{"id":330,"date":"2009-12-15T09:50:40","date_gmt":"2009-12-15T09:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/?p=330"},"modified":"2009-12-15T09:50:40","modified_gmt":"2009-12-15T09:50:40","slug":"how-does-one-teach-creativity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/?p=330","title":{"rendered":"How does one teach creativity?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Notes on a seminar given by Keith Sawyer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Relevant literature includes:
\nPaul Torrance 1960s-80s<\/strong> \u2013 concerned with both teaching and assessing creativity. Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) is still widely used in the US \u2013 primarily for admission into gifted and talented programmes.
\nHoward Gardner 1970s<\/strong> \u2013 brought cognitive psychology to bear on creativity (he also worked on multiple intelligences).
\nWoods and Jeffrey 1996<\/strong> \u2013 creative teaching
\nCraft, 1997<\/strong> \u2013 distinguished between creative teaching versus teaching for creativity
\nCarl Bereiter, 2002<\/strong> \u2013 knowledge age
\nSawyer, 2004<\/strong> \u2013 disciplined improvisation<\/p>\n

Schools have traditionally offered an industrial-age model of teaching and learning. Instructionism (term coined by Seymour Papert): implicit understanding of what schools should look like. Assumes that knowledge is a set of static facts and procedures. Goal of schooling is to get these facts and procedures into students\u2019 heads. Teachers know these facts and procedures and their job is to transmit them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n\n

Creative<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Instructionism<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Knowledge<\/strong><\/td>\nDeeper conceptual knowledge<\/td>\nSet of static facts and procedures<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Goal of school<\/strong><\/td>\nPrepare students to build new knowledge<\/td>\nGet facts and procedures into students\u2019 heads<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Role of teacher<\/strong><\/td>\nScaffold and facilitate collaborative knowledge building<\/td>\nTransmit facts and procedures<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Curriculum<\/strong><\/td>\nIntegrated and contextualized knowledge (within authentic practice)<\/td>\nSimple ideas and procedures should be learned first<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Assessment<\/strong><\/td>\nFormative and authentic<\/td>\nAssess how many of these facts and procedures have been acquired<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Emergence: higher-level properties and structures emerge from systems of lower level components in interaction. Features of emergence include unpredictability, irreducibility and novelty. Classic example is birds flocking in a V shape.<\/p>\n

Creativity is emergent, in that it is a constant combination of many small ideas. Each idea builds incrementally on a chain of prior ideas. Creativity is accelerated in collaborative teams.<\/p>\n

Collaborative emergence is a way of talking about how creativity emerges in small groups. It has some additional properties: moment-to-moment contingency, retrospective interpretation, and it is more likely to happen if you have equal participation.<\/p>\n

Learning as emergent. Instructionist learning is not emergent. Creative learning requires unpredictability, irreducibility and novelty \u2013 and is more likely to happen where there is moment-to-moment contingency, retrospective interpretation and equal participation.<\/p>\n

Case Study: The Exploratorium<\/strong>
\nFour weeks on site and carried out 47 one-hour interviews. Attended many internal meetings and studied internal documents and memos. They engage in three model practices:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Fostering creative learning<\/li>\n
  2. Designing creative learning environments<\/li>\n
  3. Educating creative teachers.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Fostering creative learning
    \n<\/strong>There is an emphasis on compelling phenomena that draw the attention. This must allow hands-on interactivity. You are provoked to inquire about it and you end up with learning that is directed by the learner.<\/p>\n

    Designing creative learning environments<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    • They have an organic culture with low boundaries, flat organization and weak formal authority.<\/li>\n
    • Rapid prototyping<\/li>\n
    • There is an external focus \u2013 for example, on scientists, artists and innovative companies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Educating creative teachers<\/strong>
      \nHave a deep commitment to inquiry \u2013 with a formal mission to change how the world learns.<\/p>\n

      Challenges encountered
      \n<\/strong>There are many pressures for such science centres to become more like school. \u00a0How do you reconcile free-choice learning with standards? How do we guide bottom-up innovation and top-down guidance? How do we ensure that distinct innovations connect to build coherent integrated learning? How to foster emergent learning that is guided by curricular structures and intended learning outcomes?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Notes on a seminar given by Keith Sawyer. Relevant literature includes: Paul Torrance 1960s-80s \u2013 concerned with both teaching and assessing creativity. Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) is still widely used in the US \u2013 primarily for admission into gifted and talented programmes. Howard Gardner 1970s \u2013 brought cognitive psychology to bear on creativity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":331,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions\/331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}