Starting Point: My initial thoughts on creativity.

Welcome to my reflective journal for the Creative Learning Elective. I thought that the best place for me to start is by mind mapping my initial thoughts about creativity. Later on in the elective, I hope to revisit this mind map to see how my thoughts and opinions have changed and hopefully grown. 

What is creativity?

Creativity is open to wide interpretation and seems to have no precise and universally accepted definition. It can mean different things to different people from: artistic talent, being imaginative or inventive, taking risks, challenging convention, coming up with original and valued ideas to daring to be different.

I wanted to gain a better understanding of creativity and its relevance in education so I found some definitions from a variety of sources.

“to create – to bring into existence”

Oxford Engish Dictionary (1982)

“Creativity means connecting the previously unconnected in ways that are new and meaningful to the individual concerned.”

Duffy (1998: p18)

“Creativity is a thinking and responding process that involves connecting with our previous experience, responding to stimuli (objects, symbols, ideas, people, situations) and generating at least one unique combination.”

Parnes (1963: p5)

“creativity is a powerful capacity of human intelligence, rather than a subject or an event. It is relevant to everyone and to everyday life and embraces both individual and collaborative activities.”

Prentice (200: p156)

“The creating mind develops new ideas, practices and procedures, solves complex problems and is innovative. Like the disciplined mind, the creative mind does not rest once something has been created, but is constantly motivated to risk failure and continue to develop and create.”

Johnston and Nahmad-williams (2009: p120)

Creativity can mean different things in different contexts. One thing I have realised is that it is no longer considered to be exclusively the preserve of the arts and is possible in any activity that engages our intelligence. We can be creative in anything we do!

Through my reading I am now starting to see that creativity is important on a national and global level for economic growth and development, but on a more personal level it is important for self-esteem and motivation.

 LTS Creativity (2010), states that:

 “Pupils who are encouraged to think creatively:

·         become more interested in discovering things for themselves

·         are more open to new ideas and challenges

·         are more able to solve problems

·         can work well with others

·         become more effective learners

·         have greater ownership over their learning.”

This supports Curriculum for Excellence and in my opinion is what teaching and learning should be about.

Children are naturally creative and if we want to educate people for the future, I believe that we must nourish and help to develop creativity in our young learners. The LTS creativity portal(2010) is a new resource which aims to inspire creativity in learning and teaching.

References

Duffy, B. (1998) Supporting Creativity and Imagination in the Early Years. Buckingham, Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Johnston, J. and Nahmad-Williams, L. (2009). Early Childhood Studies. Essex: Pearson education Limited.

Learning and Teaching Scotland (2010). Creativity. Available:

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/learningteachingandassessment/approaches/creativity/index.asp

[Accessed 21/09/2011]

Parnes, S. (1963) Development of Individual Creative Talent, in Taylor, C.W & Barrons, F. (eds.)Scientific Creativity: its Recognition and Development. New York: Wiley.

Prentice, R. (2002) Creativity- a reaffirmation of its place in early childhood education. The Curriculum Journal, Vol 11 No 2. Summer 2000.

Scottish Government.  (2009). Curriculum for Excellence. Edinburgh: Scottish Government.

Storyline

Storyline is the first subject area that we will be learning about during this elective. It is due to span over five inputs where the class will work through a Storyline to gain insight into what it is and how to do it. For me this is a good way to learn about a new subject as I will be involved in the making of it instead of hearing about someone else’s experiences. Storyline was new to me, so I thought I should do background reading to gain a clearer idea of what it is. 

What is Storyline?

In Scotland in the mid 1960’s the Primary Memorandum recommended a curriculum that included integrated areas of study. In 1967 in Glasgow an inservice staff tutor team was formed to help teachers experiment with topic studies as a form of integration. It is here that Storyline was created by Steven Bell, Sallie Harkness and Fred Rendell. It fell out of fashion in the 1980’s when the Scottish curriculum changed to a more subject-based design where integration was not encouraged. Despite the lack of popularity of Storyline in Scotland at this time, it was kept alive in many other countries and now has a growing international reputation in countries such as Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, USA and Thailand. Now Scotland has a new ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ which once again encompasses the storyline philosophy of holistic and thematic approaches to learning and teaching.

