Generativity in teachers

Quick thought about what separates some of the best teachers (and professors) from the rest, particularly when it comes to using technology: generativity. I've now seen it in enough teachers (ex: MR@BMS) and pre-service teachers (KL@UVA) and professors (JP@NCSU) to recognize it.

Sure, a good teacher is a risk-taker, knows his or her content area, students, curriculum, is clear and fair in interactions with students, etc. But if, on top of that, the teacher is motivated to create learning materials and situations, then the amazing things happen.

Examples:

• Creating peg-board and tags to teach geographic regions
• Creating virtual theater for explaining the staging of Pygmalion
• Creating custom videos and dynamic graphs to explain air pressure and temperature

True, off-the-shelf materials can be used. But when a teacher takes the time to customize or custom-create materials, they generally become more powerful--at least for this teacher and these students.

Plus: A generative teacher is probably going to engage students in more active, student-centered, generative activities.

On the other side: A non-generative teacher is probably more inclined to be transmission-oriented, which lends itself to students tuning out, egocentric fallacy, all kinds of other not-so-optimal dynamics.

So: Watch for this.