creativity in education importance

Understanding Creativity

• Posted June 25, 2020
• By Emily Boudreau

Understanding the learning that happens with creative work can often be elusive in any K–12 subject. A new study from Harvard Graduate School of Education Associate Professor Karen Brennan , and researchers Paulina Haduong and Emily Veno, compiles case studies, interviews, and assessment artifacts from 80 computer science teachers across the K–12 space. These data shed new light on how teachers tackle this challenge in an emerging subject area.

“A common refrain we were hearing from teachers was, ‘We’re really excited about doing creative work in the classroom but we’re uncertain about how to assess what kids are learning, and that makes it hard for us to do what we want to do,’” Brennan says. “We wanted to learn from teachers who are supporting and assessing creativity in the classroom, and amplify their work, and celebrate it and show what’s possible as a way of helping other teachers.”

Create a culture that values meaningful assessment for learning — not just grades

As many schools and districts decided to suspend letter grades during the pandemic, teachers need to help students find intrinsic motivation. “It’s a great moment to ask, ‘What would assessment look like without a focus on grades and competition?’” says Veno.

Indeed, the practice of fostering a classroom culture that celebrates student voice, creativity, and exploration isn’t limited to computer science. The practice of being a creative agent in the world extends through all subject areas.

The research team suggests the following principles from computer science classrooms may help shape assessment culture across grade levels and subject areas.

Solicit different kinds of feedback

Give students the time and space to receive and incorporate feedback. “One thing that’s been highlighted in assessment work is that it is not about the teacher talking to a student in a vacuum,” says Haduong, noting that hearing from peers and outside audience members can help students find meaning and direction as they move forward with their projects.

• Feedback rubrics help students receive targeted feedback from audience members. Additionally, looking at the rubrics can help the teacher gather data on student work.

Emphasize the process for teachers and students

Finding the appropriate rubric or creating effective project scaffolding is a journey. Indeed, according to Haduong, “we found that many educators had a deep commitment to iteration in their own work.” Successful assessment practices conveyed that spirit to students.

• Keeping design journals can help students see their work as it progresses and provides documentation for teachers on the student’s process.
• Consider the message sent by the form and aesthetics of rubrics. One educator decided to use a handwritten assessment to convey that teachers, too, are working on refining their practice.

Scaffold independence

Students need to be able to take ownership of their learning as virtual learning lessens teacher oversight. Students need to look at their own work critically and know when they’ve done their best. Teachers need to guide students in this process and provide scaffolded opportunities for reflection.

• Have students design their own assessment rubric. Students then develop their own continuum to help independently set expectations for themselves and their work.

Key Takeaways

• Assessment shouldn’t be limited to the grade a student receives at the end of the semester or a final exam. Rather, it should be part of the classroom culture and it should be continuous, with an emphasis on using assessment not for accountability or extrinsic motivation, but to support student learning.
• Teachers can help learners see that learning and teaching are iterative processes by being more transparent about their own efforts to reflect and iterate on their practices.
• Teachers should scaffold opportunities for students to evaluate their own work and develop independence.

Additional Resources

• Creative Computing curriculum and projects
• Karen Brennan on helping kids get “unstuck”
• Usable Knowledge on how assessment can help continue the learning process

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5 Reasons Why It Is More Important Than Ever to Teach Creativity

• Education Leadership

On the laundry list of skills and content areas teachers have to cover, creativity doesn’t traditionally get top billing. It’s usually lumped together with other soft skills like communication and collaboration: Great to have, though not as important as reading or long division.

But research is showing that creativity isn’t just great to have. It’s an essential human skill — perhaps even an evolutionary imperative in our technology-driven world.

“The pace of cultural change is accelerating more quickly than ever before,” says Liane Gabora , associate professor of psychology and creative studies at the University of British Columbia. “In some biological systems, when the environment is changing quickly, the mutation rate goes up. Similarly, in times of change we need to bump up creativity levels — to generate the innovative ideas that will keep us afloat.”

From standardized tests to one-size-fits-all curriculum, public education often leaves little room for creativity, says EdNews Daily founder Robyn D. Shulman . This puts many schools out of sync with both global demand and societal needs, leaving students poorly prepared for future success.

What can education leaders do about it? For starters, they can make teaching creativity a priority. Here are five reasons to encourage teachers to bring more creativity into the classroom:

1. Creativity motivates kids to learn.

Decades of research link creativity with the intrinsic motivation to learn. When students are focused on a creative goal, they become more absorbed in their learning and more driven to acquire the skills they need to accomplish it.

As proof, education leader Ryan Imbriale cites his young daughter, who loves making TikTok videos showcasing her gymnastics skills. “She spends countless hours on her mat, working over and over again to try to get her gymnastics moves correct so she can share her TikTok video of her success,” says the executive director of innovative learning for Baltimore County Public Schools.

Students are most motivated to learn when certain factors are present: They’re able to tie their learning to their personal interests, they have a sense of autonomy and control over their task, and they feel competent in the work they’re doing. Creative projects can easily meet all three conditions.

2. Creativity lights up the brain.

Teachers who frequently assign classwork involving creativity are more likely to observe higher-order cognitive skills — problem solving, critical thinking, making connections between subjects — in their students. And when teachers combine creativity with transformative technology use, they see even better outcomes.

Creative work helps students connect new information to their prior knowledge, says Wanda Terral, director of technology for Lakeland School System outside of Memphis. That makes the learning stickier.

“Unless there’s a place to ‘stick’ the knowledge to what they already know, it’s hard for students to make it a part of themselves moving forward,” she says. “It comes down to time. There’s not enough time to give them the flexibility to find out where the learning fits in their life and in their brain.”

3. Creativity spurs emotional development.

The creative process involves a lot of trial and error. Productive struggle — a gentler term for failure — builds resilience, teaching students to push through difficulty to reach success. That’s fertile soil for emotional growth.

“Allowing students to experience the journey, regardless of the end result, is important,” says Terral, a presenter at  ISTE Creative Constructor Lab .

Creativity gives students the freedom to explore and learn new things from each other, Imbriale adds. As they overcome challenges and bring their creative ideas to fruition, “students begin to see that they have limitless boundaries,” he says. “That, in turn, creates confidence. It helps with self-esteem and emotional development.”

4. Creativity can ignite those hard-to-reach students.

Many educators have at least one story about a student who was struggling until the teacher assigned a creative project. When academically disinclined students are permitted to unleash their creativity or explore a topic of personal interest, the transformation can be startling.

“Some students don’t do well on tests or don’t do well grade-wise, but they’re super-creative kids,” Terral says. “It may be that the structure of school is not good for them. But put that canvas in front of them or give them tools so they can sculpt, and their creativity just oozes out of them.”

5. Creativity is an essential job skill of the future.

Actually, it’s an essential job skill right now.

According to an Adobe study , 85% of college-educated professionals say creative thinking is critical for problem solving in their careers. And an analysis of LinkedIn data found that creativity is the second most in-demand job skill (after cloud computing), topping the list of soft skills companies need most. As automation continues to swallow up routine jobs, those who rely on soft skills like creativity will see the most growth.

“We can’t exist without the creative thinker. It’s the idea generation and the opportunity to collaborate with others that moves work,” Imbriale says.

“It’s one thing to be able to sit in front of computer screen and program something. But it’s another to have the conversations and engage in learning about what somebody wants out of a program to be written in order to be able to deliver on that. That all comes from a creative mindset.”

Nicole Krueger is a freelance writer and journalist with a passion for finding out what makes learners tick.

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What is creativity in education?

• Curriculum integration
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•   Practice: early literacy
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Human beings have always been creative. The fact that we have survived on the planet is testament to this. Humans adapted to and then began to modify their environment. We expanded across the planet into a whole range of climates. At some point in time we developed consciousness and then language. We began to question who we are, how we should behave, and how we came into existence in the first place. Part of human questioning was how we became creative.

The myth that creativity is only for a special few has a long, long history. For the Ancient Chinese and the Romans, creativity was a gift from the gods. Fast forward to the mid-nineteenth century and creativity was seen as a gift, but only for the highly talented, romantically indulgent, long-suffering and mentally unstable artist. Fortunately, in the 1920s the field of science began to look at creativity as a series of human processes. Creative problem solving was the initial focus, from idea generation to idea selection and the choice of a final product. The 1950s were a watershed moment for creativity. After the Second World War, the Cold War began and competition for creative solutions to keep a technological advantage was intense. It was at this time that the first calls for STEM in education and its associated creativity were made. Since this time, creativity has been researched across a whole range of human activities, including maths, science, engineering, business and the arts.

The components of creativity

So what exactly is creativity? In the academic field of creativity, there is broad consensus regarding the definition of creativity and the components which make it up. Creativity is the interaction between the learning environment, both physical and social, the attitudes and attributes of both teachers and students, and a clear problem-solving process which produces a perceptible product (that can be an idea or a process as well as a tangible physical object). Creativity is producing something new, relevant and useful to the person or people who created the product within their own social context. The idea of context is very important in education. Something that is very creative to a Year One student – for example, the discovery that a greater incline on a ramp causes objects to roll faster – would not be considered creative in a university student. Creativity can also be used to propose new solutions to problems in different contexts, communities or countries. An example of this is having different schools solve the same problem and share solutions.

Creativity is an inherent part of learning. Whenever we try something new, there is an element of creativity involved. There are different levels of creativity, and creativity develops with both time and experience. A commonly cited model of creativity is the 4Cs [i] . At the mini-c level of creativity, what someone creates might not be revolutionary, but it is new and meaningful to them. For example, a child brings home their first drawing from school. It means something to the child, and they are excited to have produced it. It may show a very low level of skill but create a high level of emotional response which inspires the child to share it with their parents.

The little-c level of creativity is one level up from the mini-c level, in that it involves feedback from others combined with an attempt to build knowledge and skills in a particular area. For example, the painting the child brought home might receive some positive feedback from their parents. They place it on the refrigerator to show that it has value, give their child a sketchbook, and make some suggestions about how to improve their drawing. In high school the student chooses art as an elective and begins to receive explicit instruction and assessed feedback. In terms of students at school, the vast majority of creativity in students is at the mini-c and little-c level.

The Pro-c level of creativity in schools is usually the realm of teachers. The teacher of art in this case finds a variety of pedagogic approaches which enhance the student artist’s knowledge and skills in art as well as building their creative competencies in making works of art. They are a Pro-c teacher. The student will require many years of deliberate practice and training along with professional levels of feedback, including acknowledgement that their work is sufficiently new and novel for them to be considered a creative professional artist at the pro-c level.

The Big-C level of creativity is the rarefied territory of the very few. To take this example to the extreme, the student becomes one of the greatest artists of all time. After they are dead, their work is discussed by experts because their creativity in taking art to new forms of expression is of the highest level. Most of us operate at the mini-c and little-c level with our hobbies and activities. They give us great satisfaction and enjoyment and we enjoy building skills and knowledge over time.  Some of us are at the pro-c level in more than one area.

The value of creativity in education

Creativity is valuable in education because it builds cognitive complexity. Creativity relies on having deep knowledge and being able to use it effectively. Being creative involves using an existing set of knowledge or skills in a particular subject or context to experiment with new possibilities in the pursuit of valued outcomes , thus increasing both knowledge and skills. It develops over time and is more successful if the creative process begins at a point where people have at least some knowledge and skills. To continue the earlier example of the ramp, a student rolling a ball down an incline may notice that the ball goes faster if they increase the incline, and slower if they decrease it. This discovery may lead to other possibilities – the student might then go on to observe how far the ball rolls depending on the angle of the incline, and then develop some sort of target for the ball to reach. What started as play has developed in a way that builds the student’s knowledge, skills and reasoning. It represents the beginning of the scientific method of trial and error in experimentation.

Creativity is not just making things up. For something to meet the definition of creativity, it must not only be new but also relevant and useful. For example, if a student is asked to make a new type of musical instrument, one made of salami slices may be original and interesting, but neither relevant nor useful. (On the other hand, carrots can make excellent recorders). Creativity also works best with constraints, not open-ended tasks. For example, students can be given a limit to the number of lines used when writing a poem, or a set list of ingredients when making a recipe. Constrained limits lead to what cognitive scientists call desirable difficulties as students need to make more complex decisions about what they include and exclude in their final product. A common STEM example is to make a building using drinking straws but no sticky tape or glue. Students need to think more deeply about how the various elements of a building connect in order for the building to stand up.

Creativity must also have a result or an outcome . In some cases the result may be a specific output, such as the correct solution to a maths problem, a poem in the form of a sonnet, or a scientific experiment to demonstrate a particular type of reaction. As noted above, outputs may also be intangible: they might be an idea for a solution or a new way of looking at existing knowledge and ideas. The outcome of creativity may not necessarily be pre-determined and, when working with students, generating a specific number of ideas might be a sufficient creative outcome.

Myths about creativity

It is important that students are aware of the components that make up creativity, but it is also critical that students understand what creativity is not, and that the notion of creativity has been beset by a number of myths. The science of creativity has made great progress over the last 20 years and research has dispelled the following myths:

• Creativity is only for the gifted
• Creativity is only for those with a mental illness
• Creativity only lives in the arts
• Creativity cannot be taught
• Creativity cannot be learned
• Creativity cannot be assessed
• Schools kill creativity in their students
• Teachers do not understand what creativity is
• Teachers do not like creative students

The science of creativity has come a long way from the idea of being bestowed by the gods of ancient Rome and China. We now know that creativity can be taught, learned and assessed in schools. We know that everyone can develop their creative capacities in a wide range of areas, and that creativity can develop from purely experiential play to a body of knowledge and skills that increases with motivation and feedback.

Creativity in education 

The world of education is now committed to creativity. Creativity is central to policy and curriculum documents in education systems from Iceland to Estonia, and of course New Zealand. The origins of this global shift lie in the 1990s, and it was driven predominantly by economics rather than educational philosophy.

There has also been a global trend in education to move from knowledge acquisition to competency development. Creativity often is positioned as a competency or skill within educational frameworks. However, it is important to remember that the incorporation of competencies into a curriculum does not discount the importance of knowledge acquisition. Research in cognitive science demonstrates that students need fundamental knowledge and skills. Indeed, it is the sound acquisition of knowledge that enables students to apply it in creative ways . It is essential that teachers consider both how they will support their students to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills in their learning area as well as the opportunities they will provide for applying this knowledge in ways that support creativity. In fact, creativity requires two different sets of knowledge: knowledge and skills in the learning area, and knowledge of and skills related to the creative process, from idea generation to idea selection, as well as the appropriate attitudes, attributes and environment.

