UEN Homeroom is back for the school year! In the first episode of the new Homeroom season, hosts Matt and Dani are joined by a team of Adobe Creative Educators who are inspiring educators to reignite creativity in the classroom. Listen to get expert tips on how you can encourage creativity with your students.
UEN Homeroom is back for the school year! In the first episode of the new Homeroom season, hosts Matt and Dani are joined by a team of Adobe Creative Educators who are inspiring educators to reignite creativity in the classroom. Listen to get expert tips on how you can encourage creativity with your students.
Adobe Creative Education Challenges
[MUSIC PLAYING] Hey, Dani.
Hey, Matt. How's it going?
Good. You know what's been on my mind this whole summer?
Oh, that could be a lot of things.
Yeah.
Hot dogs?
No.
Baseball?
Never.
OK, what?
It's been weird, but everything that I've gone to on conferences and everything I've been seeing all summer has been all about student choice and student creativity.
Ooh. I love that. That's way better than hot dogs.
It 100% is, and way more applicable to schools.
[LAUGHS] Fair.
And so I'm really excited to start out our season this year with a powerhouse group of educators who are all really focused on student agency, student learning, but then also teacher agency and teacher growth.
I love that, Matt. And I love the focus on creativity because it's so necessary, and I feel like it always seems like the easiest thing to take out from our lessons when we're overwhelmed. But it needs to be what we always infuse into our lessons, especially when we're overwhelmed.
Exactly. For our season 5 premiere, I'm so excited to welcome the Adobe Education Evangelist team, the entire team on the same call which is--
What?
--incredible to get them all in one place. So we have a great team of Lindsey Blass, Jesse Lubinsky, Martin Cisneros, Claudio Zavala Jr., and Wezi Thindwa. And so I'm very excited to welcome all of them onto the call with us and to jump into the podcast.
Let's do this.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hey, this is Dani from UEN Homeroom. Matt and I want to take a quick second to wish teachers, ed techs, coaches, support staff, and principals good luck this school year. At UEN, we always want to support the magical humans who make up our education community. That's why for back to school we're putting together a toolkit to help you do just that.
If you're looking for some ideas on how to add some creativity to your classroom or to grow connections with other educators or to embrace a new growth mindset, check out UEN's ultimate back to school guide for teachers at uen.org/backtoschool. That's uen.org/backtoschool.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We have a great room of educators today from Adobe's team. And we're going to be jumping in with them over the next couple of minutes. So what we want to do is have you guys go around really quick. We'll start with the first person on my list, which is Claudio. If you could do a quick 30 seconds in introduction of who you are.
Hello, everyone. My name is Claudio Zavala Jr. I'm one of the Adobe Education Evangelists on the Community team. And I've been in education for 25 years, and now doing this role. I always look at my watch to see what date it is, but I'm coming up to six months. So pretty excited to be able to work with educators and talk about creativity and all that. So excited to be here.
Awesome. Martin, tell us a little bit about you.
Yeah, so I'm also an Educational Evangelist with Adobe. 25 years in the game like Claudio. So I tell people I started off as a kindergarten teacher, and the only grades I did not teach are 1st, 2nd, 7th, 10th, and 11th. Principal, curriculum director, all the way to a chief technology officer right before I came on board with Adobe.
Awesome. Jesse, tell us a little bit about yourself.
On the same team with everyone here, Community Evangelism. I have also been in education for two decades, although I'm feeling so young. I haven't done 25 years. I'm like a baby compared to these guys.
So also same kind of path that Martin had. Classroom teacher, administrator. Right before coming to Adobe I had formed my own startup in the edtech space. So really just an amazing group to work with, and I'm really excited about all the opportunities we have to work with teachers and students.
Awesome. Lindsey, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Hey, all. Thanks for having us here today. I am Lindsey Blass. I am an education specialist on the same team as these fine folks. Started out as a 4th grade teacher for years and years and years. Then taught middle school math and technology and went from there to working in digital learning.
So up until four months ago when I joined the Adobe team, I actually was working in digital learning in San Francisco Unified. So partnering with all the schools across the district in how they leverage tech for teaching and learning, Adobe being one of those phenomenal tools. And I'm going to pass it back to you, Matt.
Wezi, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Well, I am a very passionate educator, and so I've just had the honor of being able to explore various roles in education. And this role is now-- I'm now officially four months in with Lindsey and Martin. So look at us being all veteran.
We-- [LAUGHS] so before this role, I just wore several hats in my previous school district over the course of 14 years, including being a 3rd grade teacher and specializing in English, working with English learners, technology facilitator, and equity and culturally responsive instruction. So I'm able to kind of fuse all of the above in the edtech space, which I absolutely adore.
That is fantastic. And I've got to say, it's nice to meet all of you. And just the energy that you already have is the best cup of coffee or shot of espresso I could have asked for on this-- [LAUGHS] yes, exactly. You guys all just seem amazing and wonderful.
And Lindsey, I have to say, I was a 4th grade teacher as well, and my son's going into 4th this year. So it is a very exciting time at the Sloan home.
So let's just jump in and get started. I want to know, how did you start to use creativity as an educator in your classroom? What spurred you to start being a creative educator?
I'll go ahead and kick it off, just because this is the top of my head. So my second year in teaching-- ready for this? I taught a 3rd, 4th, 5th grade combination class. I'm going to repeat that again. A 3rd, 4th, 5th grade combination class. We had 17 languages being spoken in our school, seven which happened to be in my classroom. So there were no extra materials, right?
