'Creativity or Conformity? Building Cultures of Creativity in Higher Education Essay\r'

'Permission is granted to reproduce copies of these movements for purposes relevant to the above conference, provided that the agent(s), source and copyright notice be admitd on each copy. For other purposes, including drawn-out quotation, please contact the author(s). Abstract Whatever else it whitethorn be, creativity is intriguing; this view appears to be dual-lane by the literature on the subject and by popular culture. While there is little symmetricalness about the exact nature, does and harvestings of creativity, there seems to be a fascination both with its complexity and the sheer impossibleness of providing clear explanations for it.\r\nThis topic does not attempt to give in that another explanation, but instead offers a framework for exploring creativity in the context of teach and teacher sketch. The nature of creativity in article of belief is usually evidenced by its products: innovative course of instruction design or original students’ work . The focus of this paper, however, is on developing opportunities for teachers to understand, explore and express their identities as inventive practiti chtype Aionrs.\r\nThese opportunities atomic number 18 offered in the form of â€Å" notional blame”, a framework of originative methodologies for engaging teachers one afterward another and bodiedly in identifying and expanding their creativity entrusts. The notion of inventive saying challenges the action- smoothenion factor dichotomy of reflective practice and extends reflection beyond cognitive, retrospective models to encompass the exploration of chess opening through play, image-making, write, action methods and storytelling.\r\nThe paper offers examples of and reflections on these methods from the author’s use of productive methodologies in a teacher education course of study at poof’s University Belfast. Creative Reflection, Creative Practice: Expressing the indefinable The sentiment and practices of creative reflection catch been positive in a teacher education broadcast at Queen’s University Belfast to invoke the model of reflective practice on which the programme is based. Creative reflection is a framework of creative methodologies whereby teachers explore their practice and the liminal spaces between action and reflection.\r\nThis work is a response to the necessity in teacher education for â€Å"the increment of more complex models of reflection, think to purpose, which take greater cognisance of existing experience from other disciplines, particularly those faces of psychology concerned with cognitive processes including problem-finding, insight, wisdom, creativity” Leitch and Day (2000: 186-187). Creativity itself is an elusive concept; the literature on the subject incorporates a wander of perspectives and dichotomies, raising a number of questions.\r\nThose pertinent to this paper include: †is creativity a cognitive process, or is it socially constructed? †is creativity to do with outcomes, or with processes and qualities much(prenominal) as fluency, imagination and originality? †what are the conditions which support the development of creativity? †what is the nature of creativity in education, and does it have a place in teacher education? One of the assumptions on which this paper is based is that teachers are creative; by extension, teacher education should thusly provide them with opportunities to identify themselves as creative and to get up their creativity.\r\nCraft (2001: 48) suggests that teachers are highly creative: for sure some of the characteristics of high creators (child alike qualities, feeling under siege, creation on the edge, high energy and productivity) which Gardner identifies in Creating Minds (1993), as hale as emerged as a characteristic of ‘ordinary’ educators in one of my enquiry projects (Craft, 1996a; Craft and Lyons, 1996). Craft’s allusion to productivity is complemented by Eisner’s exploration of the processes, the â€Å" art” and the â€Å"craft” problematic in teaching (2002).\r\n some(prenominal) facets of creativity, product and process, are incorporated into the framework for creative reflection. Details follow as to how participants engage in process activities as well as in deliberation on the outcomes of these processes. The process of creativity, mysterious as it is, has long been a source of fascination and speculation. Helmholtz’s classical model, developed in 1826, includes the stages of saturation, exploration and pensiveness; Poincare added to these the cheek of verification (Balzac, 2006).\r\nThe four- word form model developed for this study incorporates and elaborates on these stages: Model for Creative Reflection stage 1: Preparation This aspect of creative reflection recognises that the creative process involves uncertainty and possibility and that participa nts need preparation to access that state of receptivity, or Keatsian minus Capability, which Keats defines as â€Å"when a man is capable of creation in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason” (Buxton Foreman, 1895).\r\nIn this level of creative reflection, brink activities are offered to enhance possibility and to informal the imagination. One of the most successful of these threshold activities has been the invitation to participants to aim images and quotations on a relevant theme: teaching, discipline or creativity itself. This activity is based on the notion of â€Å"stepping stones” into a liminal conception of exploration, as in Progoff’s system for entering the â€Å"twilight existence” of process surmisal (Progoff, 1980).\r\nWhile participants are in the process of choosing images and quotations which engage them, medicinal drug is played in the background to enhance relaxation and stimul ate intuitive rather than rational decision-making. The activity is conducted without discussion to upgrade focus and a connection with the unconscious. Another threshold activity is that of visual percept: for example, individuals are asked to imagine their association about their practice as a voyage and to excogitate this in the form of images or writing. The manduction of the results is part of the process of synthesis described in the final exam phase of this model.\r\nThreshold activities are direct at the group as a entire as well as at individuals: for example, participants are asked to imagine an i write out space for teaching and eruditeness and to suggest in turn something which they might like to include in this space. Offerings range from comfortable chairs to the localization of function of this space at the seaside and the presence of menstruumers and music centres. This activity generates ideas about inclusiveness and introduces into the discussion metapho rs and symbols which enhance the acquire process.