Supporting students to be creative

In order for teachers to support students to be creative, they should attend to four key areas. Firstly, creativity needs an appropriate physical and social environment . Students need to feel a sense of psychological safety when being creative. The role of the teacher is to ensure that all ideas are listened to and given feedback in a respectful manner. In terms of the physical environment, a set of simple changes rather than a complete redesign of classrooms is required: modifying the size and makeup of student groups, working on both desks and on whiteboards, or taking students outside as part of the idea generation process can develop creative capacity. Even something as simple as making students more aware of the objects and affordances which lie within a classroom may help with the creative process.

Secondly, teachers can support students to develop the attitudes and attributes required for creativity , which include persistence, discipline, resilience, and curiosity. Students who are more intellectually curious are open to new experiences and can look at problems from multiple perspectives, which builds creative capacity. In maths, for example, this can mean students being shown three or four different ways to solve a problem and selecting the method that best suits them. In Japan, students are rewarded for offering multiple paths to a solution as well as coming up with the correct answer.

Thirdly, teachers can support the creative process . It begins with problem solving, or problem posing, and moves on to idea generation. There are a number of methods which can be used when generating ideas such as brainstorming, in which as many ideas as possible are generated by the individual or by a group. Another effective method, which has the additional benefit of showing the relationships between the ideas as they are generated, is mind-mapping. For example, rather than looking at possible causes of World War Two as a list, it might be better to categorise them into political, social and economic categories using a mind map or some other form of graphic organiser. This creative visual representation may provide students with new and useful insights into the causes of the war. Students may also realise that there are more categories that need to be considered and added, thus allowing them to move from surface to deep learning as they explore relationships rather than just recalling facts. Remember that creativity is not possible without some knowledge and skills in that subject area. For instance, proposing that World War Two was caused by aliens may be considered imaginative, but it is definitely not creative.

The final element to be considered is that of the outcomes – the product or results – of creativity . However, as with many other elements of education, it may be more useful to formatively assess the process which the students have gone through rather than the final product. By exploring how students generated ideas, whether the method of recording ideas was effective, whether the final solutions were practical, and whether they demonstrated curiosity or resilience can often be more useful than merely grading the final product. Encouraging the students to self-reflect during the creative process also provides students with increased skills in metacognition, as well as having a deeper understanding of the evolution of their creative competencies. It may in fact mean that the final grade for a piece of work may take into account a combination of the creative process as observed by the teacher, the creative process as experienced and reported by the student, and the final product, tangible or intangible.

Collard, P., & Looney, J. (2014). Nurturing creativity in education . European Journal of Education, 49 (3), 348-364.

Craft, A. (2001). An analysis of research and literature on creativity in education : Report prepared for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.

Runco, M. (2008). Creativity and education . New Horizons in Education, 56 (1), 96-104.

[i] Kaufman, J. C., & Beghetto, R. A. (2009). Beyond big and little: The four C model of creativity .  Review of General Psychology,  13(1), 1-12.

By Tim Patston

PREPARED FOR THE EDUCATION HUB BY

Dr Tim Patston

Dr Tim Patston is a researcher and educator with more than thirty years’ experience working with Primary, Secondary and Tertiary education providers and currently is the leader of consultancy activities for C reative Actions . He also is a senior adjunct at the University of South Australia in UniSA STEM and a senior fellow at the University of Melbourne in the Graduate School of Education. He publishes widely in the field of Creative Education and the development of creative competencies and is the featured expert on creativity in the documentary Finding Creativity, to be released in 2021. 

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Article contents

Creativity in education.

• Anne Harris Anne Harris RMIT University
•  and  Leon De Bruin Leon De Bruin RMIT University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.383
• Published online: 26 April 2018

Creativity is an essential aspect of teaching and learning that is influencing worldwide educational policy and teacher practice, and is shaping the possibilities of 21st-century learners. The way creativity is understood, nurtured, and linked with real-world problems for emerging workforces is significantly changing the ways contemporary scholars and educators are now approaching creativity in schools. Creativity discourses commonly attend to creative ability, influence, and assessment along three broad themes: the physical environment, pedagogical practices and learner traits, and the role of partnerships in and beyond the school. This overview of research on creativity education explores recent scholarship examining environments, practices, and organizational structures that both facilitate and impede creativity. Reviewing global trends pertaining to creativity research in this second decade of the 21st century, this article stresses for practicing and preservice teachers, schools, and policy makers the need to educationally innovate within experiential dimensions, priorities, possibilities, and new kinds of partnerships in creativity education.

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Sir Ken Robinson: Creativity Is In Everything, Especially Teaching

Please try again

From  Creative Schools by Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica, published April 21, 2015, by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright by Ken Robinson , 2015.

Creative Teaching

Let me say a few words about creativity. I’ve written a lot about this theme in other publications. Rather than test your patience here with repetition of those ideas, let me refer you to them if you have a special interest. In Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative , I look in some detail at the nature of creativity and how it relates to the idea of intelligence in the arts, the sciences, and other areas of human achievement. In 1997, I was asked by the U.K. government to convene a national commission to advise on how creativity can be developed throughout the school system from ages five through eighteen. That group brought together scientists, artists, educators, and business leaders in a common mission to explain the nature and critical importance of creativity in education. Our report, All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education , set our detailed proposals for how to make this happen in practice and was addressed to people working at all levels of education, from schools to government.

It’s sometimes said that creativity cannot be defined. I think it can. Here’s my definition, based on the work of the All Our Futures  group: Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value.

There are two other concepts to keep in mind: imagination and innovation. Imagination is the root of creativity. It is the ability to bring to mind things that aren’t present to our senses.

Creativity is putting your imagination to work. It is applied imagination. Innovation is putting new ideas into practice. There are various myths about creativity. One is that only special people are creative, another is that creativity is only about the arts, a third is that creativity cannot be taught, and a fourth is that it’s all to do with uninhibited “self-expression.”

None of these is true. Creativity draws from many powers that we all have by virtue of being human. Creativity is possible in all areas of human life, in science, the arts, mathematics, technology, cuisine, teaching, politics, business, you name it. And like many human capacities, our creative powers can be cultivated and refined. Doing that involves an increasing mastery of skills, knowledge, and ideas.

Creativity is about fresh thinking. It doesn’t have to be new to the whole of humanity— though that’s always a bonus— but certainly to the person whose work it is. Creativity also involves making critical judgments about whether what you’re working on is any good, be it a theorem, a design, or a poem. Creative work often passes through typical phases. Sometimes what you end up with is not what you had in mind when you started. It’s a dynamic process that often involves making new connections, crossing disciplines, and using metaphors and analogies. Being creative is not just about having off-the-wall ideas and letting your imagination run free. It may involve all of that, but it also involves refining, testing, and focusing what you’re doing. It’s about original thinking on the part of the individual, and it’s also about judging critically whether the work in process is taking the right shape and is worthwhile, at least for the person producing it.

Creativity is not the opposite of discipline and control. On the contrary, creativity in any field may involve deep factual knowledge and high levels of practical skill. Cultivating creativity is one of the most interesting challenges for any teacher. It involves understanding the real dynamics of creative work.

Creativity is not a linear process, in which you have to learn all the necessary skills before you get started. It is true that creative work in any field involves a growing mastery of skills and concepts. It is not true that they have to be mastered before the creative work can begin. Focusing on skills in isolation can kill interest in any discipline. Many people have been put off by mathematics for life by endless rote tasks that did nothing to inspire them with the beauty of numbers. Many have spent years grudgingly practicing scales for music examinations only to abandon the instrument altogether once they’ve made the grade. The real driver of creativity is an appetite for discovery and a passion for the work itself. When students are motivated to learn, they naturally acquire the skills they need to get the work done. Their mastery of them grows as their creative ambitions expand. You’ll find evidence of this process in great teaching in every discipline from football to chemistry.

Why is Creativity Important in Education?

At its core, creativity is the expression of our most essential human qualities: our curiosity, our inventiveness, and our desire to explore the unknown. As we navigate an increasingly complex and changing world, promoting creativity in education is more important than ever before.

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The Importance of Creativity

We are all creative people, whether you think of yourself as creative or not. It takes creative thinking to paint a picture, but it also takes creative thinking to figure out the right formula to use in a spreadsheet, to invent a twist on a chocolate chip cookie recipe, or to plan a birthday party. But some people are more practiced and comfortable in the creative process than others.

At its core, creativity is the expression of our most essential human qualities: our curiosity, our inventiveness, and our desire to explore the unknown. Using creativity, we are able to push the boundaries of what is possible, imagine new worlds, and find solutions to the most pressing problems facing our society.

In a world where automation looms to take over all but the most innovative tasks—ones that truly require unique thinking—how can we make sure the next generation is capable of creatively solving these problems? We founded Prisma precisely because we were concerned traditional forms of education weren’t up to the challenge of creating future innovators.

In this post, we will explore the importance of creativity in the education system, the role of creativity in students' emotional development, and the ways in which it can be taught .

Creativity in Education

Despite the vital role creativity plays in our lives, it is often undervalued and neglected in our educational system. We are taught to memorize facts and figures, follow rules and procedures, and conform to the expectations of others. This approach may produce technically proficient students, but it fails to cultivate the spirit of creativity at the heart of true innovation.

In a rapidly evolving world with increasing automation, the ability to think creatively and come up with innovative solutions to problems is critical. This is particularly true in education, where fostering creativity can help students develop important critical thinking skills, as well as prepare them for the 21st-century workforce.

Creativity=Critical Thinking

“There’s no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would forever be repeating the same patterns.” -Edward de Bono

What does creativity have to do with critical thinking ? At its core, creativity is about problem-solving . This is a skill becoming increasingly important right now as the world rapidly changes. To keep up with these changes, young people need to be able to come up with creative ways to solve problems, and be able to adapt to new situations quickly.

At Prisma, learners engage in a workshop called Collaborative Problem-Solving twice per week. These workshops might involve a critical thinking simulation, like when learners had to choose which businesses to invest in, Shark Tank style; or a science simulation where they had to figure out how to power a city using a combination of resources. In real life, much of creative problem solving happens in teams, yet in many traditional schools, kids are asked to solve problems on their own.

To build the form of creativity that leads to innovative thinking, learners need complex, interesting problems to solve. Education needs to figure out ways to design these kinds of authentic problems to prepare learners to succeed.

Creativity & Social Emotional Skills

“The most regretful people on Earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave it neither power nor time.” -Mary Oliver

One of the benefits of creativity is the role it can play in the development of emotional intelligence . As mentioned above, creativity is an essential part of what it means to be human. It feels good to make something and be proud of it! When learners are given the opportunity for creative expression, it can help them develop their self-esteem and build confidence .

Prisma learners complete a creative project every 6 weeks based on our interdisciplinary learning themes , and present their final projects during a celebratory “Expo Day.” LaShonda S., a Prisma parent, described how making a creative project for the first time impacted her son this way: “His sense of pride and accomplishment has gone through the roof. He has told all of our family and friends about his podcast.”

Building students’ creativity isn’t just about the warm and fuzzy feelings, though. Going through a creative process is tough, and can build resilience, grit , and tenacity. It’s much easier to follow step-by-step instructions than it is to brainstorm, ideate, and iterate on your own idea. Creative projects can help kids learn to take risks and embrace failure, which is always an important part of the creative process.

In addition, creativity can help students develop important social skills. When learners work on creative projects together, they learn to collaborate and communicate effectively. This is an important skill for the 21st-century workforce , where teamwork and collaboration are essential. Since Prisma is a virtual school, our learners go even further, learning how to collaborate on creative projects virtually with young people all over the world, much like many adults do in their jobs today.

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Role of Creativity in the Education System

The education system has not always prioritized creativity. In fact, many education systems around the world have placed a greater emphasis on rote learning and standardized testing than on creativity and innovation.

Chen Jining, the president of Tsinghua University in China, once described the dichotomy between “A students” And “X students.” “A students” were those who followed all the rules, achieved excellent grades from kindergarten through high school, and aced standardized tests. Jining noticed what these Chinese students often lacked, however, was an aptitude for risk taking, trying new things, and “defining their own problems rather than simply solving the ones in the textbook.” (Mitchell Resnick, Lifelong Kindergarten ). The kind of creative people who could do those things could be thought of as “X students.”

High-achieving students who lack creativity are a major problem for any society who wants to solve problems, invent solutions, and innovate. What kind of learning environment might create a society of “X students” rather than just “A students”?

Creative Thinkers in Education

Fortunately, there are many educators and thinkers working to promote creativity in education. Sir Ken Robinson made a splash when he argued in a highly popular TedTalk and other writing & speeches that traditional education systems kill creativity.

Prisma’s curriculum was inspired by Seymour Papert , a mathematician and computer scientist who was a pioneer in the field of educational technology. Papert believed technology could be used to promote creativity and empower students to learn in new and innovative ways. He also believed creativity was a key component of the learning process, and that students should be given the freedom to explore and experiment to develop their creative thinking skills. His philosophy that learners learn most when engaged in a process of “ hard fun ” inspired the design of Prisma’s engaging curriculum themes & creative projects.

Another influential thinker in the field of creativity in education is Peter Gray , a psychologist and author who has written extensively on the importance of play and creative expression in children's lives. Gray argues play and creativity are essential for children's emotional and cognitive development and that schools should prioritize these activities to promote social skills and academic success.

Assessing Creativity

Unlike standardized tests, which (arguably) provide a clear measure of students' knowledge and understanding, creativity is more difficult to assess. This prompts some educators to dismiss its importance. However, there are ways to measure creativity, such as through creative projects and assessments focusing on problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

Before joining the founding team of Prisma, I researched creative assessment at Harvard. We discovered strategies such as assessing the process as well as the final product, allowing opportunities for peer & family feedback, and incorporating self-assessment and self-reflection helped reliably assess students’ creativity.

4 Ways to Teach Creativity

So how can teachers and homeschool parents foster creativity?

