What teachers see as creative incidents in elementary science lessons

Teachers are often urged to nurture creativity but their conceptions of creativity in specific school subjects may have limitations which weaken their attempts to do so. Primary school teachers in England were asked to rate lesson activities according to the opportunity they offered children for creative thought in science. The teachers could, overall, distinguish between creative and reproductive activities but, as predicted, there was evidence of narrow conceptions of school science creativity, biased towards fact finding, practical activity, and technological design. Some teachers saw creativity in essentially reproductive activities and in what simply stimulated interest and on-task talk. Some implications and recommendations for teacher training and professional development are discussed

Fostering creative thinking in a digital world

We are now moving rapidly into a new world, one shaped by the Fourth ‘Industrial’ Revolution. This world is one in which digital technologies in various forms will shape work, play and everyday life. Such technologies, unlike the relatively passive ones of the past, are adaptive, able to learn and make decisions and changes using their artificial intelligence (AI). AI, however, has its limits, and productive thought continues to need fostering in the classroom. As a consequence, education systems around the world must respond in what has been called the Fourth Education Revolution. This article explores the potential relationship between AI, creative thinking and education, and the fostering and development of human creative thinking supported by AI. Some significant omissions in current notions of AI support for creative thinking are presented, and some cautionary thoughts offered. The article concludes with recommendations for a more structured and comprehensive provision of AI support

Assessing the creativity of scientific explanations in elementary science: an insider-outsider view of intuitive assessment in the hypothesis space

Assessing creativity is commonly believed to be difficult but there is evidence that an intuitive, holistic assessment is easy and reliable. Given that children can engage in creative activity and teachers are expected to foster it, some assessment of it could aid planning and optimise support. Assessing creativity intuitively and holistically could be a useful, quick way of assessing to inform teaching. A teacher of young children, however, is essentially an outsider in the child's world and often also in the world of science. Judging a child's creativity in this way from a child's point of view may not always be easy or reliable. Here, pre-service elementary teachers in the UK assessed explanations of simple science events. Agreement improved when they assessed some of the attributes of creativity but was still less than expected. Nevertheless, these novices' assessments as a whole showed there was some ability to discriminate usefully between explanations, albeit with considerable variation from teacher to teacher. Some implications for teacher training are described

Quality and Peer Review of Research: An Adjudicating Role for Editors

Peer review gives research a stamp of approval, but the reviews themselves can be flawed. This is potentially serious for the writer, the journal, and journal user. This study describes shortcomings of the peer review process and condenses them into an explanatory framework involving situational, personal, social, and ethical factors. Some proposals to improve matters are impractical and may make them worse. Some data is offered which illustrates the problem and suggests a potential solution. Informed editors who avoid mechanical approaches engage cautiously and critically with reviews and guard against bias, even in themselves, could make a significant difference

There’s more to thinking than the intellect

Emotion is commonly seen as sand in the working of the intellect, an impediment to clear thinking, an unwelcome distrac­tion. But, there is no thought without emotion and often there is a partnership which is harmonious. Contrary to popular belief, the emotions are not inherently irrational and are even essential in certain kinds of purposeful thought. Instead of ignoring them, they need to be managed to increase the likelihood that the intellect-emotion partnership will be productive. Research on thinking processes generally ignores the role of moods and emotions, yet it is a central variable which needs to be considered, if not controlled. Teaching focuses on exercising the intellect and generally turns a blind eye to the obvious role of emotions in thinking and learning, yet, with forethought, moods and emotions could be put to good use. There’s more to thinking than the intellect, describes the origins of moods and emotions, how they interact with purposeful thought, and their absence in educational research and classroom planning

Recognizing creativity in the music classroom

This study examined trainee music teachers’ judgements of the musical creativity of secondary age students. Nine pieces of music composed by Year 8 students (13 years of age) were evaluated by 17 postgraduate, trainee teachers. These musical pieces were sorted into a diamond-shaped formation according to how creative they were perceived to be with the most creative pieces placed at the top and the least creative ones placed at the bottom of the diamond. This approach helped the trainee teachers achieve some agreement in their evaluation of the students’ creativity. As well as a practical approach to recognizing musical creativity, the analysis of the trainees’ responses led to the identification of some attributes, such as representing the stimulus idea well and making imaginative use of musical elements and musical devices, which can help teachers to recognize, evaluate and promote children’s creative responses in music

How can the understanding of analysis of sonata form movements be deepened by the use of graphic representation?

