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The Integrated Nature of Assessment and the Creative Process
Imagine a physical education teacher invites his students into a creative process during a physical education class. He has spent a few weeks exploring a number of net games (for example, tennis, volleyball, table tennis), and the class is ready to use a creative process to determine degrees of understanding and skill. He decides he wants students to apply what they learn about net games to a new game of their own creation. The teacher invites them to choose equipment and design rules. He then offers them the chance to try the game with classmates, in order to identify strategies and tactics that advance their game. He asks students to create a scoring system and parameters for wins and losses.
During this creative process, the teacher engages in assessment with the students. During exploration, he might preassess students to determine the degree to which they understand what makes net games unique. He checks their understanding of rules during tennis, badminton, volleyball, and pickle ball. He ensures they have a grasp of the critical features of a net game. For those students who are struggling with this content, he offers additional instructional support and practice, so learners can successfully engage in the creative process in relation to this topic (building foundational domain knowledge).
Students may begin to brainstorm ideas for their own game, exploring the equipment in the storage room and talking with each other about their ideas. The teacher interacts with students at this stage, asking probing questions and handing out a list of the criteria that they need to attend to in their design (equipment, rules, scoring, and so on). At the end of exploration, students write their two best ideas on a goal sheet. They will narrow down their choices the next day.
When they arrive the next day, the students examine their goal sheets and talk with a partner about their two best ideas. Their partner offers them advice and asks further questions. (The teacher might introduce question starters to help students frame their questions, if this is new.) He observes the pairings and looks for signs of indecision or stalled conversation. He then joins groups, as needed, to support their efforts during the elaboration stage of their work. During this class, students choose their final idea and create a graphic organizer that allows them to articulate their decisions in relation to these criteria. In the middle of this class period, the teacher stops the students and invites them to reflect on what they accomplished so far and what they need to do next. He adds to the criteria (perhaps team positions or performance cues important to their game). Learners then re-engage in their work, enhancing their ideas and refining their thinking. They may watch videos or partner to explore equipment. At this stage, they are welcome to make changes on any decision. In fact, the teacher invites students to reflect on their own efforts in relation to criteria often, to ensure they are satisfied with their efforts. At the end of this class, students add their most recent decisions to their documentation. The teacher then prepares learners to commit to their games by the following day, so they can begin to determine how best to share ideas with the class. Students are encouraged to think about their designs in their spare time and make any changes they feel they need to, to enhance their games.
On the third day, students work together to determine the best ways to share their designs. Together, they post a number of options (in a video, on a game card poster, through paired presentations, for example) and students decide which method works best for them. The teacher works with those students who are struggling to decide and leaves others to create the method that is most meaningful for them. The teacher draws students’ attention to the criteria throughout and invites a five-minute journal reflection, when students identify a strength and a challenge. In this way, the teacher can assess which students need additional supports, instruction, or both, and which are working independently with success. The teacher may notice that as students engage in expression, they want to continue to refine their games and add additional details. The teacher encourages this because he knows that the creative process is not neat and tidy; students see gaps and errors as they construct their method of expression and see their products through their peers’ eyes.
The final step is sharing, combined with reflection and response. Students practice listening well and asking reflective questions, inviting learners to consider aspects of their design they hadn’t considered previously. The teacher also builds in a celebration component, when students acknowledge their own strengths and those of their classmates. Meanwhile, the class uses the predetermined criteria to assess the products, allowing for one last effort at refinement if the feedback dictates. The products strongly reflect subject-area goals, and the class has invited additional kinds of learning through the creative process. The teacher has nurtured collaboration, reflection, communication, and critical thinking. As the class ends this creative endeavor, the teacher invites students to reflect one last time on their approaches during the creative cycle. The teacher may ask them to consider which of their strategies were most useful and which led to unsatisfactory results. He may invite them to consider what conditions support their creativity and how they might create these kinds of conditions next time. He places these reflections in their portfolios and refers to them the next time they work in creative ways.
When I want to spot creativity working hand-in-hand with assessment, I watch closely for confidence and uncertainty in students when they engage in solving a problem or creating a product. I celebrate both emotions because when students are feeling something in relation to their complex work, it means they are assessing their efforts and the results of those efforts in relation to a goal they have. Assessment experts Cassie Erkens, Tom Schimmer, and Nicole Dimich Vagle (2017) explain that “assessment cultivates student investment, a dual kind of reflection—on learning and engagement—where students persist through tasks and pursue higher levels of learning because they now believe that with effort, they can do it” (p. 135). Emotion signals investment, and investment means the seeds for creativity and problem solving are ready to grow.
In order to further explore how assessment connects to the creative impulse, we can examine some words we use in conjunction with creativity—innovation, imagination, artistry, design—all words that reflect the kinds of rich thinking we want to develop in our learners. We might also use the phrase problem solving in relation to creativity because it helps us see creative endeavors as an attempt to solve a problem that holds meaning for the creator. Psychologist R. Keith Sawyer (2006) confirms this, noting, “Many creativity researchers now believe that creativity involves both problem solving and problem finding” (p. 116). Creating a work of art is often solving a visual problem in order to reach a desired goal (achieving balance, emotion, or message, for example). Writing a narrative or descriptive text is solving the problem of communicating meaning through written language. Designing a prototype for a scientific question means solving the problems of function and design. In these examples, problems are not bad; in fact, they are catalysts for creative action. They are the reason people heavily create and invest in the process. In this way, understanding the relationship between creativity and assessment is understanding how creativity (or innovation, imagination, artistry, or design) connects to problems and how problems connect to investment in goals.
Indeed, creativity is lived out moment to moment and decision by decision. A final product may or may not reflect a desired goal, but the journey in getting to that product might be very creative. Understanding the relationship between the creative process and the assessment that supports the development of creative products is critical to understanding creativity in all its complexity. Enmeshed firmly inside creative processes are assessment processes that propel the person who is creating forward into the next stage of the creative process. Setting goals, assessing successes and challenges, seeking feedback, refining actions, and verifying and sharing efforts are all assessment processes that are essential to the creative process. When teachers use assessment skillfully, purposefully, and at meaningful times, they enhance the results of a creative endeavor.
In this chapter, we will address a number of myths about both assessment and creativity. We will more fully explore both creativity and assessment, as well as the threats and misconceptions that may exist within classrooms and school settings that make engaging in both challenging at times. We will also explore how students may experience creativity in different classroom contexts and subject areas and the assessment processes that support these experiences.
