Angels, tooth fairies and ghosts: thinking creatively in an early years classroom

This chapter offers an evaluation and interpretation of the creative thinking and collaboration that took place in a class of five year olds in an English primary school during the academic year 2004–05. This school was committed to developing itself as a creative learning community by participating in a creativity-training programme, Synectics, more usually employed in an adult business context. This school wanted to develop its capacity for creative teaching and learning. This intent was in tune with national and international developments in education where strenuous efforts were being made to extend the reach of creative education which had for a long time been more or less exclusively associated with the arts. The chapter offers an outline of these developments to set the research in context. The research described is a case study and second phase of an evaluation of the project EXCITE! (Excellence, Creativity and Innovation in Teaching and Education) and was carried out by researchers from the Open University. Previous research suggests that when children first start school, they are already competent creative thinkers and storytellers and that both creative and narrative modes of thinking involve abductive rather than deductive inferential reasoning. It is argued that although children may need training in paradigmatic (deductive) modes of thought, they do not necessarily need further training in narrative modes of thought. The examples of young children’s thinking discussed in chapter support this argument. The Synectics creativity-training programme does not claim to ‘teach’ creative thinking per se. The evidence presented suggests that when teachers use Synectics tools and techniques to inform practice, these allow them to create a positive, emotional climate that allows young children to use analogy and metaphor to construct creative explanations and narratives through collaborative discussion

The Effect of Problem Posing Approach Towards Students\u27 Mathematical Disposition, Critical & Creative Thinking Ability Based on School Level

The background of this study is the school of the new students of mathematics education courses came from grade high, medium and low. Here the writer wants to see how much influence of the school level on new students\u27 critical thinking skills and creative mathematical. The purpose of this study was to examine differences in new students\u27 mathematical disposition, critical & creative thinking ability through the mathematical problem posing approach based on school level (high, medium, low). The method used in this research is the experimental method, with only posttest design. The population of this study is all the students of mathematics education department in Cimahi; while the sample is selected randomly from one college. Then from this chosen college is taken two samples from random class. The instrument of essay test is used to measure students\u27 critical and mathematical creative thinking ability; while non-test instrument is questionnaire of attitude scale. The results show that: 1) based on the school level (high, medium, and low); there is difference in students\u27 mathematical critical thinking ability through problem posing approach. 2) based on the school level (high, medium, and low); there is difference in the students\u27 mathematical critical thinking ability through problem posing approach. 3) based on the school level (high, medium, and low); there is difference in students\u27 mathematical disposition

Aha? Is Creativity Possible in Legal Problem Solving and Teachable in Legal Education?

This article continues and expands on my earlier project of seeking to describe how legal negotiation should be understood conceptually and undertaken behaviorally to produce better solutions to legal problems. As structured problem solving requires interests, needs and objectives identification, so too must creative solution seeking have its structure and elements in order to be effectively taught. Because research and teaching about creativity and how we think has expanded greatly since modern legal negotiation theory has been developed, it is now especially appropriate to examine how we might harness this new learning to how we might examine and teach legal creativity in the context of legal negotiation and problem solving. This article explores both the cognitive and behavioral dimensions of legal creativity and offers suggestions for how it can be taught more effectively in legal education, both within the more narrow curricula of negotiation courses and more generally throughout legal education

Using Metacognition In Learning Mathematics Toward Character Building

The Ministry of National Education (Kemdiknas) plans to implement character education. Mathematics is one subject that has a big influence in preparing the students to be able to think logically, analytically, systematically, critically, and creatively, and have the ability to cooperate, allowing to be given values to build students character. Metacognition is the awareness of cognitive processes. By using metacognition, someone does all the activities with full awareness. When learning mathematics by involving his metacognition, he will be able to observe the relationship between data in the problem with the prior knowledge, to re-examine its accuracy, aswell as solving a complex problem with the simple steps, and asks himself and tries to clarify his opinion. This paper aims to develop learning Mathematics materials that consist of values and involve students metacognition to form a competent human resources and human character, discipline, honest, who perform all acts by full awareness. always make good planning, monitoring and evaluating their action. Keyword: character, values, metacognitio

Creativity and Enquiry in Action: a case study of cross-curricular approaches in teacher education

The current Key Stage 3 National Curriculum for England orders that our education foster determination, adaptability, confidence, risk-taking, enterprise, creativity and enjoyment in a cross-curricular context in pupils. To appreciate these dimensions student teachers need to have multiple opportunities to experience such a curriculum for themselves. However, initial teacher education is an intense and demanding experience; student teachers veer between phases of basic survival and personal innovation as they develop their individual pedagogy and personal philosophy. For new secondary teachers their own subject specialism forms a core feature of their emerging professional identity and can act as a barrier to collaborative practice beyond that specialism. This paper discusses one example of a cross-curricular approach in which Art and Geography PGCE students reflect on their experiences of a collaborative event designed to break down subject barriers while exploiting the potential of subject specialism. Data collected from semi-structured interviews conducted with a sample of students during the two-day event is discussed. Data revealed that critical outcomes of the event included the practice and development of genuine collaboration, negotiation, teamwork, and leadership

Art’s asymptotic leadership:Arts leadership, education and the loss of autonomy

This article will mostly engage with arts leadership through a discussion that focuses on the arts, leadership and education, and how their convergence might have a direct impact on autonomy. Taking a meta-theoretical approach, the main argument is that arts leadership is an asymptotic state of affairs. Rather than pose art and leadership as antithetical events that necessitate forms of syntheses through identifiable contexts, the context for arts leadership represents a contiguous space where art and leadership continuously seek a mutual way of preserving their integrity in an asymptotic relationship. If this relationship turns into a synthesis, both art’s autonomy and the ability to lead creatively are neutralized. The aim is to question the various implications that bring together the autonomous spheres of the arts, education and leadership, while inviting the reader to draw his or her own conclusions critically and autonomously. To clarify this approach, this article straddles across several horizons, including: arts practice as a sphere of autonomous dispositions and the political implications that follow; education as a horizon that educes - leads out - through the pedagogical exits that are offered by the arts; and art’s anti-systemic pedagogy, where art’s autonomy becomes a possibility of unlearning systems.<br/