The Teaching of Creativity: Process, Product, Environment, and Assessment

Teaching creativity is an issue gaining more attention. Businesses and universities alike are looking for ways to promote creative and innovative thinking. As universities look for ways to teach and assess creativity, interscholastic speech and debate competition should be held up as a model for such efforts. Through a combination of iterative performances, the mastering of domain knowledge, an environment that encourages/rewards creativity, and feedback based on the Consensual Assessment Technique, forensics offers an ideal environment for students to learn the process of developing creative products

Implementation of a constructivist-oriented training for kinesiology graduate teaching assistants

Increasingly, graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are not assisting faculty instructors, but finding themselves in the role of lead instructor, particularly in physical activity courses. Despite this responsibility, GTAs receive little or no pedagogical training and often feel unprepared to teach. Conversely, college and university physical education teacher education (PETE) programs grounded in constructivist principles provide a strong nurturing environment for teacher growth and are increasingly commonplace. Constructivist methods foster learners’ active involvement by utilizing real-life learning situations that they perceive as relevant to their own lives – situations that are contextual and holistic. While constructivist PETE programs have been studied, constructivist kinesiology GTA training has not. Alignment (curricular elements reinforcing each other and fitting together logically) is a goal of constructivist teaching. Built on a pilot study that revealed the absence or poor articulation of three key curricular elements - student learning objectives (SLOs), learning cues, and teacher-provided feedback, this dissertation study was conducted to implement and evaluate a constructivist-oriented program to train new university GTAs to enhance their teaching effectiveness through alignment of these three elements. This study utilized a qualitative research design, focusing on process, understanding, and meaning, rather than product. The sample was purposeful and non-probabilistic. The primary participants were 11 GTAs new to the physical activity instruction program at a public university in the United States. I led a three-hour constructivist-oriented training session with this group in the week preceding the fall semester, and observed each GTA teach on three occasions, offering feedback, mentoring, and support. I conducted one-on-one semi-structured interviews with each GTA, two undergraduate students taught by each GTA, and the director of physical activity instruction. I analyzed the data (observation field notes, interview transcriptions, orientation/training documents, lesson plans, and syllabi) using constant comparison. The training/mentoring intervention enhanced the ability of most GTAs to align SLOs, learning cues, and feedback in the execution (although much less so in the written planning) of their lessons. Most of the new teachers shared that the training session reduced their anxiety regarding their upcoming teaching assignment, and nearly all agreed or strongly agreed that the training had been useful, had increased their pedagogical knowledge, and had increased their self-confidence regarding their teaching. All the GTAs described the semester-long mentoring as beneficial, particularly because most were eager to receive feedback on their teaching performance. In turn, most undergraduate students interviewed expressed that they felt their instructor had been successful in presenting a well-sequenced curriculum that fostered their learning

Metacognition in Learning

Metacognition skills have been proven to have a positive relationship with learning. The strength of metacognition relies heavily on self-efficacy where a student understands his/her learning style, and the ability to use information gathered and align it with his/her learning style. In addition, knowing what you know and how you know it as a student plays a huge role in knowing what you do not know and linking it with what is close or relevant to it, that you know. It is about having skills and knowledge that empowers you to be an independent learner. Literature on classroom practices show a number of short-comings in diverse areas such as poor teacher knowledge, overcrowded classrooms, and lack of resources for learning. An independent student will strive under such an environment by studying independently, searching for resources, and finding multimodal ways of learning. It is also important to note that naturally, human beings are curious and want to learn in order to conquer their world. Hence, Piaget's work of intellectual autonomy cannot be ignored when exploring metacognition. If learning experiences were ideal and developmental, they would be no need to nurture metacognition. Unfortunately, the education systems remove students' curiosity by bringing fake environments into learning that impede creation and imagination. This book emphasises the power of metacognition at different levels of learning. It can be seen as a parallel intervention approach, with expanded knowledge on how to extend existing skills for young children, which is a pre-intervention. Authors in this book bring diverse viewpoints from diverse fields on how to nurture metacognition, thus giving the reader an opportunity to borrow strategies from other fields. This contribution is a mixture of empirical contributions and opinion pieces informed by review of literature