• Design a creative classroom environment , or make your home workspace more creatively inspiring. Of course, at a baseline, a creative learning environment may include materials like art supplies, building blocks, and maker tools, but kids can also be creative with digital tools like Procreate , TinkerCad , Canva , and plain old pen and paper. Remember, creativity is about ideas, not materials!
• Provide opportunities for brainstorming , encouraging students to come up with their own ideas. Instead of deciding in advance what learners will create and what the steps will be, consider coming up with the project together, or letting learners design their own . At Prisma, learners get multiple options each cycle for projects they can complete, and also have the opportunity to propose and design their own projects.
• Foster a creative mindset . This involves encouraging students to take risks and embrace failure, and helping them understand creativity is a process, not a product. At Prisma, this looks like using badges instead of traditional grades , and offering lots of opportunities for kids to reflect on not only what they made, but what they learned along the way. Don’t just give praise for what a learner completed, but their behavior during the process: for example, “I noticed how you changed your idea after you got peer feedback, what a great creative mindset!” instead of “Your drawing is really good!”
• Teach creative thinking skills explicitly . This can involve teaching students how to brainstorm effectively, how to find a creative flow state , and how to give & get feedback on their ideas. At Prisma, we use design thinking frameworks and teach learners the steps.

So what happens when schools decide to emphasize these strategies? Kids can do amazing things! As one Prisma parent describes, “ This year, my 10 year old designed her own ecosystem in TinkerCAD, started her own business with a functioning website, served as "Swedish Ambassador to the UN council" where she debated how to resolve the Syrian refugee crisis, coded her own game to educate others on Audio-Sensory-Processing-Disorder, and wrote her own fairy tale.”

Creativity is a critical component of education in the 21st century. By promoting creativity, you can help students develop important problem-solving and critical thinking skills, as well as foster their emotional and social development. While there are challenges to promoting creativity in the education system, there are also many educators and thinkers who are working to make creativity a priority in education. As we navigate an increasingly complex and changing world, promoting creativity in education is more important than ever before.

More Resources for Creative Education

Our Guide to Design Thinking For Kids

Our Guide to Entrepreneurship For Kids

Our Guide to Curiosity in Education

Our Guide to Interdisciplinary Education

Our Guide to Real-World Education

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Creativity and Academics: The Power of an Arts Education

Increased self-confidence and self-understanding, enhanced communication skills, and improved cognition are among the many reasons for teaching the arts.

The arts are as important as academics, and they should be treated that way in school curriculum. This is what we believe and practice at New Mexico School for the Arts (NMSA). While the positive impact of the arts on academic achievement is worthwhile in itself, it's also the tip of the iceberg when looking at the whole child. Learning art goes beyond creating more successful students. We believe that it creates more successful human beings.

NMSA is built upon a dual arts and academic curriculum. Our teachers, students, and families all hold the belief that both arts and academics are equally important. Our goal is to prepare students for professional careers in the arts, while also equipping them with the skills and content knowledge necessary to succeed in college. From our personal experience ( and research ), here are five benefits of an arts education:

1. Growth Mindset

Through the arts, students develop skills like resilience, grit, and a growth mindset to help them master their craft, do well academically, and succeed in life after high school. (See Embracing Failure: Building a Growth Mindset Through the Arts and Mastering Self-Assessment: Deepening Independent Learning Through the Arts .) Ideally, this progression will happen naturally, but often it can be aided by the teacher. By setting clear expectations and goals for students and then drawing the correlation between the work done and the results, students can begin to shift their motivation, resulting in a much healthier and more sustainable learning environment.

For students to truly grow and progress, there has to be a point when intrinsic motivation comes into balance with extrinsic motivation. In the early stages of learning an art form, students engage with the activity because it's fun (intrinsic motivation). However, this motivation will allow them to progress only so far, and then their development begins to slow -- or even stop. At this point, lean on extrinsic motivation to continue your students' growth. This can take the form of auditions, tests, or other assessments. Like the impact of early intrinsic motivation, this kind of engagement will help your students grow and progress. While both types of motivation are helpful and productive, a hybrid of the two is most successful. Your students will study or practice not only for the external rewards, but also because of the self-enjoyment or satisfaction this gives them.

2. Self-Confidence

A number of years ago, I had a student enter my band program who would not speak. When asked a question, she would simply look at me. She loved being in band, but she would not play. I wondered why she would choose to join an activity while refusing to actually do the activity. Slowly, through encouragement from her peers and myself, a wonderful young person came out from under her insecurities and began to play. And as she learned her instrument, I watched her transform into not only a self-confident young lady and an accomplished musician, but also a student leader. Through the act of making music, she overcame her insecurities and found her voice and place in life.

3. Improved Cognition

Research connects learning music to improved "verbal memory, second language pronunciation accuracy, reading ability, and executive functions" in youth ( Frontiers in Neuroscience ). By immersing students in arts education, you draw them into an incredibly complex and multifaceted endeavor that combines many subject matters (like mathematics, history, language, and science) while being uniquely tied to culture.

For example, in order for a student to play in tune, he must have a scientific understanding of sound waves and other musical acoustics principles. Likewise, for a student to give an inspired performance of Shakespeare, she must understand social, cultural, and historical events of the time. The arts are valuable not only as stand-alone subject matter, but also as the perfect link between all subject matters -- and a great delivery system for these concepts, as well. You can see this in the correlation between drawing and geometry, or between meter and time signatures and math concepts such as fractions .

4. Communication

One can make an argument that communication may be the single most important aspect of existence. Our world is built through communication. Students learn a multitude of communication skills by studying the arts. Through the very process of being in a music ensemble, they must learn to verbally, physically, and emotionally communicate with their peers, conductor, and audience. Likewise, a cast member must not only communicate the spoken word to an audience, but also the more intangible underlying emotions of the script. The arts are a mode of expression that transforms thoughts and emotions into a unique form of communication -- art itself.

5. Deepening Cultural and Self-Understanding

While many find the value of arts education to be the ways in which it impacts student learning, I feel the learning of art is itself a worthwhile endeavor. A culture without art isn’t possible. Art is at the very core of our identity as humans. I feel that the greatest gift we can give students -- and humanity -- is an understanding, appreciation, and ability to create art.

What are some of the benefits of an arts education that you have noticed with your students?

New Mexico School for the Arts

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This post is part of our Schools That Work series, which features key practices from New Mexico School for the Arts .

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The importance of embedding creativity in education

Creativity in an educational context is often thought of in terms of creative subjects such as music, art, and drama. These subjects certainly nurture creativity, but creativity is an integral part of teaching and learning across all subjects. It involves an active curiosity when seeing something for the first time and how we react to it. Sometimes this involves an element of risk-taking, which can be developed in the safe environment of learning.

Cultivating creative thinking amongst students is highly dependent on creative leaders being visible within the learning and work environments. For this reason it’s important that creative leadership is evident from primary school to high school or college, and on into higher education. Creative thinking should be encouraged amongst all stakeholders and considered a valuable quality that initiates individuals into responding flexibly and adaptively in their problem-solving and decision-making.

Creative leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic

The ongoing impact of the global pandemic upon the learning environment and how educational institutions respond, means that the need for school leadership which takes a creative approach is greater than ever. In the introduction to the final report on the Creating Socially Distanced Campuses and Education Project launched by Advance HE, it is noted that there are five faces of transformational leadership that have come to the fore:

• Crisis leadership
• Courageous leadership
• Compassionate leadership
• Collaborative leadership
• Creative leadership

Elaborating upon creative leadership, Doug Parkin, Principal Adviser for Leadership and Management at Advance HE, says,

“The academic endeavour is at its core a creative one. Even very technical and rigorously precise research has a creative basis. From the most complex curriculum review challenge to the most wicked interdisciplinary research question, creativity and positivity unlocks human potential at every stage. It ignites ideas, inspires, and develops focus, commitment and energy. And leadership can and should complement this by being creative and using creativity as the basis for communication, positivity and engagement.”

He also quotes Kimsey-House et al when he writes “People are naturally creative, resourceful and whole.” This is an important point as people sometimes believe that they are not creative when being creative is an inherently human trait that often simply hasn’t been developed. Continued professional learning and development can support head teachers and staff in fostering creative processes so that they can use them both in their approach to management and their teaching practice.

Expressing creativity in teaching

Teacher creativity can be expressed through preparation and development, originality and novelty, fluency, freedom in thinking and acting, sensitivity to problems, and flexibility in finding alternative solutions to problems. School leaders and principals are key role models in promoting creativity in the education system and when they lead by example, it’s easier for creative learning to take hold amongst both teachers and students. Professor Louise Stoll from the UCL Centre for Educational Leadership states that, “Creative leaders…provide the conditions, environment and opportunities for others to be creative.”

No matter how many inputs and initiatives towards creative learning are suggested by staff or students, if headteachers do not embrace a creative methodology, the outputs will be subpar. For this reason, leadership development is also a critical factor in school improvement through creativity. Those who are creative know that a school culture in which stakeholders are always learning only leads to more creativity, and that creativity is itself a vital part of facilitating learning – it becomes a virtuous cycle.

An interesting case study that involved both pupils and teachers is that of Manorfield Primary School in Tower Hamlets. Head teacher Paul Jackson explained in an article in Headteacher Update,

“We engaged an architect to design us a model classroom that would put teaching and learning at the centre. Pupils and teachers worked with him on ideas. The idea was that if that worked, it would become a ‘lab’ where we tested things and if they worked we would roll it out elsewhere. Our children visited hotels and offices to get design ideas and then reported their ideas back to the architect. The result was the transformation of a previously cluttered classroom into a modern, light, and airy space and we’re now applying the lessons that we learned to the conversion of two redundant offices into a new, inspiring Key Stage 1 library area. I think it was a good example of using outside expertise to challenge our thinking.”

This kind of creative work is hugely beneficial to learners of all ages, but particularly to young minds. By involving them in the shaping of their environment, their opinions on high level decision-making are validated. The children are the ones who will primarily be learning in the school space, so letting them know that their input is important has a positive impact on their learning and sense of agency. When learning spans both the classroom and real-world scenarios, creativity can really come to fruition as students see the real-life effect of their decisions.

How important is creativity in education?

Creativity is sometimes referred to as one of the key competencies of the 21 st century and is also intrinsic to sustainable development. 

As the world increasingly faces challenges related to climate change, the education of the next generation is pivotal in helping to cultivate innovative thinking and problem solving to address sustainability issues. Creative education is not just a more fun and resourceful way of learning, it helps prepare children and young adults for creative work and the challenges of everyday life.

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The educational sector is changing in the wake of Covid-19 and the weak points that the pandemic restrictions exposed in the current structures of pedagogy. Educational leaders want their schools to be more resilient and their staff and students to be actively learning and collaborating beyond the restraints of traditional learning methodologies. When it comes to the success of remote learning, there are more dynamic ways to share information than simply through webinars, and creativity has shown how limits can be overcome.

If you’re looking for professional development that lets you consider these challenges of teaching and many more, while exploring creative leadership styles and leadership roles, a master’s in education could be for you. Find out more about the learning opportunities offered by a 100% online MA Education Leadership and Management and how you can register today.

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Creativity and Technology in Education: An International Perspective

• Original research
• Published: 09 August 2018
• Volume 23 , pages 409–424, ( 2018 )

Cite this article

• Danah Henriksen   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5109-6960 1 ,
• Michael Henderson 2 ,
• Edwin Creely 2 ,
• Sona Ceretkova 3 ,
• Miroslava Černochová 4 ,
• Evgenia Sendova 5 ,
• Erkko T. Sointu 6 &
• Christopher H. Tienken 7  

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In this article, we consider the benefits and challenges of enacting creativity in the K-12 context and examine educational policy with regard to twenty-first century learning and technology. Creativity is widely considered to be a key construct for twenty-first century education. In this article, we review the literature on creativity relevant to education and technology to reveal some of the complex considerations that need to be addressed within educational policy. We then review how creativity emerges, or fails to emerge, in six national education policy contexts: Australia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Slovakia, and the U.S. We also locate the connections, or lack of, between creativity and technology within those contexts. While the discussion is limited to these nations, the implications strongly point to the need for a coherent and coordinated approach to creating greater clarity with regards to the rhetoric and reality of how creativity and technology are currently enacted in educational policy.

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1 Introduction

Creativity is commonly viewed as critical for twenty-first century learning and teaching (Craft 2010 ). Both scholarly and popular discourse point to the importance of creative thinking skills for learners, and much rhetoric focuses on the need to infuse it into education systems (Harris 2016 ; Runco 2014 ). Similar to the positioning of creativity, the ability to use digital technologies is also commonly seen as a core skill in twenty-first century. Indeed, it is often argued that the connection between technology and creativity is a key issue for twenty-first century education (for example see Page and Thorsteinsson 2017 ). On the surface, one might assume that education systems emphasize and support creativity in schools, or that teachers and learners are afforded opportunities in policy and practice to engage in creative work and thinking. However, the reality beyond the surface is not so simple, and the challenges of enacting creativity in education are substantial (Feldman and Benjamin 2006 ). It is not uncommon for creativity to be talked about as being enabled by and through technologies. It is no surprise that enacting creativity with and through digital technology is equally unclear and in need of greater clarity (Mishra and Henriksen 2018 ).

In this article, we the authors use our shared international context of EDUsummIT 2017 to review how creativity emerges in education systems across several national education policies—considering if, where and how this intersects with issues of educational technology. We begin by discussing and defining creativity in the literature. We then consider how creativity intersects with issues of educational technology, followed by consideration of the benefits and challenges to instantiating creativity in education. Drawing on our shared international context of EDUsummIT, the article explores what basic policy content around creativity looks like across several educational contexts. Following this, we consider how several national education policies enact (or fail to enact) creativity for teachers and/or learners. We end by identifying some broad themes and recommendations for policy makers.

2 Defining Creativity

The multifaceted and complex nature of creativity presents a challenge for many educational systems, which are often bound to standards or norms that seek clear, fixed or internally and externally consistent framing (Csikszentmihalyi and Wolfe 2014 ). School cultures can vary dramatically even within a single district, town, or region, let alone at national or international levels—and culture informs the distinctive ways that policy emerges into real-world practices (Jurasaite-Harbison and Rex 2010 ). There are a multitude of ways in which systems and cultures might enact (or fail to enact) creativity, and this is a concern for schools and systems that require clear guidance in policy and practice (Caena 2014 ).