But this was during that time-- oh, for you young ones, Martin started teaching in the late 1900s. So just to give you some timing [LAUGHS] on this, right? This was computers were brand new to schools.
And I tell people this because I was just that person, like, how can I engage my students? So back in those days, they would give out three free computers to every classroom, and not every teacher was really happy about having computers. So I went around, picked up the three computers from everyone.
Anyways, my classroom, which was a portable, looked like The Matrix because I only had two plugs in there and 1,000, of course, outlets going in there. And if you remember the old desk, they were the slanted ones. They're 45 degrees, the ones that were metal and wood.
And so what I would do is I would trap the kids with a 60-pound monitor in front, right? Which looked like an alien head. And then I would grab that.
And I just remember because I know English and I know Español, but there was five other languages I didn't know. So I remember my Spanish speakers every now and then they would say, Mr. Cisneros. And if you can't see this on video, I'm trying to pick my head out of what used to be a huge screen in front of especially fourth graders. What are [INAUDIBLE], right?
So I loved it because the question was, I don't know. I just know you guys love computers, so I'm going to figure out a way. But that was the beginning of, I know my students are going to need different strategies, not because they're multilingual learners, but because I had different outliers, right? Because our curriculum, no matter where you're from, they're built for a mid-student. And ladies and gentlemen, there's no such thing as an average student because we're all on the outside.
So that was the beginning of my time. I was trying to figure out, I need to learn as many different strategies as I can because I have no idea who's going to be in front of me.
I think honestly, I had a realization pretty early in my teaching career that if we weren't providing opportunities for students, creative opportunities for students, then we were limiting their experience. It really is-- as often as possible I would try and build in ways that my students had choice, both in their learning process and product.
And as I discovered different technologies that allowed this to happen, it went beyond, hey, everyone, at the end of this unit we're all making a poster, right? Because if I only expect my students to be able to live up to my vision of what's possible, then guess what? I get a bunch of cookie cutters that have reached all the limitations of where things are in my mind, and I never really discover their unique voice.
And I had so many students who already in 4th grade-- I'm sure, Dani, you were saying your students in 4th grade and especially when I taught middle school-- had started sort of capping what they thought was possible with their creativity and their creative skills. And so I really felt like it was my job to sort of rekindle that passion and reignite that passion towards creativity for my students.
So I would find tools that excite me. In Adobe, it's like the students could create web pages right away. They could create graphics, videos. And then I would say at the end of this unit, you're actually going to choose what it is that you produce.
And the products that I would see were just mind-blowing, because it actually was harnessing their passion, their talents, their skills versus my vision of what they could do. And so I actually view it sort of as an equity piece, that if we're looking at being able to elevate the voices of all students and then we're confining them to expressing themselves in certain ways and not giving them the creative tools that they need in order to express themselves, then we're not serving all of our students.
And so it became such a passion that obviously I left the classroom and started working directly with teachers so that I could do even more of it. But I mean, again, not limiting to my vision of what's possible. Some lessons that teachers have designed have just blown my mind for what they've enabled students to do creatively. It's really wonderful.
So I was-- similar to Martin's situation with The Matrix room, that was the same. It was really about-- it was getting scrappy with what I had in the classroom and finding different ways to, like I said, motivate students.
And I was fortunate to-- my principal was like, hey, would you be interested in being the tech liaison for the campus? And I said, yeah. And then we got grants, got computers. And I was like-- I made sure that I was in that group that got the computers.
And I started probably way before COPPA and all those different compliance-type things, but I used Blogger to create my own class blog and would have students in one of the stations go and just give feedback on something we were reading, a book we were reading. And they didn't realize that it wasn't going out to the world. It was just me that was reading it.
But just the motivation of hey, I want to go up there and I want to start typing my reflection on what I was reading. And so I would use that and start implementing-- everybody knows I love video and photography, so implementing that in the classroom and just getting scrappy with what I have really was just how I got started with implementing creativity in the classroom.
I absolutely love all the answers that we had going on there, but one of the things that I think a lot of teachers-- once they start using their creativity in the classroom, they start to think about-- they start to realize that sometimes the creativity fails, and they might get a little bit-- feel like they can't recharge their batteries. So as a creative, as a creative educator, how have you found ways to recharge yourself both personally and professionally for your work inside and outside of the classroom?
I think a big part of that is recognizing that creativity isn't this separate thing. It's not like creativity is this extra thing I have to do on top of the work I already do. It's kind of embedded in the work we already do. So I didn't really get into my whole history of creativity, but I'll just say I started off as a math teacher, so I think a lot of math teachers would feel like, well, there's no room for creativity in the math classroom.
But it's not about the lesson. It's really about you, right? Do you have a curious-- or a mindset of curiosity? Are you really-- are you always trying to push the boundaries and limits of what you can do to help improve learning outcomes for your students? That's really the starting point.
So when you talk about a slump, it's kind of like creativity is almost like this thing-- it's like that muscle, right? As long as you're working it out, yeah, you're going to have good workouts and bad workouts. I assume that I know what I'm talking about when I talk about the gym. I don't know what I'm talking about. So hypothetically, I'm assuming that if we work our muscle over time-- OK, Claudio's nodding, so yes.
So as long as you're constantly going back to it and it's a mindset that you have, yeah, you're going to have good moments and bad moments. But the truth is it's like anything, right?
It's like good pieces of art and-- when you feel like you're producing-- there's this example I often share with Picasso and Cezanne, right? Picasso was constantly producing all these works very quickly, rapidly, and Cezanne oftentimes wouldn't sign his name to a piece of work for decades because he wasn't happy with it.