Fostering Graduate Student Creative Problem Solving in a Professional Military Education Context

In military contexts, a tension exists between the need for rapid, unquestioning obedience to orders, especially early in one’s career, and the need for senior leaders to solve complex problems creatively. For officers in the Marine Corps, a key milestone in their careers is the Marine Corps’ Command and Staff College, an intermediate-level professional military education master’s degree program. In 2015, the College, and the wider Marine Corps University community, established a plan to improve student creative problem solving; however, the plan did not meet its outcome goals by 2021. The purpose of this study is twofold. First, using a convergent parallel mixed methods design, this study examined factors related to creative problem solving and their application to Command and Staff College curriculum. Key results of interviews, surveys, and secondary data analysis included the perceived need for additional time for students to think creatively, and the need to address the tension between authoritarian thinking and the imperative to develop new creative solutions. The second part of this study examined an intervention designed to give students more time to think and to give them structural, metacognitive supports for their thinking. Using a quasi-experimental design, the two key factors of concern for the study were metacognition and creative problem solving. Improvements in the students’ metacognitive abilities were expected to lead to improvements in their creative problem-solving ability. Quantitative results showed no significant improvement in creative problem solving while there was actually a significant decrease in perceived metacognitive ability for both the comparison and intervention groups. According to explanatory interviews, one key factor in these results may have been the use of a perception survey, in which decreases in one’s perception of one’s metacognitive ability might mask actual improvements in real metacognitive ability. Another factor that emerged from the explanatory interviews was the need for the intervention to be more fully integrated across the whole curriculum. This study underscores the difficulty of making significant changes to student creative problem solving, especially in a military community. Further study could examine the relationship between perceptions of metacognitive ability and actual metacognitive ability

Advances in Technology Enhanced Learning

‘Advances in Technology Enhanced Learning’ presents a range of research projects which aim to explore how to make engagement in learning (and teaching) more passionate. This interactive and experimental resource discusses innovations which pave the way to open collaboration at scale. The book introduces methodological and technological breakthroughs via twelve chapters to learners, instructors, and decision-makers in schools, universities, and workplaces. The Open University's Knowledge Media Institute and the EU TELMap project have brought together the luminaries from the European research area to showcase their vision of the future of learning with technology via their recent research project work. The projects discussed range widely over the Technology Enhanced Learning area from: environments for responsive open learning, work-based reflection, work-based social creativity, serious games and many more

Retrieval-, Distributed-, and Interleaved Practice in the Classroom:A Systematic Review

Three of the most effective learning strategies identified are retrieval practice, distributed practice, and interleaved practice, also referred to as desirable difficulties. However, it is yet unknown to what extent these three practices foster learning in primary and secondary education classrooms (as opposed to the laboratory and/or tertiary education classrooms, where most research is conducted) and whether these strategies affect different students differently. To address these gaps, we conducted a systematic review. Initial and detailed screening of 869 documents found in a threefold search resulted in a pool of 29 journal articles published from 2006 through June 2020. Seventy-five effect sizes nested in 47 experiments nested in 29 documents were included in the review. Retrieval- and interleaved practice appeared to benefit students’ learning outcomes quite consistently; distributed practice less so. Furthermore, only cognitive Student*Task characteristics (i.e., features of the student’s cognition regarding the task, such as initial success) appeared to be significant moderators. We conclude that future research further conceptualising and operationalising initial effort is required, as is a differentiated approach to implementing desirable difficulties