Most definitions of creativity identify novelty and effectiveness as being two key characteristics of creative ideas or solutions (Plucker et al. 2004 ). Creativity, thus, can be described as the production of useful solutions to problems, or novel and interesting ideas and artifacts across domains (Amabile 1996 ; Oldham and Cummings 1996 ; Zhou and George 2001 , 2003). Beyond these common themes of newness or effectiveness, there are variations in definitions. The broadness, or lack of specificity, in how creativity is defined makes it difficult for practitioners to identify and facilitate it, in situ. Henriksen et al. ( 2016 ) explored where and how creativity is located as an interaction within a system of actors in education. They suggested that to infuse creativity into education systems, the field must attend to it at multiple systemic levels, including teaching, assessment, and notably, policy. This systemic view provides a foundation for the idea that it is valuable to consider systems of policy contexts for creativity in education.

The definitional challenge of creativity speaks to its ill-structured, multi-faceted nature, which is emergent, contextual, and complex in expression. This complexity and diversity of emergence within systems makes it challenging to instantiate creativity within the concrete realities of schooling. Creativity is clearly important for twenty-first century education, yet it is also open-ended and contested ground (Runco 2014 ). The problematic nature of and inconsistent understandings about creativity may make it difficult for teachers to know how to enact—particularly in the absence of policy guidance or exemplars. Likewise, policymakers often do not have an understanding of what creativity means in education (Craft 2003 ; Beghetto and Kaufman 2013 ); thus there are few clear parameters which educators can use to recognize and thus enhance creativity.

Perhaps it is only by recognizing the complexity and definitional challenges, and looking across policy contexts, that we can approach policy discourse in meaningful ways. Taking into account the complexity of creativity may help educators, researchers and policy makers understand the challenges of instantiating the concept into the bounded space of schooling.

3 Creativity and Technology in Twenty-First Century Education

Given the digital world in which education is increasingly situated, there has been much consideration of what teachers need to know to use technology effectively in the classroom, and the competencies needed to develop digitally-fluent, creative students (Mishra and Mehta 2017 ). This is partly due to what scholars refer to as an important emergent relationship between creativity and technology, and the apparent connection between innovation and digital technologies (Mishra and Deep-Play Research Group 2012 ). Unquestionably, the effects of globalization and digital technology advancement in our world have an impact on how humans now live, work, think, communicate and create (Zhao 2012 ). Digital tools, digital devices and applications are affording a new world of opportunities in which people can imagine, make and share in creative ways (Zhao 2012 ). As knowledge bases expand and our world becomes more complex, we need creative thinking to address twenty-first century problems (Florida 2014 ). Amid the shifting context of globalization and rapid digital change, creativity becomes that much more necessary in contemporary society. It also becomes increasingly vital in discussions of learning, particularly in technology-rich contexts (as described by Henriksen et al. 2016 ).

Yet before the field of education can address the complex relationship between creativity and technology, it must consider how creativity can be enacted in classroom settings and student learning experiences.

This is because, despite the rhetoric about the importance of supporting creativity in education (Runco 2014 ) scholars have noted that school systems still function in traditional ways, with rigid boundary lines between subjects, linear single-answer assessments, and restrictive practices for students and teachers (Collins and Halverson 2018 ). These constraints emerge largely due to broader policy goals that define what ought to be in the curriculum, and how this curriculum is to be instantiated. In this context that it becomes imperative to consider educational policies across the globe. Before delving into national educational policies, we examine some of the benefits and challenges of infusing creativity in education.

4 The Value of Creativity: In Education and Beyond

Creativity is closely connected not only with the artistic world and the creation of products, but also with science, engineering, innovative thinking and problem-solving. Creative people are increasingly demanded in the labor market (Ambrose 2017 ). Companies and entrepreneurs are cognizant that the key to success is an ability to create new knowledge (Žahour 2016 ).

Education has a pivotal role in fostering creativity and creative practices, and thus the skills needed to create new knowledge. Indeed, “schools and initial education play a key role in fostering and developing people’s creative and innovative capacities for further learning and their working lives” (Cachia et al. 2010 , p. 5). Creativity is central to societal progress and the formation of new knowledge—thus it is necessary for schools to pay attention to the construct. According to Loveless:

Education systems in the twenty-first century are having to adapt to the changes, aspirations and anxieties about the role of creativity in our wider society, not only in realising personal learning potential in an enriching curriculum, but also in raising achievement, skill and talent for economic innovation and wealth creation” (Loveless 2007 , p. 5).

Since the 1950s, psychologists have empirically examined the concept of human creativity (Plucker et al. 2004 ). Research has demonstrated substantial and lifelong intellectual, educational and developmental advantages associated with creative thinking (Torrance 1995 ; Blicblau and Steiner 1998 ). Educational psychologists and researchers have noted strong positive correlations between creativity and life outcomes, including life success (Torrance 1995 ), leadership in the workplace (Williams 2002 ), healthy psychological functioning, and strong intellectual/emotional growth (Runco 1997 ). Maslow ( 1962 ) and Rogers ( 1976 ) noted the overall beneficial impact that creativity has upon human development, mental health and self-actualization. In any of these studies done through the latter part of the twentieth century, creativity was viewed as a kind of thinking skill or habit of mind—whereas in earlier history it had often been thought of as an inherent talentor trait for special and gifted people. In viewing it as a thinking skill, it becomes more accessible through learning, growth and change.

Creativity is recognized as one of the most coveted psychological qualities; yet it is often misperceived as an inherent trait limited to unique individuals (Sternberg and Lubart 1991 ). This view has created a tension: educators recognize the importance of creativity but are unclear if or how it could be facilitated in classrooms. The problem of concrete implementation of creativity is at odds with the conviction across educational discourse that creative thinking is important (Sawyer 2015 ).

The international implementation of technologies in educational settings may be a way of grounding creativity in practice or could provide a tangible mechanism for fostering its development. However, there is comparatively little scholarship that has explored the complex relationship between technology and creativity, though some work has recently begun to emphasize the connection (Henriksen et al. 2016 ). This connection between creativity and technology may have stemmed in part from changes in the economy and workforce, which has shifted dramatically in the last 50 years, due to accelerating shifts in digitization and mechanization. Specifically, more of the workforce has shifted from lower-skilled labor or manual jobs, to what Davenport ( 2005 ) referred to as knowledge work. Florida ( 2014 ) has spoken of this shift, warning the education and management sectors to avoid class divides between creative and non-creative knowledge workers. Given these new trends in the labor force, he notes that, “the only way forward is to make all jobs creative jobs, infusing…every form of human endeavour with creativity and human potential” (Florida 2014 , xiv). In other words, workers must not only develop knowledge-based skills, but also embody creative practices in work situations. However, it is not clear that there is any consensus on what these changes mean in the realities of policy and practice in work places, industry and in education.

5 National Policy Contexts

National education policies are more than mere documents. They foreground what is deemed important, and ignore or under-emphasize what is not deemed so. They provide a vision, lay out goals and procedures for achieving it, and act as an incentive structure for educators. Within the context of this paper, to engage a global view, we review how several national policies examine creativity and locate it in school curriculum or teacher skills. We report on this issue of creativity integration in policy, with an eye toward if or how this intersects with technology in education. We conclude on common goals, synthesizing themes, and broad recommendations for the future. For pragmatic reasons we focus on a convenient sample of six countries: Australia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, and Slovakia, and the U.S. That said, we believe that this range of countries would provide us a space for examining the challenges and realities of creativity and technology in education mandates.

5.1 Australia

In Australia, the states and territories develop individual variations of curriculum guided by the federal government policy frameworks. The Australian Curriculum (ACARA, n.d.) is the most important set of policy frameworks, and stipulates the minimum curriculum for F-10 students in learning areas (subject disciplines), cross-curriculum priorities, and general capabilities. Importantly, one of the seven General Capabilities for F-10 is Critical and Creative Thinking. Here, the General Capabilities curriculum defines creative thinking as:

students learning to generate and apply new ideas in specific contexts, seeing existing situations in a new way, identifying alternative explanations, and seeing or making new links that generate a positive outcome. This includes combining parts to form something original, sifting and refining ideas to discover possibilities, constructing theories and objects, and acting on intuition. (ACARA, n.d.)

It also connects creative thinking with problem solving and other broad dispositions for learning:

Students develop capability in critical and creative thinking as they learn to generate and evaluate knowledge, clarify concepts and ideas, seek possibilities, consider alternatives and solve problems. Critical and creative thinking involves students thinking broadly and deeply using skills, behaviours and dispositions such as reason, logic, resourcefulness, imagination and innovation in all learning areas at school and in their lives beyond school… Dispositions such as inquisitiveness, reasonableness, intellectual flexibility, open-and fair-mindedness, a readiness to try new ways of doing things and consider alternatives, and persistence promote and are enhanced by critical and creative thinking (ACARA, n.d.)

Because creativity is a general capability it is also identified to varying degrees in the seven Learning Areas. Of particular relevance to this paper is the Digital Technologies Learning Area, in which digital technologies are strongly positioned as a context for the development of creativity:

Digital Technologies provides students with authentic learning challenges that foster curiosity, confidence, persistence, innovation, creativity, respect and cooperation. These are all necessary when using and developing information systems to make sense of complex ideas and relationships in all areas of learning. (ACARA, n.d.)

Overall, creativity has a high degree of visibility within the F-10 curriculum. It is reasonable to conclude that all children in Australian schools are expected to be creative. However, the definition or criteria for creativity within the curriculum is discursively challenged within the Australian Curriculum itself, thereby making it difficult for teachers to enact in practice. This discursive challenge is especially evident in the fact that, despite the strident definition offered within the Critical and Creative Thinking General Capability, the rest of the Australian Curriculum commonly describes it in terms of a way of working and a functional extension of achieving disciplinary goals, such as solving problems. Most worrying is that creativity is rarely mentioned by itself, it is only framed in reference to other complex constructs. For instance, in the Digital Technologies learning area, creativity is referred to as only one of several characteristics that can be fostered by, and is a requisite for the effective use of, digital technologies.

In conclusion, the high visibility of creativity is promising, but the way the curriculum constantly conflates it with other equally complex and aspirational skills, behaviors and dispositions only further diffuses the concept and makes it more difficult to implement. For instance, how can it be taught if it cannot be distinguished from the other complex and aspirational learning outcomes?

In relation to teaching standards, in Australia, the standards of professional practice for teachers is set by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL, n.d.). While creativity is not a core standard for teachers or leaders, it is indicated in the standards, as one of the goals of effective teaching strategies, that “proficient” teachers “select and use relevant teaching strategies to develop knowledge, skills, problem solving and critical and creative thinking” (APST 3.3). In addition, school leaders are expected to “promote creative, innovative thinking among colleagues.” However, in AITSL, creativity (or creative thinking) is not defined. It is embedded as one of several goals for one particular standard, amongst 36 other standards competing for attention. Moreover, there is no indication of how it can be identified, measured, or developed, which undermines the point of any system of standards and makes it difficult to enact in practice.

5.2 Bulgaria

The term creativity did not appear officially within educational law until 2016, when the New Pre-School and School Education Law came into action. There term creativity (твopчecтвo in Bulgarian) appears in article 77 (1) dealing with the key competences expected by Bulgarian students, such as competence #8: cultural awareness and competence for expression via creativity. Indirect references to creativity are found also in article 219 (1) dealing with the rights of the educational experts to determine methods and means for carrying out the educational process in harmony with the broader principles and goals of the law and to be autonomous in implementing educational policies, self-control and decentralization.

As for the referenced innovative school elements of creativity, these are found also indirectly in article 38 (7), which offers some guidance for how schools might be run: developing and implementing innovative elements with regard to the organization and/or the content of the education; organizing in a novel manner the educational process and the learning environment; using new teaching methods, and developing new curriculum and syllabus. However, despite this incorporation of innovation or creativity, the text of the New Educational Law does not contain any explicit guidelines for the teaching of creativity in teacher education and does not provide descriptions of ways to assess the creativity competences for students.

While the notion of creativity is not as visible as in some of the other nations’ educational policy documents, it is noteworthy that there have been significant efforts to raise its profile over the years. For instance, over four decades ago the Research Group on Education (RGE) at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences at the Ministry of Education, launched a 12-year experiment, that among other goals, sought to facilitate creativity (Nikolov and Sendova 1989 ). A key finding was that learners’ and teachers’ creativity potential can be stimulated by developing specific ICT-enhanced methodologies and educational resources in support of inquiry-based learning and creativity. This project then led to further national and European projects, particularly focusing on innovation, which is linked with creativity—e.g. I*Teach— Innovative Teacher , IDWBL— Innovative Didactics for Web - Based Learning, InnoMathEd— Innovations in Mathematics Education on European Level, and others (Sendova et al. 2009 ; Zehetmeier et al. 2015 ).

Nevertheless, despite projects such as these, and as seen in other national contexts, there continues to be a lack of clarity in policy regarding creativity, let alone its connection to technology. This then reinforces the difficulty for teachers and education leaders to form a coherent or coordinated approach.

5.3 Czech Republic

In the Czech national curricular advisory document, the RVP (rámcové vzdělávací programy (National Institute for Education, Educational Counseling and Educational Training Facilities, n.d.) framework for education programs (which includes nine years of study in elementary school and four years in the gymnasium), we only occasionally find requirements to develop students’ creativity and thinking. Creativity (tvořivost in the Czech language) and creative activities in the RVP ZV curriculum (2013) for elementary schools (pupils aged 6–15) are associated primarily with artistic performance (Art Education, Music Education, Dancing Education, etc.). Creativity is implemented in the supplementary domains of Ethical Education, Film and Audio-visual Education, Dancing, and, in a cross-curricular theme, Personal and Social Education. In students’ creative activities, the emphasis is put on artistic production in educational domains.

In the curricular document (RVP) for the gymnasium (schools for students aged 15–19 years) the position of creativity is similar to the curriculum for elementary schools. The cross-curricular theme, Personal and Social Education, emphasizes the development of creativity and emotional intelligence (RVP G 2007, p. 61). The educational domain, Art and Culture is expected to contribute to the development of creative activities in Art Education subjects and the like. In contrast to elementary school curriculum, the gymnasium curriculum requires that the educational domain, Informatics and ICT, deepens pupils’ ability to use ICT, information resources and software in creative ways (RVP G 2007, p. 62) and to exploit theoretical and practical knowledge about hardware and software applications creatively. Yet the governmental strategy for education in the Czech Republic does not significantly deal with creativity and creative thinking development within schools. In terms of assessment, creativity is not assessed explicitly in students, but is accounted for in terms of being considered a competence of teachers.