And the truth is you're still engaged in the creative process, right? And so I think for our educators that are in the classroom right now that feel like creativity doesn't have a place in their classroom, the truth is you are creative. The art of creating the lesson plan is unique and true to the individual, right? So I think that's the thing to keep in mind. Just keep plugging away, right?
That's so-- that's so good, Jesse. We are, by virtue of our individuality, creative. And so it's a matter of when and how we tap into that inner creativity that is intertwined with our individuality.
I think going back to your question, Matt, about failing, that oftentimes in the classroom space there's so much that we can feel that we are failing at, and a lot of it comes down to what we're doing and what it feels like we're doing alone. So that failure is a result of taking on a lot of responsibility.
As a teacher, you wear so many hats. And taking on a responsibility, having such a high bar to execute, and then feeling like you're missing the mark with your students. And that's where the feeling of failure sets in. And so it can become a very lonely place to be navigating.
And so one thing that goes back to recharging, which is also kind of at the heart of creativity, is also fostering community, right? It's that creativity is also an opportunity for us to give of ourselves and to be connected with other.
And so in the classroom with students, I had a really powerful conversation a few years ago with my cousin and her husband. And we were talking about how schooling traditionally focuses on nurturing generalists, and most of us are specialists. And so when we feel like we are failing or failing students, it's like we haven't quite reached that student. There's something special and magnetic about each student. How can we reach that?
And creativity is not only the tool to bring out of students, but it's also the tool to get in and to figure out what is going on. And so when we are able to lean on each other in that community space to say-- to ask all the questions and to brainstorm ideas and to be able to go through trial and error as well in order to learn more about the students that we serve, I think that can help to not only rejuvenate us, but to give us more of a sense of accomplishment.
Because not only is our creativity an active means to reach our students, but creativity is also an active means to elevate them. And I think that ends up being an antidote to a lot of that feeling of failure.
I know the listeners at home can't see what just happened, but when Wezi first talked about that idea of creativity connecting with students, our whole team visibly reacted on the feed because I think that's-- even though you're hearing all of our different perspectives and our backgrounds and stories, I think the one commonality on our team is we all believe that creativity is that pathway toward connecting with each and every one of our students.
And that's why the focus of our work has been helping teachers embed the work they do with those opportunities for creativity for their students because we ultimately know that's going to be the only way. How many times have we walked in and said, OK, wow, I have 135 students. It's going to be impossible for me to make those personal connections with each one of those. And yet, that's what we're told to do.
But the truth is we establish connections with students by the respect we show toward the things they're passionate about and the opportunities we provide them. So that's where it does become important in our work to provide those opportunities because that's the way we show respect. That's the way we build those relationships. So I think Wezi-- Wezi basically summed up-- it's funny. The intersection of all the things that we all individually believe about creativity.
Thank you so much, Jesse and Wezi. Like you said, we all just kind of lit up, and your whole team was on the chat giving all the heart emojis, heart eye emojis. So thank you so much. And this question kind of piggybacks off the last one. So in that same vein, how does being creative help your own mental health?
You know, I always think about that. One thing I love about this group, literally when I first came on and I started asking, who's going to be part of this group, right? Because I always think about environment. As an educator, I try to make the environment a safe place, a fun place that is risk-free. And it's really the environment that you put in, that you make in the classroom.
And I think about this because I love to laugh, right? And similar to what Jesse and Wezi were talking about, it's like have to build that culture in which the students help you build it, right? Because year after year and teaching elementary, teaching middle school and high school where you go from having from 25 kids to 35 kids to having 135 to 160 kids per day, there's a lot of energy. There's a lot of fresh ideas that come every day.
I think for an educator-- and I just call-- you know, I don't even like calling us teachers anymore. I think we're all modern learning advisors, because that's what we are, right? We're all modern learning advisors in which we advise.
But we also are culture creators, and that's what we're doing in our classroom. So to be creative, it's really listening. I listen to my students, right? And similar to what Claudio was saying earlier, I too like poking around, finding out new technology. If you're looking at my background I've always been a science fiction geek, so it's always the possibility of the future, always the possibility of what can happen.
And for me, I know-- I come from a pretty decent-sized family, so I know what community feels like. I know that if someone older than you in your community, ask questions. You're going to learn so much awesome things from them, right? And guess what? The littlest one, they have a different way of looking at the world.
So it's always, how do you become the lead learner in your classroom? And from there, I always try to find the humorous parts because we all go through obstacles in life. But if you create a classroom in which the students feel safe so they can express themselves, they feel safe, and they can communicate-- and also feel safe so they can really show their genius.
So my motto has always been, no matter what I've done in my career, I tell people that my career is a love letter to human potential. And I love the fact that no matter where you're at, you can find that potential in any human, no matter what their past or present case is.
I love that, Martin. The connectedness of it. I mean, I think it brings for us, when we're together, almost like a healing time for us and almost just like, ah. It feels so good when we're together. And it just helps us. And I guess for me it's kind of refresh-- it is refreshing. And you kind of get a recharge. Your battery starts to boost up.
And I would say, Matt, to go back to your question of, how does creativity help, for me I would say just being out there, when you're working, you're sitting here doing something. You're like, I need to take a little break. I'll just go outside. And sometimes I'll take my phone with me. Sometimes I won't and just take a little relaxation break.
