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

Cyndi Burnett:
And my name is Dr. 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 to infuse creativity into teaching and learning.

Matthew Worwood:
So let’s begin. Hello, and welcome to a new season of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast. We are super excited to have you listening or even watching us on YouTube.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yes, we are in season 10 of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast, and we have some amazing guests lined up for you this year.

Matthew Worwood:
And if I’m right, I believe that we, rather you, Cindy, will be posting a list of Those guests on LinkedIn either this week or next week.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yes, this week. So today when you listen to this, go to my LinkedIn page and you will see a list of our guests, our top 12 guests for this, this season.

Matthew Worwood:
All right, Cindy, let’s have some fun. We’re being brave. Do you know when we’re going to publish this episode off the top of your date? See, I gave you an opportunity there to kind of like, it might be this week or next week. You said, yes, it’s going to be today. Do you know when we release this episode? The exact date?

Cyndi Burnett:
Yeah, I don’t.

Matthew Worwood:
So now you put yourself. So now you put yourself under pressure. Just so we’re clear, our listeners. Cindy is committed. If you’re listening to this right, go onto LinkedIn and hold Cindy accountable. And please message her if she has not posted a list of those being interviewed. That was totally unfair. Start to season 10, wasn’t it, Cindy?

Cyndi Burnett:
No, I don’t think so at all because we have 11 of our guests confirmed and we’re just waiting for one more. So I am very confident that in two weeks when we release this episode, that we will have all of our guests named.

Matthew Worwood:
And one of the reasons why we’re organized, Cindy, is because we’ve got an extra team member and we should talk a little bit about her.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yes. So last year, Matt and I were presenting at the Learning and the Brain conference, and we had a woman who was there and she was monitoring our session for us. And she came up to us at the end and she said, you know, I’ve been listening to your podcast. I really love it, would love to Talk with you more about it. So this season, Katherine Fu is coming on as our creative producer. So we’re really excited to be adding Katherine to our team.

Matthew Worwood:
And she has done a great job in not just kind of organizing us for season 10, but kind of really leading the effort when it came to our first three episodes of the season, which we do need to talk a little bit about because they are different and our listeners are going to experience a little bit of difference in terms of sound and also video if they’re on YouTube. So why don’t we talk a little bit about our first three episodes?

Cyndi Burnett:
Yes. So our first three episodes are a little miniseries around gifted education and diversity. And what we’re aiming to do is to inform our listeners about that relationship between gifted education, creativity and diversity and how we can support students across the globe.

Matthew Worwood:
And what I liked about, you know, putting this as a miniseries, and it was your idea, Cindy, to kind of like turn these three episodes into a mini series. And it was quite like last minute you and I were going to the conference anyhow, and we were primarily focused on presenting at that conference. And then suddenly we were like, oh, you know what? This is an opportunity for you and I to better understand gifted an education. And then, you know, working with Catherine, she spoke about this idea of kind of exploring a diversity theme within gifted education. So I’m not an expert in gifted education, obviously, because the relationship it has with creativity, I’m familiar with it, but I certainly was less familiar with, with some of the topics of diversity, particularly in terms of identifying gifted and talented students. I also have always been fascinated about why we have different names. Is it gifted ed, gifted and talented. And as we will hear in the episodes, there’s a few other names that are referenced by the different states.

Matthew Worwood:
So I saw is a great opportunity to learn more about gifted education from the experts that were attending the conference. And I’m, I’m not going to kill it because we’re going to have our debrief. But I don’t know about you, but I certainly enjoyed that experience almost kind of being a student as we was interacting with these amazing guests.

Cyndi Burnett:
Oh, man, I feel the same way. And I remember us sitting there together across from our guest and how exciting it was to be with our guest doing the interviews. And the wealth of knowledge that each of those three guests brought really was mind boggling to me. And you know, as much as I’ve been an expert and you’ve been an expert in the field for decades, there’s still so much to learn. And especially when you start to branch out into different areas of creativity and education into something like gifted and diversity and twice exceptional, which was one of the expertise of one of our guests who really, I left that, that conversation saying, wow, I learned so much in that half hour of time with that person.

Matthew Worwood:
It was, it was, and I do want to do a shout out to Katherine because she went and looked at all of the guests and we reached out to, I think to four or five and we was able to, to make three work within the what we there we like for. I know I was there for what felt like 36 hours. So we really kind of like was bunched for time. But all three of the guests were sharing different perspectives or shall I say different topics that were connected together. But I think Collectively these first three episodes of season 10 is going to give our listeners a really good kind of intro into gifted education and all of the important topics that we need to continue to consider as we’re thinking about supporting this population in our schools.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yes. And Matt, I also want to talk a little bit about the newsletter. So one of my goals this year and I had more of the marketing side of the podcast and Matt heads more of the production side of things. So one of my goals this year was to release a weekly newsletter that showcased the episode of the week as well as I wanted to do something a little like and I’d love to show Shark Tank, but I love on Shark Tank when they say in season five of this episode we had so and so and here’s an update on their work. So we’re going to be doing that each week in our newsletter, not only sharing the episode and the highlights of that episode, but we’re also going to be sharing an update from one of our past guests. So whether or not they came up with a new article, a new theory, a book, anything like that, they might be presenting a free webinar that we share with all of you. So if you’re not subscribed to our weekly newsletter, please please go to our website@foldingcreativitypodcast.com you’ll see a pop up window. Or you could just look in the show notes.