A space for creativity and creative thinking for learning in Czech school education has not been discussed or fully appreciated in policy. Creative skills and activities of children in the Czech Republic may be developed in after-school activities at Basic Artistic Schools which have a long tradition in the Czech society. Some experienced teachers in Czech schools understand very well the importance of the development of creativity for learning and cognition. Consequently, they have established a network of public and private Czech schools named Creative Schools (Tvořivá škola) that apply aspects of creativity in learning and everyday teaching. However, this is separate from common curricula in most conventional schools.

5.4 Finland

In Finland, the National Core Curriculum (NCC) guides the Finnish compulsory basic education for students’ age 7–15 (FNBE 2016 ). It provides a uniform foundation for education providers to create local school-level curricula, thus enhancing educational equality. The NCC recognizes creativity (luovuus in Finnish) as one element of learning, which receives 80 mentions in 473 pages. However, the document itself does not define creativity. As the idea behind NCC is to provide the foundation for planning the local curricula, the educational providers have autonomy to define their approach for creativity. The goals of the NCC are to secure the necessary knowledge and skills for all learners, to encourage learning in collaborative and student-centered ways, to use technology for supporting learning, and to support the use and design of different learning environments (also outside of classrooms).

Additionally, the NCC encourages teachers to break down the traditional subject structures to create more comprehensive areas of learning by using phenomenon-based learning (FNBE 2016 ). High emphasis is placed upon seven transversal competences that Voogt and Roblin ( 2012 ) argued are important for twenty-first century skills and learning in general. Creativity in the curriculum is typically related to these transversal competencies, but also to various subjects (e.g., languages, mathematics, music). In the NCC, information and communication technology (ICT) skills are considered important for citizenship and multi-literacy. Students are expected to develop ICT competences in four main areas: (1) understanding ICT key concepts, operating and using principles, (2) how to use ICT responsibly, safely and ergonomically, (3) how to use ICT for inquiry, data management, and creative work, and (4) using ICT in collaboration and for networking. In all four areas, there is emphasis on creative potential and active learning. In total, creativity is tied to ICT five times in the NCC.

Creativity and ICT also pose expectations for teacher education. The teaching profession is highly valued in Finland; around 10% of applicants are accepted to teacher education programs, and qualified teachers require a master’s degree. Teacher development in Finland aims to provide skills for future teachers to work as educational experts linking learning processes, subject content and didactic processes from a multidisciplinary perspective. This opens up possibilities and creative approaches to teaching with ICT.

In terms of assessment, teachers in Finland have significant autonomy (no inspection systems or standardized tests). So the assessment of creativity in students depends on the teacher. Creativity is often tied to subjects and transversal skills, so assessment is also tied to them. In teacher education, there is increasing interest around including creativity more deeply in the curriculum. For example, one of the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture ( 2018 ) key development projects, the national “Teacher Education Forum” aims to strategically develop creativity of teachers. In addition, large-scale research of pre-service teacher education places emphasis in twenty-first century skills e.g. research from a creative thinking and ICT tools perspective (Valtonen et al. 2017 ).

5.5 Slovakia

The State Education Program (SEP) is the key national curriculum document and its updated, innovated version, has been implemented in schools since 2015. The National Institute for Education in Slovak Republic (National Institute for Education in Slovak Republic 2017a , b ) is responsible for implementation of the SEP into school practice, and provides teachers methodological guidance. The SEP states the aims or expected outcomes of school education, lists the compulsory topics for school subjects, and defines required competencies of students. Creativity (tvorivosť or kreativita in Slovak) is present in this document, and the principles of active and creative education are characterized in the SEP; for instance in the introduction of the document (pg. 3): “This means that we can effectively acquire only the knowledge we create in a particular activity. So, we are also teaching the active construction of knowledge in particular subjects.”

School subjects Mathematics and Computer Science are regarded together as the educational domain: Mathematics and Information Treating in the SEP. These subjects support the ability to use information and communication technologies, information resources and software applications in an “efficient and creative way.”

All of this implies a certain focus around creativity in official school policy. However, long-term observations of lessons at schools and assessment of students and of school practice, still show a dominantly transmissive style of teaching in Slovakian schools (Duchovicova and Tomsik, 2017 ). Several strong aspects of school culture in Slovakia still influence traditional education in every type and level of school. These aspects include: time-tight and rigorous curriculum (part of the SEP), a focus on content subject knowledge instead of process knowledge and interdisciplinary skills, national standardized testing (provided by National Institute of Certified Educational Measurement 2010 ), dominantly traditional initial teacher education ITE), and summative assessment system. Thus, while there is some consistent evidence of attention to creativity in educational policy, school and teaching practices often remain rooted in conventional traditions (Duchovicova and Tomsik 2017 ). In terms of assessment, there is no official system for creativity assessment in Slovakia. Assessment of creativity is based on the individual teacher approach and attitude and on the style of her/his teaching as well as on the particular school culture.

Universities provide initial teacher education (ITE), and such programs must be accredited by the Ministry. Expanding attributes of creativity and critical thinking are key challenges in ITE, which is undergoing a period of slow reform in the Slovakian school system: the Ministry supports a project (APVV 15-0368) that aims to introduce methods and strengthen skills of future teachers in promoting creativity and critical thinking, in methodological subjects and pedagogical practices at schools (Constantine the Philosopher University, Nitra, n.d.).

Describing U.S. education policy is challenging, because the U.S. is a decentralized system of 50 states with individual priorities. The United States Department of Education makes policy mandates, which may be interpreted differently at the state and local level. Examining teacher certification and accreditation requirements is one way to consider U.S. education priorities and the role of creativity in those priorities.

The Common Core State Standards are a set of curriculum standards (student learning expectations) for Grades K-12 in mathematics and language arts. These standards are the closest thing to a U.S. national curriculum. These standards do not require much in the way of creative thinking for K-12 students. Most standards focus on declarative and procedural knowledge, directing students toward a predetermined answer. A series of studies conducted since 2015 sought to determine the amount of creative, extended, and strategic thinking required by the Common Core. The results suggest a lack of creative thinking and a preponderance of declarative and procedural thinking; in fact, the term creativity does not appear in the Common Core State Standards (Florida State University 2012 ; Niebling 2012 ; Sforza et al. 2016 ). The lack of creative thinking required by the Common Core seems to be endemic of a larger national education policy environment focused on standardization of knowledge rather than creativity. For example, the two national testing consortia, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the Partnership for Readiness for College and Careers ( 2015 ) do not include any items within their released testing items or their testing frameworks that require students to use creative thinking, other than the occasional writing prompt.

Each U.S. state administers federally mandated standardized tests in mathematics and language arts in grades 3–8 and at least once in high school. These tests are aimed to align with the Common Core. Therefore, a fair conclusion is that the mandated tests lack the assessment of creative thinking. For instance, the Common Core makes a superficial reference to use of technology on page 4 of the standards documents, yet no anchor standards in reading mention technology or creative use of technology as a K-12 priority. A mention of technology shows up one time in the Writing Anchor standards: “Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.” The majority of that statement revolves around automation, not creativity. The only point that could support creativity is the “collaboration” aspect, yet collaboration is not prioritized throughout the remainder of the standards.

The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) controls teacher education certification in 28 of the 50 states. Creativity does not appear in the CAEP Standards for teacher education accreditation, nor does any reference to twenty-first century Skills or related terms. The five CAEP (2016) standards have 23 indicators, only one of which sets out requirements for teaching candidate performance: 1.1 Candidates demonstrate an understanding…in the following categories: the learner and learning; content; instructional practice; and professional responsibility. However, specific examples for understanding are not provided. References to technology appear five times in the standards, but with no reference to using technology in creative or innovative ways—thus the concepts are never tied together in policy.

The mandated testing, along with the mandated curriculum standards, is how the U.S. communicates curriculum and assessment expectations in policy. All of this points to an overall lack of focus on creativity and twenty-first century skills in U.S. education, regardless of frequent rhetoric and discussion on these topics.

6 Looking Across Policy Contexts

National educational policy documents are visions more than mandates. That said, it would be negligent to underestimate how these policies influence and structure the broader conversation around education—emphasizing certain ideas and perspectives and de-emphasizing others. The policy environments described here reveal both convergence and divergence in how they reference creativity and technologies. We acknowledge that this discussion is limited in scope and scale, based on our range of contexts, but believe it offers certain insights around global educational policy.

6.1 The Struggle to Enact Creativity in Policy and Practice

First, the definitional challenges of defining creativity appear to be reflected here as well. The difficulty of arriving at a specific vision of what creativity is presents a challenge to policy, which often demands detail, clarity and structure for enactment (Perry 2017 ). When the nature of a construct like creativity (subjective, complex, ill-structured) sits at odds with the demands of policy (clarity, agreed-upon guidelines, specifics in structure), it follows that challenges arise (Craft 2010 ).

These challenges played out in several ways across the six national contexts we reviewed. It is evident through looking at the absences and gaps in these documents, that all six of these nations do not define what creativity means—either in the context of teaching practices or assessment. As in Australia, the curriculum in Finland, Slovakia and Bulgaria also identify creativity as a competency that works across subject areas. However, while Slovakia and Australia largely associate it with problem solving, Bulgaria frames it in terms of a mode of expression. In the Czech Republic it appears and receives mentions, yet is not clearly and consistently infused across curriculum, but is tied to learning in the arts or through functional application and instrumental needs, rather than focusing on it across subjects or developing creativity more broadly as an approach to thinking or expression.

One notable point is that in terms of assessment, none of the nations considered here offered any clarity. This critical point of assessment was generally either ignored, or left to the discretion of individual teachers. It is difficult to say (and this may vary in context) whether this stems from policy makers not valuing creativity, not knowing how to define or measure it, or simply being cautious not to mandate something they see as subjective. There may be a tension in avoiding a hardline directive or overly structured assessment around something as complex and emergent as creativity. Yet we must note that it is difficult to truly integrate a concept into policy if it is not assessed with any guidance.

Across five of the six national contexts (i.e. with the exception of the U.S.) there appears to be an understanding that creativity should feature in the curriculum. However, there are varied ways it has been instantiated in the curriculum frameworks. One such variation is perhaps related to the confusion about defining creativity we discussed earlier in this article: is it a way of thinking, such as a problem-solving technique, a disposition, habit of mind or something else? This confusion appears to be reflected in the silences in some policy documents, which may be the result of systems that avoid attempting to operationalize or define messy or subjective concepts; or in the limiting ways that creativity is thought of, as merely a facet of the arts or as a means to an end for a functional need.

6.2 The Rhetoric Versus the Reality

Our review of the policy documents also reveals some disparity between how creativity is valued rhetorically, yet it is ignored or limited by policy documents. For example, there is no shortage of both popular and scholarly discourse focused on the importance and the value of creative thinking—both in society and in classrooms (Zhao 2012 ). This, however, is not reflected in the realities of much education policy. This disparity is seen in the absences of creativity, and where the term appears without any definition or clarity. In some instances it appears in policy yet still fails to provide specific guidance on how it would be instantiated in practice. Again, this distance between perceived rhetoric and actual policy or practices appears relevant to the ill-structured nature of the construct.

Such disparities are also seen around educational technology implementation in schools (Mishra et al. 2011 ). Despite the fact that technology is sometimes positioned as a panacea, it is inherently a tool that is contingent on how it is used. It can be used to maximize affordances for creative output or deep learning, or it can simply be a replacement device with shallow uses for learning. Complex constructs require complex treatment in how they are approached and applied, and this presents policy challenges across the board. It is clear that the policy documents reviewed above vary on how creativity is to be understood, evaluated and instantiated in real classrooms.

7 Conclusion

While creativity has become a core issue for twenty-first century teaching and learning, it is still not clear what this means for the field of education—in policy, and therefore in practice. Our review of the literature has highlighted both the essential nature of creative thinking across contexts (Runco 2014 ), as well as the ill-defined and ill-structured nature of creativity (Runco and Jaeger 2012 ). The tension faced by the field of education lies in how to navigate this conflict between the needs of policy and the nature of creativity.

In our review of six national contexts, this broader tension also becomes clear, though it shows up differently in different spaces. We have noted how in some cases, curricula or policy meet this ill-structured dilemma with silences—by not defining it or sometimes not even mentioning it. This may lead to problems for practitioners, who seek to be guided by policy or who might benefit from clarity in order to instantiate a complex construct such as creativity in classrooms. Another challenge may be to overcome pre-existing traditions and cultures, which sometimes involve practices that are antithetical to creativity, yet are endemic in many schools. Thus, even for nations that manage to describe creativity within policy, such as in the case of Australia, there may be problems in practice, if it goes against traditional, ingrained structures. The implication is worse, of course, for nations such as the US, which fails to position creativity within the curriculum –an issue further reinforced by testing regimes that exclude, ignore or devalue it (Au 2011 ).

Across the six contexts represented here, there is also not a great deal of clarity around how creativity can be a part of teacher capabilities—partly because of a lack of consistency across national contexts in how it is approached, and perhaps partly because of the complex nature of creativity and the definitional openness inherent in the construct. Teaching in and of itself happens in a complex space, where they need a blend of both flexibility and support for creative practice. Without a clear idea of the goal of creativity in policy, it is difficult to cultivate it in teachers, yet teachers are essential to infusing it into practice (Hall and Thomson 2005 ).

Moreover, while much educational scholarship and rhetoric has discussed and described the relationship between creativity and technologies in learning (Malhotra et al. 2015 ), there is still little direct connection between these in policy. They are sometimes mentioned or noted together, but not often—and while there is a sense of the possibilities in these spaces, this is often not articulated in policy.

While this challenge of integrating creativity in policy and curriculum is inherent to this line of work, based on the complexity and subjectivity of the construct, it is not insurmountable. In fact, many of the major thinking, teaching and learning constructs that most education policy deals with—from literacy to scientific thinking and more—are concepts that have been (and in some cases, still are) contested, subjective and changeable. Yet over time they have still become part of curricula and policy in clear and practicable ways, which has often happened via much debate, discussion, and examination (Bowe et al. 2017 ). Even with respect to the current limits of creativity in education, some nations have taken some key initial steps to integrate it. We suggest that through affording creativity the time and space for extensive and serious policy discussions, creative twenty-first century education may become as much as part of policy as it already is in the rhetoric.

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Importance of Coding Education in Elementary Schools Matters

Lomit Patel

Stem coding for kids: fun kits, robots & free resources.