And then it's weird because then sometimes ideas start coming. Like, oh my gosh. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Oh, jeez. Let me run back and get my phone so I can start taking notes or-- [LAUGHS] or the whole time I left it out there. Or literally if I'm in the garage, I'll just grab a carpenter pencil or something and start writing on the desk so I don't forget what it is.
But I think that does help with just being relaxed. And for me, that helps my mental health in getting-- it's like recentered and just getting recharged, and just being around others who are like-minded. And for me, it's just like-- it's always like, ah. Refreshing. And I'll go back home and like, oh, I just had such a great time. And I'm like, I can't wait for the next time.
I just wanted to highlight some amazing things that was said. Martin, I just love the idea, the notion of as teachers being lead-- we are the lead learners in the classroom, and how that might shift the perspective to being a facilitator in the room.
And going back to the idea of just the wellness piece that a creative needs, right? Some barriers to creativity include tension and stress. And so what are these mechanisms and environmental factors that can help relieve tension and stress? And how can we create a space in our classrooms that really also relieve tension and stress so that they provide doorways and openings to creativity and cardio?
Just kind of having that awareness of what facilitates your ideas and what helps those ideas some through. It's like, that's a time of limited tension and stress. So I think that's a really good place to be intentional about and to really consider, what are some of the identifying stresses around you? And identifying your role in the classroom space. And where can you be most creative?
The other side of it for me was that creativity felt like a necessity, but it also felt like the pen that I was using to write my story. I often felt like my path in life, my journey in life was very different, and it was different in an uncomfortable way.
Like, I would be-- when I was younger I was told, there's an order to life. You need to be doing things in a certain way. And that trajectory just wasn't really fitting that well for me.
And then I realized that having creative outlets really allows me to hone who I am, and that my path is my path. And to be able to own that and to start to see some of those rough patches that happen in life in your path as part of your unique story.
And so to me, just being unique and really just owning who I am, that was done through creative outlets. And so I think that's a very empowering thing to have and something that can also support with self-care. Self-care is knowing yourself and being able to take care of yourself. And so being creative can allow you to better know yourself and know what you need in order to keep pushing forward.
Also, I love that, Wezi. [LAUGHS] My heart is exploding every time you speak. I just really-- I love this question so much, especially given the timeliness of it. I mean, we're coming-- you can't even call it a post-pandemic world yet, right? We're coming into this new world where we're living with the reality of what we've all just been through.
And for everyone, it was very different. A lot of us were living sort of a Groundhog Day. Maybe kids are too young to know Groundhog Day. It's an old Bill Murray movie. But you know, Groundhog Day where you wake up and every single day, it's the exact same thing.
And for some of us it was a good day. You know, I'm actually a secret introvert so I was like, yay, another day that I don't have to leave my house. This is wonderful. And then for other people, it was a really big struggle.
But I think a commonality that you saw across all of it was people trying to find creative outlets that would still inspire them and bring a little variety or something new or different. A lot of people baked bread. I'll be honest. I still don't totally understand that creative outlet and expression. Jesse baked bread.
I did a lot of backyard projects. I made like weird directional signs that I painted that were like, Puerto Vallarta this way, Hawaii this way. I think it's like we all tried to find our different creative outlets.
And when I think about creativity and the power of that in the classroom now that we've returned to in-person school, I mean, just think of how tragic that is for our students. If they walk in and each and every day it is Groundhog Day, it is open up your outline to page x and we will all do this and we will all produce this at the end of the day, right?
And I feel like it's our job to bring joy and inspiration to our students. And those opportunities for creativity, just like you saw with us breaking up the humdrum when we were stuck at home, is what we need to do in the classroom. We owe it to each other because it does. It helps our mental health. It inspires us and makes us want to be there, you know?
But it's interesting, Lindsey, because you brought up this idea of our creative lives outside of school and then in school. And I think that's part of the issue. I apologize if I'm stepping on the question for later, but it's this idea that I'm not creative. That's not something I do in school. That's something for outside of school.
And I think we talked about this earlier and this idea of creativity, this extra thing that I have to do. I already have all these other things I have to do. And that's part of our work really, has been to break down that idea and show, hey, the work you're already doing is creative in its own way.
I don't know if I would label myself a creative. I think if you asked me, oh, are you a creative, I'd be like, no. But I guess if I start to break down the things I do-- I have a podcast, I've written, I do-- but it's just the way we contextualize it for ourselves.
And I think part of our work is making sure educators know, look. We're not saying you should be doing anything extra. We want you to reframe the work you're already doing in a creative lens. And by doing that, it's going to open up all of these possibilities in terms of the permission you give yourself in your classroom to do things.
I think it often feels very weird as an employee of a technology company to go into a classroom and be like, hey, we know we're with a tools company, but we're not here to push tools. We're really here to talk about teaching and learning through a creative lens.
And that's kind of the push. Yes, we'll model using our tools, and yes, we hope you use our tools because we think they're the best tools to accomplish that goal. But really at the end of the day, it's about creating better opportunities not just for students, but also for educators because if they have better opportunities and are more open to it, that will in turn-- and we know how that works, right? It's exponentially impactful because every student they touch will then be impacted by that.
And Wezi, to answer your question, my sourdough starter did not make it. I could not-- I could not get it. I switched over to cookie charcuterie boards, which is a whole separate thing, but yeah.
Jesse, I would love to add to that. I love that idea of the whole thing that we're not creative. But we go back to, what are best practices? And part of what we want to do is, how do we give a voice and choice to our students, right? How do we allow them to show us what they know?