Myths About Creativity
As mentioned in the introduction, the myths that creativity only occurs in arts-related courses and the notion that only gifted people are capable of creativity are prevalent and often inhibit the development of this important skill in our schools. Mythology surrounds the topic of creativity, and this mythology can paralyze teachers in their pursuit of developing creative thinkers. Resting at the core of creativity’s story is an either-or paradigm. Educators often feel like they need to choose between speed (getting through the content) and exploration (going where the learners want to go). They worry that they need to choose between classroom management (self-regulating and maintaining optimal learning conditions) and the free-for-all teachers imagine creative exploration requires (going where the learner wants, when the learner wants, how the learner wants). Educators wonder whether they have to give up their standards if they are going to develop creative learners. These false dichotomies set up teachers to make decisions that not only sell creativity short but sell rich learning short, too. When educators address these myths—the false dichotomies that inhibit them—they can begin to imagine classrooms where they develop self-regulated individuals who also explore ideas creatively.
Let’s explore the myths about creativity, so we can begin to imagine how we might nurture environments that foster all the skills and knowledge we hope to develop in our learners. Following are nine pervasive myths teachers must be aware of to ensure they support all students’ creativity.
1. Either you are creative or you aren’t: Sadly, if you ask an adult whether he or she views him- or herself as creative, many will emphatically assert, “I am definitely not creative. I can’t even draw a stick figure!” This illustrates a belief that people who aren’t creative will always remain so. It also shows a narrow view of what creativity means. If we are going to work to develop creative learners, we have to believe it is possible to do so. Creativity is a learned trait. Katherine E. Batchelor and William P. Bintz (2013) explain, “There is no creativity gene, a gene that individuals are born with that provides them with a predisposition for creativity. There is also no academic discipline that has an exclusive monopoly on creativity” (p. 10). People can develop creativity over time, in any number of contexts.
2. Creative people generate quality results on their first effort: This myth is the reason why so many people, adults and children alike, give up on creativity. The idea that creativity is absent of effort, trial and error, or failure is a harmful misconception, because when these things come to pass, frustration sets in and forward momentum stops. Instead of a perfect creative product emerging immediately, creativity is primarily conscious, hard work (Sawyer, 2006; Simonton, 1988, 1999). A truly creative effort requires the learner to return to ideas again and again, considering multiple perspectives, uses, adaptations, and applications. Assessment facilitates this iterative process, and it takes investment, revision, and time.
3. Creativity is a solitary pursuit: Often, as students experience the creative process, they share ideas with others, generate new questions, and provide alternate perspectives. Students may find themselves working with peers, asking for opinions and resources that can act as catalysts for further exploration. Gretchen Morgan (2015) states, “In a culture in which we are given permission to be inventive, a strong practice of learning from one another is required to accelerate our collective effectiveness and maintain trust” (p. 72). This social aspect of creativity speaks to the need for teachers to be mindful in learners’ creative processes. Erkens et al. (2017) assert, “Teacher responsiveness to student dialogue, questions, comments, and work can lead to a deeper culture of learning” (p. 120). Teachers act as fellow seekers, critical friends, and experts at various times. They facilitate self-assessment, peer assessment, and research and invite authentic audiences and strong purposes for the work.
4. Creative people break all the rules: In this creativity myth, the rules or specific knowledge and skills within subject areas can get in the way of creativity; they are too constraining and static. People may believe that a “true” creator breaks the rules and pushes past convention. However, rules provide a necessary foundation and shared understanding upon which new ideas, strategies, and approaches can be layered. When students hold knowledge or skill in a particular subject area, that knowledge or skill becomes the language through which students express their creativity. The rules give learners something against which they can assess their creative efforts. They give students the scaffolding they need to reach new creative heights (Dacey & Conklin, 2004).
5. Creativity happens entirely inside the mind, like a flash of inspiration: Sawyer (2006) explains, “Creativity doesn’t happen all in the head … it happens during the hard work of execution” (p. 386). Creativity is not just about idea generation. It is about monitoring and evaluating ideas and approaches and reflecting on inspiration and catalysts. Creativity happens over time, with mini-insight, interspersed between hard, persistent work. Not only will students benefit from creative processes, but they will also benefit from sustained, focused efforts over time. This is truly a win-win.
6. Creativity is all about fun: Creativity is not easy or peaceful. There are moments during the creative process that are downright uncomfortable. Results can be ambiguous, goals can shift, and ideas can falter, all in the name of exploring and elaborating on ideas. Educational consultant Patti Drapeau (2014) confirms, “Creative lesson components are not just feel-good activities. They are activities that directly address critical content, target specific standards, and require thoughtful products that allow students to show what they know” (p. 3). It is through effective assessment practices that teachers and learners can connect the creative processes being used to critical skills and understanding under development. The good news is the kind of resilience students develop as a result of engaging in creative processes will serve them for their lifetime.
7. Creativity is a linear process: This particular myth is one reason educators may not get to creative processes in their classrooms. If we believe that a student has to earn the right to be creative by learning prerequisite concepts and skills, then some students will never get to experience it. Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica (2015) explain—
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. (p. 147)
Students can gain many of the skills and conceptual understandings we desire through creative processes.
8. No one can measure or assess creativity; the quality of creative products is completely a matter of opinion: When we walk alongside our students in their creative pursuits, we will utilize formative assessment processes to determine degrees of comfort with risk taking and creative progress in relation to student goals. We engage in feedback to propel learning forward and we utilize summative assessment to verify degrees of understanding and skill. Furthermore, we can also assess the development of creative skills. For example, we can capture and assess the quality of questions students are generating or we can assess our learners’ use of materials to create products. Students can receive feedback on their creative processes, not only for the products they are yielding but also for the degree to which their creative processes are allowing them to advance thinking and learning. In this way, students can transfer the creative skills they develop from one context to the next. John A. C. Hattie and Gregory M. Donoghue (2016) elaborate, “Transfer is a dynamic, not static, process that requires learners to actively choose and evaluate strategies, consider resources and surface information, and, when available, to receive or seek feedback to enhance these adaptive skills” (p. 12). The development of these skills and strategies is one of the key benefits of creative processes in our classrooms.
