Useful Tips for Nurturing Student Autonomy through Creative Communication

Students across the nation have become increasingly familiar with technology use in the classroom, and more educators are implementing transformative experiences involving technology. Since 2020 as schools have become more hybrid and students have taken on a role as more independent learners, teachers across the U.S. are hoping to achieve more fulfilling experiences with technology for students that go outside of the unmemorable -online textbooks, filling out worksheets, and math games. 

We know students are falling further behind each year, and teachers are desperately trying to find a way to invoke drive and get students involved with their own learning with each passing report. As seen in the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), nearly 50% of students are behind grade level in at least one subject and every year (since 2010), fewer students are enrolling in a postsecondary program. Students are becoming less connected to the purpose of education and the relationship it has with the world around them. 

The key to curating an authentic and highly independent learning experience in the twenty-first century should involve technology, considering the climate of today and the interests of students -but the monotonous routine isn’t working. Students desire a creative and autonomous approach to learning that suits their needs and interests, as well as a bridge between their valued intrigue to their educational environment and community.

The presence of student disinterest is due to a lack of connection and autonomy in their own learning. Student investment depends on how you decide to implement technology as an educator.

An amazing source when considering implementations of technology in the classroom is the ISTE Standards for Students (and Educators). When combing through the standards, the 1.6 Creative Communicator Standard stands out as the best guideline for curating more creative expression and collaboration in your classroom. Educators who keep this standard in mind prioritize student autonomy through creative expression in their pedagogy and go beyond the mechanical approaches to implementing tech in their classrooms.

Under this standard, students would be able to have more choice over what projects they do and how they would present them using tech tools, thus investing more in their own education and allowing room for creative expression. Under this standard they would be able to create models and visualizations of complex concepts without requiring physical materials, opening up the range of possibilities in terms of what they could design. The iterative process of refining a project under these circumstances allows them to also build on skills and content knowledge with more empirical evidence, paralleling improvement in students’ overall performance as active and independent (lifelong) learners. They would also be able to share their work with an audience, which aids them in connecting the content they’re learning to the context of the real world.

Teachers may be unsure of where to begin the process of implementing creative communication in their classroom, concerned about fostering classroom management with tech, the ethics of using technology, and getting students interested in looking at technology as a tool for learning and not just a distraction-cube. The best way educators can begin this process is by evaluating the intention or purpose of this implementation in their own classroom and then modeling that specific process of creative expression and communication to their students. Sharing an artifact you’ve worked on relating to your content area, highlighting your personal objective in creating something with technology, and embracing criticism from your students on work you’ve done can open up the space to more vulnerable interactions in the classroom and connect individual purpose to content. Removing the “should” and “have to” mentality from creative projects like this and instead highlighting your own intentions behind creating something allows student outlooks to shift.

Removing the "should" and "have to" mentality from creative projects can be dismantled by highlighting your own intentions as a person behind creating a digital artifact. Modeling your own creativity allows student outlooks to shift.

How to Model the Creative Communicator Standard as a History or ELA Educator

The Creative Communicator standard can apply across a broad range of content areas and grade levels, and as a Pre-Service Teacher for Middle Grades ELA and History, there are an abundance of ways to specifically nurture creativity to connect them to the main ideas and objectives you may have as an educator. If you are a pre-service teacher, you may have experienced some of these approaches as students, as songs have been remixed to cover a historical narrative several times, and there are plenty of video essays on incredibly niche historical topics -most of which have been presented in classrooms.

A major way to model a more creative approach in your ELA and History pedagogy is to become a storyteller, which can be augmented by visual assets through technology. I think most students at that age would be interested in campy and melodramatic narratives, and currently, students at that age engage in a lot of digital content that focuses on storytelling synchronized with sound effects, references, and aesthetic cues. It may take additional time to plan out the technological aspect on top of the workload of writing out your storyline, but over time as educators, you will fine-tune and implement new strategies as you learn alongside your students. 

Additionally, allowing students to investigate the plethora of media resources in the Public Domain (maybe relating to a specific period or unit) and interpreting those sources through a FlipGrid allows students to communicate their opinions and share information in a more TikTok-style before they may be ready for Socratic Seminars or just to enhance their own contextual knowledge.