Exploring the development of clinical reasoning skills among doctors-in-training

Clinical reasoning is complex, difficult to conceptualise and learn, and important as it is closely linked with medical expertise. Learning clinical reasoning skills is primarily an unguided and subconscious process for doctors-in-training, and there is a need for an evidence based, explicit approach to support the learning of these core skills. The focus of this research is the process by which doctors-in-training learn clinical reasoning skills within the context of General Medicine in north Queensland. The literature to date has been extensive but has struggled to identify a practical framework for doctors-in-training which clearly supports their learning of clinical reasoning skills. This program of research investigated four factors identified in the literature as influencing the development of clinical reasoning skills: the metacognitive awareness levels of doctors-in-training; the learning climate of Intern doctors in their first year of clinical work; the influence of Consultants; and the role of Interns as learners. The first factor was investigated by exploring whether metacognitive awareness correlated with performance in medical undergraduate examinations, and whether there was an increase in metacognitive awareness from the first to the fifth-year of the undergraduate medical course. Volunteer medical students completed the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI), as well as consenting to give access to their examination scores for this study. For the first-year undergraduate doctors-in-training there were correlations between the Knowledge of Cognition domain of the MAI and their end of year examination results, but not with the Regulation of Cognition domain. For fifth-year students there were correlations between both the Knowledge and Regulation of Cognition domains and their end of year examination results. This study found that the overall MAI scores were not significantly different between first and fifth-year undergraduates in this sample. The Regulation of Cognition domain and its sub-domains, regarded as key factors in clinical reasoning skill development, did not significantly differ between first and fifth-year undergraduate doctors-in-training. The second factor investigated was whether the learning climate of Intern doctors-in-training was conducive to learning. The validated Dutch Resident Educational Climate Test (D-RECT) was used, and written responses invited to the question 'What three aspects of the junior doctor learning environment would you alter?' The Coaching and Assessment and the Relations between Consultants domains were identified as significantly lower in General Medicine than for other units, triangulating the written comments provided by the Interns. The third factor investigated Consultant Physicians as role models for doctors-in-training learning clinical reasoning skills. The focus of the semi-structured interviews explored how the Physicians understood clinical reasoning, their understanding of how they had acquired these skills, and the ways they sought to foster these skills among their doctors-in-training. The seven Consultants described their journey to gaining clinical reasoning expertise as being unguided, generally subconscious and seldom discussed. Most Consultants spoke of being unaware of their own journey to gaining clinical reasoning expertise, and did not regard themselves as role models for doctors-in-training. Most Consultants indicated that acquiring clinical knowledge and learning to think about their decision-making processes (metacognition), were crucial for acquiring expertise, but very few Consultants explained how they could intentionally foster these skills. The final factor was explored by investigating how Intern doctors-in-training understood their own development of clinical reasoning skills. At the start of their General Medicine term, Interns were presented with basic information about clinical reasoning. At the end of that term, participating Interns were interviewed. A paper copy of the presentation given at the start of the term was used to stimulate Intern reflections on their learning during the General Medicine term. The 27 Interns interviewed identified that learning clinical reasoning was a tacit, personal journey influenced by enabling and inhibitory factors. The Interns attributed the differences between their clinical reasoning skills and those of their Consultants as being primarily due to the experience and superior clinical knowledge of the Consultants. A multi-methods research design was used to answer the research questions across the four studies. The first two factors were investigated using quantitative methods, while qualitative methods were employed for the last two. The multi-methods approach enabled findings from the separate studies to be triangulated, supporting confidence in the trustworthiness of the synthesised outcomes and reducing an over-dependence on any individual study. The Synthesis and Proposed Framework chapter initially integrates the findings from the four studies to provide an overall understanding of how clinical reasoning skills are currently fostered in north Queensland. These synthesised results are then used to propose an evidence-based learning model and a method for its implementation at the teaching hospital. The modified Cognitive Apprenticeship Learning Model (mCALM) could help to make expert thinking visible by explicitly supporting constructivist learning practices, metacognitive skills, deliberate practice and a conducive learning climate. The mCALM appears well suited to explicitly fostering the learning of clinical reasoning skills for doctors-in-training in north Queensland