Can you teach creativity?
And, if you can, can you teach it online to
44k people?
Well, I was crazy enough to try this.
And I'm going to tell you about my experiences
right now.
And I'm going to start out with a short video
- it's forty seconds long - giving you a snap
shot of the first assignment I gave in this
online class.
Folks in the class had to design the cover
of their own auto-biography as a way to introduce
themselves to the class.
And the reason I did this is that so A) they
could stretch their immaginations - even in
the first assignment so they could share a
little bit about themselves with other people.
But also for them to see that everything in
the world is ripe for innovation and creativity.
So, how did this class work?
It's actually pretty simple.
It starts out - each class - starts with a
short lecture.
A short lecture about five minutes long.
Okay?
But guess what?
To make that five minute lecture, it takes
about five days - really highly produced,
really well thought out.
The lecture might be on re-framing problems
or challenging assumptions or connecting and
combining ideas or how to work on creative
teams.
Then, there are readings to support it.
There are discussion groups online.
But most important, there's a challenge!
Every week there is a challenge.
Sometimes there's a challenge for an individual,
sometimes for a team.
And then the students upload the results of
their work - just like the photos you saw
for the book covers.
But the most important thing is that everybody
evaluates everybody else.
It's essentially crowd sourced rating.
Now, I create a rubric - essentially a guidline
- on how to evaluate these assignments and
I do several of them so people can see some
examples.
And guess what?
The more you evaluate, the more feedback you
get!
The most interesting and most valuable part
about this is you get to see thousands of
examples of solutions to the same problem.
In a class at Stanford where I might have
forty students - there are teams of four so
there are ten projects, you get to see ten
solutions - here you get to see hundreds if
not thousands of solutions to the same problem.
So who's in the class?
It's folks from under eighteen to over eighty.
From over 150 countries and most of them - half
of them women, half of them men - but most
of them have college degrees.
And, in fact, quite a lot have advanced degrees.
These are folks who want to keep learning
just like you showing up here to learn today.
Folks who come to these online classes are
hungry to find ways to continue their education.
But there are some interesting challenges.
There's a huge range of technical literacy.
There are those folks who are digital natives,
who essentially show up and they exactly know
to do, they know how to make videos, they
know how to collaborate online.
But there are those people who are coming
to this for the first time.
In fact, one of the most interesting things
I found is that's actually one of the most
important things people learn in the class
- is actually how to learn, how to use these
online tools.
In addition, people are motivated to take
this class for lots of different reasons.
Some people actually spend twenty or thirty
hours a week working on this.
It becomes a key part of their life during
the course.
Whereas others are tourists - it's quite interesting.
They're really interested in finding out about
this new world of online education and they're
there auditing.
So what I've learned is that teaching in an
online class is quite different then teaching
at Stanford.
When I'm at Stanford teaching, I'm on a surfboard.
And I'm pretty experienced at teaching so
those waves come in and I can ride them.
When things happen that are surprising, I
can usually figure out how to deal with it.
But when you're teaching in an online class,
you know what happens?
You're on a cruise ship.
And when you see an iceberg, you will hit
it!
I got really used to hitting icebergs and
there are surprises every single time I've
done it.
For example, in the last version of this class,
I had the students form their own teams.
Great!
In my mind, a team is three to seven people.
Well, some people in the class thought that
was three hundred to seven hundred people.
And so what happened is all of a sudden I
realized that some people had invited everybody
in the class to join their team and so we
ended up with towns as opposed to teams.
It became very difficult to unravel and now
I know I have to put that in as a guideline
the next time I teach the class.
I also learned that I need to give individual
assignments first.
This is critical.
Because the first time I talked to the class,
I did what I would do at Stanford and I instantly
threw folks on teams.
But guess what?
Because people have different levels of commitment
and some people are just auditing, you don't
know who's there.
So you need to do an individual assignment
first to see who is actively involved.
And in fact, in my last online course, fifty
percent of those people who did the first
assignment actually finished the course.
But there were quite a number of people who
didn't do any of the work, even if they signed
up.
In addition, you need to break the assignment
into smaller pieces because it really gets
rid of the ambiguity and the places where
people can have misunderstanding.
But most important, I need to deputize the
entire class.
Because I can't possibly as one person answer
all the questions that are coming my way.
So I essentially say, "Listen, collectively
all of you know much much more than I do about
a lot of different things.
So if you see a question that's been post
and you know the answer - please answer it!"
And here's what happens: a number of people
bubble up in the online class who are students
but also become the de facto TA's!
And so you end up with a whole collection
of folks who are helping each other.
And it becomes an amazing online learning
community.
So I find that my role and the way I think
of myself is "Chief Instigator" in this class.
I get things going and then see what things
happen.
So let me tell you about one of the assignments
to give you a little taste of what happens.
In the last class - final team project - the
theme was pets.
And so what the folks in the class had to
do was pick a problem related to pets.
Any problem they wanted.
They had to frame the problem, they had to
brainstorm as a group, they had to come up
with at least one hundred solutions, they
needed to pick their favorite solution, they
needed to prototype it, they needed to test
it, and then they needed to create a creative
story to communicate what they had done.
Here's one of them, as an example.
So, one of the things that's so fun about
this is that there's so much room for experimentation
here.
And we're at the beginning of a world where
we can innovate incredibly about education.
And I find that the things I learned teaching
this very extreme example of an online class
has definitely affected the way I think about
teaching my class at Stanford.
The wonderful thing is that even though we
are in the early days, students say that this
is an incredible, meaningful learning experience.
Folks say this has brought meaning to their
lives.
They've gotten inspiration from working with
folks from all over the world.
And really changing the way that they think
- education in general - and some people feel
that this is the powerful learning experiences
they've had.
So I want to invite you to my next experiment
- okay?
Starting this Spring - in fact registration
opened yesterday!
- I'm doing a new online class.
It's creativity - music to my ears.
We're partnering with Warner Brother Records
and they're bringing really big name artist
and music executives to the table so that
we can really use the class as the focus of
looking at creativity in music and how we
look at music in all of our lives.
There's no necessity for any musical talent
- I certainly don't have any - and looking
forward to something very exciting.
The other thing we're going to do is we're
going to create a code so that anyone whose
affiliated with Stanford in any way can sign
up with this code so that you can find other
Stanford students and alumni who are participating
to join teams with them and also to see their
work.
I hope you'll join this adventure and, remember,
creativity rules!
Thank you!