• Education Tips for Kids: Help Your Child Succeed in School

Imagine a world where your child graduates elementary school with basic math and reading skills and a solid foundation in coding. A world where they’re already equipped with the tools to thrive in an increasingly digital landscape. That’s why the importance of coding education in elementary schools  matters.

But why start so young, you might ask? Like learning a foreign language, the earlier kids start coding, the more naturally they absorb and retain these critical skills. Coding education in elementary schools isn’t about churning out miniature software engineers. It’s about fostering creativity, problem-solving, and computational thinking—skills that will serve them well no matter what career path they choose.

The Importance of Coding Education in Elementary Schools

Coding education has exploded in elementary schools over the past decade. And it’s not hard to see why. Teaching kids to code at a young age sets them up for a bright future in our increasingly digital world.

According to recent studies, coding education in elementary schools has increased by 300% in the last 10 years. That means 3 out of 4 elementary school students can access coding classes and programs. Pretty impressive, right?

Why Coding Education is Essential Early On

The importance of coding education in elementary schools is essential because it helps develop essential skills that will serve them well throughout their lives.

By diving into coding early on in life, children equip themselves with crucial tools like cracking tough nuts (problem-solving), slicing through puzzles (critical thinking), and commanding the virtual space confidently (computational skills). By breaking huge issues down to their basics, it suddenly becomes much more straightforward to deal with them. And it encourages them to think logically and systematically.

Plus, the importance of coding education in elementary schools matters because it lays a strong foundation for future learning. It’s like learning a foreign language—the earlier you start, the easier it is to pick up. By introducing coding concepts and basic programming skills in elementary school, we’re setting kids up for success in middle school, high school, and beyond.

Parent’s Perspective on Coding Education

Parents are catching on to the importance of coding education in elementary schools too. In fact, a recent survey found that 90% of parents believe coding is a crucial skill for their children’s future.

And it’s no wonder why. From startups to big corporations and beyond, today, coding skills open doors wide across all kinds of industries. Think about this: with coding skills under your belt, not only do you get a pass into the tech scene but also a chance at leading roles in healthcare, banking secrets in finance, or driving trends in marketing.

As parents, we want to give our kids every advantage we can. Learning to code at a young age helps children prepare for success in the future by providing them with STEM education, critical thinking skills, creativity, computational thinking, and other fundamental skills needed to get STEM jobs.

The Benefits of Learning to Code

However, the benefits of coding education go far beyond just preparing kids for future careers. Learning to code helps develop valuable skills that will serve students well in all areas of their lives.

For one, the importance of coding education in elementary schools   helps students learn to develop resilience and perseverance. Faced with a coding puzzle, their strategy is simple: keep experimenting until the solution clicks. This “growth mindset” is a valuable skill that will help them tackle obstacles in their lives.

Boosting Creativity Through Coding

Coding also fosters creativity and innovation in students. They’re prompted to break the mold and invent clever fixes on their own. Here’s how it works – they get all the techie gadgets necessary to breathe life into those brilliant ideas.

I’ve seen this firsthand with my own students. One group of fifth graders used their coding skills to create an interactive storybook about endangered animals. They wrote the story, coded the animations, and even recorded their own voiceovers. By the time they were done, you could see how much thought went into it—an engaging, beautifully coded project reflecting just how imaginative and skilled they are.

Coding as a Team Effort

Besides sharpening your brain with code, you’ll find yourself part of a squad, brainstorming and bouncing ideas off each other. Many coding projects involve working together in pairs or small groups to solve problems and create something new.

This collaborative approach helps students develop important social skills like communication, cooperation, and empathy. It teaches them how to work effectively with others towards a common goal. And it helps them see the value in diverse perspectives and ideas.

Teachers’ Support for Coding Integration

Teachers are also recognizing the importance of coding education in elementary schools curricula. In fact, 80% of teachers believe coding should be taught alongside other core subjects like math and reading.

Teachers aren’t missing a beat, finding smart ways to fold computer programming right into their lesson plans. For example, a science teacher might have students use coding to create a simulation of a food web. Or a language arts teacher might challenge students to code an interactive story or poem.

By integrating coding across the curriculum, teachers are helping students see the real-world applications of their coding skills. And they’re providing opportunities for students to apply their coding knowledge in meaningful, engaging ways.

The Future Pathways Opened by Early Coding Education

Perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of early coding education is the future pathways it opens up for students. By exposing kids to coding at a young age, we’re planting the seeds for a lifelong interest in STEM fields.

Research shows that students who learn coding in elementary school are more likely to pursue STEM careers down the road . And with the rapid growth of technology across all industries, the demand for STEM skills is only going to continue to rise.

But even for students who don’t end up pursuing a career in tech, the skills they gain through coding education will serve them well in any field. The ability to think critically, solve problems, and work collaboratively is a valuable asset in any profession.

Tools and Platforms for Young Coders

So how can we make coding education accessible and engaging for young students? Luckily, there are a wide variety of tools and platforms designed specifically for elementary-aged coders.

One popular approach is using visual programming languages like  Tynker . This block-based coding tools allow students to drag and drop code blocks to create animations, games, and interactive stories. They provide a fun, intuitive way for kids to learn coding concepts without getting bogged down in complex syntax.

Other great resources for young coders include interactive platforms like the comprehensive Tynker curriculum . For the budding coder in every child, there are special online spots filled with coding courses. They’re set up so kids can explore and learn when they feel like it, using games and tasks just right for them. They make learning to code feel like playing a game, with fun characters, animations, and storylines.

Developing Resilience Through Coding Challenges

Imagine your kid facing obstacles head-on and coming out stronger. That’s what coding education can do—it instills unbeatable resilience in them. Learning to code is hard. It involves a lot of trial and error, debugging, and perseverance.

But that’s precisely what makes it such a powerful learning experience. When coding throws a curveball at students, they don’t back down. Instead, they experiment with various strategies until one sticks and the problem is solved. They develop a growth mindset, understanding that mistakes and setbacks are just opportunities to learn and improve.

This resilience and perseverance will serve them well not just in coding, but in all areas of their lives. Whether they’re tackling a tough math problem, learning a new instrument, or facing a personal challenge, they’ll have the grit and determination to keep pushing forward.

Preparing Students for a Digital Future

Teaching code isn’t just a subject; it’s preparing tomorrow’s leaders for their digitally drenched destiny. With technology transforming every aspect of our lives, from how we work and learn to how we communicate and create, it’s more important than ever that we equip students with the skills they’ll need to thrive.

By introducing coding in elementary school, we’re giving students a head start on developing those critical skills. We’re empowering them to be not just consumers of technology, but creators and innovators. We’re setting them up to be the problem-solvers and change-makers of tomorrow.

For any educator, it’s an absolute joy when you see that look in a student’s eyes—that unmistakable sign they’ve just caught the bug of creativity and eagerness to learn. When a kid discovers the magic of bringing their ideas to life through code, it’s a moment of pure joy and possibility.

Encouraging Cognitive Growth Beyond Coding

Learning to code has been shown to have a significant impact on cognitive development and academic performance across all subjects.

Imagine coding as your secret weapon for sharpening your brain; it boosts how you solve puzzles, tackle tricky questions, and handle complex ideas, no matter the subject. It encourages them to break down complex problems into smaller, more manageable parts—a skill that’s essential in math, science, and beyond.

Interestingly enough, hitting the books for code lessons can sharpen not only tech skills but also literacy. When you get down to it, coding is more than typing away at a keyboard—it’s about talking with technology. Students lear how to translate what they’re thinking and wanting into computer speak. This translates to improved verbal and written communication skills that benefit students across the curriculum.

The Role of AI and Programming Languages in Modern Education

As we look to the future of coding education, artificial intelligence and diverse programming languages will undoubtedly play an increasingly important role.

AI is already transforming industries across the board, from healthcare and finance to transportation and entertainment. By introducing students to AI concepts and tools early on, we’re preparing them to be the innovators and leaders of this exciting field.

When learners learn various coding languages, they become more well-rounded and quick-to-adapt problem solvers. From the beginner-friendly blocks of Tynker to the more complex syntax of Python and JavaScript, each programming language offers its own special tools and uses.

Think about it this way: give someone diverse coding tools, and you’ve just opened up a world where tackling complex tech tasks becomes second nature for them. We’re setting them up to be the creative problem-solvers our world needs, equipped with the skills and knowledge to make a real difference.

So, what have we learned? Coding education in elementary schools is no longer a nice-to-have. The importance of coding education in elementary schools is a must-have. By introducing coding at a young age, we’re setting our kids up for success in a world that increasingly runs on technology.

Think of it as going above and beyond—instilling competencies in folks that aren’t confined to pixelated realms. Think of coding as brain training; it shapes sharp thinkers who can innovate and collaborate well with others across any career they decide to chase after.

As parents and educators, it’s on us to champion coding education in our elementary schools. Because when we invest in our children’s digital literacy, we’re investing in their future—and the future of our society as a whole.

The importance of coding education in elementary schools can’t be overstated. It’s time to make the  importance of coding education in elementary schools  a priority.

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I'm undocumented and in college. Why it's important to share stories like mine

A s young Latinos are one of the nation’s fastest-growing populations in the U.S., the time has come to show that we have the exact same career expectations, dreams and ambitions as our peers.

In Arizona,  Proposition 308 is an opportunity for more students, regardless of immigration status, to access in-state tuition while demonstrating we belong in the education system and can access a path to grow and thrive.

The legislation enables anyone who has lived in Arizona for two or more years and graduated from an Arizona high school to attend the state’s colleges.

Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning.

Students who meet eligibility requirements can access affordable tuition and are eligible for financial aid, including grants, scholarships or tuition waivers.

My immigration status was a liability

Before Proposition 308 passed  in 2022, the uncertainty of my immigration status became a liability in the pursuit of education.

After graduating high school in 2015, I went to Paradise Valley Community College, a public community college in Phoenix. As a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient, I had access to in-state tuition.

But two years later, the Justice Department announced the ending of DACA, the Obama-era program that allowed undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to remain in the country.

And in the spring of 2018, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld a 2006 voter-approved law that restricted state-funded services and benefits, including in-state tuition, to people who have legal status.

Enrollment in Maricopa Community Colleges plunged 40% that fall .

This led me to join Aliento, a local community organization that advocates for the well-being of undocumented, DACA and mixed immigration status families.

Aliento’s advocacy efforts contributed to the passing of Proposition 308 with campaigns that involved legislators, community members, friends, families and leaders.

Now, I'm working to become a doctor

After Arizonans approved Proposition 308, I was finally accepted into a competitive program.

As a proud Latina and a nursing student who struggled to enroll in college with the dream of becoming a doctor, I’ve learned the importance of organizations such as Aliento, using one’s own voice and joining conversations to ensure more young students receive opportunities like those that Proposition 308 provides. 

The  2021 American Community Survey  found that more than 408,000 undocumented students are enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities, comprising 1.9% of all college students in the country.

This estimate represents a decrease of 4.2% since 2019, when 427,000 undocumented students were enrolled.

Proposition 308: Can help right many wrongs

Proposition 308 means hope for hundreds of students to pursue their dreams. It recognizes the value and potential of youth to build a stronger economic future for our state.

Since its passage, eligible students’ tuition has been reduced by more than 150% since the start of the 2023 spring semester.

Let's open more doors for Arizona students

Expanding this access to higher education still faces many challenges, such as misinformation, discrimination, stereotypes and inequality.

This can only be remedied when community members rely on each other and work together with common goals for an inclusive education and the well-being of youth.

Therefore, we need the support of universities, colleges, legislators, media, fellow students and the general community to open more doors for students experiencing a disconnect between high school, college and non-college education programs.

This can be done through outreach efforts to successfully raise awareness about the benefits and eligibility for in-state tuition, including scholarships from the likes of Helios Foundation, Arizona Community Foundation, the three state universities and Maricopa Community Colleges.

Empowering more students to enroll in college can translate into massive benefits to Arizona and our country. 

It is our state’s effort to tackle society’s education challenges and provide pathways to success for students of all backgrounds.

Our goal is to solidify the progress that was made for students.

As more students fill classrooms and schools, more students can share their dreams and touch hearts with our stories, so that people know we belong in the United States, our country, and the opportunities it has to offer.

Maria Leon is a recipient of Arizona’s Future Fellowship of Aliento and an advocate for accessible and equitable higher education. On X, formerly Twitter: @MariaSLeonPena .

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: I'm undocumented and in college. Why it's important to share stories like mine

Nine from Art Department win 2024 Creative Arts Awards

The UW–Madison Division of the Arts has announced the recipients of the 2024 Creative Arts Awards, who will be recognized at special gala event on Tuesday, May 2, at the Hamel Music Center. Among the award winners are nine individuals with ties to the School of Education’s Art Department.

The Creative Arts Awards program enables the Arts Division to recognize and support research and outreach in all areas of the creative arts at UW–Madison. Eight awards are open to a variety of arts practitioners, researchers, students (both undergraduate and graduate), staff, and faculty from arts academic departments, co-curricular arts units, and programs. The gala awards ceremony, presented by the Division of Arts, is a celebration of diverse and groundbreaking creative arts research that spans disciplines and departments across UW–Madison.

This year’s event will hold even greater significance, as it will form part of the UW–Madison’s 175th Anniversary celebration.

The 2024 recipients of Creative Arts Awards include an Art Department alum, lecturer, and both undergraduate and graduate students:

Emily Mead Baldwin Award in the Creative Arts Anna Campbell, MFA alumna, Art Department, and associate professor, Department of Gender & Women’s Studies

Edna Wiechers Arts in Wisconsin Award Hannah O’Hare Bennett, lecturer, Art Department

David and Edith Sinaiko Frank Graduate Fellowship for a Woman in the Arts Anamika Singh, MFA candidate, 4D, Art Department

Graduate Student Creative Arts Awards Fatemeh Fani, MFA candidate, photography, Art Department Matthew Ludak, MFA candidate, photography, Art Department Caroyln Spears, MFA candidate, glassmaking, Art Department Devon Stackonis, MFA candidate, printmaking, Art Department

Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Arts Award Madelyn Mascotti, Art Department Abby Sunde, Art Department

“We’re proud of the diverse group of awardees from across UW–Madison faculty, staff, and students this year, who are doing groundbreaking and innovative research intended to benefit the communities we serve.” says Christopher Walker, director of the Division of the Arts and professor in the School of Education’s Dance Department. “There is a renaissance in the arts post COVID, and the Creative Arts Awards serves to recognize excellence and equip our talented recipients to lead the change and to go boldly with work that advances the Wisconsin Idea.”

