Teaching Creativity, Creatively Online

Course Description

This course provides teachers with the knowledge and skills to nurture creativity in their students. Creativity is one of the most essential of human talents. Our daily lives are enriched by the products of creative individuals. It can be argued that creativity is the driving engine of civilized societies. Among students in our classrooms, creativity varies over a wide range - visual, mechanical, verbal, artistic, linguistic, athletic, mathematical, and analytical. Each student is a living composite of innate characteristics associated with creative behavior. These innate characteristics can be enhanced by teachers who are aware and knowledgeable of proven and effective ways to teach creative behavior.

Part I defines creativity and describes behaviors most often associated with creative behavior. In addition, a model is systematically developed that teachers may use to develop creative lessons. The model includes four components:

• Catalyst to Action
• Incubation
• Process(es)
• Outcomes

Part II elaborates each part of the model by adding and covering topics that range from finding problems to critical thinking. Each topic is functionally related to model components. Part III emphasizes the application of the model to lesson development and teaching creatively.

Objectives

• C
• Identify basic concepts associated with creativity
• Review key questions about creativity
• Develop a definition of creativity
• Consider creativity as a process
• Identify the X factor in the creative process
• Develop a model that can be used to construct creative lessons
• Eexplore the function of cognitive structures in creative behavior
• Define the role of cognitive structures
• Examine the relationship between creativity and intelligence
• Ientify personality traits that enhance creativity
• Present selected creative teaching methods
• Present guidelines for encouraging creativity among your students
• Develop an approach for assessing creativity
• Develop a classroom context for creative behavior
• Extend strategies for developing catalysts to action
• To expand the concept of "generative processes" and how they relate to creativity in the classroom
• To establish guidelines for maintaining a congenial environment for creative behavior

Curriculum Design & Time Requirements

Teaching Creativity, Creatively is a 13 week 3 credit graduate level or sixty hour professional development course taught online. Most modules take one week to complete. Module 10 will be completed over two weeks so students have time to revise and complete the final integration project.

Hardware & Computer Skill Requirements

Students may use either a Macintosh computer or a PC with Windows 2000 or higher. Students should possess basic word processing skills and have internet access with an active e-mail account. Students also are expected to have a basic knowledge of how to use a Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Safari, Mozilla Firefox etc.

Course Materials

The requires textbook for this course is Creativity in Education and Learning: A Guide for Teachers and Educators by Arthur J. Cropley, Kogan Page, 2001. A student manual that includes a range of activities along with a comprehensive bibliography is also provided. In addition, selected Web sources will be included to supplement course content.

Session Outline

Session 1: Creativity Orientation
Contents:

1. Course orientation
2. Ten definitions of creativity
3. The Creators' Patterns
4. Essential terms and definitions
5. Three examples of teaching creativity creatively
6. A case for teaching students creative attributes

Session 2: A Model for Classroom Application
Contents:

1. Catalyst to action: problems, needs, challenge, curiosity
2. Irrational element(s): dreams, fantasy, etc.
3. Generative processes (rational elements)
4. Discovery, judgments, and justification
5. A model to facilitate creativity in the classroom

Session 3: The Role of Thinking in Creativity
Contents:

1. The role of cognitive structures
2. Proven paths of creative exploration
3. Problem solving through creative behavior
4. The relationship of intelligence and creativity
5. How to think creatively

Session 4: Nine Creative Intelligences
Contents:

1. Create yourself
2. You and you - Personal intelligence
3. You and them - Social intelligence
4. Heaven knows! - Spiritual intelligence
5. Body talk - Physical intelligence
6. Making sense of your senses
7. Count on yourself - Numerical intelligence
8. Mind the gap!
9. The power of words

Session 5: Screw-Worm Caper: A Case Study in Creativity
Contents:

1. The setting
2. The problem
3. The creative process

Session 6: Creativity and Critical Thinking
Contents:

1. What is critical thinking?
2. The role of logic in critical thinking
3. Phases of decision making
4. Critical thinking and objectivity
5. The role of transfer
6. Inductive/deductive reasoning
7. Applying structured knowledge to unstructured problems

Session 7: Domains and Creativity
Contents:

1. Distinct bodies of knowledge and modes of inquiry
2. Thinking process across disciplines
3. Fields of human beings that make judgments
4. Creativity and domain structure
5. A case study

Session 8: Assessing Creativity
Contents:

1. Domain criteria, traditional and out-of-the-box thinking
2. Conditions for novelty in context
3. Effectiveness as a function of usefulness and practicality
4. Teacher judgments and assessments
5. Tests of creativity - commercial and teacher made
6. Criteria for product assessment

Session 9: Writing and Developing Creative Lessons for the Classroom
Contents:

1. The structure of an elegant problem
2. Solving real problems through the use of creative attributes
3. The impractical to practical continuum
4. Creative cooperation and collaboration
5. Challenging but achievable problems
6. Transforming, restructuring, combining, reorganizing to achieve problem resolution
7. Time to reflect and integrate lessons
8. Making diverse connections through problem content

Session 10: Providing the "Congenial" Environment
Contents:

1. Learning environment that promotes risk taking and living with temporary frustrations and failure
2. Appropriate meshing of prescribed curriculum and creativity
3. Domain impact on a congenial environment
4. Accepting creative behavior by parents, administrators, and students
5. Provide specific instruction in creative and critical thinking
6. Course review and synthesis

Grading

		Assignment	Points			Grading Scale
		Forum Participation	20			100 – 93	A
		Reading/Reflection Assignments	56			92 – 85	B
		Final Integration Project	24			84 – 77	C
		Total Points	100

Student Requirements

	1.	Actively participate in all Forum activities. If you post your assignment early, you must go back in the Forum and dialogue with your colleagues. You receive points for posting and interacting with your classmates in the Forum. 'I agree' types of replies do not count for credit towards fulfilling this requirement.
	2.	Complete all reading assignments in the textbook, Web sites, and research articles or best practices and answer questions presented in the assignment section. Write an informal reflection as outlined in the assignment and send it in the body of an e-mail message.
	3.	Develop, based on specific criteria, a lesson to teach creativity, creatively. Participants will use the model for lesson development to construct a lesson to use in their classroom to foster creativity among all students.

Student Academic Integrity

Participants guarantee that all academic class work is original. Any academic dishonesty or plagiarism (to take ideas, writings, etc. from another and offer them as one's own), is a violation of student academic behavior standards as outlined by our partnering colleges and universities and is subject to academic disciplinary action.

Register

To register to take TEI's Teaching Creativity, Creatively Online course, go to the Course Registration page.