I am in Plymouth, England, for a week, as a part of our off-campus MAET program. I spent time today with the first year cohort, talking with them about creativity in teaching (with our without technology). One of the short (5-10 minutes) activities they completed around an hour into the session was writing short poems about the creative process. Here is what they came up with:

Step by step (to be creative!)
By Miguel Herrera

Step by step… Uh baby… have some tips to be creative in this world
Step by step… uh baby…if they work, would you please let me know….

Step 1: to be NOVEL is fun!
Setp 2: if it’s not EFFECTIVE they will boo!
Step 3: Sir, would you like some tea?
Step 4: it has to be WHOLE… That’s it… I’m done….

…Would you please let me know!!!!

The New NEW
Alyssia and Katie

There once was a teacher with technology,
Who tried some creative pedagogy,
She tried something new,
And it went askew,
So she used the NEW methodology!

There was once a man from msu
From Drew, Tara, and Larissa

There was once a man from msu
Who came to us with something NEW
It wasn’t a novel effective or whole
But learning from him was quite brilliant and droll

Be creative
Cathy Emery

Be creative, quick! go! now!
You don’t need HTML know-how
How can you make a purple cow?
Weird teapots make us go wow!
Change comes quickly now..
Ciao

Knowledge
Consuelo Salazar

Jumpin’ Jesus is upon us
He started slowly
But, as we meet in the present,
His face is blurred by
The flying debris of technology
soaring between us.

They also took a moment, or two, to search for letterforms in the world around us…. here is what they spent their time discovering.