The Creative Teaching and Learning Toolkit

Description

This book aims to help you become a more effective teacher through a new teaching and learning framework which centres on creativity. Inside you will learn how to use creativity to reinvigorate teaching across all subject areas, inspiring learners to reach their potential. Through a highly practical and inclusive approach, the book equips you with a range of common-sense strategies and tools designed to build on your existing knowledge and skills. They include: * An easy to follow five-stage framework for effective teaching and learning that presents clear and fresh thinking about what helps learners succeed * Over 200 strategies, tools and tips to enhance your creative thinking and that of your students * Diverse case studies showing how other teachers have used creativity to enhance their teaching and get the desired results The book will help you make the transition from a talented teacher to a truly creative teacher, and will help you to rediscover the joy of teaching within the contemporary classroom. A companion website for the book is available at www.creativityforlearning.co.uk

Brin Best is a former geography teacher and head of department. He is now an education consultant, award-winning author and trainer based in the UK. Will Thomas is Managing Director of Vision for Learning and CEO of The Institute of Educational Coaching. Will holds a Masters degree in Mentoring and Counselling and is an accredited coach. He works regularly with teachers, leaders and learners to support their progress.

This book is timely and refreshingly engaging. Forget your preconceptions of collage and mime; this book looks at 360 creativity, from the perspectives of pupils, teachers and school systems. This book is about real change, not just about new teaching initiatives. In the introduction it identifies creativity as the principle factor that binds together all effective teachers; and states loudly and clearly that effective teaching enables better learning. Having acknowledged this, the book becomes a blueprint for teachers who wish to push themselves and the system to create significantly better opportunities and outcomes for children and young people. At one level it provides practical pedagogic approaches to exploit and enhance pupils' creativity; such as encouraging pupils to generate and share analogies and metaphors relevant to them when they learn new concepts and processes. At another level it outlines creative approaches which can be employed to change the climate for learning by translating values into action, for example with respect to the ways that teachers communicate with pupils. Attention is also paid to teachers' learning; promoting an understanding of the qualities of effective teachers, and highlighting the value of creative and reflective thinking in individual and school development. The book concludes with a valuable self-evaluation tool (also found on the CDRom accompanying the book), and a glossary of buzz-words. -- Rachel Lofthouse, Learning & Teaching Update "Whether you are a student teacher starting out, or an experienced teacher looking to spruce up your teaching methods, then The Creative Teaching and Learning Toolkit needs to be on your bookshelf... It has an impecible pedigree, being built of the pioneering work of Eric Jensen, Colin Rose, Alistair Smith and Barry Teare, and places creativity and innovation at the heart of teaching and learning but is still 'rooted in academic rigour'... This is the beauty of this co-authored book; it brings together the best teaching approaches aligned with performance coaching, so that being creative in the classroom becomes natural for both teacher and learner." Classroom, Spring 2008 Listed as the 9th out of the 10 top titles for newly qualified teachers Headteacher Update, 1 January 2009 -- Lisa Donegan 'A larger and an extremely diverse collection of activity ideas.' -- The Teacher Trainer