Because during the time that I was growing up, 99.9% of the time was Martin, you have to write three paragraphs to do this. I already knew. It's like, well, there goes my recess. Oh, Martin, you have to write three pages. And I'm like, well, I guess no Battlestar Galactica and no Knight Rider tonight because I have to do this stuff.
And I always told myself, let's give our students the voice and choice, but allowing them to show us what they know in a variety of different formats, right? I always think about-- it's like, oh, if they would just give me a microphone, if I can just turn on a video camera. Of course, back in those days you had-- it was like a 60-pound video camera.
But anyways, in today's world-- in today's world it's a little different, right? And I love, Jesse, that you said that we're not creators. But each and every one of us has that creator-- that whole creative spirit in whatever it is that we do.
Just the fact, I just-- I always think about the amount of choices we make as educators every day. And I don't care if you are an educator that is just starting out and you're reading the script directly from the teacher's book. There's something that's going to change in your day that's going to make you say, oh, I've got to make this choice.
And-- we make thousands and thousands of choices every day. So the fact that-- when people say, I'm not creative, I'm like, oh, yes, you are. You just haven't found what that is.
And by the way, just-- not to be a company shill or anything like that, but I think in terms of the conversations we have around our Adobe tools, I think sometimes we talk to teachers and they're overwhelmed with like, oh, but I don't know Premiere. I don't know-- I don't know how to use the tool, so I can't use it in my classroom.
And the truth is no one's asking you to. What we're saying is you're providing students exactly what Martin said. We're providing students with-- we want to say, you know what? You guys can create a film, and that film has to have these five criteria in it.
Well, who cares what tool they use? There's tools for every ability level. It's about having the right tool at the right place at the right time for every individual student.
And as educators, that doesn't mean we have to be the keeper of all the knowledge and the person who knows how to use every single tool. Kids find tools for themselves and can learn that way. I think it's breaking down that barrier and that thinking that I can only assign something if I know the tool. It's not about the tool. It's about the learning outcome.
That's so true.
That's a word right there. I do also want to acknowledge just the demand in the classroom on teachers and how overwhelming it can be to sift through all of the must do's, right? Have to have this in my lesson and this and I have to assess this, and all of the responsibilities that come with that.
And then just the conditioning of creativity being an add-on and how much of a shift that can be to see it as something that is more of a permanent fixture in my instructional preparation and planning. And so how do we create space for this to happen? How do we create space in acknowledging that there's going to be a paradigm shift for a lot of people to make meaningful creativity possible for our students every day in the classroom?
And there's a shared responsibility in answering that question. It's also in how we structure our master scheduling. How do we promote time for teacher teams to collaborate with each other within the school day? What are some of the timelines and demands that can allow for flexibility for student agency? Because if we're saying we have to standardize everything, that can be really difficult to then have individual measures for student performance along the way.
And so these are some more high-level conversations that also need to be had in order to acknowledge that it is a big shift for a lot of educators to then go back and say, here's where I'm going to be really mindful about infusing creativity and creative spaces for learning because we're talking about the highest order of thinking.
Creativity is capturing really deep, intense thought from students, and so that requires space. It requires space for learning, for students to grapple and wrestle with content.
And traditionally what we do is we give content and students have a set amount of time to give it back. And so there's a restructuring there too. So when we talk about methodologies like personalized learning, these are all really fantastic means to open up that conversation about infusing higher order thinking and practices that are tapping into multiple modalities for students to express their thinking. And that's really, really important for us to be able to do and to create space for at multiple levels.
I feel like everyone just gave their TED Talk on education, and I am so here for it. This has been amazing over the last 15 minutes. So many great, intense, wonderful thoughts about education. We're getting a little short on time, so we want to make sure we get to a couple questions. One of them is our kids question.
Hi, this is Kennedy from Cottonwood High School. What role does creativity play in STEM?
I feel like that's-- in some ways that feels like a no-brainer, right? Because oftentimes when we talk about STEM and the best way to learn-- people are commenting on project-based learning in the chat. But the truth is a lot of it is exploration. And doing that through that creative lens provides you with some of those opportunities for discovery and for really meaningful learning.
Martin mentioned before voice and choice, and I always talk about agency. And I think what we see with a lot of our students today, particularly Gen Z, is they want to be partners in the learning, not just recipients of what's happening in the front of the room. And particularly when it comes to a high-touch top-- or high-- a topic that requires such deep exploration like STEM or all those topics, as a former math teacher I can tell you there's a huge difference when you pivot to sage on a stage-- from sage on a stage to something where you're giving them those opportunities to actually explore in a meaningful way through a lens that resonates with them.
I'm going to share a little personal history here in regards to STEM because when I was teaching-- actually, when I was going through school, I remember there was a metal shop, woodshop. It had all those types of courses. And then when I went back to visit my woodshop teacher, oh, it's gone. We got rid of it because there's no budget for it.
But for me-- so I took drafting and woodshop. It actually helped me in my creativity because I basically designed furniture, and then I went and actually built the furniture. But I went through the whole design process. I went through the whole, like-- OK. And it's like, why is this not going to work? And then ask questions like, well, you have to figure this out. How is this going to fit here? Like, oh. OK. So I had to go back to the drawing board.
But I think that's such a perfect fit now. I love seeing how STEM is coming back to-- I mean, for years it's been forefront, and hey, STEM. And it's really exciting to see that because, hey, all that is you're learning the whole process of creativity. It's the whole designing something, going back, seeing that it doesn't work, and then going back and fixing it. It's reiterative. I'm trying to get that word out. But you're going back and figuring out, oh. But it's just that whole thing.
