When Herbert met Ken: understanding the 100 languages of creativity

The paper proposes a thought experiment written in the spirit of Tom Stoppard's Travesties in which some major contemporary thinkers on and actors of creativity and culture are brought together in the same imagined space through the conceit of a (faulty) memory play. ‘Actors’ are drawn from the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE, 19991, the Gulbenkian Committee (1981) and the Joint Council for Education through Art (1957). The paper suggests a series of hypothetical conversations between educationalists from the 1950s to the 2000s who have been engaged with developing arts and cultural education and creativity in our schools. It aims to establish what we have learnt about the discourses of creativity ‐ and what impact this may have had in our classrooms. It concludes with a speculative trial between a Professor Ken Robinson of 1999, adjudged by a Sir Herbert Read of 1957. Nick Owen is a Liverpool‐based film maker and researcher who has recently completed a PhD scholarship at the University of Hull. The scholarship, funded by Creative Partnerships, focused on developing pedagogies for creativity in contexts in which artists and educators work together.     

Deferred creativity: Exploring the impact of an undergraduate learning experience on professional practice

This paper explores the impact of an art-based learning experience on former Education students' professional practice. Feedback from trainee teachers indicated that the true value of the creative process was only realised after they had graduated – what I have come to term ‘deferred creativity’. The findings suggest that focusing on the development of their own creative characteristics, skills and attitudes helped students to become more creative practitioners. By drawing on the reflections of our alumni, we can help future students to develop the key creative competencies and skills required for 21st century life.     

Enhancing creativity and innovation in engineering education

With the rapid progress of modern civilization, creativity and innovation within a techno-economic perspective are becoming the major driving forces behind the sustainability of economic growth and competitive achievements. The current paper will focus on developing a clear concept of the terms creativity and innovation, and investigate their possible relation with engineering education. The parameters that could be essential for the enhancement of creativity or innovation are discussed from the perspective of the individual and the community. An engineering creativity enterprise diagram (ECED) is introduced to be reflective of the industrialization and technological level of any community as correlated to creativity and innovation. A systematic approach is designed to help developing the possible courses and activities that would enhance creativity and innovative skills and capabilities of a graduate engineer.     

Exploring the role and value of creativity in education for sustainability

Creativity, innovation and divergent thinking are routinely expected to help people envision and implement alternative practices to the status quo. However, these do not feature strongly in the literature on education for sustainability in higher education (HE), and especially graduate competencies or capabilities for sustainability. The paper makes the case for the importance of creativity in education for sustainability (EfS), and argues that innovation is at the heart of moving societies towards more sustainable paths. In other words, creativity is an essential part of learning for sustainability. A critical perspective is offered, by highlighting the effects of the theoretical roots of sustainability and environmental education in the ecological sciences, the traditional and still dominant construction of learning and teaching in HE and EfS, and the challenges and rewards that supporting creativity presents for learners and teachers in this field.     

Variability of creativity judgments

The Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT), developed by Amabile [Amabile, T.M. (1982). Social psychology of creativity: A consensual assessment technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 997–1013], is frequently used to evaluate the creativity of productions. Judgments obtained with CAT are usually reliable and valid. However, notable individual differences in judgment exist. This empirical study shows that creativity judgments for advertisements vary, depending on (1) the level of two underlying components of creativity — originality and appropriateness, (2) the creative ability of the judges, i.e. variations in their ability to be original, and finally, (3) instructions or training that they received about the topic of creativity assessment. Effects of advertisements' appropriateness and judges' ability to be original on individual differences in creativity judgments are discussed.     

