Creativity in Education and Learning: A Guide for Teachers and Educators

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Between 2002 and 2011 Creative Partnerships, one of the most ambitious schemes for promoting creativity in schools anywhere in the world, was funded by Arts Council England and two government departments in England. The programme worked with some 1 million children and over 90,000 teachers in more than 8000 projects in England. Creative Partnerships defined creativity very broadly to include, for example, scientists and architects, and looked beyond education to the issue of employability. 2004 - Creativity: Find it, Promote It! Prisma’s curriculum was inspired by Seymour Papert, a mathematician and computer scientist who was a pioneer in the field of educational technology. Papert believed technology could be used to promote creativity and empower students to learn in new and innovative ways. He also believed creativity was a key component of the learning process, and that students should be given the freedom to explore and experiment to develop their creative thinking skills. His philosophy that learners learn most when engaged in a process of “ hard fun” inspired the design of Prisma’s engaging curriculum themes & creative projects.

How might researchers across different research traditions in positive education and creativity studies collaborate to develop and explore broader models of wellbeing? What are the best methodological approaches for testing and refining these models? How might such work promote student and teacher wellbeing in and beyond the classroom? the competence to engage productively in the generation, evaluation and improvement of ideas, that can result in original and effective solutions, advances in knowledge and impactful expressions of imagination Runco, M. A., & Jaeger, G. J. (2012). The standard definition of creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 24(1), 92–96. Given the dynamic and multifaceted nature of creative learning, researchers interested in examining the various factors involved in creative learning likely would benefit from the development and use of analytic approaches and designs that go beyond single measures or static snapshots to include dynamic (Beghetto & Corazza, 2019) and multiple methods (Gajda et al., 2017). Such approaches can help researchers better understand the factors at play in supporting the emergence, expression, and sustainability of creative learning in and across various types of school and classroom experiences.The World Economic Forum states that by 2025, the top five skills employers will be looking for include innovation, complex problem solving, critical thinking, creativity and originality. Creativity is one of our most essential skills. Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context: Update to the social psychology of creativity. Boulder, CO: Westview. The same can be said for intellectual risk-taking, which refers to adaptive behaviours that puts a person at risk of making mistakes or failing (Beghetto, 2009). Findings from a recent study (Beghetto, Karwowski, Reiter-Palmon, 2020) indicate that intellectual risk-taking plays a moderating role between creative confidence and creative behaviour. In this way, even if a student has confidence in their ideas, unless they identify with and view such ideas as worthwhile and are willing to take the risks of sharing those ideas with others, then they are not likely to make a creative contribution to their own and others learning. In mathematics, for instance, there typically is one correct answer to solve a problem, whereas other subject areas, such as English Language Arts, offer much more flexibility in the kinds of “answers” or interpretations possible. Yet even with less flexibility in the kinds of originality that can be expressed in a particular subject area, there still remains a multitude of possibilities for creative expression in the kinds of tasks that teachers can offer students. As mentioned earlier, students in math can still demonstrate creative learning in the kinds of problems they design to solve, the various ways they solve them, and even how they demonstrate the outcomes and solutions to those problems. Beghetto, R. A., & Schuh, K. (2020). Exploring the link between imagination and creativity: A creative learning perspective. In D. D. Preiss, D. Cosmelli, & J. C. Kaufman (Eds.), Mind wandering and creativity. Academic Press.

He also quotes Kimsey-House et al when he writes “People are naturally creative, resourceful and whole.” This is an important point as people sometimes believe that they are not creative when being creative is an inherently human trait that often simply hasn’t been developed. Continued professional learning and development can support head teachers and staff in fostering creative processes so that they can use them both in their approach to management and their teaching practice. Expressing creativity in teaching

Inventor or imitator?