9. Creativity is about off-the-wall or weird ideas: This last myth relates to the misguided belief that students can only develop creativity through the arts. People expect creative products to look odd, discomfiting, or disorganized; it is often because society labels these kinds of products as creative. Creativity, in this case, acts as a justification for products or processes that may feel uncomfortable or unappealing. Some people may claim creative license as an explanation when they offer a process or product that others may not enjoy or accept. In contrast, creativity in its many forms might resemble a tidy mathematics problem, or a clear experimental process. Sawyer (2006) proposes that creativity is “the constant dialogue between unconscious inspiration and conscious editing; between passionate inspiration and disciplined craft” (p. 320). It might look like a well-crafted narrative essay or an organized community event. Creativity does not always look messy. In fact, a true benefit of creativity is its ability to yield refined, organized, logical results (Sawyer, 2006).
By exploring some of the myths surrounding creativity, we can begin to reimagine how creativity might live inside everyday classrooms. Recognizing that creativity is not only attainable for every student but it is also an important way to develop the kinds of skills and strategies students will be able to use throughout their lives allows us to begin to plan how to introduce it into a variety of classroom contexts. The next section details stages that lead to strong creative processes through effective formative assessment.
The Creative Process
While creativity is not prescriptive and can be unpredictable, there are four main stages students move through as they explore creative endeavors while working toward achieving learning goals: (1) exploration, (2) elaboration, (3) expression, and (4) reflection and response. The following subsections (pages 18–19) define and elaborate on each stage. It is important to note up front that while the four stages of the creative process may seem sequential, they are, in fact, flexible. Students may move fluidly back and forth between each, as need dictates. There is no hierarchy, and there is no hard-and-fast rule about how long students should spend in each stage of the process. In fact, it is through the process of assessment that these decisions are made. Assessment reveals degrees of comfort with materials and processes, prior knowledge about the topic or context for the creativity, and learning preferences that may predispose students to certain approaches. Assessment acts as the bridge between one stage and the next. It tells teachers and students when it is time to extend and deepen thinking and focus on new short-term goals. It predicts how much time students might spend in each stage of the creative process.
With regard to timing, it is important to know that creativity can be an extended process that frames an entire unit of study taking several days, or it can move quite quickly, occurring in a single lesson. Students may spend an entire class period generating questions and brainstorming ideas in the exploration stage, or teachers may limit exploration to a five-minute introduction of a single concept that is the focus for one class period. Creativity can occur in many different ways with varying degrees of longevity, scale, and scope. The important thing is to be open to the possibility of inserting the creative stages into daily experiences.
Part of our work in unlocking creativity is exposing our learners to the following four stages in a variety of contexts and inviting them to discover who they are as creative individuals. Some students may find that they need more time in the elaboration stage while others find the expression stage to be the most time consuming. Some learners discover they are able to engage in reflection best when they work with another person, while others prefer to do it alone. Creativity manifests differently for different people, and our students are no exception. We can diligently expose our students to creative processes and ask them to consider which conditions support their creative work and which do not.
Exploration
Exploration is the stage that invites learners into creative processes. This is when students explore materials, questions, and goals and begin to imagine how their creative pursuit might unfold. Elementary students might explore the connection between blocks and LEGO figures, spending time creating stories that involve both. Middle-grades students may choose materials around which to design a lab that answers a critical question. High school students may identify needs within their community that could act as a catalyst for an action plan in physical education. It is at this stage that students first explore goals, derived from standards and learning targets in combination with their own hopes and expectations, as well as criteria that will define their creative decision making.
Elaboration
Elaboration occurs when students settle on a purpose for their creative work. They engage in research and develop the additional skills they might need to expand on their original ideas. This may look like first-grade students exploring butterflies on the internet as part of a science project or middle school students interviewing a community leader to determine important aspects of an advertising campaign. This is the time when learners linger in their questions and refine their goals and criteria for success.
Expression
Expression occurs when students decide how to share their creative work and prepare to do so. This may manifest as a large-scale architecture project that learners in the elementary grades create and share with their peers or a performance that senior students share with the rest of the school, or a small-scale output over a short period of time such as sharing a solution to a mathematics problem with classmates. It is at this point in the creative process that students refine their work and prepare to engage with an audience (big or small), seeking feedback both before and after sharing. At this stage, students may rehearse in front of a smaller group before a larger performance, or they may share a prototype with a critical friend before creating the final, polished version. This stage is about preparation and expression of creative work.
Reflection and Response
Lastly, reflection and response occurs when learners consider their creative efforts and make decisions moving forward. At this stage, they set goals that bridge past creative efforts to future ones. They determine which of their decisions are most successful and which need adjusting. In many cases, this stage is also the final opportunity for students to refine creative products before submitting them for summative assessment. Students focus on celebrating successes and setting goals for future learning.
Figure 1.1 (page 20) illustrates the connection between these four stages and the role that assessment plays in unlocking creativity, connecting and driving creative work from one stage to the next. Also see the reproducible “Applying Assessment Within the Stages of the Creative Process” (pages 45–46) for information on how different types of assessment apply within each stage of the creative process, and guiding questions for assessment work in each stage.
Figure 1.1: Assessment and the creative process.
Creativity in a Classroom Context
Reading research about creativity is fascinating. The topic, even in its most general sense, could keep a person exploring for quite some time. Added to that is all the research on creativity in an educational context, which is equally informative. In the interest of providing a succinct and practical book about how to use assessment processes to unlock creativity, I will spend just a little time sharing some of the keys to understanding creativity in a classroom context, acknowledging the immense volume of work that precedes and informs this one, followed by a discussion of embedding opportunities for creativity in the different content-area classrooms.
Big C and Little c Creativity
Understanding creativity as I am using the term in this book means understanding the difference between those highly creative, almost magical moments inventors and artists experience during their life’s work (what some call big C creativity) and those day-to-day creative moments every human being can experience as part of existing in a complex world (little c creativity). Sawyer (2006) explains the difference between big C creativity and little c creativity—which we can think of as everyday creativity—the kind of creativity we are striving to develop each day in our classrooms:
In contrast to big C Creativity, [there is] “little c” creativity. Little c creativity includes activities that people engage in every day: modifying a recipe when you don’t have all the ingredients called for; avoiding a traffic jam by finding a new way through side streets; figuring out how to apologize to a friend for an unintended insult. A person’s dreams or a child’s block tower could be creative under the second definition, but not under the first. (p. 47)
This distinction is important to establish in order to understand educators’ work inside schools to develop little c creativity so those learners who are interested, someday, in becoming big C creators in any variety of fields have the foundational skills and dispositions to be able to do so.