Teaching creativity in art and design studio classes: A systematic literature review

It is increasingly important for educators to help students develop as creative individuals, and to prepare graduates to think creatively at work, in personal life, and in society. Many countries are working to transform schooling to lead to creative learning outcomes. And yet, very little is known about how to teach for creativity. This review was motivated by the belief that effective models of creative teaching and learning would be found in art and design educational practice. The goal of this systematic review is to synthesize empirical studies of the pedagogy used in art and design studio classes, from early years to university. A keyword search, followed by a filter using inclusion criteria, identified 65 peer-reviewed journal articles. A grounded theory analysis of these 65 articles identified eleven themes characterizing art and design pedagogy, grouped in three clusters: Pedagogical practices (5 themes), learning outcomes (4 themes), and assessment (2 themes).     

The discourse and nature of creativity and innovation: Ways of relating to the novel

In the discourse of the knowledge-based economy, the link between creativity and innovation is usually taken for granted. However, not only is this link of recent date, it joins together two diametrically opposed concepts: the economic concept of innovation and the humanistic concept of creativity. In research too, there is a lack of enquiry into the nature of the processes of creativity and innovation and into how these processes are similar yet different. Building on the original insights of Henri Poincaré and Joseph Schumpeter, I present the hypothesis that creativity and innovation are similar in nature, not in regard to knowledge or skills, but in that both are ways of relating to the novel. My findings suggest, meanwhile, that creativity and innovation differ in that creativity is about experiencing the novel in the creative process, whereas innovation is about willing the novel as a strategy for the innovative process. Furthermore, my findings suggest that there exists a structural similarity between creativity and innovation and Aristotle’s concepts of practical and philosophical wisdom, in that innovation is a form of practical wisdom in regard to the novel, whereas creativity is a form of philosophical wisdom in regard to the novel.     

Teaching for creativity: towards sustainable and replicable pedagogical practice

This article explores the pedagogical significance of recent shifts in scholarly attention away from first generation and towards second generation understandings of creativity. First generation or big ‘C’ creativity locates the creative enterprise as a complex set of behaviours and ideas exhibited by an individual, while second generation or small ‘c’ creativity locates the creative enterprise in the processes and products of collaborative and purposeful activity. Second generation creativity is gaining importance for a number of reasons: its acknowledged significance as a driver in the new or digital economy; recent clarification of the notion of ‘creative capital’; the stated commitment of a growing number of universities to ‘more creativity’ as part of their declared vision for their staff and students; and, the recognition that the creative arts does not have a monopoly on creative capability. We argue that this shift allows more space for engaging with creativity as an outcome of pedagogical work in higher education. The article builds on the project of connecting ‘creative capital’ and university pedagogy that is already underway, assembling a number of principles from a wide range of scholarship, from computer modelling to social and cultural theorising. In doing so, it provides a framework for systematically orchestrating a ‘creativity-enhancing’ learning environment in higher education.

在数学课堂教学中学生创新能力的培养

创新能力是现代社会对人才的基本要求;数学是中小学阶段培养学生创新能力的特殊而重要的学科。文章从创新性的结构,即非智力因素和智力因素两个方面,探讨如何通过数学课堂教学培养学生创新能力。     

Captions, consistency, creativity, and the consensual assessment technique: New evidence of reliability

The consensual assessment technique (CAT) is a measurement tool for creativity research in which appropriate experts evaluate creative products [Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context: Update to the social psychology of creativity. Boulder, CO: Westview]. However, the CAT is hampered by the time-consuming nature of the products (asking participants to write stories or draw pictures) and the ratings (getting appropriate experts). This study examined the reliability of ratings of sentence captions. Specifically, four raters evaluated 12 captions written by 81 undergraduates. The purpose of the study was to see whether the CAT could provide reliable ratings of captions across raters and across multiple captions and, if so, how many such captions would be required to generate reliable scores, and how many judges would be needed? Using generalizability theory, we found that captions appear to be a useful way of measuring creativity with a reasonable level of reliability in the frame of CAT.     

