Communicating Possibilities: A Study of English Nursery Children's Emergent Creativity, Exploring the Three to Four-year-old Child as an Artistic Communicator and Possibility Thinker

This research builds on previous studies that have documented evidence of Professor Anna Craft’s concept of ‘Possibility Thinking’ (PT) as at the heart of creativity which involves children transitioning from ‘what is this?’ to ‘what can I or we do with this?’ as well as imagining ‘as if’ they were in a different role. My thesis titled “Communicating Possibilities” examines English nursery children's emergent creativity, exploring the three to four-year-old child as an artistic communicator and possibility thinker through a case study approach situated in one primary school in South West England. Three main research questions were posed concerning the ‘what, how, and why’ of creativity when children communicated through art; as well as exploring the nurturing role of others, and identity manifest through voice and learning experience. This doctoral study is essentially interpretivist in nature seeking to explain how people make sense of their social worlds, and is an exploration framed by culturally negotiated, shared meanings, and complex social relations. Data was collected over one school year, in three nine-week research phases by the following ethnographic methods: naturalistic observations; researcher diary; children’s creative journals; and practitioner interviews. These methods were repeated for each phase. Inductive and deductive data analysis was conducted. Undertaken over time as the project unfolded, a grounded theory approach was applied in total to 27 episodes. Micro event analysis of creative behaviours in action and narrative discourses of two kinds: peer-to-peer, and child-to-adult (teacher, early years practitioner, and my researcher dialogue) revealed four broad critical themes: Observing and documenting children’s creativity; What children can do together- recognising differences; Pedagogy of possibilities- developing a role; and The value of artistic communication in the nursery classroom. Each is discussed in terms of the key implications these themes hold for theory, policy, and early years practice.ESR

A Creative Cognition Framework for Generating Breakthrough Ideas

Latest developments in creative cognition, largely informed by neuroscience, give us the ability to debunk pervasive and insidious creativity myths that get in the way of creating breakthrough ideas. This paper, through a review of creative cognition and neuroscience literature derives and synthesises a creative cognition framework focused on engaging metacognition of the creative process, activating creating drive, shifting perspective to gain insight, deploying defocused attention and finally, and only when the other dimensions have been established, sparking remote connections and getting to breakthrough ideas. As practitioners we need to ensure we are strategically deploying this framework, creating the time and space for deep thinking, and that the process seamlessly supports people to be at their creative best. As thinking on creative cognition develops further over time, this framework will be updated and also iterated with practical learnings from deployment

Substance and Providence in the Old French Theological Romance

The doctrine of divine providence was considered fundamental to understanding the nature of reality in medieval Christian orthodoxy. One of our greatest modern impediments to proper understanding of this law are the radically different ontologies that flourished in the Latin West through the recuperation of Ancient thought, most notably in the divisions between the Platonists and the Aristotelians. Whereas Biblical exegesis owed more to Augustine\u27s Platonism, the rise of Aristotelian thought in the university curriculum entailed a serious threat to the doctrine of providence. The translation and dissemination of Islamic Aristotelians revealed an almost identical challenge to Islamic orthodoxy on the same matter. Philosophical, and especially ontological, speculation on the nature of substance (ontology) was therefore fertile ground for heresy. The main works under examination are the anonymous Queste del Saint Graal and the continuation of the Roman de la Rose by Jean de Meun. Deeply imbued with Augustinian figuralism and Biblical history, the Queste strongly distinguishes itself from the rest of the Lancelot en Prose, most notably La Mort le Roi Artu, in its theological purpose. It also shows a clever reworking of its source materials (Chrétien de Troyes and continuators, Robert de Boron, Perlesvaus) and an attempt to re-write the grail literature in its most sophisticated and orthodox formulation. By contrast, Jean de Meun\u27s Rose continuation is fraught with heresy and obscenity as he denounces the corrupt practices of the mendicant orders and marks his clear preference for the University of Paris\u27s secular masters (ca. 1270). Analyzing the question of ontology within the work, one notices heresies that originate in the Islamic reception of Aristotle, and which resulted in the large-scale condemnations within the decade of the continuation\u27s composition. While strikingly different in tone and purpose, the Queste and the Rose are theological romances that use the concept of providence to explain the special place of man. While the former offers an explanation based on church sacramental practices, the latter offers an extreme naturalism with an Arab-inflected Boethius as its principal source