Furthermore, little c creativity, on its own, cultivates practical real-world skills students will need for success in various aspects of life after school. Tony Wagner (2008) refers to these as survival skills that students need as they navigate this complex world. Among the proposed skills Wagner (2008) identifies (based on several hundred interviews with business, nonprofit, and educational leaders) are critical thinking, problem solving, curiosity, imagination, adaptability, and agility. I would argue patience, resilience, and several others belong on that list as well.
Being able to think critically and solve problems in the workplace is highly valuable to employers who hunger for self-starters who can think on their feet. Curiosity and imagination are critical for students as they navigate the adult world, searching for ways to live productive lives in which they are able to relieve stress, maintain fitness, and nurture friendships, for example. Patience and adaptability become highly important as our students build their own family systems, which will inevitably be complex and taxing at times. Resilience and agility are critical for maintaining balance, for seeking help when needed, and for navigating the difficult journey of human life. Little c creativity can provide a context through which students can develop and hone these skills in a safe environment, where mistakes are not yet high stakes.
Components of Creativity
Creative Schools (Robinson & Aronica, 2015) and The Element (Robinson, 2009) are two of the most practical discussions of creativity in schools. These books explore some of the fundamental reasons why creativity is so essential and why it is so elusive at the same time. We can build our shared understanding on Robinson and Aronica’s (2015) following definition of creativity, which includes three critical components: (1) original ideas, (2) ideas that have value, and (3) ideas that spring from our imagination—
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 in our senses. Creativity is putting your imagination to work. It is applied imagination. (p. 146)
It is important to start with the component of original ideas because one critical misconception students have about their own creativity is that if their ideas resemble those of others or if they build on ideas shared in a collaborative setting, for example, then they aren’t truly creative ideas. In fact, some of the most creative acts spring from the work of others, from stimuli quite outside our minds. Robinson and Aronica (2015) clarify this when they explain, “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” (p. 139). Original ideas don’t always mean original to the whole world. Original can be very personal. I have observed students arriving at solutions to problems or creating artistic effects that people before them discovered or created, but the idea was original to them. These acts were no less creative simply because someone else in the world experienced them, too. These students arrived at their results on their own, in a highly creative manner. Therefore, the idea of original is contextual and personal.
Deciding when ideas have value is a highly personal decision as well. The creator determines something’s value first and foremost, and then others determine its value when the work is shared. However, this determination may not be as straightforward as it sounds. There are times when the value of an idea is obvious to a learner because it fits with a clearly defined goal, need, or desire. Other times, students may question whether an idea has value because of a lack of clarity about the purpose of the idea generation or lack of self-confidence, or because they may not be used to acknowledging their own strengths. In these cases, instead of stepping in to assert the value of an idea, we might instead refer students back to their goals, materials, or criteria. Helping students make decisions about the value of their own ideas is part of our role as teachers and is a teachable skill in and of itself. The critical factor in determining whether something holds value is whether it meets a desired outcome or need. Robinson and Aronica (2015) clarify the personal nature of assigning value when they say, “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” (p. 147). As a result, students have to assess their creative acts in order to determine their value, which brings us right back to the integrated nature of creativity and assessment.
The last component of Robinson and Aronica’s (2015) definition that needs consideration is their assertion that during creative processes, ideas have to spring from our imaginations. Educator and artist Robert Kelly (2012) agrees with this need when he explains:
Creativity involves bringing ideas or thoughts into forms, ultimately making something out of ideas that can be shared in the currency or medium of the discipline or field where the creative practice is occurring. This involves imagination. Imagination is the breeding ground for ideas that fuel creative practice. (p. 6)
This means students will have to visualize and dream, wonder and think while engaging in learning experiences. They will need to have strong catalysts to encourage this imagination and receive time to spend in this state, thinking about possibilities instead of certainties. In a classroom setting, the need to nurture imagination and the conditions required for doing so may feel like quite a shift.
As we work toward creative classrooms that invite imagination and original thought, it is helpful for identifying everyday creativity to open up our understanding of how these components manifest in a variety of contexts. Creative acts can fall into three categories, according to Kelly (2012): (1) inventive, (2) innovative, and (3) interpretive. First, there are creative practices that are inventive in nature, involving the creation of original work across disciplines. This may mean creating works of art, narrative texts, experiments, block towers, or construction projects, for example. Next, there are creative practices that are innovative in nature, which means students may grapple with redesigning or modifying an existing form, product, or system. One might find this creativity in health classes when students gather information and construct an informative publication to assist families in seeking health supports in the community. We may also see this creative practice in an early year’s physical education class when students create their own games while exploring the concept of strategic play. Lastly, there are creative acts that are interpretive in nature. This may occur when students engage in redesigning, modifying, evolving, or interpreting existing ideas. We may see this type of creativity in mathematics classrooms as students create complex, multistep problems and performance tasks based on skills they have already explored. We may also develop it in a science class when students create their own classification system for a set of organisms or in an accounting or business setting, when students develop a business plan, given a set of requirements and variables. When we unlock the ways students can explore creativity by expanding our conceptualization of what is creative, we open up the times and places for us to develop it in a variety of subject areas.
Creative Feelings
Another critical aspect of understanding creativity is considering how it feels to be creative, to be truly engaged in the creative experience. When describing the optimal state of creative expression, we could refer to this state as flow. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined this term in 1975 and describes the state of flow as follows:
Flow is a subjective state that people report when they are completely involved in something to the point of forgetting time, fatigue, and everything else but the activity itself. It is what we feel when we read a well-crafted novel or play a good game of squash, or take part in a stimulating conversation. The defining feature of flow is intense experiential involvement in moment-to-moment activity. Attention is fully invested in the task at hand, and the person functions at his or her fullest capacity. (Csikszentmihalyi, Abuhamdeh, & Nakamura, 2005, p. 600)
Flow connects to creativity in classrooms because when students are fully immersed in creative pursuits, their investment is tangible—they groan when the recess bell rings; they continue to glue, tape, and fold even after being asked to place their creations on the back counter; they rush from friend to friend, excitedly explaining how they are making decisions. This bodes well for all kinds of deep learning. Erkens et al. (2017) explain the importance of the kind of student investment in a flow state: “When people invest in something, they typically devote resources (time, talent, energy, and so on); persist through challenging problems that arise; seek help when needed; and develop confidence in what they are doing, learning, or investing in” (p. 113). The flow state invites authentic self-assessment and peer assessment and serves as a natural platform for seeking and giving feedback at times that matter to our students. They quite naturally move through creative processes, trying out ideas, seeking others’ advice, and reflecting on successes and challenges. In the state of flow, creativity, investment, and formative assessment are almost inseparable.