The role of creativity and proactivity on perceived entrepreneurial desirability

The study tested the extent to which perceived desirability mediates the effects of student creativity and proactivity on entrepreneurial intent. Participants were 199 engineering and business university students from Greek Universities. Results using Structural Equation Modelling indicated that perceived desirability fully mediates the relationship of student creativity, proactivity and entrepreneurial intent. Additionally, proactivity was found to be related to creativity. The findings have implications for explaining perceived entrepreneurial desirability and direct attention on creativity as an essential competence in the entrepreneurial process.     

初中语文教学与学生创新能力的培养

随着21世纪科学技术的迅猛发展和经济全球化,未来社会对人的素质提出了许多新的要求.在中学语文教学中如何培养学生的创新能力,成为了人们探讨的热点.文章从培养学生勇于探索,勇于创新角度,对这一问题进行了探讨.     

Breaking the habit: engineering students’ understanding of mathematical creativity

ABSTRACT

In higher education, engineering students have to be prepared for their future jobs, with knowledge but also with several soft skills, among them creativity. In this paper, we present a study carried on with 128 engineering undergraduate students on their understanding of mathematical creativity. The students were in the first year of different engineering first degrees in a north-eastern Portuguese university and we analysed the content of their texts for the question ‘What do you understand by mathematical creativity?’. Data collection was done in the first semester of the academic years 2014/2015 and 2016/2017 in a Linear Algebra course. The results showed that ‘problem solving’ category had the majority of the references in 2014/2015, but not in the academic year 2016/2017 were ‘involving mathematics’ category had the majority. This exploratory study pointed out for ‘problem solving’ and ‘involving mathematics’ categories and gave us hints for teaching mathematics courses in engineering degrees.     

Using contact with nature,creativity and rituals as a therapeutic medium with children with learning difficulties: a case study

In most cases therapy is addressed as an indoor verbal activity in which the relationship between therapist and client stands at its centre. This article proposes a different approach to therapy: conducting it creatively in nature, with the environment being used not only as a therapeutic setting but also as a medium and a partner in the process. The article is based on a case study carried out with a group of children with special needs within a school setting. It explores the therapeutic and educational impact that this approach had on the participants and on nature's role in it. The article also aims to initiate a dialogue around the option of working with this population in non‐verbal and experiential ways, illustrating the potential that the use of group work, creativity and contact with nature may offer.     

Rethinking creativity: Present in expression in creative learning communities*

Often defined as originality and innovation and desired for the economic profits it can produce for both individuals and their societies, creativity has been examined in order to find ways in which it can be promoted through various instructional practices in and beyond schools. Nonetheless, creativity as a fundamental basis of human existence and learning in a shared world is largely understudied. In this article, I examine the commonly held assumptions of creativity as it is incorporated into educational practices—that is, the notion of creativity as developable and achievable, and often as measurable and evaluable. I explore some of the (negative) consequences of understanding creativity in this way and assert the need to reclaim the notion of creativity in order to recognize the ways in which creativity is a part of our everyday lived experiences, always including interactions with the bodily self, co-existing others, and the phenomenal world. Understanding creativity as an expressive mode and way of being in the world encourages a rethinking of creativity in education, positioning creativity as implicitly interwoven in the act of expression as it is undertaken in a community and advocating that this expression ought to be encouraged in both processes and products of learning.     

Examining the well-being and creativity of schoolchildren in France

This article builds theoretically and empirically on the concepts of creativity and well-being within the schooling context, focusing on 855 preadolescents attending primary schools in France. Following and testing a line of argumentation delineated in educational research, creativity is defined as conceptually distinct from, but closely related to, student well-being. ‘Creativity’ is defined as a high level of adaptability and flexibility of thought, and ‘well-being’ as both the presence of positive affect and the absence of negative affect (hedonic components), as well as a high level of engagement and feelings of competence (eudaimonic components). Empirically, operationalizations of multi-dimensional concepts of creativity and well-being are tested and the relationships between these variables and pupils’ academic success are considered, taking into account the potential moderating effects of gender and parental involvement. These associations are found to be complex and vary considerably between components of well-being and creativity.     

