2. “Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks,
making mistakes and having fun” Mary Lou Cook
The use of the imagination or original ideas or thinking processes
to create or think something new.
Maslow – Differentiates between big-picture creativity and
everyday creativity. relatively new term or concept.
We All have the potential for Creativity...
• Develops important life skills like; Divergent thinking, Problem
solving and innovation.
Engages & Retains learners, gives learners a sense of
achievement.
Encourages curiosity & intrinsic motivation
Inspires children to learn & apply knowledge
Supports children to continue to make mistakes through
discovery
Everyone is creative. Those who are more creative have
learned to be so.
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3. Creativity scores have decreased since the 1990s
Poor fast paced curriculums & accountability
practices
Music and Arts not viewed as academic
Employers see creativity as; important leadership or
employment characteristic.
Creativity one of the top three factors in relation to
career success.
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4. Classroom environments &
teaching practices
Designing spaces to
encourage creativity,
Creative content or
resources
Creative ways of teaching,
learning and engaging
students
Stimulate innovation,
problem solving & divergent
thinking processes for
students.
Use ICT creatively
5. What if or Fat chance
games
Impossible Scenarios
Position students to think
divergently
Problem solving
activities
Teacher Show and Tell
Physical Environment
Group Work
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We are now going to show you how to access a
WEBMIX resource page on SYMBALOO that we have
especially created just for you...
http://www.symbaloo.com/home/mix/13ePQJJVPQ
Here is another
activity as well
If time?
7. Jane Piirto, Phd, 1998, Understanding Those Who
Create, 2nd Ed, Great Potential Press, AZ, United States of
America.
Anna Lithgow, 09/04/2013, “How can we foster
creativity in the classroom” You Tube,
http://creativespaceineducation.wordpress.com.
Kyung Hee Kim Phd Educational Psychologist, Child
Creativity Lab, 17th August 2013, You Tube,
Silver.Todd, Think Like a Genius – The Ultimate
user manual for your brain, 1996 Bantam Books
Publishing, New York, United States.
Micheal.J.Gelb, Discover Your Genius-How to think
like History’s most ten revolutionary minds, 2003,
Harper Collins Publishing, New York, USA
Duchesne,S., McMaugh, A., Bochner, S. & Krause,
K. (2013). Educational Psychology for Learning and
Teaching. 4th Edition. Cenagage: Melbourne.
Metaphorming Strategy or Practice
C Connect Two or more ideas or
concepts as having a
relationship
R Relate What the relationship
is between the things
E Explore Asking open ended
questions, thinking in
new ways about it
A Analyse Take a second look
with consideration of
knowledge now
known about it, look
for insights, or
evaluate it.
T Transform Think, Invent or create
something new based
upon what you now
know ( the connection
and discovery
processes prior) about
it
E Experience Apply your ideas or
solutions
Levels of create
1 Connection Connect by comparing
2 Discovery Explore the
comparison to reflect
something new
3 Invention Invent or create
something new based
upon the connection,
comparison and
discovery processes
prior
4 Application Use the invention in
new ways or contexts
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Editor's Notes
Hello All we hope you all had enough time to do the pre tute activity to watch one or two of the Ken Robinson clips on TED/Youtubehttp://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_education_s_death_valleyhttps://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity
“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes and having fun”Mary Lou Cook Creativity is all about individuality, how we approach tasks, how we apply our knowledge. Creativity is an intrinsic part of our personal being and like other skills needs to be nurtured and encouraged and sometimes re-learned. Sir Ken Robinsons (2013) believes that current system of education is killing creativity by ‘teaching to standards’ and placing too much emphasis on math, science, and English which were key skills required for the industrial revolution workplace. The devaluing of skills outside of the standard areas robs society of future success stories that could come from supporting learners to make mistakes, and take risks without fear of the ‘stigmatisation of wrong’ (Robinson, 2013).Some people believe that a person can be creative without a product while others believe that creativity can be anything new, original or unique. Developing talent or creativity is dependent on cognitive and environmental factors – this is where teachers come in. Why is it important to foster children’s creativity?It is important to foster children’s creativity for a number of reasons; engages and retains learnerssupports children to make mistakes through discovery inspires children to continue to learn and apply knowledgea sense of achievement. Encourages curiosity and intrinsic motivationSupports divergent thinkingIfYou can think of more reasons and add them to this list.
