Creativity In The Classroom Analysis
What is creativity? According to the dictionary in my computer, creativity is the ability to use the imagination to develop new and original ideas or things, especially in an artistic context. Ideally, any classroom in any academic institution should facilitate this no matter what subject is taught, no matter how many students attend, no matter what; there are no exceptions. To our dismay, this is not a utopian world. Indeed, there’s certainly a “gap between faculty and student expectations that leave the both parties unfulfilled” as mentioned in the essay “Creativity in the Classroom” by Ernest L. Boyer.
In the essay, Boyer claimed that “if faculty and students do not see themselves as having important business to do together, prospects for …show more content…
Information was presented that often students passively received. There was limited opportunity for positions to be clarified or ideas challenged” (p 86). In my undergraduate days, since every one of my classmates was registered for all the mandatory 28 credits in a semester, we used to have eight fifty-minute class sessions a day, six days a week. The instructors used to lecture for most of the time. Naturally, it was hard for the students to concentrate and maintain focus all day and all week. Only when the class had turned a bit noisy with all the student chatter, did the lecturer ask questions randomly to get the students’ attention back into the class. Most of the time, the lecturer would only assume that the students were following his/her lecture. Only some students were able to follow the class but no one ever cared about the students who fell behind. Those students who fell behind were left behind. The students who felt a bit confused with the concept being discussed hesitated to ask questions, fearing humiliation in front of the whole class. Some lecturers were only concerned with maintaining low decibel levels in the classroom. They ended the session satisfied if they had accomplished the task of maintaining low decibel levels. The success of a class session was not measured in the number of students understanding a particular concept, but was attributed to lower student decibel
In the essay, Boyer claimed that “if faculty and students do not see themselves as having important business to do together, prospects for …show more content…
Information was presented that often students passively received. There was limited opportunity for positions to be clarified or ideas challenged” (p 86). In my undergraduate days, since every one of my classmates was registered for all the mandatory 28 credits in a semester, we used to have eight fifty-minute class sessions a day, six days a week. The instructors used to lecture for most of the time. Naturally, it was hard for the students to concentrate and maintain focus all day and all week. Only when the class had turned a bit noisy with all the student chatter, did the lecturer ask questions randomly to get the students’ attention back into the class. Most of the time, the lecturer would only assume that the students were following his/her lecture. Only some students were able to follow the class but no one ever cared about the students who fell behind. Those students who fell behind were left behind. The students who felt a bit confused with the concept being discussed hesitated to ask questions, fearing humiliation in front of the whole class. Some lecturers were only concerned with maintaining low decibel levels in the classroom. They ended the session satisfied if they had accomplished the task of maintaining low decibel levels. The success of a class session was not measured in the number of students understanding a particular concept, but was attributed to lower student decibel