Discover how education innovations can produce astonishing results in student success both in and out of school. The educators featured in this book were motivated by the conviction that even the best status quo education was not serving current student needs. They responded with radical changes that tap into recent ideas about educational…

The Division of Physical Education at North Texas State University includes a section relating art and movement as part of a required seminar. Students study the creative works of others, familiarize themselves with the use of tools, and then develop their own individual projects. (JMF)

Ideas are offered for in-depth projects that foster individual creativity and production in elementary and middle school gifted students. The projects cover various topics in the areas of charting, essay writing and theme writing, journalism, graphing, politics, speech, government, biography, history, state history, investigation, and industry.…

A course taught at Pacific Lutheran University (Washington) encourages students to transform inner creative energy into an expression of their changing, developing identities. Students make shrines to their childhoods, create models, or costume themselves to express their inner lives. (MSE)

This paper describes techniques for helping business administration students to explore their creative unknowns by rewarding them for creative thinking and risk-taking in the development of a real business, even if the business failed. The role of trial and error in learning and creativity is explored, along with the importance of sustaining…

A competitive art project which involved high school students in creating a hamburger out of any kind of materials they wanted is described. The results were very creative. In one related activity, students were asked to write a creative hamburger recipe. Some of the rather curious results are reproduced here. (RM)

This article describes a seventh-grade physical education class project that called for definitions of 21 terms such as human movement, dance, rhythm, time, space, etc. Individual projects included booklets, movies, photomontages, scrapbooks, and posters. (JMF)

High-ability students in grades 3-8 received lessons in organizing a creative investigation and were then compared to control students not receiving the lessons. The most important variables predicting whether the student initiated a creative investigation were membership in the experimental group and pretreatment self-efficacy scores for creative…

Presented are 15 ideas for projects which require gifted elementary or middle school students to study a topic in depth. Ideas are in an easy-to-use "reproduce, cut, and distribute" format. Ideas are intended to foster individual creativity and production and cover such topics as plantations, insects, stars, telephones, bridges, and space. (DB)

An activity-based curriculum enables intermediate-grade children to pretend to be explorers who have discovered land. Students create a country by constructing a land map, formulating a constitution, determining an appropriate form of rule, and so on. Students learn how each aspect, from terrain to climate, creates ramifications leading to a…

Described is a voluntary museum program where instructors teach science, math, and technology through art. Activities that can be used as "hooks" to get students interested in the program are provided. Topics include privacy and personal space, imaginary worlds, toys, behind the scenes, fads, friendly materials, humor, and the imagination. (KR)

A project which involved 11th- and 12th-grade art students in creating a "Jackson Pollock type" lyrical action painting is described. As a result of the project, the students gained a freedom of expression which was evident in their subsequent art projects and a tolerance toward twentieth-century art. (RM)

Offers techniques to make book reports a more meaningful experience for students. Suggests guidelines for book selections and for what the students should look for in their reading. Lists alternatives to traditional book reports that allow an evaluative approach to reading and provide an opportunity for creativity and critical thought. (DK)

Describes a six-week seventh-grade project in which students create their own continent. The project helps students learn about weather and climatic patterns, use map scales and legends, describe relationships between natural resources and human activities, solve problems, and work effectively in groups. (Author/KC)