Check out Chris’ Podcast: Hey Teachers! Let’s Innovate Education
Creativity is undervalued, misunderstood, and underutilized even though it’s considered to be one of the #1 skills needed in the contemporary and future economy, which would cause you to think it should be a priority in schools, but it’s rarely taught if ever specifically and purposefully. Thanks to Sir Ken Robinson we all know how schools kill creativity, but how many people actually understand what exactly is being killed? How purposefully do you teach creativity to your students? In this session, participants will explore the nature of creativity from multiple points of view and processes for the high school classroom experience. We remove the curtain covering creativity, define it, break it down, talk about how neuroscience illuminates creativity as the main function of the human brain, how collaboration and imagination are fundamental to human intelligence, and more, while using resources such as the Everything is a Remix videos, Shots of Awe, and more.
Chris Sykora, Deerfield High School, is the Co-Creator and an Executive Board Member for the IHSAE. He holds a Masters in Educational Leadership, with a Principal Endorsement. Chris has served as the Secretary and Advocacy Taskforce Chair for the Illinois Art Education Association. All of these roles have included coordinating and leading countless meetings and presentations with key legislators and education leaders to enhance visual arts experiences for students in Illinois. With a social constructivist education philosophy and passion for the arts, Chris has led numerous project-based and interdisciplinary projects and workshops with numerous teachers and outside organizations, while advocating for STEAM, Design Thinking, and SEL curricular systems in school districts; bridging intersections across disciplines, learner communities, and democratic policy. He recently launched the podcast, Hey Teachers!with the goal of innovating education systems because it’s long overdue.