The line between process and product blends during creative flow. Students seek processes that get them to the products they are trying to create. Assessment and feedback from both teachers and their peers lead them in new directions or reinforce the choices they are making. The road of creativity is never straight. As Sawyer (2006) explains, “Creativity occurs while we’re doing a task, and as we’re performing the task we have to improvise through it, responding movement by movement to the changing needs of the situation. Everyday creativity is improvisational” (p. 445). Students imagine products, and we work alongside them to discover the processes that will get them to those products in meaningful and enriching ways.
Creative Qualities
When a process is not yet successful in approaching the goal, students refine and adjust; they revise and revisit. In the end, we help them decide when to stop and begin a new task. Anyone who creates something knows that the creative process could go on infinitely. Often, bringing closure to a creative effort means accepting that the process has run its course for the time being.
Regardless of whether we are working to enhance creativity through our attention to processes within our classroom or striving to provide catalysts to creativity through unique products, we are primarily working to develop or enhance specific personal qualities that are closely associated with creative people, which include the following (Dacey & Conklin, 2004; Renzulli, 2000; Sawyer, 2006; Wagner, 2012). (For a more in-depth list of the qualities of people in tune with their creativity process, please refer to table A.1 on pages 201–202 in appendix A.)
Curious
Integrative thinker
Persistent
Collaborative
Imaginative
Critical thinker
Risk taker
Tolerant
Flexible
Fluent
Divergent thinker
Convergent thinker
Courageous
Reflective
Intuitive
Observant
Developing these qualities is part of the most important work we (as teachers) do with our students because it influences who they become as learners and creators in the long term. Being aware of these qualities allows us to support students’ whole development as they grow and learn.
Through creative processes in our classrooms, we can build curious, imaginative learners. Very young students, such as those in preK through fourth grade, often enter our schools filled with wonder and possibility. Through creativity, we can sustain those qualities. By providing time for students to ask their own questions and imagine their own products, stories, and solutions, we communicate the importance of these qualities in a variety of learning contexts.
Creativity also provides the perfect fertilizer to grow the qualities of risk taking, critical thinking, and persistence. When elementary-grades students work with unfamiliar materials or create their first stories in writing, we can take the opportunity to invite them to try things in new ways, seek new ideas, and persist through immediate challenges. As students advance through the grades, we can continue to invite them to solve problems in unique ways and try different approaches on for size. By withholding summative assessment in favor of formative assessment in the early stages of the creative process, we explicitly show students that the creative journey is equally as important as a right answer. We give students time to persist through wrong answers and solutions that do not yield desired results. We allow them time to fix mistakes and try new approaches when necessary.
By structuring conditions in which students can develop and use these qualities, we are supporting the move toward an increasingly creative classroom. When we understand the qualities that underlie creative processes, we can explicitly encourage students to strengthen them in their everyday experiences. We can share these qualities with students, assess their development, and celebrate them when they are visible.
Instruction and Assessment Processes
It is important that we have clarity about when it makes sense to insert the opportunity to develop these qualities and the creativity they support into our learning plans. Sometimes the creativity will lie in the products and performances that students create, and sometimes the creativity will rest in the processes we use to get to very specific products. We may look to our learning goals (standards, outcomes) to guide this decision.
When a goal asks students to focus on developing a specific product (informational writing, a map, a short narrative paragraph, a formula, an accounting spreadsheet, a dramatic play), then allowing students to determine the form their product will take and determine their own success criteria may not be an option. In these cases, we may choose, instead, to use creative processes to get to that single end product. We may invite students to explore how to best work through the writing process and design a plan that is personally relevant. Or we may allow students to engage in research in ways that encourage personal decision making, source curation, and data collection. We may ask them to imagine a plan for rehearsal that will give them the best results possible. By employing creative decision making within the process of learning, even when the product is non-negotiable, our students have a strong hand in creating the learning design and, as a result, practicing many skills they need to become creative individuals.
Other learning goals may require students to engage in very specific processes (collaborative thinking, data analysis, lab safety, ball throwing). In cases like these, predetermined criteria guide and develop the process, and the creative potential lies in the product. Students may create their own games in which to practice throwing a ball. Or they may be able to engage in data analysis as part of a creative service project. They may employ lab safety in experiments of their own design, or collaborate as part of creating a mural with classmates. The opportunity for lesson design that unlocks creativity is immense, even when certain aspects of our teaching and learning seem non-negotiable.
We can always plan learning experiences that allow students to practice developing qualities of creative people. We may specifically encourage curiosity by introducing unusual or unfamiliar objects to elementary students in a science or a social studies class and ask them to generate questions based on what they see (or smell, or hear). Or we may show students in middle or high school ambiguous images and have them engage in a quick write (writing for two to ten minutes without stopping, editing, or planning ahead) based on all the things they wonder about what they see. If we were trying to nurture risk taking, we may invite students to work in teams to solve unfamiliar mathematics problems, promising only feedback and discussion (no grades) as a result of their efforts. Or we might invite students to engage in new cardiovascular fitness activities, even though they may not feel completely comfortable with them, and then praise them for trying something new, followed by a reflection on the results in order to improve their performance. Fostering creativity means attending to not only what students do but also how they do it in our classrooms. Understanding the qualities of creativity supports our work toward developing these qualities in our learners.
Creativity Across Contexts
For the sake of practicality, teachers may find it helpful to explore the nature of creativity within various content areas. Teachers can develop creativity in every subject area at every grade level—they just have to imagine new ways for learning to emerge. Table 1.1 explores ways to develop creativity within and across content areas.