The Creative Arts Awards ceremony will take place on Thursday, May 2, at 5 p.m., in Mead Witter Concert Hall inside the Hamel Music Center, with a reception to follow.

Learn more about all of this year’s awardees .

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50 years later, international experts discuss importance of 'Lucy' discovery at ASU symposium

Illustration of "Lucy" species by Michael Hagelberg

“Lucy” is one of the most famous human ancestor fossils of all time.

Discovered by ASU Institute of Human Origins  Founding Director  Donald Johanson in 1974, in the deserts of Hadar, Ethiopia, the unearthing of this 3.2-million-year-old species had a major impact on the science of human origins and evolution and on the public’s understanding of our origins. Now, 50 years later, those in the field are asking how that impact has evolved.

During a three-day event celebrating the 50th anniversary of this discovery, the institute gathered a group of international experts from across every field of human origins study for a one-day symposium to address this question.

Organized by  Curtis Marean , ASU Foundation Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and IHO research scientist, and  Yohannes Haile-Selassie , Virginia M. Ullman Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and IHO director, the event's goal was to specifically discuss the discovery’s impact through time, starting with what we knew about human origins before the 1974 discovery, its lasting impact on science, and the state of the art in that research area today.

The symposium coincided with the April 5 cover feature article, “Lucy at 50,” in the journal Science written by Ann Gibbons, who also participated in the symposium and discussed Lucy’s impact on understanding human origins science and its appeal to the public .

The article delves into the history of such discoveries — Lucy’s and those of other human ancestor species (hominins) — by a variety of human origins scientists over the past 50 years, including by the institute’s current director Haile-Selassie, who has found early hominin specimens dating back to six million years ago.

In addition to significant field sites where Lucy’s species, Australopithecus afarensis, and other earlier and later hominins were found, the article highlights the three significant Ethiopian field sites currently being investigated by institute researchers — Hadar (where Lucy was found), Woranso-Mille (Haile-Selassie’s research site where three hominin species, including the ancestor of Lucy’s species, have been found) and Ledi-Geraru (where the earliest evidence of our own genus Homo was discovered by a research team led by ASU research scientist Kaye Reed ).

In the article, Gibbons highlights the significance of comparing these three sites.

“Lucy’s species was the only known hominin at Hadar — yet only 30 kilometers away at Woranso-Mille, it shared the steeper, more wooded terrain with its potential ancestor, Australopithecus anamensis, and A. deyiremeda, as well as the owner of the 3.4-million-year-old Burtele foot," she wrote. "Reed and Haile-Selassie aim to figure out why one site has so many hominins and only one at Hadar. Haile-Selassie thinks the greater diversity of habitat at Woranso-Mille may have allowed different hominins to coexist in different niches.”

The 1970s was a particularly significant time — the golden decade of paleoanthropology. Donald Johanson Virginia M. Ullman Chair of Human Origins in ASU's School of Human Evolution and Social Change and founding director of the ASU Institute of Human Origins

Before Lucy

During the thee-day event, Johanson led a discussion  on the history of what was known and discovered about our human origins before those early field seasons at Hadar beginning in 1970.

Ian Tattersall,  curator emeritus of the American Museum of Natural History, followed with describing what the scientific community thought about Lucy’s discovery, noting that it was a “tipping point” in paleoanthropology.

Bernard Wood, a medically trained paleoanthropologist and professor at George Washington University, reflected on comparing what researchers knew about other species in her genus and members of another related genus, Paranthropus, with Lucy — who, Wood emphasized, was and continues to be the most complete specimen of an early human ancestor ever discovered.

Andra Meneganzin , of the Kaatholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, provided an overview on the many names of Lucy  — not just “Lucy in the sky with diamonds” — and species relationships between fossils and evolutionary genetics.

We are all Lucy’s children — 8 billion people on the planet. Zeresenay Alemseged Donald N. Pritzker Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago

Understanding the 'paleoenvironment'

Not discovered until 2000 by Zeresenay Alemseged, the Dikika child, or “Lucy’s child,” was Australopithecus afarensis species and about 2.4 years old when it died. This fossil uncovered secrets of the developing brains of this species, which were about 20% larger than a chimpanzee’s.

By imaging the interior of the skull, researchers were able to determine that Lucy’s species had a longer period of brain growth — or childhood, which is a hallmark of later humans, including us.

Institute of Human Origins Research Professor Kaye Reed reviewed the effect of the “savanna hypothesis” on scientific theories about how a more open environment may have been the cause of hominin bipedality — like Lucy’s species, who were obligate bipeds.

Building on the importance of understanding the “paleoenvironment” were University of Missouri Professor Carol Ward, who discussed the interconnection of bipedality, diet and the encephalization of the brain, and Yale University Professor Jessica Thompson , who touched on the “paleo diet” of Lucy’s species, which is much different than today’s use and understanding of the term.

Tracy Kivell, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, detailed the evolution of the hand and its ability to grasp and use tools before and after Lucy.

Finally, Smithsonian Institution curator Kay Behrensmeyer focused her discussion on how Lucy became a fossil and the past and current ideas about how she may have died and been so well preserved, which is unusual for a fossil of her geological age.

By the discovery of Lucy, there was a real momentum in primate field studies to understand how these (chimpanzee) species think, behave, and interact with their environment. Melissa Emery Thompson Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico

Reconstructing early hominin behavior

The deep past serves us as a guide to the present and our global future. The present also provides significant clues to understanding the behavior of our earliest ancestors.

Because behavior of these ancient ancestors does not fossilize, science looks to our living nonhuman primate cousins — chimpanzees — to provide clues to how cooperation and species bonding may have developed.

During the event, Emery Thompson reviewed the past and future of primate research , including that of Jane Goodall, whose Jane Goodall Institute Gombe Research Archive is now housed at ASU .

Another way researchers try to understand how these ancient species may have lived is by considering how traditional modern communities live today.

Kim Hill , an Institute of Human Origins research scientist and professor in the ASU School of Human Evolution and Social Change, has spent over 40 years living with traditional societies in South America and the Philippines and talked about understanding the sequence of steps leading to human uniqueness — how our adaptability, cooperation, and cumulative culture are the foundations of our success as a species.

Lucy’s impact on the development of African paleosciences is as important as the impact that Lucy had on our knowledge on human origins. Yohannes Haile-Selassie Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Natural Sciences and the Environment, ASU School of Human Evolution and Social Change, and ASU Institute of Human Origins director

Teaching and learning after Lucy’s discovery

Another highlight from the symposium came from National Museums of Kenya Head of Paleontology and Paleoanthropology Job Kibii , who reviewed the history of fossil discoveries — both hominins and other animals — on the African continent by researchers from the United States and Europe, and the development of “paleodoms” by these groups of researchers, which restricts cooperation among each other and by African researchers as well.

To follow this up, Haile-Selassie highlighted the success of African countries in developing preservation and heritage guidelines and laboratories and the success of paleoanthropologist scholars in Ethiopia since the discovery of Lucy.

However, educational programs in Africa to train the next generation of paleoscience researchers has lagged behind, and most students have had to leave the country for advanced training.

To address this, Haile-Selassie suggests developing new advanced educational programs between African, U.S. and European universities.

Watch the presentations

Each of the symposium presentations can be found on the IHO YouTube channel . 

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Teaching elementary schoolchildren the rights and wrongs of AI is just as important as sex and drug education, Northeastern expert says

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Assistant professor in applied ethics Hossein Dabbagh says it should be mandatory for children to learn about the dangers of becoming over-reliant on artificial intelligence.

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LONDON — Learning about the rights and wrongs of artificial intelligence should be as fundamental for a child in elementary school as sex or drug education, according to research led by a Northeastern University professor.

AI is “perhaps the most powerful tool humans will ever have used,” Hossein Dabbagh and a host of his peers say, and the next generation needs to be properly equipped to know about the ethics of deploying the advanced technology.

Dabbagh, an assistant professor in applied ethics in the faculty of philosophy at Northeastern in London , led research for an article published this month in the AI and Ethics journal arguing for AI ethics to be made a mandatory part of the curriculum in schools that teach children ages 11 and under.

He said it is vital that children grasp at an early age the dangers that machine-learning represents.

Dabbagh points out that AI is already a feature in most people’s lives, whether they know it or not.

People are exposed to AI through virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa, social media algorithms and online shopping recommendations — and that day-to-day contact is only likely to grow, particularly as the technology moves forward.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a chatbot powered by the company’s AI algorithm, has made advances in leaps and bounds since being released in 2022, with studies suggesting it can pass some university examinations.

“AI is common, it is in our daily lives. We have access to AI when we use ChatGPT and social media, with its algorithms,” Dabbagh said.

“Even unconsciously we are using AI — or at least, we are receiving AI. It is mandatory to raise awareness about this in our schools and our curriculum.”

Just as parents would want their children to know at a young age about the harms that taking drugs can involve, Dabbagh argues that so too should they understand the risks involved with developing an overreliance on AI.

“In drug education, you think about drug dependency,” Dabbagh said. 

“We can use the same argument to talk about AI dependency — using AI for everything and that over-trusting AI may be dangerous for the next generation.

“If they believe that AI provides the right answer for everything, that might perhaps reduce the level of critical thinking, the critical ability of the next generation — that might be concerning, that might be problematic.

“In our schools and universities, we want to raise a generation that has this ability to think critically and think independently. 

“But if you just transfer absolutely everything to AI — suppose the next generation asks every question to ChatGPT and they assume that whatever they will see from ChatGPT is correct.

“In the long run that might be bad for our society because we lose that ability or capacity to think critically. 

“So it is the same kind of concerns, the same kind of harms that society might receive from a lack of education about sex, about a lack of education about drugs that we believe would be the case for a lack of education about AI ethics.”

He said just as children learn about the fundamentals of human-to-human relationships in sex education, in the same way the next generation needs to know about human-to-robot relationships and about what should be kept private and confidential from AI.

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Dabbagh’s thinking on the role of AI ethics in education was put into written form on April 4 in an article he co-wrote with colleagues in the AI and Ethics journal.

His co-writers included Brian D. Earp from the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, Julian Savulescu, chair of the same center at Oxford, Sebastian Porsdam Mann from Oxford’s faculty of law, Monika Plozza from the faculty of law at the University of Lucerne in Switzerland and Sabine Salloch from the Institute for Ethics, History and Philosophy of Medicine at Hannover Medical School in Germany.

The contributors came together to discuss the role of AI in society and began looking at the need for “not only AI education and AI literacy, but AI ethics,” Dabbagh said.

In the open access article, the cohort gives examples of what kind of AI ethics elementary-age children might learn, including learning to distinguish between an image created by humans and one created by a machine.

Introducing storytelling with AI, simple coding exercises or discussions on the impact of AI in everyday life are other ways the curriculum could “make the subject accessible and engaging,” they suggest.

Dabbagh said coming up with games or learning exercises could be one way of introducing pupils to the pros and cons of AI.

“First of all, we need an appropriate language here for school children, a form of age-appropriate exercises and practices that can introduce AI, that can introduce ethics,” he said.

“The same kind of language that we use for sex education, the same kind of language that we use for drug education, we need to develop it for AI. This is the next challenging step that we need to take. Obviously, it is a legitimate concern, but we need to take it.”

Science & Technology

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• Open access
• Published: 15 April 2024

Implementing spiritual care education into the teaching of palliative medicine: an outcome evaluation

• Yann-Nicolas Batzler 1 ,
• Nicola Stricker 2 , 3 ,
• Simone Bakus 4 ,
• Manuela Schallenburger 1 , 6 ,
• Jacqueline Schwartz 1 &
• Martin Neukirchen 1 , 5  

BMC Medical Education volume  24 , Article number:  411 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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The concept of “total pain” plays an important role in palliative care; it means that pain is not solely experienced on a physical level, but also within a psychological, social and spiritual dimension. Understanding what spirituality entails, however, is a challenge for health care professionals, as is screening for the spiritual needs of patients.

This is a novel, interprofessional approach in teaching undergraduate medical students about spiritual care in the format of a seminar. The aim of this study is to assess if an increase in knowledge about spiritual care in the clinical context is achievable with this format.

In a mandatory seminar within the palliative care curriculum at our university, both a physician and a hospital chaplain teach strategies in symptom control from different perspectives (somatic domain – spiritual domain). For evaluation purposes of the content taught on the spiritual domain, we conducted a questionnaire consisting of two parts: specific outcome evaluation making use of the comparative self-assessment (CSA) gain and overall perception of the seminar using Likert scale.

In total, 52 students participated. Regarding specific outcome evaluation, the greatest gain was achieved in the ability to define total pain (84.8%) and in realizing its relevance in clinical settings (77.4%). The lowest, but still fairly high improvement was achieved in the ability to identify patients who might benefit from spiritual counselling (60.9%). The learning benefits were all significant as confirmed by confidence intervals. Overall, students were satisfied with the structure of the seminar. The content was delivered clearly and comprehensibly reaching a mean score of 4.3 on Likert scale (4 = agree). The content was perceived as overall relevant to the later work in medicine (mean 4.3). Most students do not opt for a seminar solely revolving around spiritual care (mean 2.6).

Conclusions

We conclude that implementing spiritual care education following an interprofessional approach into existing medical curricula, e.g. palliative medicine, is feasible and well perceived among medical students. Students do not wish for a seminar which solely revolves around spiritual care but prefer a close link to clinical practice and strategies.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Education in palliative care was introduced in 2009 as a compulsory subject in German medical curricula. In the 1960s, Dame Cicely Saunders established palliative medicine and hospices as we know them today. Back then, Cicely Saunders propagated the concept of “total pain”, which means that pain or suffering in general is not solely experienced on a physical level, but also within a psychological, social and spiritual dimension (see. Fig.  1 ) [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Understanding the importance of spirituality in everyday clinical practice and what it entails, however, is a challenge for health care professionals (HCP) in all medical disciplines across the world [ 5 , 6 ]. Palliative care is a relatively young medical discipline which oftentimes is not sufficiently taught in medical curricula [ 1 , 7 ] and, therefore, knowledge regarding the importance of spirituality, which at many faculties is integrated into palliative care education, is scarce [ 1 , 7 ]. As a result, HCP tend to neglect the spiritual needs of patients [ 7 , 8 ]. But, if there is no fundamental knowledge in regards of spirituality and spiritual care among physicians, how can they target total pain adequately?

