The Creative Classroom with John Spencer

We’ve all been there before when we were students. You’d hear the dreaded words “group project,” and immediately begin calculating the additional work that you would need to do to keep the group afloat; especially if the teacher chose the members. You check the list of names on the board. You’ll be with the drifter, […] The post Three Ways to Boost Collaboration in Student Projects appeared first on John Spencer.

When my middle son was in the third grade, he volunteered to share a joke with a big audience at a family camp. As I watched him standing in the line with older kids and quite a few adults, I felt nervous. What would happen if no one laughed? Would he be crushed? Did he […] The post Seven Things That Happen When Students Share Their Work appeared first on John Spencer.

If we want students to think like artists, entrepreneurs, and engineers, they need the chance to design real projects. But this also requires students to learn how to engage in project management. The following is a short video on the project management process: Listen to the Podcast If you enjoy this blog but you’d like […] The post Five Structures for Helping Students Learn Project Management appeared first on John Spencer.

I was born in the Ice Age, when Ice Cube, Ice-T, and Vanilla Ice were all the rage. If you had told me as a child that Ice-T would someday play a cop on TV, I would have thought you were crazy. As a kid, my biggest technology concern was making it through the Oregon […] The post Ten Old-School Tech Skills Your Students Never Had to Deal With appeared first on John Spencer.

If we want students to develop into critical thinking, lifelong learners, we need them to develop metacognitive skills. Metacognition is vital for helping students become self-directed learners (both self-managers and self-starters). It will help them navigate the complexities of a changing world and it will help them as they engage in creative work. In this […] The post Five Ways to Boost Metacognition In the Classroom appeared first on John Spencer.

  Listen to the Podcast If you enjoy this blog but you’d like to listen to it on the go, just click on the audio below or subscribe via iTunes/Apple Podcasts (ideal for iOS users) or Google Play and Stitcher (ideal for Android users).   Exploring Game-Based Learning For the last two weeks, I have worked with on a team of […] The post Seven Reasons to Pilot a Game-Based Learning Unit appeared first on John Spencer.

In a previous post, I explored this idea that every student deserves a makerspace. In this post, I look at some of the most common myths I see regarding makerspaces. Listen to the Podcast If you enjoy this blog but you’d like to listen to it on the go, just click on the audio below […] The post The Seven Myths Keeping Teachers from Designing Makerspaces appeared first on John Spencer.

When I was a kid, I used to spend hours playing Tetris. I would zone out everything else and hit a state of hyperfocus. I was fully engaged. I could spend hours playing Tetris. Over the years, the trending games have changed. I may or may not have created my own fair share of Sonic […] The post What Can Video Games Teach Us About Instructional Design? appeared first on John Spencer.

I recently wrote about the power of rest to increase productivity and creative thinking. For that reason, I also want to share a phenomenal resource from my friend, Angela Watson, that empowers teachers to make this a reality. She also has a summer planning guide you might want to check out. Listen to the Podcast If you enjoy this […] The post The Difference Between Being Busy and Being Productive appeared first on John Spencer.

Last summer, my son started an online writer’s workshop. Although it fizzled by the end of the summer, there was a period where they were all working on a collaborative story and writing their own editorials back and forth. This wasn’t a school-sponsored activity. It was a spontaneous act of creativity. But actually, it wasn’t […] The post Three Reasons to Try Video Prompts in Your Classroom appeared first on John Spencer.

 Schools often hold a narrow view of creativity, relegating it to the art room and maybe some fun crafts in class. Sometimes “creative type” is used in a derogatory way. It’s the teacher with the messy desk or the craft supplies scattered all over the room. Or it’s the opposite. You know the type […] The post The Seven Types of Creative Teachers appeared first on John Spencer.

We know feedback is important. But what happens when students ignore it? In this article and podcast, we explore how to integrate feedback into every part of the learning process so that students can increase in metacognition during their PBL and design thinking projects.   Listen to the Podcast If you enjoy this blog but […] The post Seven Strategies for Improving Student Feedback appeared first on John Spencer.

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to deliver an opening keynote and closing talk for EdEx, a conference in Eindhoven (in the Netherlands). When Jochem first shared his idea of a weeklong design expedition, I imagined teachers working in a makerspace, designing a product that would mirror the type of work they might […] The post Using Design Thinking to Innovate in Your Own Practice appeared first on John Spencer.

I want to make something clear before we dive into this topic. I made huge mistakes in classroom management as a teacher. I let certain disruptive behaviors go unchecked because I was tired and I didn’t want to put out another fire. I had moments when I shamed a student or yelled at a class. […] The post 5 Myths About Classroom Management in PBL appeared first on John Spencer.

The Astrodome was a modern miracle, a Space Age wonder, with a glass dome, high-tech air-conditioning, and the world’s biggest scoreboard. When it opened in 1965, reporters dubbed it the “8th Wonder of the World.” (Wilson, 1965) This was the future. No more bad weather or quirky dimensions or anything else that made baseball messy […] The post Ten Vintage Ideas to Spark Innovation in Your Classroom appeared first on John Spencer.