Table 1.1: Accessing Creativity in Various Content Areas
| Content Area | Ways Teachers Can Develop Student Creativity |
| English Language Arts | ♦ Allow students voice and choice in their work.♦ Use leading questions to help students identify the purpose for and meaning within their work.♦ Have students revise and review their work to enhance, elaborate, refine, and focus.♦ Combine ideas across texts.♦ Let students use varied modalities to enhance their message (for example, images, video, digital tools, sound effects, maps, voice-overs).♦ Invite students to respond to texts in ways that matter to them (for example, choose a song to go with the text, write a letter to a friend, design a commercial). |
| Mathematics | ♦ Engage learners in open-ended, interdisciplinary, and real-world processes.♦ Create problems where the steps are not formulaic and the solutions are not predetermined; reinforce original and flexible approaches.♦ Provide open-ended materials and loose parts (for example, materials like buttons, beads, nuts and bolts).♦ Connect mathematics to real-life applications.♦ Invite students to create problems.♦ Provide mathematics artifacts and invite students to form questions.♦ Engage in complex mathematics talks (exchanges of mathematical ideas and problem-solving strategies). |
| Science | ♦ Engage in experimentation.♦ Seek connections.♦ Invite students into real-life problems and challenges.♦ Generate questions and identify potential errors.♦ Allow students to choose materials, methods for sharing research, and audiences for their work. |
| Social Studies or History | ♦ Challenge students to propose solutions to world challenges.♦ Prompt students to imagine social or political structures under a variety of conditions or variables.♦ Design tools or resources to enhance a need (for example, build a tool to drain a playground puddle or create a resource to support students new to the school).♦ Have students relate personal identity with social realities.♦ Connect the present to the past.♦ Allow students to engage in a variety of artifacts (for example, maps, data) and invite questions. |
| Health Education | ♦ Ask students to craft supports and plans to address health-related challenges.♦ Have students examine relationships (between factors, structures, organizations, and emotions).♦ Explore issues from individual and societal perspectives.♦ Challenge students to propose impacts, solutions, and future concerns. |
| Physical Education | ♦ Encourage students to design new activities, games, or events.♦ Have students craft a plan to achieve a desired outcome.♦ Ask students to propose solutions to fitness-related challenges.♦ Challenge students to invent and organize drills and activities that enhance performance and precision. |
| Arts Education | ♦ Encourage students to express a unique vision or message through artwork.♦ Challenge students to improvise and elaborate.♦ Have students combine elements (notes, tone, line, shape, movement, voice) in personally meaningful ways (a score, a play, a painting, an installation, a dance).♦ Ask students to select or curate components and items.♦ Allow students to engage in a performance as a performer or a viewer. |
| Practical and Applied Arts | ♦ Have students use practical skills to imagine new products, new applications, and new designs.♦ Ask students to apply resources (ingredients, materials) in new and unique ways.♦ Encourage students to curate and make decisions; consider many variables when designing. |
| Foreign Languages | ♦ Ask students to imagine multiple ways to communicate meaning.♦ Instruct students to craft personal messages.♦ Guide students in synthesizing isolated information to generate new meaning.♦ Synthesize a variety of strategies to comprehend meaning. |
| Business and Career Education | ♦ Challenge students to build on the ideas of existing businesses.♦ Have students identify societal needs for development of products.♦ Ask students to collaborate in teams to design business plans.♦ Prompt students to imagine a variety of career options and the requirements for them.♦ Encourage students to invent new careers. |
Source: Sawyer, 2006; Smutny & von Fremd, 2009.
For more in-depth examples of how students might practice creativity in mathematics and English language arts, see figure B.1 (pages 204–208) and figure B.2 (pages 208–212) in appendix B.
Threats to Creativity
In order to develop this kind of organic creativity in our classrooms, teachers need to be aware of those factors that may reduce or even inhibit its development. Table 1.2 captures some of these potential threats to creativity.
Table 1.2: Detailing Threats to Creativity
| Threat | Explanation |
| Right Answers | When the goal is arriving at the correct solution, product, or understanding, the divergent thinking required during creative processes is limited. There is a time for right answers but not when creativity is the goal. |
| Teacher Control | When teachers control the brainstorming, drafting, or revision stages, it stops learner creativity in its tracks. Help-seeking behavior is critical for the teacher-student relationship during times of creativity, but control over the creative process must rest with the learner. Hovering can also inhibit freedom to explore because students may feel overly monitored. |
| Lack of Purpose | When our efforts hold meaning, our motivation and investment are authentic and personal. Tasks that hold little purpose or relevance for students make creative work within those tasks a tremendous challenge for even the most compliant student. |
| High Stakes | When learners believe their teacher will judge or value (including grade) processes and products too early and without time for revision, risk taking and creative approaches might disappear, and the quest for compliance may take over. Premature grading and a focus on competition or comparison can threaten the creative process. |
| External Rewards | Studies demonstrate the devastating effect of external rewards on creative outcomes (Amabile, 1996; Torrance, 1965). The desirable state of flow depends on intrinsic motivation. Even praise can shift the learning away from exploration, toward the search for even more praise. |
| Negative Self-Talk | Student and teacher beliefs about their creative abilities can determine whether students develop creative qualities. Negative self-talk and a belief that only a few possess creativity reflect a fixed mindset (the assumption that abilities are static and cannot be changed in any meaningful way; Dweck, 2006) that yields little creative output. This kind of thinking can also lead to learned helplessness in students, which is not productive. |
| Limited Understanding or Skill | Creativity emerges from skill and understanding. In order to manipulate, imagine, and create, students must first have understanding and skill with which to do so. It is very difficult for students to be creative when they know too little about the realm in which they are working. |
| Tight Timelines | To engage fully in creative processes, students need time to generate ideas, experiment, ask questions, set goals, reflect, revise, and assess their progress. Short timelines can limit both creativity and assessment and can result in products that are less than satisfactory to the learners. |
| Overstimulating Environments | Creative people often need a balance between time to engage with others and seek stimulation and time to reflect. An environment that is overstimulating can overwhelm students and reduce the productivity during stages of the creative process. |
| Silence | If creativity is going to flourish, there needs to be conferring, discussion, debate, research, sharing, and collaboration. All these activities require two-way communication, which will result in an environment that strays from silence. |
| Prescriptive Steps | Formulaic steps can certainly lead to consistency, and when products and processes that yield similar results each time are the goal, formulae work. However, true creativity is much messier than this. The organic nature of creativity lends itself to students leading the way more often than not, with each student engaging in a slightly different journey. Therefore, student choice is intimately tied to creativity. |
It is important to acknowledge that learning is complex, and the various ways learners engage in the experiences we design for them are multifaceted. This book does not assert that students need to engage in creative pursuits all the time, every day in our classrooms. Indeed, there are times when listening to others is critical. There are moments when exploring patterns and algorithms is highly advisable. There are times when direct instruction is the most effective way to explain concepts and skills and guided practice is the most efficient way to build confidence. Creativity is a highly desirable and important aspect of human learning, but it is not the only one. Therefore, there are times when the threats in table 1.2 emerge as the most effective approaches in certain contexts. However, when creative processes are always on the back burner in favor of more expedient approaches, then the scales have tipped too far in the other direction. Teaching is about finding a balance and developing a vast skill set that readies learners for the life in front of them.