And the product is really not the goal, but it was the whole figuring out. So to this day, whenever I'm working on something, whether-- it's not even in woodshop. It could be video, photography, or anything. I'll always remember my woodshop teacher. Measure twice, cut once.
So I was like, I'm going to make sure before I actually do, it's like, OK. Let me go back. And it's just stuck with me in everything that I do, that little quote. But I'll fit it in with everything that I do. I was like, well, let me make sure. Let me go back and check it. But it was all about the process. And I'm excited to see how that fits into STEM.
To add to that, going back-- and similar to what Jesse said about living at the top of creativity. Wezi, I love the tip to the-- the tip to the [INAUDIBLE]. [LAUGHS]
Top of the-- blumes to you.
Top of the blumes to you.
Top of the blumes to you.
Yeah, yeah. I love that. So we talk about agency. But when I look at today, it's like, why all this stuff? Why STEAM? And I say this. It's like students of today need to learn-- when they think about agencies, they need to learn how to learn, to learn how to apply it to solve a real-world problem creatively because they have different challenges than what you and I have.
Although 1989 was a great year, ladies and gentlemen, the time has changed, so I can't teach those type of skills to my students unless they have a backward time machine. But in today's world, we have to teach our kids all these different things.
And not only that, but how do you tell your story to different audiences as well? And I think we're especially-- once again, like Jesse said, not to give kudos to our tools, but once again, it's not about the tool. We're about building the skill sets along the way. So by the time they get to high school and if they decide to go to university or they decide to build their business, if they decide to go to industry, they have the skill set to maneuver however they want.
And Fernando, I saw your message earlier about, yeah, if this is the first time-- you've never dealt with any of our larger tools, you open up Premiere, you're like, [SPEAKING SPANISH]. If you're like, what is all this stuff right here, because it's just so mind-blowing, right?
And for me it's like, no. If you're like Claudio, you took those-- you took those shops. You learn how to do something. For me, my favorite, Mr. Gilwell. If you're still alive, I love you, sir.
My 5th who then became my 6th grade teacher who showed me about shading, about drawing, about perspective, which was something out of the curriculum, but it was just those things, those hands-on things that allowed me to showcase my work in a variety of different ways, but also talk about, well, present this to a partner. Get iteration, right? Don't be married to whatever you build upon the beginning.
And I think when we look at STEAM, that's what we need to do is like, how do you do iterations, right? This is where we come back and talk about, how do we build a class culture where it's OK for students to fail in front of one another? Because all you're doing is you're iterating until you get to the success, whatever that looks like. But it might not even be a success. It might be the goal of this thing is the journey, not the end product.
Martin, earlier you said, so in order to do that, we would assign students-- you're going to solve a problem creatively. And I think what I worry about sometimes is when students hear that, they get excited. And when educators hear that, they get nervous because now they feel like, that's a lot of work and that's a lot of grading, and I don't know how to do that.
And I think this kind of brings this whole conversation full circle is it doesn't have to be, and it isn't a big lift to be able to do that. So all those things that Martin is talking about can be done very easily.
And I feel like that really for me at least is our work in a nutshell, is breaking down that for educators, is to show you're already doing it. It's just understanding how you reframe it.
STEM is a natural place for that to happen. But the truth is it needs to happen across the board, and I think that's kind of what we're-- those are the efforts that we're undertaking.
And I'm just going to jump on that, Jesse, because Martin, you said something that was just so powerful in that we want to create spaces that are-- where our students are able to fail, and then fail and fail and succeed. We want to do that the same way for our teachers as well, provide spaces for them to succeed and fail and fail and succeed in a way that helps to progress them as an educator.
And with that in mind, our last question today-- and Jesse, I think you've said it a couple times. Martin, you've said it a couple times. We're going to have you shill a little bit for Adobe for a minute. But if you were to say, this is the product I wish teachers could start out failing in and then succeed in in Adobe, what would that product be, and why would they use it in their classroom?
That's a really good question.
I love that question.
There's so many. I feel like-- [LAUGHS] there really is so many. [LAUGHS] I feel like-- can I just answer this universally for the five of us to say Adobe Express? Let's just get that out of the way right now. We want everyone using Adobe Express. That is the entry point tool for creativity. Everyone snaps. That's right.
So let's assume that we're all using Adobe Express, but then we could also add whatever Creative Cloud tool we want if there's something else. Personally, I mean, Character Animator is something I know that I'm really excited about. I know Claudio's excited about that as well. We'll talk about that arrow. There's so many.
And I think that goes to the creativity part, is there's something for everybody, right? There's a tool out there for everybody. And I think our recommendation always comes down to Adobe Express because that's the easiest-- what's so funny is when we do trainings in Adobe Express, we're not even doing trainings because we're literally showing it to you because it doesn't really require a lot of-- it requires no training. A teacher can pick it up and use it right now off the shelf. So easy.
And it's not like once you-- so Adobe Express for those listening who don't know, it's just creating-- it's free for K-12 and it's creating basic videos, graphics, and web pages, right? And it's not like once you've graduated from Express you never go back to Express. I was thinking when you were saying that, Jesse, what's my next-level tool, and it kind of tied back to Dani's question about mental health earlier.
I do find myself quite often on Saturdays sitting in the backyard, sketch noting in Adobe Fresco and drawing my trees, right? [LAUGHS] And I find it calming and fabulous and wonderful.
But then I'll take those images and I'll bring them back into express and add words on top of them, add graphics and other things. Make it into a video. I mean, so it's not like you graduate from Express, but Express is definitely the tool that we can all use to create today, to create tomorrow, to inspire us towards our other tools. Yeah.
