Creativity Theory and Action in Education – serie

People who don’t know theatre may think the only creative artist in the field is the playwright--with actors, directors, and designers mere “interpreters” of the dramatist’s vision. Historically, however, creative mastery and power have passed through different hands. Sometimes, the playwright did the staging. In other periods, leading actors demanded plays be changed to fatten their roles. The late 19th and 20th centuries saw “the rise of the director,” in which director and playwright struggled for creative dominance. But no matter where the balance of power rested, good theatre artists of all kinds have created powerful experiences for their audience.The purpose of this volume is to bridge the interdisciplinary abyss between the study of creativity in theatre/drama and in other fields. Sharing theories, research findings, and pedagogical practices, the authors and I hope to stimulate discussion among creativity and theatre scholar/teachers,as well as multidisciplinary research.Theatre educators know from experience that performance classes enhance student creativity. This volume is the first to bring together perspectives from multiple disciplines on how drama pedagogy facilitates learning creativity. Drawing on current findings in cognitive science, as well as drama teachers’ lived experience, the contributors analyze how acting techniques train the imagination, allow students to explore alternate identities, and discover the confidence to take risks. The goal is to stimulate further multidisciplinary investigation of theatre education and creativity, with the intention of benefitting both fields.

Revealing Creativity: Exploration in Transnational Education Cultures explores the recovery and fostering of creativity under educational constraint. This longitudinal global study of diverse education populations in China, Canada, and Australia offers application of the 4-C Creativity Model through experiential activities and exploratory interviews within classrooms and other learning spaces. Transnational in scope, this book describes an original innovative method, process, and tool for addressing obstacles to creativity in educational environments and within the self that constitute a significant challenge to practice. Through an immersive encounter with a validated creativity model, diverse cultural groups were guided to interpret the 4-C classification system and uncover their latent potential as creators. For their own purposes, readers can adapt the dynamic model-as-method process for releasing and revealing creativity within accountability-bound competitive cultures.

Revealing Creativity: Exploration in Transnational Education Cultures explores the recovery and fostering of creativity under educational constraint. This longitudinal global study of diverse education populations in China, Canada, and Australia offers application of the 4-C Creativity Model through experiential activities and exploratory interviews within classrooms and other learning spaces. Transnational in scope, this book describes an original innovative method, process, and tool for addressing obstacles to creativity in educational environments and within the self that constitute a significant challenge to practice. Through an immersive encounter with a validated creativity model, diverse cultural groups were guided to interpret the 4-C classification system and uncover their latent potential as creators. For their own purposes, readers can adapt the dynamic model-as-method process for releasing and revealing creativity within accountability-bound competitive cultures.

This edited volume brings together a group of international researchers and theorists from various intellectual and analytic traditions to explore the role uncertainty plays in creativity, learning, and development. Contributors to this volume draw on existing programs of research as well as introduce new and even speculative directions for research, theory and practice.Learning and life are filled with uncertainty. Although the experience of uncertainty can cause emotional discomfort or cognitive rigidity, uncertainty serves as a catalyst and condition for change. In this way, uncertainty represents a core facet in the interrelationship among creativity, learning, and development. Considerations for both the benefits and potential costs of uncertainty will be addressed in this volume with an aim of understanding how uncertainty can be better understood in light of creativity, learning, and development. Taken together this volume stands to contribute to our collective understandingof the role that uncertainty plays in learning and life and highlights how conceptualizing and studying uncertainty in new ways can promote positive and lasting change.

This edited volume brings together a group of international researchers and theorists from various intellectual and analytic traditions to explore the role uncertainty plays in creativity, learning, and development. Contributors to this volume draw on existing programs of research as well as introduce new and even speculative directions for research, theory and practice.Learning and life are filled with uncertainty. Although the experience of uncertainty can cause emotional discomfort or cognitive rigidity, uncertainty serves as a catalyst and condition for change. In this way, uncertainty represents a core facet in the interrelationship among creativity, learning, and development. Considerations for both the benefits and potential costs of uncertainty will be addressed in this volume with an aim of understanding how uncertainty can be better understood in light of creativity, learning, and development. Taken together this volume stands to contribute to our collective understandingof the role that uncertainty plays in learning and life and highlights how conceptualizing and studying uncertainty in new ways can promote positive and lasting change.

