CREATIVE TEACHING 2

Creative Teaching: Designing Creative and Culturally Relevant Instruction

Part I: Audience and Rationale:
Overview of the Class
Grad
e
Subject Numbe
r of
student
s

Age Gender Ethnicity Disabilities

7 Science:
Photosynthesi
s and Food
web

24 12-
14
Year
s

 13 male
students
 12
female
student
s

3 Hispanic
8 African
American
2 Asian
6
Caucasian
5 two or
more races

 2 students
have
Learning
disabilities
 1 student
has an
emotional
disorder
 1 student
has a
moderate
intellectua
l disability

Part II: Outcomes:
The project-based learning will be based on the topic of photosynthesis, food webs, and
the flow of energy through an ecosystem.
Classroom objectives:
Enable students;
 To learn how energy transfers within an ecosystem through the food that they eat.
 To learn the chemical equation for the photosynthesis reaction.
 To learn the relationship between levels in a food chain, consumer, and producer levels.

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 To create a simulation game based on photosynthesis and cell respiration.
The project will help students learn and enhance 21 st -century skills. First, it requires
students to b creative in the implementation. To complete the project, students will create a
simulation that will show the process of photosynthesis and how energy flows in a food chain.
Creativity is a 21 st -century skill that relates to the learning process and helps in the production of
high-quality work. Depending on the student’s level of creativity, they will be able to create a
project that is excellent and one that will stand out. In the process, students will sharpen their
creative skills. According to Hanif et al. (2019), creativity produces novelty, and this plays an
important role in helping students develop other skills such as originality, fluency, flexibility,
and originality. Through project-based learning, such as the example provided in this paper, the
teacher’s main role is to strengthen the student’s creativity. This is achieved by providing the
necessary facilitation, guidance, scaffolding, as well as materials needed for the implementation
of this project. The students, on the other hand, play a significant part in the implementation of
the project. They are given the opportunity to take charge and control the learning process, make
certain decisions entailing the pacing of the project and be able to evaluate the outcomes of their
efforts and contribution to the implementation of the project.
Further, the project allows the student to enhance their collaboration skills. It provides
communication tools that support the interaction among learners, as well as between learners and
the educator. It also allows for scaffolding where individual learners are helped by the educator
in cultivating specific skills that they may be struggling within certain phases of the
implementation of the project. The project is designed in such a manner that the teacher first
introduces the topic and helps students identify their specific roles in the creation of the
simulation. Students then work collaboratively with their peers to implement the project. Further,

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students will watch a video together, and this will form part of the computer-based scaffolds that
will help in the simulation.
The project will be done in a culturally responsive manner. First, as the students create
the simulation, they will be placed at the center of the learning process, and the effective
implementation of the project will largely be fueled by their curiosity. Students will control the
process of learning, and the role of the educator will be largely to support and facilitate the
learning spaces. Students will be engaged throughout the project as they take part in a
“productive struggle” where each will bring out their best to the team to make the project
successful. Students will focus on concepts and knowledge that involve the process of
photosynthesis and the flow of energy in a food web and then bring these out through simulation.
Part III: Context/Instructional Description:
The project will be based on the topic of food webs and photosynthesis. Students will
collaborate with each other and create a simulation game. Individual students will take various
roles in the creation of the game and act as individual organisms from different strata of a
simulated ecosystem. To create the game, students will put together the required resources for
photosynthesis and cell respiration. They will then compete for these resources and engage in
predation as occurs in the real world. They will compete with other organisms in the simulation.
Central to this project is creativity. Every step of the process will require students to
engage their creativity skills. For instance, in the initial process, as they gather the resources to
be used in the simulation, they will creatively select them as they will be required to gather
resources that will be competed for. Resources used must be ones that the organism, in this case,
the students themselves, will compete for during the simulation. Further, throughout the process,

