Nurturing Creativity in Education

Abstract

Across continents, creativity is a priority for education and is central to the discourse on 21st century learning. In this article, we explore how a greater focus on ‘everyday creativity’ in schools changes the dynamics of teaching and learning. We look briefly at the main concepts in the literature on creativity in education. We then focus on examples from the Centre for Creative Education's creative partnerships, which bring together educators, learners and creative professionals. This is followed by a discussion on how teachers assess learners’ creative dispositions, as well as the quality of creative processes and products. We conclude with recommendations for school‐level strategies and policy and research to support learner and teacher creativity.

Framework for Reducing Teaching Challenges Relating to Improvisation of Science Education Equipment and Materials in Schools

“…This is in line with the fact that some science educators find it difficult to think as designers (Penuel & Gallagher, 2009). The creativity of educators may in general be enhanced in a collaborative manner by way of partnerships between creative professionals and educators (Collard & Looney, 2014). With specific reference to the improvisation of SEEMs, the creativity of educators may be developed through training programmes (Ezeasor et al, 2012).…”

“…However, these teaching challenges are scattered in the literature and have so far been considered in a manner that is largely descriptive and not systemic. Also, though relevant ways of reducing individual challenges have been suggested by various researchers (e.g., Collard & Looney, 2014;Ndirangu et al, 2003), the field of science education lacks a framework for guiding the reduction of the challenges in a systematic manner. Thus, the primary purpose of the literature review presented here is to design a framework useful in guiding the reduction of teaching challenges relating to the production and/or use of improvised SEEMs in practical work in science classrooms in secondary schools.…”

Improved creative thinkers in a class: A model of activity based tasks for improving university students creative thinking abilities

“…In many research, personal traits and willingness were found to be correlated with creativity (Collard and Looney, 2014). Although there has been agreat amount of research in human creativity and many policies for creativity education and thinking skills, more research need to be done for understanding and fostering creativity within educational settings.…”

Creativity and leadership’s role in gifted identification and programming in the USA: a pilot study

“…Although creativity and leadership have long been included in definitions of giftedness, traditionally there has been a greater focus on using these attributes in the identification process, rather than on the development or differentiation of curricula to meet students' educational needs in these domains (Collard and Looney 2014). Often these areas may be used primarily in efforts to address disproportional representation in gifted programming by identifying talent among individuals or populations whose test scores are insufficient for identification following the traditional score-based pathways.…”