To Foster Creativity, Let's Rethink Our Model

Who's more creative?

Author Tom Wujec tells us in his TED talk, “Build a Tower, Build a Team”, The Marshmallow Challenge: a collaborative task where team members are asked to build the tallest structure possible out of a select group of materials. He reveals that out of all the various age groups tested, kindergarteners are typically the most successful, outperforming most post-grad students in both structure height and creativity. 

Younger children have a more unhindered thought process, one that isn’t limited by past experiences and fear of suggesting something too radical. As Toffler Associates describes*, when the kids are able to think for themselves at their own pace, “they are inclined to develop completely fresh solutions to a central problem”; they approach it as interdisciplinary, “not linear and results focused”. 

As I touched on in my last post, the “Four C’s” are the ideal 21st century blueprint for teaching our students and for hiring employees who add value. Companies are scouting for candidates who not only display strengths in these categories, but can think for themselves and utilize these skills to elevate their peers to create thorough solutions to problems. 

Creativity, just like playing basketball, is a skill. It needs to be practiced in order to be improved. The first step is to find an environment where the skill can be practiced. At Huddle Up, we created a purpose built platform where the goal of learning moves beyond comprehension - and into creating a solution with content. It’s why we say learning needs to move from “What do you know?” to “What you can do with what you know?” 

     

HuddleUp users bridge the connections between all of these newly created solutions. In this customized environment, HuddleUp defies the standard linear and results-focused process of learning by encouraging the users to learn from their peers’ creativity and strengthen their own perspective on the problem at hand. 

Then, we let each user leverage the power of interactive feedback to improve their solution. 

If we want learners who can create effective solutions, then we need a platform that focuses on that goal.   

 

With Huddle Up, we have a platform that goes far beyond the video-and-quiz model. Finding the "right" answer (comprehension) is only part of the journey. The primary goal asks learners use knowledge in order to create an effective solution - as evaluated by others - in an authentic, customized environment.

It’s a model that mirrors how we learn in the real world.  And, it’s one way we strive to meet our mission to transform online learning for individuals and organizations through a more purposeful, interactive environment.

Derek
CEO, Jetlag Learning, creators of Huddle Up Learning

* https://www.tofflerassociates.com/vanishing-point/why-kindergarteners-always-win-the-marshmallow-challenge