Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative by Sir Ken Robinson is a book that discusses the importance of creativity and the lack of creative learning going on in the current school system. What does this mean? What are the impacts that the lack of creativity has on society? According to this book it results in a void of innovation and collaboration in workplaces. People have been taught all their lives to work hard at their desk, pumping out worksheets and writing papers, reading textbooks. But where is the exploration? Creativity is not something everyone has, it is a skill that needs to be fostered. Robinson identifies the three tasks for teaching creativity – encouraging, identifying and fostering.

This book, along with much of Robinson’s work shows me that if we want our students to grow up to be innovators and creators, we must begin to teach them starting in kindergarten. It is not something that can be achieved by one or two motivated teachers, but these ideas need to permeate into policy, on district and provincial levels. I wish that I had been taught using creative methods, promotion of hands on, project based, artistic learning, and all I can do now is try to foster creativity in my students.

Reference:

Alane Jordan Starko’s fifth edition of Creativity in the Classroom: Schools of Curious Delight is a great resources that visits a wide range of practical topics relating to creativity in the classroom. The book has been divided into two parts, the first discusses the more theoretical aspects of creativity, such as understanding creative people and the process, the nature of creativity and how we might recognize it in our students this section also considers how culture and creativity interact and characteristics of creative people. This gives the reader some intorduction and insight when looking at the creative process and the implications of creativity on students. The second section connects to the more pracitcal side of creativity. Since this is a book targeting teachers, it discusses techniques developed to teach creative thinking and how it might be applied in the classroom. This section also targets how to support creative learning in major content areas such as the arts, language arts, social studies, mathematics and science.

Something else that Alane touched on is the aspect of classroom management, organization and assessment. I think that this is a very useful resources that should be looked at by any teacher that is looking to implement creative learning into their classroom. The book also includes activities that encourage teachers to engage in creative activities, reflect on the creative process and experiment with developing skills that might enhance creativity.

Reference: 

Starko, A. J. (2014). Creativity in the Classroom: Schools of Curious Delight (5th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Retrieved February 10, 2016, from https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WVciAQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=how to incorporate creativity in the classroom&ots=PetEmz3qu7&sig=ECVxZvtigXL-BrLruHFkbnakRm8#v=onepage&q=how to incorporate creativity in the classroom&f=false.

Finding a good resource to support an inquiry can be challening. We come into our topics with pre-conceived notions about what we are looking for and what we want to prove or disprove. At least, coming from a science background this has always been my approach. When going through different articles and journals, I found a great resource that I feel gives me a good insight of where I can take my inquiry. It is called  Possibility thinking: culminative studies of an evidence-based concept driving creativity? by Anna Craft, Teresa Cremin, Pamela Burnard, Tatjana Dragovic and Kerry Chappell.

My inquiry question is: how do we as teachers help students to learn and retain knowledge through creativity and experiential learning? Does personalized learning help students retain knowledge? I feel that this is a very important question to delve into, at least for me. It is something I hope to incorporate in my teaching, but I want to know what are the best ways to implement experiential learning and is it as worth it as I think it will be when comparing it to traditional sit, listen and learn? The article I have selected discusses methods of teaching creativity and its place within creative and social development.

Each lesson prepares us for the next, each student comes equipped with personal interests and natural questions, why stifle this curiosity. I think its important to help students learn and as Ms. Frizzle would say “take chances, make mistakes, get messy!” (Magic School Bus).

Reference:

Craft, A., Cremin, T., Burnard, P., Dragovic, T., & Chapell, K. (2013). Possibility thinking: Culminative studies of an evidence-based concept driving creativity? In International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education (3rd ed., Vol. 41, pp. 538-556). Routeledge.