\r\nThe idea of bringing an ideal situation or world into the realms of possibility through group visualisation is based on the process of reflective meditation in psychosynthesis (Ferrucci, 1982; Assagioli, 1999). Phase 2: run This phase is based on the assumptions that a good deal of learning happens through play, that play is an essential aspect of cultural development (Huizinga, 1970), and that a group basis create meaning, possibility and bleak insights through the processes of play.\r\nPlay is also important because it has the potential to free participants from outside concerns so that they may enter the state of â€Å"flow”. According to Csikszentmihalyi (1991, 1997) this is an optimum state in which the person is fully focused and immersed in what he or she is doing, usually with a successful outcome. The activities in this phase are conducted quickly; their purpose is to generate energy, usage of the group proc ess and a range of freshly ideas. The processes involved provide opportunities for divergent thinking; they include mind mapping, creative thinking and brainstorming.\r\nThe brainstorming methods in this model of the creative reflection are apprised by Kelley and Littmann’s (2002) methods for enhancing fluency of ideas and innovation within the context of team-building. Phase 3: Exploration This aspect of creative reflection is active, with the purpose of creating a product. The processes involved may include creative writing, storytelling, or the use of art materials, or action methods based on psychodrama to concretize the experience (Moreno, 1994). The exploration phase may be individual or collective: it may take place in pairs or puny groups.\r\nIn one particular activity, an individual selects one of his or her identities as a teacher from a list; this list includes the more obvious identities much(prenominal) as mentor, helper and instructor, as well as more metap horical ones as foot soldier, sower or bridge. The individual then elaborates this identity through writing and art, imagining in detail, for example, what this identity might look like, its voice, its tools and how it engages in relationship. The image beneath depicts the process of exploration on both individual and group levels.\r\nParticipants, given the caper of expressing their understandings of themselves as reflective practitioners, arranged together the quotations, images and artefacts which they had chosen as individuals to express this notion. The circle of people make from tissue paper was created as a collective piece for the final image; this suggests that the group product extended beyond that of a loose emplacement of individual ideas to a creative collaboration of knowledge and understanding. [pic] Phase 4 Synthesis In the final phase of creative reflection, which is akin to the verification tage of the Helmholtz/Poincare model, participants posture and reflect on their ideas, stories and collective images. In this phase, which is adequate from McNiff’s process of â€Å"dialoguing with the image”, participants engage with and reflect on the artefact engendered by the creative process (McNiff, 1992). Through this process, the experience and learning are synthesised into new understandings, or the identification of new questions which might be raised about professional practice. The image below represents the world of reflective practice as created by a group of practitioners through the use of props. pic] discourse about this image revealed that each of the scarves, which are circumscribing and containing the world of reflective practice, represents a strength owned by one of the practitioners, while the Russian dolls and the teddy back on the edge of the circle symbolise those learners who uprise themselves from learning. The act of dialoguing with the image engendered ideas amongst the participants for engaging those wh o are presently on the outside and who have not yet found a satisfactory means of expression.\r\nIn many ways, the process of writing this paper has been a struggle to express that which is inexpressible; it is challenging to articulate the complexity of the spaces between reflection and practice, as well as the complexity of creativity itself. It is hoped that further research will indicate whether the processes of creative reflection bed take sufficient cognisance of these complexities to support teachers in recognising and expressing their creativity. References Assagioli, R. (1999) The Act of Will: A Guide to Self-Actualization and Self-Realization, Knaphill, David Platts issue Company\r\nBalzac, F. (2006) ‘Exploring the Brain’s Role in Creativity’,Neuropsychiatry Reviews, Vol. 7, no. 5, May 2006. http://www. neuropsychiatryreviews. com/may06/einstein. html Accessed 14/11/2006 Buxton Foreman, H. (1895, Complete revised edition) The Letters of deception Ke ats, capital of the United Kingdom : Reeves & Turner Craft, A. (2001)’ â€Å"Little c Creativity”’, Craft, A. Jeffrey, B, and Leibling, M. (eds. ), Creativity in Education, London and young York, Continuum, pp 45-61 Craft, A. (1996a) ‘ nutritive educator creativity: a holistic approach to CPD’, British Journal of In-Service Education, 22 (3), 309-322.\r\nCraft, A. and Lyons, T. (1996) Nourishing the Educator, Milton Keynes: The Open University Seminar Network Occasional Paper serial publication Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997) Creativity. current and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. modernistic York, HarperPerennial. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1991) Flow: the psychology of optimal experience. New York : HarperPerennial Eisner (2002) ’From episteme to phronesis to artistry in the study and improvement of teaching’, Teaching and teacher Education, Volume 18, Number 4, May 2002, pp. 375-385 Ferrucci, P. 1982) What we may be: techniq ues for psychological and spiritual growth. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam Gardner, H. (1997) Extraordinary minds: portraits of majestic individuals and an examination of our extraordinariness New York : BasicBooks Huizinga, J. (1970) Homo Ludens: a study of the play element in culture, London : Maurice tabernacle Smith Kelley, T and Littman, J. (2002) The Ten Faces of Innovation: Ideo’s Strategies for Beating the Devil’s Advocate & Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization London: Profile\r\nLeitch, R. and Day, C. (2000) ‘ military action research and reflective practice: towards a holistic view’, Educational Action Research, Vol 8, 1 pp179-193. McNiff, S. (1992) Art as medicine: creating a therapy of the imagination Boston, MA. : London: Shambhala Moreno, J. L. (1994, Fourth Edition) Psychodrama and Group Psychotherapy, psychogenic Health Resources. Progoff, I (1980) The Practice of Process venture: The Intensive Journal Way to Spiritual Experience, New York: Dialogue House Library.\r\n'