The European Association of palliative care (EAPC) describes spirituality as following:

“Spirituality is the dynamic dimension of human life that relates to the way persons (individual and community) experience, express and/or seek meaning, purpose and transcendence, and the way they connect to the moment, to self, to others, to nature, to the significant and/or the sacred.” [ 1 , 9 ].

It must be clear to all HCP that spirituality is a unique and subjective phenomenon that differs substantially from patient to patient [ 2 , 10 ]. Furthermore, to fully address the spiritual needs of patients, self-reflection, thorough consideration of one’s own attitude towards death, and finding meaning in life, are essential [ 8 , 9 ]. Several studies have shown the impact which the addressing of spiritual needs in the context of total pain can have on ameliorating the symptoms of patients, leading to a better quality of life and care [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ]. Thus, once spiritual needs become imminent, it is necessary to engage in an interdisciplinary and multi-professional collaboration with specially trained professionals in the field of spiritual care [ 8 , 10 , 14 , 15 , 19 ]. Summing up, it is very important to raise awareness about the positive impact of spiritual care among HCPs [ 8 , 15 ]. To increase such knowledge and accrue such skills, the teaching of spiritual care in medical curricula is essential [ 20 ]. Throughout different regions in the world, in-person didactic teaching on spiritual care is the most commonly used technique [ 5 ]. Usually, the teaching is based on case studies and many include screening strategies assessing spiritual needs [ 5 ]. Often, education on spirituality and spiritual care is part of curricula in palliative care [ 5 , 21 ]. In German medical curricula, there is no compulsory subject solely revolving around spiritual care [ 22 ]. However, regarding the concept of total pain, implementing spiritual care into palliative care teaching, however, seems like a plausible proposition.

This study was conducted in order to assess the way medical students perceive the concept of implementing spiritual care into the teaching on symptom control in palliative care. Furthermore, we aimed to determine whether an actual increase of knowledge about spiritual care in the clinical context was achievable within this seminar.

Material and methods

This study is a single-centre prospective study conducted at University Hospital Duesseldorf, Germany. Ethical approval was obtained by the local ethics committee (reference number 2022–2274).

Curricular structure

At our facility, palliative care education is structured as followed: Five lectures (somatic symptoms, psychological symptoms, social symptoms and advance care planning, spiritual symptoms and end-of-life care and care for relatives, clinical ethics) and four seminars (symptom control, breaking bad news, clinical ethics I and II). Since 2022, the lecture on spiritual symptoms and end-of-life-care is held by both a physician and a hospital chaplain within the palliative care curriculum at Düsseldorf medical faculty. Beforehand, this lecture was solely held by a hospital chaplain. As internal evaluations implied, this concept was not well perceived by medical students as the relevance to daily clinical work was not apparent to them. They did not understand how spiritual care can support somatic strategies of symptom control and how both approaches are intertwined. Furthermore, they were unsure of how to assess patients’ spiritual needs. We therefore opted for the above-mentioned approach which allows lecturing relevant medical implications alongside spiritual care. As evaluations showed, this embeds spiritual care in a more clinical and tangible manner and students seem to better realize the relevance that spiritual care has in daily clinical practice. For example, students repeatedly stated that they were now able to understand the importance of ongoing collaborations for patients’ comfort care, e.g., in more sufficiently relieving anxiety or social distress.

Since this novel concept was perceived positively by medical students, we transposed it to our seminar titled “symptom control” which is now also held by a hospital chaplain and a physician. In the seminars, content from the lectures is further deepened and there is more room for discussions, e.g. concerning assessment of spiritual needs, possibilities of spiritual care, and inter-professional collaboration. There is also an emphasis on determining which patients might benefit from spiritual care making use of the SPIR tool (patient’s self-description as a S piritual person— P lace of spirituality in patient’s life – patient’s I ntegration in a spiritual community – R ole of health care professional in the domain of spirituality), which tackles different dimensions of spirituality [ 23 ].

In the seminar, a 33-year-old fictitious patient (inspired by a real patient) served as an example case. Her situation is used to address strategies for symptom control on both somatic and spiritual domains. To achieve this, a reflective question is discussed with the students followed by a joint development of possible therapeutic strategies on both the somatic and spiritual domain (see Fig.  2 ).

Case discussion in the seminar

Our approach can be described as novel, since training in spiritual care often involves the mere shadowing of chaplains [ 5 , 24 , 25 , 26 ]. An interprofessional, educational approach was mainly used with physicians or nurses in training [ 5 , 27 , 28 , 29 ], but not with medical students.

Evaluation methods

A structured, paper-based questionnaire was developed in repeated interdisciplinary and multi-professional discussions in the Interdisciplinary Centre for Palliative Care Medicine, University Hospital Düsseldorf, Germany. The basis for the questionnaire were the learning goals that are to be achieved within the seminar, as well as a didactic evaluation. The questionnaire was pretested among medical students, and unclear statements were altered. The questionnaire consists of two parts. The first part is made up of five statements regarding knowledge about total pain, assessing spiritual needs, and defining spiritual care (see Table  1 ) on both the knowledge and skills level. These statements cover the field of specific outcome evaluation. Making use of the comparative self-assessment (CSA) method to determine if a gain in knowledge was achieved, each student evaluated their knowledge before and after the seminar using the German school grading system (1 = “excellent” to 6 = “unsatisfactory”). The CSA gain is a well described and implemented method in evaluating actual knowledge gains in education [ 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]. This evaluation tool has the benefit of not taking into account experiences made beforehand as they are not contributing to the effect size [ 31 ]. CSA gain is calculated as followed:

Furthermore, CSA gain was calculated with a 95% confidence interval and standard error using individual learning gain (ILG) values. These values were calculated using the following formulas:

ILG = 0 if pre = post and

ILG = (pre − post)/(pre − 1) × 100 if pre > post [ 31 ].

The second part of the questionnaire consists of four questions regarding the perception of the seminar (structure, teaching spiritual care alongside symptom control in palliative care). A 5-Point-Likert scale was used for evaluation (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neither, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree).

Study participation and analysis

Participation in the study was anonymous, voluntary, and could be withdrawn at any time without explanation. Eligible participants were undergraduate medical students at the beginning of their fifth year of medical education (Germany: total of min. six years), who completed the mandatory palliative care course. The purpose and content of the study were presented orally, and, furthermore, written information and consent documents were handed out. After completion of the seminar, the questionnaire was handed out making use of a post-then design in which the students were asked to retrospectively rate their knowledge before and after the seminar. There were no exclusion criteria other than refusing to participate. Due to the small number of students per seminar ( n  = 15–20), no demographic characteristics besides sex were assessed.

Data analysis was performed using Microsoft Excel 2020 (version 16.42, Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA, USA) and IBM SPSS Statistic version 28.0.1.1 (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA).

Throughout the course of one semester in 2023, the questionnaires were rolled out in each of six separate seminars. Out of 108 eligible attending students, 52 students participated in total (48.1%). 25% ( n  = 13) of the participants were of female, 75% ( n  = 39) of male sex. Within the answered questionnaires, there was no missing data.

Regarding the specific outcome evaluation, CSA gains showed a relevant increase especially in the field of knowledge (see Table  2 and Fig.  3 ). The greatest improvement (84.8%) was achieved in the ability of defining total pain and realizing its importance in clinical settings (77.4%). After the seminar, medical students were increasingly able to name tools such as SPIR in order to engage in spiritual needs assessment (CSA gain 68,8%). A lower increase in knowledge was achieved in realizing how spiritual care itself can benefit patients’ needs (66.7%). The lowest gain was detected in actually identifying patients who might benefit from spiritual care (60.9%), which represents a skill to be learned rather than knowledge to be gained.

CSA gains for each item

Statistical analysis using 95% confidence intervals confirmed the gains in knowledge, which were significant for all items (Table  2 ).

In regard to the second part of the questionnaire, students were overall satisfied with the new structure of the seminar (Table  3 and Fig.  4 ). The content was comprehensible and delivered clearly gaining a mean score of 4.3 (median 4, SD 0.6, min. 2, max. 5). The content was perceived as overall relevant to the later work in medicine (mean 4.3, median 4, SD 0.6, min. 3, max. 5). It seems as if medical students regard the implementation of spiritual care education into the seminar “symptom control”, which focuses on alleviating symptoms on multidimensional levels, as expedient. They feel that implementing education on spiritual care into this seminar makes sense (mean 4.2, median 4, SD 0.8, min. 1, max. 5). Furthermore, most students do not opt for a seminar solely revolving around spiritual care (mean 2.6, median 2, SD 1.3, min. 1, max. 5).

Perception of the seminar, Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neither, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree)

Our data show that implementing spiritual care education into existing medical curricula, in our example palliative care, is feasible and well perceived among medical students. The timing of our seminar is in accordance to other studies that found that spiritual care should be implemented in mandatory undergraduate courses [ 6 ]. Students do not wish for a seminar solely revolving around spiritual care but prefer a connection to clinical practice and strategies in symptom management. This enables them to understand the relevance of spiritual care in a daily clinical setting.

To evaluate training programs, Kirkpatrick proposed a four-level approach (level 1: reaction, level 2: learning, level 3: behaviour, level 4: results) [ 35 ]. We followed levels 1 (reaction—satisfaction) and 2 (learning—gains in knowledge) making use of the conducted questionnaire. Level 3 (change in behaviour – acquired skills) was briefly addressed with item 5 in the first part of the questionnaire. As level 4 is an indicator of direct results of the training at an organizational level, we were not able to incorporate items on this level. A different study among undergraduate nursing students assessed the effectiveness of teaching spiritual care in mandatory classes: There was an increase in knowledge, e.g., in defining spirituality, compared to students who obtained no information on spiritual care [ 36 ]. This is comparable to our study, as there were gains in knowledge after completing the mandatory seminar. We reached higher individual learning gains on the knowledge level than on the skills level, as was also the case in a number of other studies we conducted [ 31 ]. This is mainly because, due to the format of the seminar, no bedside teaching takes place and scenarios that might occur in everyday clinical practice can only be discussed and serve as examples.

The concept of total pain is essential in palliative care; however, it should not only be taken into consideration in a palliative setting, but whenever patients experience high burdens on various dimensions such as pain, anxiety, grief or existential distress [ 2 , 4 , 17 , 37 , 38 ]. We were able to thoroughly educate students on total pain and its relevance in clinical settings. Spirituality plays an important role in a holistic approach. However, literature shows that HCP often don’t know how to implement spiritual assessments and how to deal with spiritual needs [ 1 , 5 , 6 , 8 ]. A systematic review on teaching methods found the usage of practical tools and the involvement of chaplains to be effective facilitators in the teaching of spiritual care [ 5 ]. A scoping review found that spiritual care should be taught in both mono- and multi-disciplinary educational settings [ 6 ]. With our multi-professional approach, we were able to introduce students to tools in assessing spiritual needs, such as SPIR [ 23 ]. Within this item, there was a definite gain in knowledge of these tools which make assessing spiritual needs of patients more feasible. This is in accordance with findings of a number other studies [ 5 ]. In our study, however, students are still unsure if they are fully able to determine which patients might actually benefit from spiritual care, even though this item still reached a learning gain of 60.9%. As concluded by other authors, there is need for ongoing education [ 5 ].

Even though our seminar entails many different aspects of the total pain concept (somatic symptom management, spirituality, and spiritual care) medical students found the content to be clearly structured and comprehensible. More importantly, they understood the relevance of spirituality for their future clinical work and perceived the multi-professional teaching as highly satisfactory. In sensitizing them in this, we hope that they keep in mind the importance of ongoing collaborations between different professions.

Our study has some limitations. Even though the questionnaire was pretested among medical students before the actual study, no validated questionnaire was used. The response rate of almost 50% is relatively low and it can be assumed that those who participated were mostly students who were interested in the topic. This might have led to bias as positive effects might have been overestimated. Due to the small study population and to protect the privacy of participating students, no demographic data besides sex was collected. Demographic data, however, might contribute to a better understanding of spirituality or palliative medicine beforehand such as age, professional expertise, or own spiritual resources. This also meant that adjusting for confounding factors was not possible. This study solely dealt with medical students and no patients were involved. It would be of interest to assess as to whether the content taught in this seminar ultimately impacts the wellbeing or stress levels of patients in everyday clinical practice. A study focusing on patients would complement the findings of this study, as suggested by other researchers [ 5 ]. Furthermore, the study was only performed in one centre; therefore, it can only serve as an example on how spiritual care education might be successfully implemented into medical curricula.

Spirituality plays an important role for many people and should always be taken into consideration when treating patients. This especially applies to palliative care where the addressing of spiritual needs is of crucial importance [ 18 ]. However, many HCP don’t know how to address topics revolving around spirituality which makes it hard to determine which patients might benefit from spiritual care. Therefore, education on the nature of spiritual care, on what it entails and on how it can support patients in everyday clinical practice should be thoroughly integrated into medical curricula. We opted to implement spirituality and spiritual care into an existing seminar and lecture within the medical curriculum at our faculty. This was well received among students. As a result, we found a clear increase in knowledge about total pain and about the tools one might use to assess spiritual needs. This knowledge needs to be further strengthened in practical clinical scenarios.

Availability of data and materials

All data and materials are available within this publication.

Abbreviations

Health care professional

European Association of palliative care

• Spiritual care

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr Jessica JT Fischer for excellent English language editing.

Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Yann-Nicolas Batzler, Manuela Schallenburger, Jacqueline Schwartz & Martin Neukirchen

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Simone Bakus

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Contributions

YB, NS, MS, JS, MN designed the study. YB analysed and interpreted the data. YB drafted the first version of the manuscript, which was critically revised by NS, MS, JS, and MN in several rounds of feedback. All authors have approved the submitted version and have agreed to be accountable for their contributions as well as for accuracy and integrity for any part of the work.

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Correspondence to Manuela Schallenburger .

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Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf (Study No. 2022–2274). Written informed consent was obtained from all participants, which were all over 18 years and informed about the study before starting the questionnaire. Researchers assured participants that the contents of the surveys would be used solely for research purposes.

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The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf (reference number 2022-2274).

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Batzler, YN., Stricker, N., Bakus, S. et al. Implementing spiritual care education into the teaching of palliative medicine: an outcome evaluation. BMC Med Educ 24 , 411 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05415-0

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Received : 23 August 2023

Accepted : 11 April 2024

Published : 15 April 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05415-0

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