The aim of the study presented in this paper is to explore the nature of understanding when learning music through the use of ‘graphic representations’ trialled in a learning conversation with a ten-year old flautist. It is argued that the powerful visual component of presenting a musical score in graphic form can enhance students’ understanding and ability to process the score more effectively by providing a succinct way of accessing the data. Central to understanding the analysis of sonata form movements is the need to create a representation which is independent from the existing score. This study offers a practical way of doing this which has the potential for wider application

Characterizing the Metabolic Intensity and Cardiovascular Demands of Walking Football in Southeast Asian Women

Given that the recent rise in obesity rates throughout Southeast Asia is disproportionately driven by women, part of the regional solution may be to encourage more habitual physical activity within this population. Taking advantage of the regional popularity of walking football, this study sought to characterize the cardiovascular demands and metabolic intensity of Southeast Asian women competing in walking football matches to determine the sports’ suitability for promoting physical health. It was hypothesized that both cardiovascular and metabolic intensity measures (≥65% HR% and ≥3.0 METs, respectively) would meet or exceed established thresholds for improving fitness and health. Methods: Women’s teams from Singapore (Mean±SD: 42±11 yrs age; 29.2±7.0 kg/m2 BMI; n=14) and Malaysia (40±10 yrs age; 32.9±5.7 kg/m2 BMI; n=8) competed in two successive matches within a single day during which measures of heart rate (HR) and GPS (from portable handheld device) were recorded for each player, while relative HR was computed as a percent of each player’s age-predicted maximal HR (HR%, %). The GPS data were later converted to walking distance and metabolic intensity (i.e., metabolic equivalents, or METs). One-sample t-tests at the 0.05 alpha level were used to compare variables to their respective thresholds. Results: Both Malaysian and Singaporean teams had mean relative HRs (91-95% of HRMAX [P=0.008] versus 77-80% of HRMAX [P<0.001], respectively) that exceeded the 65% threshold for improving cardiovascular fitness. Both teams also maintained an average metabolic intensity that was statistically similar to the 3.0 MET threshold that decreases one risk for non-communicable diseases (3.2±0.9 METs [P=0.0510] versus (3.3±1.0 METs [P=0.288], respectively), and both teams walked an average of 2.2-2.4 kms/match. Conclusions: These results support the idea that competitive walking football is of sufficient intensity to promote positive changes in both cardiovascular and metabolic fitness in this population of Southeast Asian women

Pre-service primary teachers’ conceptions of creativity in mathematics

Teachers in the UK and elsewhere are now expected to foster creativity in young children (NACCCE, 1999; Ofsted, 2003; DfES, 2003; DfES/DCMS, 2006). Creativity, however, is more often associated with the arts than with mathematics. The aim of the study was to explore and document pre-service (in the UK, pre-service teachers are referred to as ‘trainee’ teachers) primary teachers’ conceptions of creativity in mathematics teaching in the UK. A questionnaire probed their conceptions early in their course, and these were supplemented with data from semi-structured interviews. Analysis of the responses indicated that pre-service teachers’ conceptions were narrow, predominantly associated with the use of resources and technology and bound up with the idea of ‘teaching creatively’ rather than ‘teaching for creativity’. Conceptions became less narrow as pre-service teachers were preparing to enter schools as newly qualified, but they still had difficulty in identifying ways of encouraging and assessing creativity in the classroom. This difficulty suggests that conceptions of creativity need to be addressed and developed directly during pre-service education if teachers are to meet the expectations of government as set out in the above documents