Contagious Creativity
Ask most people to share a joke and they’ll find it hard to dredge one from their mind. But once one person tells a humorous story it is amazing how it triggers the mind so that the jokes and funny yarns flow.

Creativity is like humor and telling jokes—so contagious! I mentioned earlier at the start of this creativity series the effect upon me when I emailed scores of theological educators asking, “What creative things are happening in your world of theological education?” The barrage of responses was encouraging, even exhilarating and they got my creative juices flowing.

Share Your Creative Ideas
If any of these articles have helped you to identify something creative going on in your world of theological education, do jot it down and fire it to me for posting. It just might be helpful to others.

Fresh Assessment Ideas
Anthony Petterson shared earlier about an experiment: Learning and Assessment by Journal Writing.

Tim Bulkeley wrote comprehensively about the creative idea to get his students Performing the [OT] Text.

Rowland Croucher offers these ideas on the assessment theme:
* The DMin students I taught at Fuller Seminary were excited by the idea of writing a chapter for publication in a devotional book (in the Still Waters Deep Waters series) as part of their class-work. Their efforts were not simply to collect dust somewhere but provide spiritual nurture to many others.

* My own DMin dissertation was published as a book, together with a kit comprising DVDs, discussion questions etc.

* A Presbyterian theological student in Melbourne uses his acquired learning to edit Wikipedia articles on the topics he’s studying. He’s worked on about 20+ articles already.

* Others engage with people on Usenet newsgroups (see http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/16255.htm), blogs, etc.

Spark any thoughts in your mind?

Dr. Geoff Pound

Image: Write or edit an article for Wikipedia—now there’s a good idea.