Technology, Literacy, Creativity

Divergent thinking is the act of coming up with as many ideas or options as possible, and in creativity studies, divergent thinking gets a lot of love because it’s relatively easy to measure. Convergent thinking is the ability to come together and find the “ONE” answer for a given problem. Equally important for creativity but…

I’ve always been fascinated by the creative process and probably a bit more about how some people can’t seem to see their own creativity. Creativity and our ability to be creative and be productively creative can be strengthened. And this is huge for those of us who work in creative fields. I’ve been reading on…

Instructional Design is a creative act. One of the reasons that many instructional designers find their way into the profession is for this reason. And this also means that the creativity boosting pillars that work for other creative pursuits will also benefit instructional designers. Today I share one of the most classic and timeless. When…

There are many models that try to describe what happens to transform a group into a team. One of the more common and popular models is the Tuckman Model” Bruce Tuckman was charged by the US Navy to determine and describe this process and he came up with four basic steps that teams go through:…

To get projects done and be effecitve leaders need to have the ability to motivate others. And while it’s tempting to think in the carrot & stick mindset of the transactional leader and just offer performance bonuses. Those aren’t as effective as we’d wish. Once people are paid enough that they aren’t worrying about money,…

Out of all of the models of leadership, I find that servant leadership is the one that I resonate with most, and also the one I think resonates with most instructional designers. And that’s because we tend to have a “natural desire to serve others.” This natural desire to serve others is at the core…

There are many leadership styles worth looking deeper at and trying to emulate. Two of them are the Transformational Leadership style and the Situational Leadership style. Transformational leadership is when a leader identifies a need for change and brings that change about through inspiration. And there are four components that we can work on if…

There are a variety of leadership models and two of the important ones to know about early and to know the descriptions of are the laissez-faire model of leadership and the transactional model of leadership. They both have their place but are best left to small scale or short term situations. The laissez-faire model of…

Instructional designers often find themselves in leadership roles, even if they don’t have any formal authority in projects or situations they have an opportunity to truly be effective leaders. But there are some fallacies about leadership. First that people are “Born Natural Leaders” and second that Charisma has something to do with leadership. Effective leadership…

When I was in school I had limited leadership training, which was a bit unfortunate because of the importance for instructional designers to be leaders in their organizations. Most of the training I received was simply either on project management or some light interpersonal items. For me, I find that some of the traits that…