And for those people who are listening who are like, that sounds a lot like Adobe Spark, it is. It's the same. For those of you who aren't familiar with Adobe Spark, Adobe Spark is Adobe Express. It's got a rebrand.
But for your students or for yourself, for those who have never tried it, I think Claudio said it perfectly in the chat. It's our gateway tool. If you're dipping your toes into a creativity tool for the first time, you couldn't ask for a better starting point. And the best part is it uses the same terminology and skills that are required in some of those more advanced tools.
So we're not saying, hey, Photoshop for everyone right now on day 1 with no training. No. But by using a tool like Express, it actually prepares your kids, your students for tools that are more advanced.
And for those students who are passionate about video, this is a great place to start. And then they find their way to those other products such as Rush and Premiere.
But I will challenge the Spark is Express, because I actually think that--
That's fair. That's fair.
As an active user of both--
It's more. It's more.
It's like now everything's under the one umbrella, right? But it's also that they've integrated a lot of the features from the Premium and Pro Tools like Photoshop or Premiere Rush, and they're right there within Express. So it's kind of like Spark plus.
Yeah. I use Adobe Express every day. And I know Premiere. I know Illustrator. I mean, I know all the other tools. I use Premiere a lot because of my videos, but Express is the tool that I use. Everything filters through Express before I share anything out. That's pretty much my workflow.
But any other-- another tool that I would say that someone can get into-- and using it, it's very-- I would say the learning curve is you can't mess things up because you can start over. It's great.
I love Adobe Lightroom, the mobile version, because you can get on the-- you can use it on your phone, desktop. You can use on a Chromebook because you can use a web-based version.
And you can play with pictures, take a picture with your phone, and then just go wild with just playing with colors. Because that's one of the neat things about that because again, you won't damage your original photo because you could just start all over. So if there's any other besides Adobe Express, because like Jesse said, we all agree. It's like, Adobe Lightroom is a really-- that's probably my second most used app.
I'm going to add on to that. So like Claudio, like everyone else, I always start with Express. But one thing I got into is creating soundscapes for films and more advanced stuff. And I love Audition. It's one of those programs that you can play with sound.
And I love the fact-- one of the things that-- I used to teach at the University of California in Santa Cruz. And I would have this deal where I would have all my students create their own-- what's your walkout sound, right? And one of them said that their uncle worked for some company that creates soundscapes for companies. And I'm like, wait, that's a job? [LAUGHS] Right?
But in my head is I tell students, part of going back to creating that classroom, music is a huge part. Sound is a large part, right? So having musical cues for switching instead of a bell, instead of the old-- it's like, these are transitions that we have.
And one thing I love about Audition is you can grab samples of sounds from different stuff. And what we would do, we used to do this with older tools, but having a soundscape as students are presenting information, right?
We talk about creating stories. And sound, you know, I go back to one of my favorite creators, this little guy named George Lucas and talked about these independent films called Star Wars. You guys might have heard of them. But one of my favorite quotes is sound is half of your movie. Sound is half of your story.
So I love the whole fact-- I'm the type of person that when I'm listening or watching a movie or whatever, I have the surround sound on in my side speakers. I'm just picking up on the sounds. I'm an audiophile in so many different ways, and that to me is my jam. It's Audition.
So I'm an OG Photoshop, though. When I moved to the States when I was in high school and moving mid-year, there were no electives left, so they were all full except for Computer Graphics. So in Computer Graphics, our go-to was Photoshop. And I ended up finding just a home in the Computer Graphics class and ended up staying there for the rest of my high school. Every year I just did the next level.
And to that point, to Lindsey's point about Spark plus, so as I was the edtech facilitator in my high school during distance learning, I was having to produce a lot of things in a tight amount of time. And the Spark Express was my go-to to knowing that I would have a beautiful product in a way that was really kind of quick.
It was kind of like-- it's the power of the template to be able to just remix and create backdrops for our website and to send out information [INAUDIBLE] because there was so much information at that time. Going back to spring 2020, oh my gosh. So much information coming out. And it was like, how do we distinguish this one piece of information from all of the others? So that's what I was using for my communications as well, was putting things-- running things through.
And it was also helpful for me because it just made it more fun to just take something that was a little bit more dry and add that spark to it. So I really appreciate that-- you see what I did there? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And I'm proud of that one. And yeah. So Express, as Claudio says, that's something that-- I am in Express every day and I always highly recommend that.
And then going back to your original point about failure because I think this is truly important is establishing this idea of the failure being part and parcel of our process for growth. And so we talk about this growth mindset a lot for students, and we also need that for teachers.
And what that implies for if you're a principal in a building, assistant principal in a building, anybody who conducts walkthroughs in the building, you lead departments in your building, you're a teacher in the building, it's important to build in questions that are really helpful to nurture that environment of, I don't have to do this perfectly the first time, or any time, really. It's just a matter of, what is my growth going to be?
And also establishing norms with your students that says, we are always going to ask-- this is going to be a classroom where we try things. And because we're trying things, we're going to do a lot of reflecting. And in that reflecting, here are the questions that we want to talk about.
What's working for us? What's making us feel like capable learners? What's making us feel comfortable in this and safe in this classroom? And what's not quite working for us? What can we tweak, or what can we adjust? What can we add?
And when we establish a culture of inquiry in that way, I think then that allows room for that feeling. So those who are going in to observe teachers, it's not, I'm coming in to check off that you are doing all of these things as stated here, but that we are actually engaging in coaching conversations around, what are our look-fors and what will we do when we don't quite hit this mark?