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students will be prompted by word problems, graphing exercises, group work, and thought
experiments. All these activities will require students to be creative in completing them. For
instance, during the simulation, they will collect data on the population of the organisms in the
game at different phases. They will need to graph this information and compare and explain why
the population changed or remained the same throughout the game. They will provide an
explanation in relation to energy flow and food webs as this is the main topic on which the
simulation will be based.
Part IV: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.
The students will be involved in the creation of the simulation game. They will take roles
and act as organisms. By so doing, they will be actively involved in the construction of the
knowledge that they will be consuming. The lesson can be taught without necessarily
implementing the project-based learning approach. However, the aim of using this approach is to
ensure that students take part in the process of constructing the knowledge that they will be
consuming. Their role is an advanced one where they are not mere consumers of knowledge
where they play a passive role. Instead, they are actively involved in the learning process.
Students create the knowledge that they consume through the facilitation of the educator. In this
project, the teacher will introduce the topic of food chains and photosynthesis. The students get
the general frame of reference on which to found and build on their project. Students will then be
provided with a brief introduction to the game and a short reading. As they read, they will get a
better understanding of what the game will entail. They will then be asked to prepare themselves
to play put the roles as explained in the brief introduction of the game. The educator’s main role
is to introduce the concepts and the game to the students. From there, they then collaborate with
their peers in creating the game and evaluating the outcomes.

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Project-based learning is founded on experiential learning and constructivism education.
It is an instructional approach that reflects the principles of learner-centered teaching (Kim,
2019). By helping the students create the simulation game, the educator will be using interactive
and constructivist teaching strategies. The educator will create an enabling environment where
learning will take place. Students will engage in authentic communication, collaboration, and
cooperative learning. Accordingly, their language and content learning will be enhanced.
Constructivist education, as explained by Vygotsky, considers the process of constructing
knowledge and learning as social processes (Kim, 2019). Consequently, experiential learning
takes place according to the experiences and interests of students. As different students work on
the project, they interact with each other and their peer’s belief systems. This enhances their
cultural integrity and awareness.
The process of creating and playing the game helps maximize academic success through
relevant instructional experiences. For instance, during the game, organisms, in this case,
students, are assigned specific tasks. Each is given sixty seconds within which they must
complete the assigned task as many times as possible. The ability to complete many tasks
increases an organism’s survival and chances to reproduce. Bins will be distributed around the
classroom. They will contain various resources that organisms will need to complete assigned
tasks. Some of these resources will include sunlight, water, carbon dioxide, and oxygen. The
resources will be represented by small plastic balls. Each resource will be represented by a ball
of a different color. There will also be bins containing additional resources. Students will be
given an opportunity to trade resources with what they will have collected if they need them to
reproduce. For instance, if a student will be playing the role of seaweed, which must use
sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to photosynthesize. They will dispose of oxygen in the

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atmosphere. Thus, a student playing seaweed will collect these resources as they are necessary
for its survival. On the other hand, crabs eat seaweed for survival. Thus, students playing the role
of crabs will ask seaweed for plants through “hunting” as that is necessary for their survival.
Further, for cell respiration, seaweed will require oxygen. They will need to remain hydrated
hence requiring water. Playing the game maximizes the learning opportunities. Students get a
chance to interact with each other, learn, and do so in a creative manner. Throughout the game,
students will learn how different organisms photosynthesize. They will also understand cell
respiration processes for different organisms and the interdependence that exists within a food
chain.
Further, the project helps in understanding the students’ cultural knowledge. Hammond
(2016) defines culturally responsive teaching as “an educator’s ability to recognize hat student’s
cultural displays of learning and meaning-making and respond positively and constructively with
teaching moves that use cultural knowledge as a scaffold to connect what the student knows to
new concepts and content in order to promote effective information processing.” The creation of
a simulation game taps into the students’ cultural knowledge. Students are in a safe space where
they interact with each other and learn. As they do so, the teacher allows for social-emotion
connections as this helps students to share their cultural knowledge. The teacher gets an
understanding of the student’s cultural knowledge and is able to use the newly acquired
information to devise a more conducive learning environment for each student. For instance, a
student who has been to the sea will be best placed to take the role of a seaweed. They have seen
the organism and have a brief understanding of its environment and what it needs to thrive.
Understanding a student’s cultural knowledge in this scenario is an effective strategy of learning.
The educator does not want to just learn more about the students, but rather to use that