Cyndi Burnett:
It’s a little bit tricky to find on Apple because they don’t have all the links. But if you go to our website fuelingcreativitypodcast.com you will find a pop up window that also you can sign up for our weekly newsletter. You don’t want to miss that.

Matthew Worwood:
And do you remember the name of this? Because I Love this addition you added to the newsletter and it keeps with our theme of kind of like fueling creativity, which always started with this idea of these coffee cup style conversations.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yes. And it’s also like coffee fuel.

Matthew Worwood:
So more fuel. Coffee, you call it. More. More. Extra fuel.

Cyndi Burnett:
Extra fuel, yeah.

Matthew Worwood:
That was great. I love that addition. That was a great extra addition. And, and I would do a shout out. What I like about the newsletter as well, Cindy, is it’s kind of like got a quick highlight of one of the latest episodes that, that’s come out, summary of it, linked to it, and then it’s got that, you know, more fuel or extra fuel section. And it’s not kind of like a really heavy read. You open, open the now and I want to say you can scan it within 30 minutes, 30 seconds or so. So I think you’ve done a really good job with the newsletter.

Matthew Worwood:
I’m certainly excited we’re doing, we’re adding more because our podcast, our website is getting in a better place as well because we.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yeah, Matt, why don’t you talk about that because you’ve been working endlessly on our website.

Matthew Worwood:
Yes, I did. So I, I was a little bit disgruntled with the design of our website back, you know, when, when we released it in May last year. So we went and kind of done a new redesign of the website which I think is, is a lot better. Better works just as well on a mobile device as it does on a website. But we also, you know, brought someone on to kind of make sure that we have all of our episodes. I think we’ve got all of our episodes from season three all the way up to season nine. And of course, we’ll continue to be releasing season 10 as well. We’ve run into some, a little bit of a slowdown with season one and two connected to show notes, but I think we’ll have season one and two up.

Matthew Worwood:
So we’ve got, in essence, over 200 episodes on this website now. And as a reminder, we’ve organized them into different collections. So, you know, these, these first three episode episodes that are focused on gifted education and exploring diversity topics, they’re going to represent a collection in our podcast. Obviously, one of the great things about these first three episodes, of course, is their videos. So you’ll be able to actually see us and see our guests live in this conversation. But the key point is, you know, whether you’re an emerging scholar or you’re a K through 12 educator, and you’re listening and really starting to get wanting to learn more about this idea of creativity in education, you can go to our website and you can look at it from a research perspective. You can go and look at it from a STEM perspective, an art perspective. Theater and education is obviously one that you and I talk a lot about.

Matthew Worwood:
So you’ve got all these different collections as well, which I think really has helped organized our content into specialized interests. And as we know, we’ve also covered a lot around the importance of being able to connect interests when it comes to creativity as well.

Cyndi Burnett:
And if for some reason you’re just catching up on the podcast, make sure you listen to our PLC episodes, which was our Listen and Learn winter series, where we covered four quotes from our season one episodes, and we talked about how you can bring them to your professional learning communities with whole debriefs that you can access right from our website. So that way, if you want to bring these conversations into your school or classroom or groups, you can do that.

Matthew Worwood:
All right. Well, I think we are now ready to introduce Season 10 more formally, which was recorded live at the national association of Gifted and Talented in Seattle in 2024. It was obviously the first time that we kind of recorded. When I say recorded live, all of our episodes are recorded live. But what we mean is on location with us together. So just, you know, I’ve noticed a few times we use the word we recorded them live. All of our episodes are recorded live. So when we, when we’ve referenced, we recorded our first live episode, what we mean is simply that we had actually been in the same location together.

Matthew Worwood:
So we were. We were there. What that does mean is we might have a little bit of interference with sound. We certainly had fun trying to find the best spot for. For our interviews, and we were moving furniture around in the conference and getting a few frowns along the way. But I think I’m really proud with what we got, and I think we are ready to introduce our first three episodes of season 10. So without further ado, welcome to season 10 of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast and our miniseries on diversity topics in gifted and talented education. Hello and welcome to another season of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast.