Tomorrow’s inventors are today’s creative children, society advances on the discoveries of creative thinkers and is enriched by creative producers. In adopting creativity in the classroom teachers have further opportunities to engage learners for longer and promote deeper understanding of concepts.Creativity scores have decreased since the 1990sEmphasis has been on poor fast paced curriculums and accountability practices within education. Music and Arts viewed as a lesser cognitive pursuit as lacking importance in the education processes. Troubling when employers see creativity as; important leadership or employment characteristic.creativity is regarded in society as one of the top three personality traits in relation to career success.
Small changes to classroom and teaching practices can encourage student creativity in the classroom. Creative approaches spark learner’s curiosity and leads to personal new discoveries.Ways teachers can encourage creativity are; Designing spaces to encourage creativity, Creative content, Creative ways of teaching, learning and engaging students, Stimulate innovation or divergent thinking processes for students.Constructivists such as Piaget and Vygotsky have underpinned approaches to teaching and learning that support learners to construct meaning through creative problem based learning, collaborative learning, scaffolding and authentic tasksA constructivist approach to learning and teaching embraces creativity as an embedded part of the philosophy and leads to deep understanding of concepts rather than lower order thinking skills like remembering.Using constructivist and creative approaches in the classroom can be challenging (Margetts /Woolfolk 2013) but learners responses are worth the extra time spent in negotiation. Silence is often the sound heard after learners have been asked- ‘do you have any questions’ (Rothstein and Santana). Teaching students questioning skills gives students a great tool for using creativity to solve problems. Rothstein and Santana (2011) base their questioning strategy around a question focus (QFocus) and then give students some straight forward rules for applying questions. The Rothstein and Santana questioning rules promote thinking in three ways, divergent, convergent and metacognitive. The questioning strategy is remarkably simple yet effective and needs to be practiced for teachers and learners to become fluent in its application.
What if games or Fat chance (near impossible scenario with unrealistic timeframes)Impossible Scenarios - Photo writing prompts are good for this.Activities that position students to think divergentlyProblem solving activities Show and Tell – Exposes students to a wide variety of stimuli – Blogs, films, stories, facts, objects, and other experienced based stuff. Physical Environment –huge impact on creativity - students need space to create, to make noise, to ask questions, to make a mess, to transform. So give students a space that they can be creative learners within. Group Work – Collaborative communication and work will allow students to take the pressure off themselves as individuals to perform & Students are always more creative too when they are able to bounce ideas off each other. Allow for differences in students have some sitting at chair areas and some sitting on the floor areas and even some standing up areas if possible within the classroom. Allowing students to engage with the natural environment can also promote divergent or creative thinking. Warm colours promote divergent thinking as well, if you can’t paint add stationary, posters, etc around the room.
Using ICT creatively.Part of being creative is exploring a number of ideas, questioning, challenging, taking risks, experimenting with possibilities and accepting change (Christopherson, 2012). For teachers ICT presents a number of challenges and opportunities, often our students know more about ICT than we do.Christopherson (2012) suggests that Creative skills such as making connections, generating ideas, altering perspectives and applying imagination can be easily matched with ICT through programs and apps. The graphic organiser at figure 1 was created using FreeMind software a great tool that allows us to connect our ideas, knowledge, and understanding digitally. We can draft filter and organise ideas quickly and easily through a number of different platforms and with some time spent research suitable applications for the classroom teachers can soon create a digital portfolio (Christopherson, 2012). With cloud computing advancing significantly teachers can use platforms such as Symbaloo for story webmixes that can be shared with students quickly and easily. Internet searching also opens up many sharing opportunities for resourcing creative class work and students can participate in finding visual prompts for creative writing.Project based learning (PBL)-the latest buzzProject based learning engages students in a creative hands on examination of real-world problems in collaboration with their peer group (Edutopia, 2014). Project based learning is often cross curricula and will satisfy elements of the curriculum in unique ways. Project based learning often involves students with planning.Project learning is more suited to high school students but a simplified version could be used with late stage three. Project based learning is not confined to science and when reliant on ITC can go across many subject areas. PBL gives schools opportunities to connect with community and involve local mentoring from retired members of the public with incredible skills. Building your personal learning networkBringing creativity into the classroom may be more challenging than traditional teaching, but the rewards for teachers and students through more enjoyable engagement and reduced behaviour management is worth the effort. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Teachers should seek to build a personal learning network with other teachers and mentors who support a creative approach to teaching and swap ideas. Look for innovators in teaching such as Chris Sarra and Darcy Moore who are keeping abreast of the current trends in education. Take risks and don’t be afraid of ‘mistakes’ after all these are the attributes we want our creative learners to engage in.