Full STEAM Ahead: Creativity in Excellent STEM Teaching Practices

This article emphasizes the value of creativity and arts-based learning in the sciences (STEAM education), using one example from a recent research study of creative and effective classroom teachers. The future of innovative thinking in STEM disciplines relies on breaking down the distinction between disciplines traditionally seen as “creative” like the arts or music, and STEM disciplines traditionally seen as more rigid or logical-mathematical (Catterall, 2002). The most exceptional thinkers in fields like science or math are also highly creative individuals who are deeply influenced by an interest in, and knowledge of, music, the arts and similar areas (Caper, 1996; Root-Bernstein, 2003; Dail, 2013; Eger, 2013). In light of this, STEAM must become an essential paradigm for creative and artistically infused teaching and learning in the sciences. I recently conducted a study of creative teaching practices among highly effective teachers (winners/finalists of the National Teacher of the Year program). This article looks at a single case drawn from this study, and considers the arts-based science teaching/learning employed by one of these teachers, Michael Geisen, the 2008 National Teacher of the Year award winner, and a middle school science teacher

Creating STEAM with Design Thinking: Beyond STEM and Arts Integration

This article suggests the value in a broad view of STEAM beyond arts-integration, as well as the potential of design thinking for STEAM. Despite much interest in STEAM it is often challenging for many teachers to integrate into their teaching of school subject matter. I suggest that as an interdisciplinary crossroads, design thinking provides a natural bridge between the arts, sciences, and other subjects. In this it can offer guiding flexible structure and in-road for teachers to design STEAM-based lessons, and to incorporate as an integrated aspect of students’ STEAM learning. I discuss an example of an elementary Spanish teacher, who, as a student in a graduate-level design thinking and education course, used design thinking to design an interdisciplinary STEAM project for her students. This example illustrates how design thinking can guide teachers’ STEAM curriculum design, and be interwoven into elements of STEAM curricula, to open up more interdisciplinary, creative and project-based opportunities

Expanding the paradigm: bringing designerly perspectives into creativity scholarship

Designerly ways of knowing have significant untapped potential to inform creativity research. In this article, I draw upon in-depth interviews with expert design scholars to examine this connection. Thematic analysis reveals how design offers potential lenses on creativity that are not often taken up in dominant psychological discourses around creativity. I situate this by framing the need for design-based knowledge within creativity literature. The findings reflect a view of creativity involving perception, intuition, and ability to re-see the world; creativity as an action-orientated phenomenon; and a focus on the ethics of creativity in an increasingly technology-empowered society. In exploring scholarly definitions of and views about creativity, there are insights on how design offers distinctive viewpoints for paradigms around creativity. Santrauka Dizaineriško pažinimo būdai turi reikšmingų nepanaudotų galimybių praturtinti kūrybiškumo tyrinėjimus. Siekdama išnagrinėti šį ryšį, straipsnyje remiuosi išsamiais interviu su dizaino srityje dirbančiais mokslininkais ekspertais. Teminė analizė atskleidžia, kaip dizainas kūrybiškumui suteikia galimybių, atveriančių jo perspektyvas, kurios nėra pasitelkiamos vyraujančiuose psichologijos diskursuose, susijusiuose su kūrybiškumu. Tam skiriu dėmesio, kūrybiškumui skirtoje literatūroje sukurdama dizainu grindžiamų žinių poreikį. Išvados atspindi kūrybiškumo vaizdą, apimantį suvokimą, intuiciją ir gebėjimą naujaip pažvelgti į pasaulį; kūrybiškumą kaip į veiksmą nukreiptą reiškinį ir į kūrybiškumo etiką visuomenėje, kurioje vis didesnių galių įgyja technologijos. Tyrinėjant mokslinius kūrybiškumo apibrėžimus ir nusistatymus jo atžvilgiu, kyla įžvalgų apie tai, kaip dizainas formuoja išskirtinius požiūrius į kūrybiškumo paradigmas. Reikšminiai žodžiai: kūrybinė epistemologija, kūrybinės paradigmos, kūrybinis mąstymas, kūrybiškumas, kūrybiškumo tyrinėjimai, dizainas, dizaineriški pažinimo būdai, etika, intuicija, suvokimas

El panorama educativo de la era digital: prácticas comunicativas que (nos) impulsan hacia adelante

