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Understanding creativity in primary English, science, and history

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Abstract

Creativity is recognised as an essential twenty-first century skill. Despite the significant volume of research on creativity, there remains considerable ambiguity in the way it is conceptualised within education. This study uses a qualitative approach to explore primary educators’ (n = 9) perceptions of creativity in English, science, and history. Key questions include how creativity is conceptualised, how it manifests in the classroom and if, or how, descriptions vary across discipline areas. The results show that whilst primary educators struggle to describe creativity in the abstract, they can provide clear descriptions within their disciplinary context. Considerable differences in terms of creative thinking skills were detected in each represented discipline. In line with the literature, we suggest ways in which future research can elaborate on these creative thinking skills to reconceptualise the way creativity is developed and assessed within education.

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Notes

  1. The seven general capabilities identified in Australian Curriculum are Literacy, Numeracy, Information and Communication Technology, Critical and Creative Thinking, Personal and Social Capability, Ethical Understanding, Intercultural Understanding (ACARA, 2015a).

  2. Project Zero is a research hub sponsored by Harvard Graduate School of Education. It is focussed on learning, thinking and creativity with an emphasis on the Arts and cross-disciplinarity work. A range of resources are available for teachers’ use http://www.pz.harvard.edu.

  3. Key Learning Area or KLA is the term given to school subjects in the official curricula of the Australian state of New South Wales.

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Funding

The research reported on in this paper was completed under the auspices of the following seed grant from the Faculty of the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Wollongong: Jones, P. T., & Georgiou, H. (2018). Teaching in the curriculum disciplines: Thedual mandateof creativity and constraint [$13,827]. UOW.

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Correspondence to Pauline Jones.

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University of Wollongong Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) Approval #2018/509 and NSW State Education Research Approvals Process (SERAP) #2018773.

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Appendices

Appendix A

Semi-structured Interview Questions

  • How did you become interested in History/Physics/Poetry? Can you describe how it developed for you?

  • What is special about your field? What makes it different from studying x or y?

  • What does a student gain from studying this subject—what understandings, skills and dispositions?

  • And those students who don’t go to university to study this subject, what do they gain?

  • What contribution does your subject make to learning in other fields?

  • What does your subject offer to help solving contemporary social challenges or issues such as climate change? Or migration?

  • What does it mean to be creative or innovative in poetry/physics/history? What does it mean to be critical?

  • Is this different from creativity/innovation/critique in y or z? If so, how?

  • When should students begin studying poetry/physics/history? Why?

  • How should it be taught? What kinds of activities should learners engage in? What kinds of teaching and learning resources are important? Are there core texts? What role does dialogue play?

  • What does learning poetry/physics/history look like in primary school/in high school/at university?

  • Do you think that the content of the stage you teach is enough or is too much? What should they do? Where? And are there gaps?

  • Is there a critical point for learning in this subject?

  • What do you think a developmental sequence is for your subject?

Appendix B

Coding Table with Definitions and Examples

NODE

DEFINITION/CRITERIA

EXAMPLE

DEFINITIONS OF CREATIVITY

Creativity as an abstract concept (in the context of primary school). Includes discussions of the significance of creativity who can/can’t be creative and ‘non examples’

“I think with creation and creativity, I think when a child makes something that wasn’t there before.”

“The creation for the kids who are already more capable, like the high end of the spectrum, is really good”

“you want them to be creative, you don’t want them just to give a stock-standard answer that they can get out of a book.”

CRITICAL THINKING

Discussions of critical thinking either independently or in relation to creativity

“I think ‘critical thinking’ can find why and how because without critical thinking, you cannot find the reason and how you apply your thinking or the skills, or your knowledge. I think that’s the important part.”

MANIFESTATIONS

Explicit examples of creative practices or moments in the classroom

“we’re definitely using poetry and literature very much for kids to innovate from, so it gives them a base, you know, structure-based ideas, and something to inspire and launch from with the language and the structure of the text and the ideas in it”

TEACHING FOR CREATIVITY

 Creative Thinking Skills

  Sub-nodes

   Analysis

Skills related to critiquing, analysing information or deep-thinking

“So, in terms of skills, it’s about understanding sources, it’s about being able to analyse information, and it’s about being able to develop key questions.”

   Communication

Skills related to communicating ideas

To me, that’s where the creativity comes in—is the communication part. So, it’s about how we reinterpret that information in a new way for others”

   Curiosity

Skills related to being curiosity or engaged

“…help them think about how they can use what they’re interested in to be creative in how they solve problems.”

   Inquiry

Skills related to questioning, investigating, autonomous learning or the use of inquiry as a pedagogy

So, a lot of guided inquiries; we looked at “investigate”—what is the investigation, what are the steps, so we looked at making up a testable question, predicting, giving a reason, then doing your observation and explaining your results.”

   Open-mindedness

Skills related to a willingness to try new things

“Try some new things and explore a few different options which I think is the most important part of creativity … Kids are afraid to try things new because they’re afraid they’ll get it wrong.”

   Problem-solving

Skills related to the problem-solving process

“Well, when they’re actually working through a problem, an investigation, you know, they really have to problem-solve, they have to get together, they have to have a lot of skills, they have to collaborate, they have to work with their partners."

 Foundational Skills and Knowledge

  

  The broad set of specific disciplinary skills and knowledge required for fostering creativity, but not necessarily skills identified as explicitly ‘creative’

I feel like because we’re dealing with such facts and things like that, we have to take them down a certain path first

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McLean, N., Georgiou, H., Matruglio, E. et al. Understanding creativity in primary English, science, and history. Aust. Educ. Res. 50, 581–600 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-021-00501-4

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