Matthew Worwood:
And we are kicking off 2025 season 10 with something we’ve never done before, because not only are we doing an episode in person, but we are at a national conference.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yes, we are at the national association for Gifted and Talented, where Matt and I just presented on Educating the Future Creative. And we have managed, while we are here in Seattle, to go visit a school and shout out to the Evergreen School.

Matthew Worwood:
And We’ve also done three amazing interviews for our three episodes of season 10. Who was our first guest?

Cyndi Burnett:
Our first guest was Aaron Fiers. Floyd.

Matthew Worwood:
And our second guest was Austina DeBonte, which was an absolutely brilliant conversation.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yes. And also the third guest was Jeb Puryear.

Matthew Worwood:
Yes. Another awesome conversation. And this is all part of a special series we’re putting together at the beginning of season 10. Three episodes that are exploring gifted education or highly capable students and DEI topics in education. And, Cindy, before we go, this is really important because one of the things that we do have to reference is we’ve done a subtle change. We still got for season 10, we still have three episodes followed by a debrief, another three episodes followed by debrief, another three episodes followed by debrief. And then. But we’ve done something different.

Matthew Worwood:
I’m not. What we’ve done. What we’ve done for season 10.

Cyndi Burnett:
Are we going to tell them?

Matthew Worwood:
We should tell them.

Cyndi Burnett:
Ready?

Matthew Worwood: [00:12:16]:
Yes.

Cyndi Burnett:
Okay. So we have changed up our final question. So instead of asking people, what three tips would you give to educators to bring creativity into the classroom, we have come up with a new question. And this question is.

Matthew Worwood:
You’re going to ask me the question. We’re still working the question. Now I’m flustered. It is, can you please tell us about your favorite creative teaching experience and why you felt it was creative? So it’s one story that we’re going to be asking all of our guests to share, and we’ve been testing it with the interviews here.

Cyndi Burnett:
And that’s not actually the question. The question still new. The question is, what is your most creative educational experience, either formal or informal, and what impact did it have on you? And why was it a creative educational experience? You’re going to be hearing stories from all of our researchers, practitioners, and educators coming up in season 10 on their most creative educational experiences.

Matthew Worwood:
And we’re not going to go. Shall I tell you why we’re not going to go?

Cyndi Burnett:
Why?

Matthew Worwood:
Because there’s something else that’s been really cool. Not only have we been able to interact with some of our listeners to the podcast, but also some of the amazing guests we’ve had on the show. But behind the camera is Jimmy Golson.

Jimmy Wilson:
Hey, how’s it going? I’m going to be the emerging scholar, and I’ll be looking at research that’s coming out on the cutting edge of creativity and education and writing up little articles on how you can apply it to your classroom.

Matthew Worwood:
So obviously, this is going to be an exciting season. We’ve also got a new website, by the way.

Cyndi Burnett:
Oh, yes, we do. If you go to fuelingcreativitypodcast.com, you can see our new website that has categories of all of our episodes. So if you’re interested in gifted education, if you’re interested in theater education and creativity, or if you’re a researcher, stem.

Matthew Worwood:
We’Ve organized these collections. You know, all of our episodes are organized by collections, which we think is a really good benefit of all of the interviews that we’ve had, being able to put them into collections. So that’s exciting, an exciting development.

Cyndi Burnett :
We’ve also got our newsletter, so we’re going to be much more active with our newsletter. So if you haven’t signed up for our newsletter, we’re going to be giving you extra bonus information in our newsletter once a month, just once a month, to share with you some of the insights that you can use to bring creativity into your classroom.

Matthew Worwood:
In essence, I would say that we’re modeling creative behavior, which is one of our actions for creativity. We’re trying new things. This is a little scary recording life. And we’re constantly trying to mix things up every season. So we hope you are going to enjoy this season. We hope you’re going to enjoy the journey that we’re going to take you on as we explore recording these interviews live here at a conference. There’s going to be some technology challenges that we’ve experienced, but we still hope that it’s going to bring you a really good listening experience. And before we go, and I think this is really important, is not only have we had opportunities to interact with some of our listeners, but also interact with some of the amazing guests that we’ve had on the show, which has been brilliant.

Matthew Worwood:
Yeah. But we also, behind the camera, have someone really special as well. So I’m going to go and I’m going to take the camera and I’m going to show our listeners who’s behind the camera.

Cyndi Burnett:
Ready?

Matthew Worwood:
Go.

Jimmy Wilson:
Hi, all. I’m Jimmy Wilson. I am the emerging scholar in residence at Fueling Creativity and Education Podcast. And what I’ll be doing is looking at some cutting edge research and creativity and connecting it to the podcast episodes and giving insights about how you can use that in your classrooms. I’m so excited to be working with Matt and Cindy. I’m classroom teacher myself for the past 10 years and English and creative writing, and I’m currently a doctoral student at the University of Connecticut in Creativity and education.

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