AP exam coming up in history.

Cyndi Burnett: And she said, “I don’t really feel like I’m learning as much from my teacher, but there’s a really good YouTuber that I watch who helps students- get prepared for their upcoming AP History test. And I thought, wow, isn’t that interesting that, they’re saying, “Well, I’m not learning it in the classroom, but I have another means to learn it,” via YouTube or Instagram or any other piece that’s going to help them.

Cyndi Burnett: And I think with Raven’s work, I feel that she could really be helping students who may not get chemistry inside the classroom, but the way she presents it can really make it something that is interesting and engaging for them to latch onto and really work with so that they can understand the material.

Cyndi Burnett: Because ultimately, that’s the goal, right? So maybe music isn’t best for every student, but if there’s influencers, teacher influencers out there who are listening that are like, “I really have a unique way of presenting this material, and I could go out there and share it with the world,” I think that can have such a positive impact.

Cyndi Burnett: Because when students aren’t getting what they need inside the classroom, they can get it in other ways. It just reminds me of what an interesting time we’re living in.

Matthew Worwood: Totally agree. Awesome. That brings us to our final debrief of season 12.

Matthew Worwood: This isn’t the end. We’ve still got a whole bunch of episodes teed up all the way till, I believe, mid-August. But I think this season was pros- possibly my best season.

Matthew Worwood: I, I, like I really- Yeah … enjoyed it. I think it was the diversity of topics. I mentioned it earlier, and I know that was a goal that you set and we were a lot more deliberate. But, there was diversity of the topics. You know, it was just a really great season, and I think ultimately, a really great year.

Matthew Worwood: … So I’m looking forward to season 13. Of course, we’ve got a great episode next week, don’t we Cyndi?

Cyndi Burnett: Yes, we do. Jimmy Wilson, our scholar in residence, is gonna be joining us, as he does at the end of every season, to give us a research update on what’s happening in the field of creativity research, as well as addressing some of the topics that we’ve covered that we couldn’t find answers for.

Cyndi Burnett: I’m really looking forward to that conversation with Jimmy.

Matthew Worwood: Yeah, and it’d be great. And of course, he quite often, identifies things that people have shared on the show that we didn’t necessarily cover in the season. I know you and I have given him some things to look at that on reflection we said, “Ah, we didn’t talk as much about this as, as we could have done, so is there any research about that?”

Matthew Worwood: Yeah. So brilliant. If you’ve enjoyed this debrief and you haven’t listened to some of the episodes we reference, we hope that we sold you on those, because they’ve been three great episodes. But if not, and you’re upset that the formal season is finished, we encourage you to go and visit our website, fuelingcreativitypodcast.com.

Matthew Worwood: On there you’ll find a collections page, and there you actually can find past episodes from all of our 12 seasons listed up there. And you’re in a great position to hopefully find something that is of your interest.

Cyndi Burnett: We also encourage you, if you have a topic that you think, “This has not been covered on this show before,” we encourage you to reach out to us at questions@fuelingcreativitypodcast.com, because we are starting to get season 13 guests lined up.

Cyndi Burnett: And so we are looking for topics that we haven’t covered. Because Matt, I’m determined to keep finding those, those little nuggets of interest that we haven’t talked about. So my name is Dr. Cyndi Burnett.

Matthew Worwood: And my name is Dr. Matthew Worwood.

Cyndi Burnett: This episode was produced by Cyndi Burnett and Matthew Worwood. Our podcast assistant is Ann Fernando, and our editor is Sheikh

Ahmed.