Creative+Profile

= = =

= =Creative Aspect of Eyuboglu=

//**In this wiki project, I'm profiling an educational institution's creative aspect and reflecting my experiences from this institution**//.

I worked at the Eyuboglu Educational Institution which is one of the most reputable Turkish private schools in Turkey, having elementary and a middle school, a high school plus a science high school under its name educating 2100 students in total. It is authorized to offer IB PYP, IB MYP and IBDP and the secondary and primary schools are accredited by CIS, as well.

Also, my academic responsibilities started with working gifted students after school and then I developed a program for all the students and the school started to offer this program to all grade 1 and 2 students as "Building Thinking Skills Course and Creativity" and I started to work with all grade 1 and 2 students.

During my teacher years at Eyuboglu, I witnesses that administrators of this institution always wanted be open for new developments in any area in order to be maintain its high rankings. So do that they developed some policies and applied different strategies.

In this study, I collected all information about this school system and evaluated them according to modern creativity approaches.

On the home page I put some different links that reflect the institution's general point of view. This view is important to understand their creative thinking mechanism. I'll analyze their creative acts and operations.

The Mission Statement of Eyüboğlu Schools states explicitly that they aim to prepare their students, for lives as valuable members of both their national and international communities. This means that, while offering everything that a young person needs to succeed in terms of knowledge acquisition, of a good grounding in Turkish culture, in terms of university entrance and other traditional expectations, their schools go further and offer an international dimension to education.

What do they mean by an international dimension to education? Language is of course important, and they place great emphasis on the learning of both English and a second foreign language, but there is more to it than that. They believe that to succeed in life today a young person needs not only to meet the standard requirements of a national system but also to fulfill to the utmost their own individual potential. It is from the exploration of individual differences and the harnessing of individual strengths and personal strategies that a human being can develop the motivation and drive necessary to become empowered and effective. The three programmes of the International Baccalaureate Organisation, PYP, MYP, and the Diploma Programme, offer the potential for this personal development. Because they represent different stages of a child’s development, the three programmes are very different from each other. However, there are certain features common to all three:


 * Purposeful learning for the real world “Education for Life”;
 * A balance between human values and knowledge
 * Interactive learning
 * Critical thinking

At the same time, the IBO programmes offer Eyüboğlu Schools the opportunity to set high standards, for students and teachers. Since the IB Diploma Programme started to be taught there in 1996, by successfully preparing successive groups for the internationally set and evaluated Diploma examinations, they have been able measure their standards and improve the quality of education for all pre-university students – not only those who are in the Diploma Programme. Starting with academic year 1998-1999 PYP and MYP have also started being implemented at Eyüboğlu schools. After an extremely rigorous preparation period, in March 2000, an authorization visit was made to Eyüboğlu by IBO professionals and consequently Eyüboğlu was granted MYP authorization by IBO.

The intense endeavors that have been undertaken since year 2000 to get authorization to implement IB PYP in the Primary section have been crowned with the Primary School’s being granted authorization in December 2005. Thus, Eyüboğlu became the first and only Turkish school which has been authorized to implement all three IB programmes, i.e. PYP, MYP and DP. With this success, Eyüboğlu took its place among the 80 out of 1762 IB schools in the world which have authorization to implement all three IB programmes. All three programmes have brought with them a high level of teacher training, a significant part of which is conducted at IBO organized workshops abroad. Furthermore, the school has been through stringent PYP, MYP and Diploma authorization procedures, all of which have been vitally important for reflecting on our practice and improving it.

So, all these developments and attainments show these institution's persistence and determination in education for betterment. While taking these step, they were consider about:

- Student Development -Teacher Training - in-service training, seminars, conferences <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">-All new educational developments, theorems, and approaches <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">-Social and emotional aspects <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">-CREATIVITY

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">The school administrators seek all the opportunities in order to implement creative thinking in any filed. They know that, teachers have the key role to achieve this aim. So, they hired me to give some seminars to teachers and work with students on creativity. After this cooperation we enhanced our projects and hired some other teacher in order to work on creativity. I would like to highlight that this is an primary school not an university. How amazing that they give that kind of importance on creativity. Subsequently we served as creativity teacher in this school. We had a special room whose name is creativity room. Of course it was not enough to reach what the school aims. So, the administrators requested us to attend and follow ll creativity activities in the world in order to gain new view and carry these on their institution.Subsequently we developed some unity based creativity activities in order to apply curriculum. Then, we worked with student individually. All these developments always brought new ideas. Then we wanted to share our experiences with everyone in Turkey. We Organized numerous creativity competition in Turkey in order to draw people's attention on it.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">When we look at the modern creativity approaches, they say:

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">-Open-endedness <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">-Flexibility <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">-Open to new experinces <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">-Creating opportunities to foster students creative thinking <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">-Risk Taking <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">-Value to creativity

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">I can wholeheartedly say that all these components are taken consideration in this institution in every step to form a better future.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">Let's look at their statements:

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">We want students to develop:
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">Appreciation
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">Commitment
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">Confidence
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">Cooperation
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">Creativity
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">Curiosity
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">Empathy
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">Enthusiasm
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">Independence
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">Integrity
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">Respect
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">Tolerance

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">And this part from Values

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">b) Individual differences


 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif';">Increase one’s capacity by getting to know oneself,
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif';">Respect oneself and others’ rights and ideas,
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif';">Value and respect others’ individual differences,
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif';">Adapt to different conditions and situations.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">d) Innovation

Eyuboglu Camlica Primary School's pricipal said that:
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif';">Improve one’s creativity and research skills,
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif';">Follow technological innovations and use them at every occasion within ethical standards,
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif';">Acquire the concept of a “learning school”.


 * //<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif';">Since 1998 when our school first started offering education, we have endeavored to educate all our students academically and socially, to become foremost members of both their national and international communities and in so doing, become an institution that can serve as an educational role model in the world. With a coherent K - 12 educational program that considers individual differences, we aim to raise multilingual, innovative and life-long learning citizens with high ethical and academic standards, who are equipped with social, international and multicultural awareness. In this respect, we have never compromised and will never compromise on Atatürk’s principles and revolutions. // ||
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">//Our children’s developing as knowledgeable, well-communicating, principled, caring, open-minded, balanced individuals who learn through inquiry and take informed risks will ensure that they become successful and content in the future. To achieve this, our schools implement an integration of the national curriculum and International Baccalaureate Organization’s Primary Years, Middle Years and Diploma Programs.// ||

An example from their activity list:

**<span style="color: #b35407; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif';">Science and Creativity Festival (Science and Mathematics) ** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">The Science Festival which is organized every year by the Science Department is an event during which students from different schools exhibit their science projects, participate in various scientific performances, competitions, fun experiments and deliver presentations. Students’ projects are evaluated in a number of categories and the winners are presented their awards at a ceremony held at the end of the day.

=<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; text-align: justify;">**Conclusion** = <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif';">All these attainment show that this institution is really consider about developing students' creative thinking and the institution's creative aspects. They are aware of their existing problems that prevent development in creativity<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif';">. Therefore, they seek all new developments and news in order to carry on their institution. All information mentioned in this wiki project summarize all their attainments and effort for developing creative attitudes in their institution.

//Home Page//

=//References//=

Runco, M. A. (2007). //Creativity: theories and themes : research, development, and practice / Mark A. Runco.//Amsterdam ; Boston : Elsevier Academic Press, c2007.

Eyuboglu Educational Institution's Handbook (2006)