And what's next for me? And how can I keep building? And those are really important practices to embed as routine into school norms, into school culture, and into classroom norms as well.
Yes, Wezi. That was so powerful. And I think administrators need to hear that and teachers need to hear that as well, that we're just not on like whatever this standardized plan is, because like you said earlier, that fits none of us, and we all need to be creative and growing and doing more new and exciting things. And it'll be good for all of us, not just teachers, but students as well.
And I think as an educator and also as a parent, I've learned that speaking up and expressing my failures and expressing when I've been wrong is so powerful not just for me to grow and be better, but also for my kiddo to see that adults are not infallible. We are all humans who are growing and learning and doing better.
You guys are magical. I am so glad to have had this time with you all. So thank you so much for taking the time to come and chat with us and share your enthusiasm on our podcast here with all of the educators in Utah and beyond.
Thank you for having us.
Yes, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
This has been a lot of fun, so thank you for bringing us together. We got to play together! Yay!
Yes.
Yay!
Loved it.
Yes, you made--
How lucky are we? We get to hang with-- we get to hang together all the time.
Yes. [LAUGHS]
It's amazing.
I think Dani and Matt and crew are going to start hanging with us too.
[LAUGHS]
Any time. We'll be there.
[LAUGHS]
Send us the Zoom link and we'll be there.
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I've said it before, but how magical were those humans?
I can't believe that team. They're so-- they were doing a TED Talk basically as a group, and they hit so many things that I think are important to K-12 education, to teacher wellness, to the science of learning, to processing information. And then at the core, creativity and how we approach creativity as human beings. And just-- it was fantastic.
Fernando, one of the things that we saw in the chat but also then they mentioned in the recording was that you were doing some stuff with video. And I know Adobe's kind of your jam, so creativity in Adobe, like, where do you sit on this, and what do you think of what they were saying about both of those things?
Well, you know, this episode was really fun to listen to and sit in. And I was just kind of in awe to listen to these professionals that work with the tools that I work with and that I've been learning for the last 12 years.
So one of the things that I share with teachers whenever I do a workshop for them here in Utah is that the first time I ever opened Premiere Pro, I was so overwhelmed with it, with the program, with all the features and everything that I immediately closed it and I had a mini panic attack--
[LAUGHTER]
--because I thought to myself, this is too much. I can't learn this. This is too-- this is going to be too much of a learning curve for me.
But as I said in the chat with the Adobe team is that I learned that this is a tool for my creativity. And I got that from our conversation that basically all of the software that they provide is our tools for creativity, for students to share the things that are in their minds, right?
And one of my favorite things is that-- I can't remember who said this, but someone said that teachers are not teachers anymore, but they're modern learning advisors now. That was my favorite thing of the entire conversation.
I loved that. And I still have the same feeling when I open some of Adobe's tools. Like, ah! Immediate panic. I don't know what to do with my hands. But get in there. Click the buttons.
I have to say for me, one of the tools that I use most regularly is Adobe Fresco because it's a drawing and illustration tool, and I can use it to draw notes or to make Christmas cards. Just any of those little things. And it's not scary.
Yeah. Mine recently has been-- because we're kind of pushing for some reels in our job and things like that has been Adobe Premiere Rush. I used to-- like, I loved Premiere. Don't get me wrong. Crashes sometimes, though, on me, which is a pain.
[LAUGHS]
I think that's more my computer. But Rush is just incredible. It walks me through the whole process. Makes it really easy to create a great little video that's the right size and shape for everything I'm doing.
And so what I love about Adobe tools is that, yeah, it looks super intimidating, but it's pretty hard to break them, just like we would break Google or something else like that. And so my thought process has always been, especially with Photoshop when I was learning that was, I'm going to click things, see what happens. If I don't like it, Control-Z is my best friend. And then I can just walk through it again.
And so I think for a lot of educators and a lot of students, if we adopted the mindset of we are just going to do this and hope for the best and then see what happens because that can really create some interesting spaces, it would be a really great starting point for that failure, success, failure, success, and then perfection and success model.
Yeah.
Right. And students might not have that anxiety popping into Adobe tools. It might be a really fun adventure for them. So teachers, learn Adobe Express. Be able to teach your students one way to do something creatively. Provide that scaffold. But then set them free and give them some choice to create what they will to share their knowledge with everyone.
And you don't have to be the expert in the room. The teacher doesn't need to be the expert in the room. Get some videos. Ask some people. Reach out to these wonderful people in the Adobe Evangelist team and see what kind of things that they would recommend because there's some great programs like the Adobe Creative Educator program that you might want to check out as well. So there's lots of ways where you don't have to be the expert, but you can lean on other people to provide those choice and voice for your students.
And one thing I always tell the teachers I talk to whenever they start with Rush or Premiere or any other software that they've never used before is that you can do this. It's just a tool. It's just a software. You're not going to break it. And you can absolutely do this. Definitely going to be a learning curve. It's going to take a little bit of time. But trial and error and you can do it, right?
Right. Yeah, go into it with an open mindset. Don't go into it saying, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this. Just give it a go. You've got this, teachers. You do way harder things all day, every day. [LAUGHS]
100%. Well, thanks for listening, and I'm so excited to get into this season. I think it's going to be-- we've got some great episodes lined up, and I think they're going to be really cool for the larger education community, but also our educators here in Utah.
Matt, you're not wrong. This season is going to be so exciting for all of us. So thanks, team.
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