En este artículo, se identificarán algunos modelos y tendencias emergentes en la producción de conocimiento. Se hará hincapié especialmente en cómo los individuos implicados en los procesos de consumo y de distribución de la información expresan diferentes niveles de solidaridad y de compromiso, y se sugerirá que es crucial que las personas no solo conozcan estos procesos, sino que también estén abiertas a otros modelos, oportunidades y posibilidades que, dadas las condiciones sociotecnológicas y comunicativas actuales, aún deben desarrollarse. Se abordará con especial interés el ámbito de la educación, puesto que se entiende que los educadores están participando de forma comprometida en una profunda renovación pedagógica a través de proyectos compartidos cimentados en interacciones profesionales y personales facilitadas por las redes. Estas interacciones favorecen la emergencia de modelos pedagógicos que permiten a profesores y a alumnos convertirse en expertos al mismo tiempo que rompen con muchas convenciones epistemológicas clásicas. Estas pedagogías generadas de abajo arriba no solo fomentan la creatividad y la colaboración, y se sustentan en el uso de nuevas herramientas digitales, sino que las promueven e impulsan los intereses del alumnado, y por ello, tienen el potencial suficiente para devolverle la alegría al proceso de aprendizaje. Por último, se argumentará que los modelos emergentes en la construcción del conocimiento a través de las TIC ofrecen nuevos paisajes culturales y ecologías de aprendizaje que trastocan las inscripciones tradicionales de las identidades individuales y las afinidades raciales y culturales.This paper identifies trends in the emerging models of knowledge production available in our society. We suggest it is crucial not only to be aware of these emerging models but also to be open to opportunities and possibilities that may still develop. We consider how people may express different levels of solidarity and commitment to these trends and models in their information consumption and distribution processes. We discuss how educators are now engaging in profound pedagogical renewal by expressing deeper levels of solidarity and commitment to knowledge production and educational projects through professional and personal interactions. These interactions are producing pedagogical models that allow both teachers and learners to become knowledgeable while simultaneously breaking away from domain conventions. These bottom-up pedagogies foster creativity, collaboration and the use of new digital tools. They are driven by learner interests and, as such, have the potential to bring the joy back into the learning process. Finally, we argue that emerging models of knowledge construction mediated by ICT provide new cultural landscapes and ecologies of learning that disrupt traditional inscriptions of individual identities and racial-cultural affinities

System-wide school mindfulness: addressing elementary students’ social-emotional learning and wellbeing

When considering students’ educational needs, emotional and mental health are often lower school priorities than content learning and traditional curricula. Yet, a growing youth mental health crisis is a reality that educators cannot afford to ignore. In this article, we present an illustrative case, at the school community level, as a form of pedagogical innovation. In this practical article, we discuss how a disenfranchised school community incorporated a systemic mindfulness intervention into its school culture, yielding positive and impressive results. Based on teachers’ pedagogical perspectives, we share perceptions of changes in students’ behavior, mental health, general outcomes, and teacher retention. This was spurred by a need to support students’ emotion regulation at school. We situate this local community innovation within the larger issue of youth mental health within US society and education. We describe the local context and setting of the school, including the need for trauma-informed social–emotional support for students with significant needs. After describing the mindfulness innovation in detail, we then share our qualitative analysis and results of its impact. Discussing interviews with school staff and administrators, and our observations of the school and classrooms, we distill findings and offer insights about the outcomes of mindfulness used at the level of an entire school community. Our implications suggest the potential of such community mental/emotional health innovations in education for students and teachers, leading to multiple areas of school improvement

Creativity in Business Education: A Review of Creative Self-Belief Theories and Arts-Based Methods

Creativity has become one of the most sought-after skills from graduates across business and industry. It is therefore imperative to infuse creativity training within business programs of study and professional development experiences, to remind people of their eternally curious and creative nature. The objective of this paper is to explore the literature around theories of creative potential and performance—including creative identity, creative mindset, and creative self-efficacy. We consider perspectives that reveal that creativity is a mindset predicated on beliefs and ways of thinking. Educational psychology literature and theories of creative self-belief illustrate how creative identity, mindset, and self-efficacy form the core of an individual’s belief system to think, act, and develop creatively in the world. This connects to the potential of arts-based methods as a means to infuse creative learning into business education. We illustrate how our findings can be put into practice by sharing an example of an art-based intervention that is currently in progress to develop creative capacity among students in an internationally known business program. We conclude with the idea that its incumbent upon business education, professional development, and training to incorporate methodologies that enhance creative capacity by initially eliminating or minimizing self-perceived limitations in people, such as fear, negative personal judgement, and chattering of the mind—and theories of creative self-belief provide a foundation that can undergird arts-based methods toward this goal

"...and we are the creators!" technologies as creative material

Tangible embedded technology kits are increasingly being used in schools, often as a means of providing students a platform for problem solving and computational thinking. When they are incorporated in creative tasks such as open-ended design projects, embedded technologies take on the role of a design material - a medium for exploration, iteration and creation. This paper presents some early results of a video analysis of school children's collaborative interactions with tangible, embedded technologies in an open-ended design task. We identify some of the difficulties students encounter and some of the practices they develop with these kits as they work to progress their designs. Our findings detail how children deal with the opacity of the system and how they use it as a springboard for imagination. Our study provides an opportunity to reflect on how technology kits currently resist becoming a design material