An empirical study of the construct validity of social creativity

Creativity can be broadly defined as a combination of interacting individual and environmental resources leading to the production of valuable solutions. This paper concentrates on the type of creativity that can be expressed in solving social problems. After reviewing the potentially relevant psychological and contextual variables intervening in social creativity, leading to individual differences in this capacity, we present results of a study testing the nomological validity of social creativity in a group of 70 pre-adolescents. The findings indicate that social creativity performance is linked with socially relevant variables such as social competencies, popularity, and parenting style. Finally, we discuss the relevance of a creativity approach in social domains such as violence prevention programs and education.     

The dilemmas of teaching for creativity: Insights from expert specialist dance teachers

This paper offers part of the findings of a qualitative, interpretive Ph.D. study, which used a case study approach to explore and illustrate the conceptions of and approaches to creativity of three expert specialist dance teachers working with late primary age children. The specialists had extensive expertise as dance educators in different educational settings together with experience as dance artists. One way of framing their conceptions and practice was in terms of the pedagogical puzzles or dilemmas that they encountered. This paper focuses on the dilemma of ‘balancing personal/collective voice and craft/compositional knowledge’ when teaching for creativity. The findings articulate the foundations of embodied knowing (intrinsic to aesthetic understanding) and the processes fundamental to their teaching for creativity. This is followed by details of the key pedagogical spectra which emerged when responding to the dilemma: prioritisation of creative source—inside out or outside in; degrees of proximity and intervention—distanced reactivity or close proactivity; and spectrum of task structures—purposeful play to tight apprenticeship; and their use in action by the teachers in their different situations. The paper relates these findings to two current questions within education: that of the relationship between knowledge and creativity, and the ways in which adults/experts might engage in teaching for creativity. The paper concludes that this research supports calls for a re-evaluation of aesthetic understanding's role in creativity, grounded in embodiment, within dance pedagogy, which might also be fruitfully heeded within wider educational contexts. It also provides the findings as ‘images of possible’ approaches to inter-relating knowledge and creativity both within dance, and other disciplines, and argues for the use of dilemmas and their solutions as one way of acknowledging complexity and encouraging reflective practice in teaching for creativity, both within teacher training and continuing professional development. Finally, the paper highlights the unique perspective of a group of hybrid education professionals at the arts/education interface, and suggests future areas of research which might develop from this investigation of their practice.     

初中语文教学与学生创新能力的培养

随着21世纪科学技术的迅猛发展和经济全球化,未来社会对人的素质提出了许多新的要求。在中学语文教学中如何培养学生的创新能力,成为了人们探讨的热点。文章从培养学生勇于探索,勇于创新角度,对这一问题进行了探讨。     

Collaboration, creativity and the co-construction of oral and written texts

In this paper we explore how primary school children ‘learn to collaborate’ and ‘collaborate to learn’ on creative writing projects by using diverse cultural artefacts—including oracy, literacy and ICT. We begin by reviewing some key sociocultural concepts which serve as a theoretical framework for the research reported. Secondly, we describe the context in which the children talked and worked together to create their projects. This context is a ‘learning community’ developed as part of an innovative educational programme with the aim of promoting the social construction of knowledge among all participants. We then present microgenetic analyses of the quality of the interaction and dialogues taking place as peers worked together on their projects, and how these collaborative processes and uses of the mediational artefacts were taken up by the children. In order to exemplify these processes, our analyses centre on a selection of examples of dialogues, texts and multimedia products of stories created by groups of fourth grade (9-10 years old) children. Overall, the work reveals the dynamic functioning in educational settings of some central sociocultural concepts. These include: co-construction; intertextuality and intercontextuality amongst oracy, literacy and uses of ICT; collaborative creativity; development of dialogical and text production strategies and appropriation of diverse cultural artefacts for knowledge construction.