Welcome Reception at Radcliffe Knafel Center

Opening Plenary

Plenary Resources

• Plenary Slides
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Jim Reese
• Carlos Vasco
• Carlina Rinaldi

Rhythms of Inquiry in the Arts & Learning

The story of PZ’s influences in arts & education is at the core of the story of PZ itself. The role of the arts in education and the nature of learning in and through the arts – from PZ’s conception to current-day projects, including Arts Propel, Artful Thinking, collaborations with the Silk Road Ensemble, and more – have been central to PZ’s research. Participants in this session will examine questions at the core of this work and explore how the foundations of PZ’s arts-centered research may influence its future.

Assessment Reimagined

Assessment, evaluation, and documentation are essential to any teaching and learning process, and the way learning is documented and assessed directly influences what gets taught. Our re-imagination of assessment involves a number of “shifts” from traditional notions: assessment of process as well as product (when, what); teachers and students as protagonists in the assessment process (who); assessment driven by the most important goals we hold for students, whether numbers capture them or not (why); and assessment as a collective and relationship-building process (how, where).

Quest for Understanding

Project Zero’s research proposes a performance-based conception of “understanding,” i.e. understanding is the capability to perform flexibly with knowledge in novel situations. It goes beyond having the correct mental models, and is actionable and generative in further learning and in real life. Understanding includes the capacity for transfer, as well as the ability to restructure concepts rather than just add information. It is an agentive process, an on-going quest carried by the learner.

Interrogating Character

The development of good character has been a fundamental interest at Project Zero for decades. We’ve examined the issue of character, from its development in childhood to its realization at the workplace and in the broader community. In this session, we review key lines of research and also address the fundamental question: Is character better thought of as part of one’s identity or as a set of roles that one assumes, online and offline, throughout life?

Educating for Civic Agency

Project Zero’s research considers civic agency as a multifaceted capability, a set of skills and dispositions to support one to participate in today’s interconnected world. When we support learners to be effective and reflective agents of positive social change, we expand their notions of the who, what, and where of civic engagement, and prepare them for deep engagement in their communities, and with critical problems facing our world, both offline and online.

Three Waves of Creativity Research

Project Zero’s exploration of creativity can be described in three waves. The first wave identified creativity as an individual act of human invention, delving deeply into distinct portraits of creativity embodied by creative “giants”, as well as how breakthrough thinking and cognitive insight operate in the creative processes of artists. The second wave situated creativity within complex systems, exploring how knowledge and cognition are distributed across objects, individuals, artifacts, and tools in the environment. The current wave frames creativity as cultural participation, such as school cultures that value and support playful learning, or maker-centered movements that encourage learners to look closely, explore complexity, and find opportunity.

Better Thinking for a Complex World

We believe that good thinking is as much a matter of disposition as it is of skill. Motivations, attitudes, values and habits of mind all play key roles in good thinking, and in large part, these elements determine whether people use their thinking skills when it counts. Learning is a consequence of thinking, and developing a culture of thinking is critical if we want to produce the feelings, energy, and even joy that can propel learning forward and motivate learners to do what at times can be hard and challenging mental work.

Educating with the World in Mind

Every generation confronts the challenge of discerning what capacities and dispositions are the most important to nurture among its young people at a given moment in time. Today, given profound economic, digital, demographic, and environmental forces at work, promoting cultural and global understanding is clearly a priority at Project Zero. We see global thinking as the capacity to understand ourselves as well as people living in contexts different to our own; to make sense of the global issues of our times and take action toward societal wellbeing and sustainability; and to do so effectively and ethically in today’s digital landscapes.

Closing Plenary

Closing Remarks

• PZ50 Limerick

Toasts

• Howard Gardner & Ellen Winner
• David Perkins