Storyline is a teaching methodology comprising of a partnership between the teacher and the learners. “Storyline provides a cross curricular, topic based method of teaching that uses the structure of a story to enable the teacher and pupils to co-construct the curriculum,” Bell and Harkness (2006, p.2). The story itself is used as a context for learning in which the teacher plans the line, or chapters, which contain the learning intentions and the learners create the story and take it further, providing them with ownership. The ownership of the learners is important as I believe this will motivate them as they become emotionally and intellectually involved. The line is designed in the form of key questions which encourage the learners to create the characters, setting and events. Various educators believe that learning in this way is more likely to result in deep learning, which is one of the principles of Curriculum for Excellence.

Storyline sounds good in theory, but I am not sure all teachers are able to carry it out effectively. To promote a creative classroom does not just happen overnight. For some children this will be a wonderful and exciting opportunity, but for the small group of children who feel they lack the ability to be creative, this could seem like their worst nightmare. I was one of these children, but through my experiences and reading I realise that everyone has the natural ability to be creative it just gets lost somewhere along the way and they lack the confidence to lose their inhibitions and let their creativity flow. This said I still do not feel very creative, but the difference is that I know it is in there somewhere. I believe that for teachers to make this work the most important thing is to provide the right atmosphere for children, to feel safe, secure and understand that by making mistakes is how we learn. Robinson advocates that, “if you are not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original” (TEDtalksdirector, 2007). I think that this is the key, to provide children with the type of environment that promotes this and in turn will help them to have the confidence to open up and be creative.

References

Bell, S. and Harkness, S. (2006) Storyline - Promoting Language Accross the Curriculum. Hertfordshire: UKL.

TEDtalksdirector (2007) Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY (Accessed: 9 October 2011).

Setting the scene and creating characters.

For our first input we were briefly told about Storyline as Fi wanted us to experience it for ourselves. This left me feeling quite uneasy as I like to know exactly what we are doing. If I were doing this with a class I do not think I would explain Storyline to them as I think it is unnecessary, but I would give them an itinerary of the types of things we would be doing. I think that it is important for children to know exactly where they are going and feel that this could still be done without giving too much away. I also think that by knowing what direction you are heading in allows you to start thinking about it.

Our first task was to choose our setting. We were given the option of a number of pictures of different schools. We voted as a class and the picture which gained the most votes was small rural school set on the edge of a loch: very idyllic.

In a class situation I would spend longer on setting the scene. The children could make their own designs, a debate could be held to help decide which designs would be best, different designs could be merged before making a final vote. Bell and Harkness (2006, p.9) state that “it is worthwhile spending time on these early episodes; investment in the setting and characters of a storyline topic pay dividends later”. I believe that the longer children spend on this section the more attached and involved they become in the whole process giving them a sense of ownership which in turn will keep them motivated.  

Our next task was to choose a name and badge for our school. We went about this in a similar manner. In the groups we sat in we came up with a name and badge then as a class voted for the best. Before deciding we discussed what would make a good badge, such as bright colours, simple design, text... We even talked about costing for embroidering it onto school jumpers. I feel this could be taken much further with a class enabling deep, relevant learning. We were alreading becoming attached to our new school and I can see how well this would work in the classroom when spending a longer period of time on it. Our new school was named Lochside Primary School and here is our badge.

The final part to this input was for us to work on our own to create our characters. Each of us had to create a teacher for the school. This terrified me as I was not expecting it and we did not have long to do it, but maybe it was just what I need to be able to let go and get on with? I managed the task and created my character. When doing this in a class situation, again it would be done over a much longer period of time allowing all the children to really think about their choices. I believe when children create strong characters they adopt specific and strong views which can add to the Storyline later on. 

References

Bell, S. and Harkness, S. (2006) Storyline - Promoting Language Accross the Curriculum. Hertfordshire: UKL.