It is also important to note that embedded within the creative process, there will be moments of direct instruction. If a student is struggling to organize his or her thinking, the teacher may need to offer directed guidance. Similarly, when a student is preparing to express his or her creativity, a teacher may offer a systematic guide for effective speaking. Creativity in classrooms is not without teacher intervention and support. There are times when the most direct route to the solution to a smaller problem can open up creative growth in other areas. We do not have to choose between creativity and instruction. Both live in partnership within the creative process. Paul A. Kirschner, John Sweller, and Richard E. Clark (2006) assert the importance of teacher guidance during creative learning: “In so far as there is any evidence from controlled studies, it almost uniformly supports direct, strong instructional guidance … during the instruction of novice to intermediate learners” (p. 83). Understanding the important role of the teacher in creative work is critical. The interplay between student decision making and exploration and assessment to guide targeted instruction and support is vital for ensuring that students gain the maximum benefits of creative work.
Assessment Processes That Unlock Creativity
When we imagine new ways of designing our assessment and instruction to support creativity, it is not so much about throwing everything out and starting again. We aren’t going to stop using summative assessment, nor are we going to suddenly change every aspect of our learning environment. Like much of the growing we do in our lives, the shift is more about looking at existing practices in new ways. It is using the skills and processes we already possess, but using them differently. Accomplishing this change might involve exploring our existing practices with a different lens. In creative classrooms, teachers still preassess to determine students’ needs and strengths. They invite goal setting and reflection from the learners in the room. They continue to utilize formative assessment to guide instruction and support feedback and self-assessment processes. And they still make time to verify learning through summative assessment. These types of assessment processes are critical in any kind of learning environment because they support long-term learning. However, how they unfold or manifest may be a little different from what we usually practice, especially with regard to teachers’ and students’ roles in the assessment process. This book will focus on three of these assessment practices, which constitute the heart of assessment to support creativity: (1) formative assessment (information gathering), (2) feedback (dialogue with others), and (3) self-assessment (dialogue with self). See the reproducible “Applying Assessment Within the Stages of the Creative Process” (pages 45–46) for information on how these types of assessment apply within each stage of the creative process, and guiding questions for assessment work in each stage. The following sections will explore the shift in classroom roles as we use assessment to promote creativity; note the ways in which teachers may apply formative assessment, provide feedback, and facilitate self-assessment; and examine the need for explicit instruction for supporting feedback and self-assessment among students.
Assessment Roles for Teachers and Students
In classrooms where teachers work to develop creativity, assessment processes most often rest in the hands of learners, as opposed to remaining solely the responsibility of teachers. Teachers still play a part, of course, but their role shifts to facilitator and co-constructor as opposed to director and owner. Readers may wonder if elementary-age students are capable of assessing. It has been my experience that even students in the earliest schooling years are indeed able to assess and apply impressive insights as they reflect on their and their classmates’ work.
Teachers may choose the direction of the creative process based on learning goals, but they shift decision making to the students at critical times. The majority of this process involves teachers observing and engaging in conversations, collecting formative assessment information, and responding through feedback, conferring, and guiding students’ self- and peer assessment, goal setting, and questioning processes.
When teachers use summative assessment, they have likely witnessed student problem solving, brainstorming, questioning, and experimenting after a highly organic learning process. In many ways, these teachers are more equipped to reflect on the learning of students because the creative processes that led to the products and artifacts they are examining are so rich. Creative processes build deep relationships between learners and the teacher guiding and supporting them. Furthermore, teachers who work to develop student creativity get even more insight into learners’ progress on learning goals because they bear witness to students forming learning relationships with themselves. As students increase the control they have over their learning contexts, previously unseen qualities may become evident. For example, we may see students relish the opportunity to ask their own questions. We may see them hesitate as they wonder how to approach a challenge. We might witness their frustration and then pride as problems emerge and they overcome them, and observe them taking risks and collaborating with others. Students may also document many of these processes in creative portfolios. This kind of learning and the documentation that can accompany it nurtures a deep knowledge of our learners, so when the time comes to verify learning goals, teachers can make a professional judgment with confidence. With these criteria in front of them and the knowledge of their learners in hand, educators can engage in summative assessment that truly reflects the learning they want to see from students.
Formative Assessment (Information Gathering)
While summative assessment is a critical aspect of our work as teaching professionals, formative assessment is truly the bread and butter of developing creativity. During the creative process, formative assessment serves to propel the growth and development of ideas. At every stage of the creative process, from exploration to elaboration and expression, formative assessment serves as the basis for decision making and refinement because it connects what is happening in the moment to a desired future state.
During the creative process, formative assessment will occur in a variety of ways. Teachers may choose to use more traditional assessment methods like quizzes and student practice work to determine student needs. Alternately, they may choose to use organic methods, like observation or questioning, to collect assessment information. The power of formative assessment rests in the quality of information gathered and the alignment to goals and success criteria. The use of portfolios can support decision making by both teachers and students by making the various iterations of creative thinking visible. A purposeful collection of artifacts that represent the various creative stages can support reflection at all stages and, most significantly, in the final stage of reflection and response.