This book explores the complex, yet critical, relationship between technology and creativity, specifically in educational contexts. Creativity is important for success in today’s rapidly changing, radically contingent and hyperconnected world. This is even more relevant in the context of teaching and learning—where the psychological, sociological and cultural aspects of human learning confront the challenges of a rapidly changing, technologically saturated world.Written by some of the foremost thinkers and researchers in the area of creativity and/or technology, the chapters in this volume examine the impact of recent and future technologies on creativity, teaching and learning. Individually and collectively, they help us develop an understanding of this nexus of creativity and technology for education. They offer new perspectives on this rapidly evolving future—exploring issues, paradoxes, tensions, and points of interest for creativity and technology. They position these issues in ways that consider implications for thinking, learning, teaching, and education in general.

This book explores the complex, yet critical, relationship between technology and creativity, specifically in educational contexts. Creativity is important for success in today’s rapidly changing, radically contingent and hyperconnected world. This is even more relevant in the context of teaching and learning—where the psychological, sociological and cultural aspects of human learning confront the challenges of a rapidly changing, technologically saturated world.Written by some of the foremost thinkers and researchers in the area of creativity and/or technology, the chapters in this volume examine the impact of recent and future technologies on creativity, teaching and learning. Individually and collectively, they help us develop an understanding of this nexus of creativity and technology for education. They offer new perspectives on this rapidly evolving future—exploring issues, paradoxes, tensions, and points of interest for creativity and technology. They position these issues in ways that consider implications for thinking, learning, teaching, and education in general.

Collectively, the sixteen chapters in this book investigate the power of creativity in the classroom, many through the specific lens of limited resources as an opportunity. The chapters are divided into two sections, eight chapters comprising Section I: Theory and Research and then the eight chapters comprising Section II: Additional Perspectives and Future Directions. Within these two sections, the more than two-dozen authors that contributed to this book tackle a wide range of the possibilities for designing creative classroom-based instruction wherein limited resources are highlighted and valued, rather than avoided or lamented. The two main sections of this book are each preceded by a brief introductory summary highlighting those sections’ attributes and objectives, with the intention of providing helpful structure to the reader—but the book has also been designed such that each chapter stands independently and can be jumped to directly like a handbook. In its totality, this book exploring perspectives on creativity theory and research in education is designed to serve as a valuable resource for teachers, teacher educators, school administrators, parents, and education researchers, along with anyone else that is interested in optimizing our opportunities for nurturing creativity within classrooms.

Collectively, the sixteen chapters in this book investigate the power of creativity in the classroom, many through the specific lens of limited resources as an opportunity. The chapters are divided into two sections, eight chapters comprising Section I: Theory and Research and then the eight chapters comprising Section II: Additional Perspectives and Future Directions. Within these two sections, the more than two-dozen authors that contributed to this book tackle a wide range of the possibilities for designing creative classroom-based instruction wherein limited resources are highlighted and valued, rather than avoided or lamented. The two main sections of this book are each preceded by a brief introductory summary highlighting those sections’ attributes and objectives, with the intention of providing helpful structure to the reader—but the book has also been designed such that each chapter stands independently and can be jumped to directly like a handbook. In its totality, this book exploring perspectives on creativity theory and research in education is designed to serve as a valuable resource for teachers, teacher educators, school administrators, parents, and education researchers, along with anyone else that is interested in optimizing our opportunities for nurturing creativity within classrooms.

Creative Contradictions in Education is a provocative collection of essays by international experts who tackle difficult questions about creativity in education from a cross-disciplinary perspective. The contributors to this volume examine and provide fresh insights into the tensions and contradictions that researchers and educators face when attempting to understand and apply creativity in educational contexts.    Creativity in education is surrounded by many contradictions. Teachers generally value creativity, but question the role it can and should play in their classroom. Many educators find themselves feeling caught between the push to promote students’ creative thinking skills and the pull to meet external curricular mandates, increased performance monitoring, and various other curricular constraints. This book brings together leading experts who provide fresh, cross-disciplinary insights into how creative contradictions in education might be addressed. Contributors will draw from existing empirical and theoretical work, but push beyond “what currently is” and comment on future possibilities. This includes challenging the orthodoxy of traditional conceptions of creativity in education or making a case for maintaining particular orthodoxies.

