Notes on teaching the path to creativity… raw unpolished and unmediated (because it’s all about the methodology)

Reflections on the Meta Creativity Model

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.3102/00346543241258226

Interesting bit from the meta:

Like earlier research by Budge et al. (2013), we found that teaching for creativity is a lot more complex and influenced by multidimensional processes than traditionally believed. It appears that to foster creativity, we do not actually teach for creativity directly; instead, we teach students the path to creativity, in other words, the way that they can access creativity by developing multifaceted creative process competencies. These competencies are influenced by the six dimensions of fostering creativity and enable students to consistently engage in constructive creative processes within which creative insights emerge.

Interesting argument for creativity to be taught in other subjects:

• while creativity is an expected implicit learning outcome in the arts and design, teachers had to put more explicit emphasis on and reinforce creativity and creative-process competencies as core learning outcomes in other disciplines (e.g., engineering, business, health, education, or psychology), even though creativity has been shown to play a similarly important role in each. A related finding was that while the metacognitive dimension of fostering creativity became apparent across disciplines, educators in arts and design tended to put stronger emphases on regular reflexive practice and developing expertise in the creative process.

• ( teaching students from other disciplines about design thinking)

Blog post: learning

Title: from designing garments to designing curriculum

How long to make it?

• Intro

• What is design?

• All about process - not the outcome this is just a by product of the process of noticing a problem and working through ways of fixing it or responding to it

• What I learnt from designing ‘budget lace and old men’s jumpers’

-I found joy in the process and it came through in the work

-the process is the same regardless of the garment

• researching the new stitches and experimenting with yarns/ stitches and collaborating (arguing) with technicians (who became my friends!)

• I had to convince them to do it a different way

• To trust me (even tho I was a uni graduate and they were experienced and qualified technicians)

• I brought a new perspective on them and they sold well

• Stages of the process

• Brief: updating a new style

• Bringing something new to an existing best seller

• 
  

• Behaviours of designers V behaviour if teachers

• Empathy - understanding the needs of the user

• Designing experience

• What drives designers to do what they do answer: it’s not money

Ultimately understanding what motivates people will help them achieve which benefits both designer/ user and employer/ client/ boss

What do I want to say:

I believe in this model

I believe it is relevant and important

I believe creativity can be taught and facilitated but not in the same way as business or maths or history - well maybe a bit of history the kind that acknowledges there are different perspectives on the past and no facts are really facts

I believe it provides a good argument as to why creativity matters and is relevant to society

I do get tired of feeling I have to justify why creative behaviours matter when business people don’t have to justify why ‘business skills’ matter - or maybe they do… apprentice? This leads to people ‘acting’ business like but not developing their own approach to business as if being good at business depends on what u wear and acting a certain way

• Creative competencies, if they can be taught that is good because it makes for better problem solvers in business and industry

• Seeing the number of courses now being offered with this model is encouraging

• From a personal perspective it is a skill I have and use everyday and it has helped me get through so many situations and is why I set up my website and named it as such.

Through writing my fellowship I came across something that made me feel validated and empowered in my approach it’s called the Meta Creativity Model written by a group of academics and practitioners and describes creativity fostering teaching behaviours which they have discovered in creative teaching. It provides an interesting perspective on teaching for creativity.

I read a lot about teaching creativity but not so much about using creativity to teach, which is how I would describe mh approach. I am aware of what motivates or demotivates me and when my creativity is flowing or not and am able to use this to my advantage. Of course this has taken me most of my career to harness and I’ve gained alot through non teaching and teaching experience but all through learning whether that be ‘on the job’ in the classroom or in front of students.

What are they?

‘Through this broad lens, creativity is viewed as a holistic, multidimensional construct that encompasses cognitive, affective, physical, behavioural, metacognitive, and contextual elements’

6 dimensions applied in teaching and learning

• Affect - how you feel in the process

• Behave - how you act in the process

• Meta cognition - how you understand the creative process

• How you find meaning in the creative process

• How you adapt and improvise in the creative process

‘Componential theory of creativity encompasses multiple interconnected elements, such as task motivation and passion, domain-relevant skills and expertise, creativity-relevant skills and processes and creativity-supportive environments. 

‘… creativity can be developed and taught through continual deliberate and reflexive practice, adaptive guidance, and active engagement in and with the creative process’ (Ericsson, 2004; Hunter et al., 2007; Sale, 2015).

In order to teach creativity, you need to be actively engaged in it!

And it’s a practise so if you don’t keep practising it,, you will. Loose it… I think that is something I fear but also something only creative people understand.

The outcome is less important than the process.

Learn the process, obsess about the process and forget the outcome

It matters to me because:

it resonates with me on so many levels and in particular with my teaching, design and personal values - so it matters to me.

I recognise it for my own design experience, what motivates me and how I developed methodologies to help foster my own creativity  and yet every job I have had, I have had to fight to defend the creative process which is inherent in my job role and yet seems to evade people in business.

… you had me at ‘Creativity’

So what’s it all about and how can it help my students?

Or a Holistic approach for teaching creativity

( more here from perspectives on creativity from a business person?)

The world needs creativity now more than ever

Embracing everyday creativity

The start of the 21st century thereby marked a greater focus on studying the dynamics of the everyday creativity of all people and its social context, rather than a sole focus on the high-level creativity of singular geniuses (Craft et al., 2014; Montuori, 2012). Importantly, this everyday creativity can be fostered through continual, long-term engagement in the creative process, allowing students to reach higher levels of creativity that lead to ideas with a domain-changing impact, even if they do not start out as creative geniuses (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009).

Experiencing creativity - an argument for practical workshops over lectures model

What I think

Creativity is a process which is not focused on an outcome

‘Creativity is further inextricably linked with learning,’ - I know this from Bloom’s taxonomy right?

Necessity is the mother of invention.. reinvention is the mother of desire.. Harriet Quuck HTSI