Both students and teachers craft goals and engage in exploration that serves the key questions guiding the learning. Through embedded reflection, self-assessment, and engagement with criteria for success, students journey through the creative process in personally meaningful ways. Feedback sessions, during which students and teachers analyze efforts in relation to goals, ensure that students feel their efforts are heading in a desired direction. Indeed, without this continuous formative assessment built into the creative classroom, imagination would suffer, risk taking would lack purpose, and products students produce would be meaningless. Formative assessment is the oil in the creative engine, and it is a primary way we can ensure that students develop the ability to sit in the driver’s seat. Administrator, teacher, and author Myron Dueck (2014) explains further, “Learning is greatly enhanced through individual creativity, ownership, and empowerment. When learners are given the opportunity to explain and reason using their own creative skills, they are better able to demonstrate evidence of learning” (p. 121). The importance of student engagement in the formative assessment process and the creativity it supports cannot be overstated.
Formative assessment is critical for the growth of creativity, and teachers will certainly play a pivotal role in gathering formative data and making sure students progress in the development of essential skills and understanding. Perhaps a quick exit ticket at the end of class might let us know which students are effectively moving toward intended outcomes and which have hit a roadblock. There may come a time during creative learning when we educators give a quiz to determine whether our learners are developing a critical understanding necessary for deepening their creative efforts. Perhaps a teacher spends time observing students so she can follow up with a targeted conversation that both identifies a student need and provides the instruction required to address the need. Formative assessment is one way to ensure students’ creative efforts yield the intended learning. See the reproducible “Applying Assessment Within the Stages of the Creative Process” (pages 45–46) for information on how formative assessment and other types of assessment apply within each stage of the creative process. Important by-products of formative assessment during the creative process are the feedback relationships we establish with our students and the relationships learners develop with themselves through self-assessment. The processes of feedback and self-assessment that emerge from formative assessment are critical to creativity, and we want to be sure we utilize them to maximum impact.
Feedback (Dialogue With Others)
Effective feedback translates formative assessment information into a dialogue for growth and learning. Feedback within a creative experience often emerges organically from a mutual quest to solve a problem or express an idea. In a classroom, the learner is striving to make sense of something personally meaningful, and the teacher or a peer may act as a mirror, reflecting experiences back to the learner to help the learner truly see what is in front of him or her. This is important in a creative endeavor because at times creativity can feel all-consuming and the creator may hunger for a way to step back from his or her efforts for a while and see them with fresh eyes. Therefore, effective feedback should include describing what is happening, noticing processes and decisions before making a judgment about their effectiveness. Feedback slows down creativity just a little, so students can explore things from various viewpoints, allowing powerful conversations between a creator and a trusted friend or advisor. A conferring session with a teacher or a conversation with a peer can be the very thing students need to move into the next stage of creative thinking.
Feedback may also emerge from a shared exploration of criteria for success. A learner might ask, “Does what I am creating accomplish my desired outcomes? Am I sharing my ideas in a way that makes sense? Have I overlooked some aspect of the problem I am trying to solve?” In this way, feedback may sound a great deal like a conversation, where both parties are alternating between asking questions and expressing ideas. (For more information on assessment through conversation, see chapters 3 and 4, pages 67 and 103.) The key is to return consistently to the goals that drive the creative process. Feedback conversations are a chance to remind students of what they were setting out to do and to review their criteria for success. How will you know when your efforts have been successful? What will a quality result look like and sound like to you? How will you know when you are finished? Questions like these allow students to take stock of where they are in this moment and plan next steps.
Feedback can exist in service of a current creative effort and serve future creative efforts. Teachers might ask a question that invites students to think about their creative processes, instead of saying to learners, “Here is how I suggest you fix this [current, specific challenge].” Potential questions to ask include, “Why did you make this choice? How did you decide? What was effective or ineffective in your approach? How might you approach this differently next time?” Questions like these invite students to focus not only on their current efforts but also on their strategic approaches to creative work. Open-ended questions ensure the decision making rests with the learner, and they are a way for teachers (and peers) to develop processes that lead to refined results on future creative efforts. See the reproducible “Applying Assessment Within the Stages of the Creative Process” (pages 45–46) for information on how feedback and other forms of assessment apply within each stage of the creative process.
Self-Assessment (Dialogue With Self)
Focusing on self-assessment to drive both personal reflection and feedback is one way we can be sure creativity stays in our students’ hands. Withholding feedback until our students have done some personal reflection can inform what we say and how we respond to their needs. For example, we can then structure our feedback around the student’s reflection if a student examines her work and says, “I like what I have done on this half but the last half still doesn’t say what I want it to say.” We may follow up with, “What do you think needs to be in your second half in order for it to have the impact you are hoping for?” Alternatively, we may ask, “Why do you think you were able to get the results you hoped for in your first half? How did you approach it? Was your approach different from the one you used later?” These kinds of questions lead students back to their goals and the criteria they use to define those goals. We are simply helping them solve their own problems. We can give suggestions (resources and strategies), but students remain in control of the creative endeavor.
In this way, self-assessment is not about assigning the product a value. Nor is it about sitting with a checklist in hand, sorting the list into present in my work or absent from my work. Self-assessment is about reflecting on the degree to which students are solving their own problems and answering their own questions creatively. It is about taking personal responsibility for their outcomes, and connecting their thinking, planning, and exploration to their goals. Self-assessment is about making decisions and taking action, and without it, the students’ efforts and the ensuing results will be less creative and, likely, less satisfactory to the students themselves. See the reproducible “Applying Assessment Within the Stages of the Creative Process” (pages 45–46) for information on how self-assessment and other types of assessment apply within each stage of the creative process.
Explicit Instruction for Developing Feedback and Self-Assessment
In order for students to be strong self-assessors and engage in effective feedback processes, they will need us to teach them how to engage in these processes. John A. Ross (2006) echoes this need: “There is persuasive evidence, across several grades and subjects, that self-assessment contributes to student learning and that the effects grow larger with direct instruction on self-assessment procedures” (p. 9). Self-assessment and feedback do not come naturally to many learners. Without explicit teaching, these assessment processes can end up with students who focus on stagnant practices of looking to the teacher to identify their mistakes and tell them how to correct those mistakes to get a higher grade. Students need to develop trust in the true benefits of these practices, and they need explicit instruction about how self-assessment and feedback should look and sound while they are in the midst of innovating, imagining, and creating. Table 1.3 and table 1.4 (pages 38–39) offer critical components of feedback and self-assessment, respectively, and explore examples for ways to approach feedback and self-assessment during a creative endeavor.
Table 1.3: Identifying Components of Feedback Within the Classroom