People who don’t know theatre may think the only creative artist in the field is the playwright--with actors, directors, and designers mere “interpreters” of the dramatist’s vision. Historically, however, creative mastery and power have passed through different hands. Sometimes, the playwright did the staging. In other periods, leading actors demanded plays be changed to fatten their roles. The late 19th and 20th centuries saw “the rise of the director,” in which director and playwright struggled for creative dominance. But no matter where the balance of power rested, good theatre artists of all kinds have created powerful experiences for their audience.The purpose of this volume is to bridge the interdisciplinary abyss between the study of creativity in theatre/drama and in other fields. Sharing theories, research findings, and pedagogical practices, the authors and I hope to stimulate discussion among creativity and theatre scholar/teachers,as well as multidisciplinary research.Theatre educators know from experience that performance classes enhance student creativity. This volume is the first to bring together perspectives from multiple disciplines on how drama pedagogy facilitates learning creativity. Drawing on current findings in cognitive science, as well as drama teachers’ lived experience, the contributors analyze how acting techniques train the imagination, allow students to explore alternate identities, and discover the confidence to take risks. The goal is to stimulate further multidisciplinary investigation of theatre education and creativity, with the intention of benefitting both fields.

Creative Contradictions in Education is a provocative collection of essays by international experts who tackle difficult questions about creativity in education from a cross-disciplinary perspective. The contributors to this volume examine and provide fresh insights into the tensions and contradictions that researchers and educators face when attempting to understand and apply creativity in educational contexts.    Creativity in education is surrounded by many contradictions. Teachers generally value creativity, but question the role it can and should play in their classroom. Many educators find themselves feeling caught between the push to promote students’ creative thinking skills and the pull to meet external curricular mandates, increased performance monitoring, and various other curricular constraints. This book brings together leading experts who provide fresh, cross-disciplinary insights into how creative contradictions in education might be addressed. Contributors will draw from existing empirical and theoretical work, but push beyond “what currently is” and comment on future possibilities. This includes challenging the orthodoxy of traditional conceptions of creativity in education or making a case for maintaining particular orthodoxies.

Creativity Under Duress in Education? introduces a new framework—creativity under duress in education. Leading creativity researchers and educational scholars discuss creative theory and practice from an educational lens that is provocative. Across international contexts, this book combines insights from creativity and educational research; rich illustrations from classrooms, schools, and other professional settings, and practical ideas and strategies for how anyone invested in education can support creative teaching and learning.Readers will encounter diverse perspectives from an international cast of authors exploring cutting-edge ideas for creativity and innovation as a foremost priority for economies in the new millennium. At the same time, they consider forces of authority, control, and constraint that impact creative education and innovation within educational systems, extending to the professions. Educators and those interested in the future of education arevitally important to this conversation around research-based and practical analyses of creativity in and beyond the classroom. Addressed are these major issues: (1) creativity frameworks of theory and action in education, (2) research investigations into creativity and education, and (3) applications of creativity theory in real-world practice.Dynamic, this book presents a bridge between draconian contexts of assessment and explosive creativity in diverse places. A key contribution of the volume is its validation and promotion of creativity and innovation for students, teachers, professors, leaders, employers, policymakers, and others seeking ways to profoundly improve learning and transform education. In tackling the seemingly irreconcilable issues of creativity and accountability in K–12 institutions, higher education, and policy circles, worldwide, this work offers a message that is both cautionary and inspiring.Book editor Carol A. Mullen, PhD, is Professor of Educational Leadership at Virginia Tech, Virginia, USA. A twice-awarded Fulbright Scholar to China (2015) and Canada (2017), she was honored with the 2016 Jay D. Scribner Mentoring Award from the University Council for Educational Administration. She is author of Creativity and Education in China (2017) and co-editor of Education policy perils (2016).