Paek, S. H., & Sumners, S. E. (2019). The indirect effect of teachers’ creative mindsets on teaching creativity. Journal of Creative Behavior, 53, 298–311. https://doi.org/10.1002/jocb.180. Indeed, teachers still have the professional responsibility to outline the criteria or non-negotiables, monitor student progress, and ensure that they are providing necessary and timely instructional supports. This can be accomplished by allowing students to determine how they meet those criteria. In this way, the role that uncertainty plays in creative learning can be thought of as ranging on a continuum from small openings allowing students to define some element of a learning activity (e.g., the how, what, outcomes) to larger openings where students have much more autonomy in defining elements and even the criteria for success, such as a legacy project whereby they try to make positive and lasting contributions to their schools, communities and beyond. The Role of Context in Creative Learning

Beghetto, R. A. (2017a). Creative openings in the social interactions of teaching. Creativity: Theories-Research-Applications, 3, 261–273. Davies, D., Jindal-Snape, D., Collier, C., Digby, R., Hay, P., & Howe, A. (2013). Creative learning environments in education: A systematic literature review. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 8, 80–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2012.07.004. An OECD event 24-25 September, where Nesta Chief Executive Geoff Mulgan was invited to speak, helped to share emerging answers to the question “How can creative thinking across all disciplines including the arts, sciences and humanities be supported by the current education system?”. There were lots of examples on how to foster and assess creativity and critical thinking. The upcoming Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2021 will have a creativity assessment. Kaufman, J. C., & Beghetto, R. A. (2009). Beyond Big and Little: The Four C Model of Creativity. Review of General Psychology, 13, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013688. Students would always love a classroom setting that helps them to explore freely without setting them any boundaries.At its core, creativity is the expression of our most essential human qualities: our curiosity, our inventiveness, and our desire to explore the unknown. Using creativity, we are able to push the boundaries of what is possible, imagine new worlds, and find solutions to the most pressing problems facing our society. Creative expression is important for a kid to trigger up their emotional development. Importantly, this has to happen at their lower classes itself so that they grow up by responding well to the happenings around them. The open-ended questions will open them a world of imaginative thinking and they can come up with creative responses. Prisma learners complete a creative project every 6 weeks based on our interdisciplinary learning themes, and present their final projects during a celebratory “Expo Day.” LaShonda S., a Prisma parent, described how making a creative project for the first time impacted her son this way: “His sense of pride and accomplishment has gone through the roof. He has told all of our family and friends about his podcast.” Just a few months into the project, the OECD released an invitation to tender, entitled Teaching, assessing and learning creative and critical thinking skills in primary and secondary education, in which they freely admitted “…it is not clear how creativity can be visibly and tangibly articulated by teachers or

Education Scotland, often in partnership with Creative Scotland, offers many means of support for educators including: Creativity researchers have identified at least three interrelated student factors that seem to play a role in determining students’ willingness to share their conceptions with others: creative confidence, valuing creativity, and intellectual risk- taking. Creative confidence beliefs refer to a somewhat broad category of creative self-beliefs that pertain to one’s confidence in the ability to think and act creatively (Beghetto & Karwowski, 2017). Creative confidence beliefs can range from more situationally and domain-specific beliefs (e.g., I am confident I can creatively solve this particular problem in this particular situation) to more general and global confidence beliefs (e.g., I am confident in my creative ability). Much like other confidence beliefs (Bandura, 2012), creative confidence beliefs are likely influenced by a variety of personal (e.g., physiological state), social (e.g., who is present, whether people are being supportive), and situational (e.g., specific nature of the task, including constraints like time and materials) factors. Recent research has indicated that creative confidence beliefs mediate the link between creative potential and creative behaviour (Beghetto, Karwowski, Reiter-Palmon, 2020; Karwowski & Beghetto, 2019). The criteria for success: The criteria used to determine whether students successfully completed the activity (e.g., the goals, guidelines, non-negotiables, or agreed-upon indicators of success). Fun team building activities can be organized so as to promote creative thinking in groups and helping them to learn about accepting others’ ideas.In fact, creative persons have an upper hand in triggering future opportunities than those with a mere academic skill set. The World Economic Forum Future Jobs Report of 2020 has suggested fifteen skills that will be most needed between now and 2025. At least 10 of these are direct outputs of developing independent learners through creativity such as: Working out the passions in addition to excelling in academics is important for a student to come up successful in life.