CREATIVE TEACHING 8
information to design instruction and the project in a way in which the student will learn the
content while still being able to tap into their cultural knowledge.
Lastly, the project demonstrates how best an educator can create a learning environment
by tapping home and community resources. The aim of the project is to create a project-based
lesson that is accessible and affordable to both educators and students. This is best achieved
through tapping into home and community resources for ease of implementation. For instance,
the plastic balls used as tokens in the game are cheap and easy to find. Using school funds, the
balls in the project can be bought. They cost not more than eighty dollars, and this includes even
the ones that may get spoilt during the game. Besides, the balls can be stored for future use in
replicating the project with a different class or set of students. The project requires twelve bins,
which can also be purchased to sing school funds. School resources, in this case, are community
resources as the school is the community within which the students learn. The organisms
themselves were the students. Thus, the resources needed for the project are easily accessible.
Students were given an opportunity to tap readily available resources.
Part V: Creativity/Innovation Strategies.
The project nurtures the student’s confidence to try. They create a simulation through
which they show the processes that take place in the real world as photosynthesis takes place.
They show the flow of energy in food webs by acting as organisms and replicating real-world
occurrences. Students are afforded the opportunity to apply skills and concepts learned in class to
create an authentic project. They try to replicate or simulate events in the real world. As they do
so, their confidence to try is nurtured. Eisner states that confidence is an important aspect of
learning that should be nurtured. When students are confident enough to try, they are able to
solve real problems in the world by trying out different solutions until they find the one that

CREATIVE TEACHING 9
works effectively. The author states, “Judgment is not mere preference, but rather the ability to
give reasons for the choices that we make…To cultivate this quality, the curriculum needs to
consist of problems that permit judgment” (Eisner, 2004). When students are engaged in
different authentic projects, their confidence t try is fostered. They are prepared for the future
whereby they will be able to deal with different problems that do not have one definite answer.
The educator acts as a facilitator by engaging the student’s young minds to reflect and become
intrinsically motivated as they go through the learning process. They are strengthened to take
charge and play a central role in the learning process.
Project-based learning is a model that allows students to create a connection between
what they learn within the classroom and what takes place in the real world (Eisner, 2004).
Education is meant to lead students out and expose them to the endless opportunities that they
can use to create a connection between what is important to them and what exists in the world
out there. By so doing, the students are guided on how to cultivate and nurture the connection.
The construction of effective learning strategies is one of the ways through which students find
this connection (Eisner, 2004). Through this project, students are asked to create a simulation
game. As they create the game, they will be encouraged to experiment and try out new things. It
promotes inquiry. Since students are at the center of the creation of the simulation game, they are
allowed to make as many mistakes as necessary for their learning. They are also allowed to
experiment with their creativity. The project creates enough space for students to experiment as
they engage in activities that contain educative content. They will not just make mistakes; they
will make them as they learn. The game is aimed at helping students reproduce what happens in
real life. They will take the role of animals and replicate energy flow and predation as happens in

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the real world. As they do so, they will have an opportunity to express and share the knowledge
that they have accumulated over time in different areas of learning.
Besides, as students create the simulation game, they will be encouraged to express
personal ideas and feelings. Students will take part in acting out different animals. The
development of the project creates an open and comfortable learning environment where students
are free to develop a voice in the curriculum. Students can communicate individual perspectives
on the game and take part in a discussion on which role they feel suits them best and what they
can do with their individual roles to help in the successful completion of the project. The project
is aimed at helping students learn as they acquire a sense of self-confidence. They become
“resource persons” in that they gain skills that empower them to provide valuable information
that is necessary for creating the game. Students are empowered to share information and
communicate their ideas as they work together to achieve a common goal, which in this case is
the creation of a simulation game.
Lastly, the project will help students convey an understanding of the different phases in
creative work. Students will work in groups, and through cooperative learning, they will gain a
sense of power and take charge of evaluating the various phases through which the project will
be completed. The project will take different phases during which students will gather data on
the population of the organisms. They will then present the data in graphs and provide an
explanation for their changes in the population. As they do so, they will demonstrate an
understanding of the occurrences at the different phases of the game. Further, as they provide an
explanation of the outcomes at different phases, they will demonstrate an understanding of the
key concepts of the topic.

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References

Hanif, S., Wijaya, A. F. C., & Winarno, N. (2019). Enhancing Students’ Creativity through
STEM Project-Based Learning. Journal of Science Learning, 2(2), 50-57.
Kim, M. K. (2019). Project-Based Learning Experience in the Construction of Intercultural
Knowledge. 현대영어교육, 20(2), 1-18.

Maniates, H. (2016). Culturally responsive teaching and the brain. Multicultural
Perspectives, 18(2), 118-120.