Pop Up Play Final Research Report March 2015

Pop Up Play is a FREE open source software product that provides creative play for children through its immersive learning environment and mixed reality system. Use the Pop up Play system and your existing hardware to create your own unique content. This could relate to children's books, gallery or museum exhibits, theatrical productions, or curriculum topics and can immerse participants in projected images and worlds for creative play and open-ended learning. The overarching aims of this research project were to understand how Arts and cultural organisations can access digital technology for creative play and learning, and how we can enable children and young people to access meaningful digital realm engagement. In response to this our specific objectives were to create a mixed reality play system and support package that could: Immerse participants in projected images and worlds Enable children to invest in the imaginary dimensions and possibilities of digital play provide a creative learning framework, tools, guides and manuals and an online community Offer open source software, easy to use for artists, learning officers, teachers, librarians, children and young peopl

Methods for assessing the likelihood of country grain elevator failure in the United States

The ability to accurately assess the financial soundness of grain elevators has become an increasingly important task for regulatory authorities. Recent changes in both the general economy and the agricultural economy during the early and mid-1980s have created financial stress in parts of the grain sector. These changes and the resulting increases in the number of grain elevator insolvencies have caused regulators to seek improved means to judge the financial health of grain elevators. The purpose of this study was to develop an accurate and reliable early warning model to assist regulatory authorities in identifying financially troubled country grain elevators in the United States;Three early warning models were estimated and tested in this study. Two models were based on discriminant functions; one linear and the other quadratic. The third model was based on a logistic cumulative distribution function. The purpose of the models was to forewarn regulatory authorities of impending grain elevator insolvency one year in advance;Five variables were hypothesized to be important indicators of the financial health of grain elevators and were included in each of the early warning models developed in this study. The variables were constructed from basic information contained in the elevators\u27 financial statements. Each of the variables included in the models measured a different dimension of firm performance; liquidity, financial structure, cash flow, productivity, and profitability;The findings of this study indicated that: (1) each of the early warning models did a very credible job of distinguishing solvent grain elevators from insolvent grain elevators,(2) the independent variables used were capable of providing information that could discern healthy grain elevators from those likely to fail, (3) the classification performance of the early warning models varied considerably over the range of cutoff scores used for classification, and (4) the early warning model based on the logistic cumulative distribution function generally outperformed the other two models for purposes of detecting grain elevator insolvencies

"Put me back in my skin!" Children's Perceptions of Mixed Reality Play

This article reports on child-focused reflections from research findings of a year-long investigation working with primary school aged children and young people in England exploring mixed reality play. 58 children and young people were engaged in the project and actively participated in 29 focus group interviews over time. Thematic qualitative analysis revealed five broad features of mixed reality play from a child’s perspective: dimensional embodiment, creating worlds, dramatizing and gaming, agentic action and inside and outside spaces. Through the adopted lens of children’s reflective engagement, this article hypothesises that mixed reality presents an environment for digital natives (Prensky, 2001) to play openly and creatively, and puts forth an argument for new technological opportunities and transformations of pedagogic practice.This article reports on child-focused reflections from research findings of a year-long investigation working with primary school aged children and young people in England exploring mixed reality play. 58 children and young people were engaged in the project and actively participated in 29 focus group interviews over time. Thematic qualitative analysis revealed five broad features of mixed reality play from a child’s perspective: dimensional embodiment, creating worlds, dramatizing and gaming, agentic action and inside and outside spaces. Through the adopted lens of children’s reflective engagement, this article hypothesises that mixed reality presents an environment for digital natives (Prensky, 2001) to play openly and creatively, and puts forth an argument for new technological opportunities and transformations of pedagogic practice

Choosing treatment for localised prostate cancer: A patient-conducted-interview study

Objectives: Treatment choice can be particularly difficult in localised prostate cancer because of the uncertainty involved. Indeed, some men prefer maintaining their masculine identity and quality of life to potentially securing longer-term survival through surgery or radiotherapy. UK health services are now obliged to leave the choice of treatment to the patient and the aim of this study is to improve understanding of patients’ experiences of choosing treatment. Methods: A one-day participative workshop where men of six months post-diagnosis design and conduct audio and video interviews on each other about their experiences of choosing treatment. Results: The findings show that treatment choice is a complex process combining emotional and rational elements. Information gathering and delegation to professional expertise were two key themes that emerged. Conclusions: The findings emphasise that treatment choice for localised prostate cancer is little like the traditional notions of consumerism from which it is derived. Importantly, the results illustrate, from a patient perspective, how health professionals can engage in their roles as information providers and as experts