Creative pedagogy

Abstract: The distinction and relationship between teaching creatively and teaching for creativity identified in the report from the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE, 1999), is examined by focusing on empirical research from an early years school, known for its creative approach. The examination uses four characteristics of creativity and pedagogy identified by Peter Woods (1990): relevance, ownership, control and innovation, to show the interdependence of the NACCCE distinctions. We conclude that although the NACCCE distinction between teaching creatively and teaching for creativity has been useful as an analytical tool, it may, at the same time, have dichotomised an integrated practice and we suggest that a more useful distinction for the study of creative pedagogies would be the relationship between teaching creatively and creative learning.

Abstract: Capacities and qualities of creativity have been identified by researchers and strategies in fostering children’s creative thinking skills were proposed to create supportive environments in an educational setting. There is little consistent rhetoric, however, among these insights and strategies concerning different aspects of fostering creativity. In light of this, a three-element framework of creative pedagogy is proposed to offer a more holistic view of enhancing creativity through teaching, to cover the aspect of creative learning which was overlooked in the past, and to provide a different explanation to some arguments about teaching creativity. This framework is also a starting point for studies which intend to understand the teachers and pupils’ responses to creative pedagogy, and to provide implications for applying creative pedagogy in a classroom and in Asian context as well. In the end, several possible routes are suggested for future research in creative pedagogy.

Abstract: This paper describes the results of a research project that investigated the ways that academics understand sustainability within their own disciplines. It describes a range of ways in which academics view sustainability in the context of their teaching, and a range of ways they suggest that sustainability could be integrated into their teaching. Its genesis was an industry/university forum held at Macquarie University (Australia) that identified the need to integrate ideas of sustainable development within university curricula in all disciplines to prepare students for their professional roles. At a global level, participants in the 2002 Johannesburg Earth Summit emphatically en? dorsed the proposal that sustainable development needs to be an integral component of all levels of education. Environmental bodies have often focused their attention on development of materials to support sustainable development within specific environ? mentally focused disciplines. In contrast, the present project acknowledges that issues of sustainability need to span the whole range of subjects and extend to the development of appropriate curriculum. Real change in thinking about sustainability requires creative pedagogy which acknowledges the different ways that people think about sustainability and provides spaces in which their ideas can be developed.