On the other hand, the three narrowest spread of scores go to Opportunities, Question and Motivation, suggesting that teachers were more agreeing in these. As gathered from the experience of this annotation, for research purposes, there is an obvious need to have a standard procedure to enable comparisons among studies. The highlights are presented in chronological order of the studies. The Journal of Classroom Interaction (JCI) has been self-published since its founding in 1965. After an extensive review of the pertinent literature, Cropley (Citation1997) in a paper Fostering Creativity in the Classroom: General Principles listed nine conditions necessary for teachers to foster student creativity as follows: Independence: Encouraging students to learn independently; Integration: Having a co-operative, socially integrative style of teaching; Motivation: Motivating students to master factual knowledge, so that they have a solid base for divergent thinking; Judgement: Delaying judging students ideas until they have been thoroughly worked out and clearly formulated; Flexibility: Encouraging flexible thinking; Evaluation: Promoting self-evaluation in students; Question: Taking students suggestions and questions seriously; Opportunities: Offering students opportunities to work with a wide variety of materials and under many different conditions; and. Teachers who help their students to become authors of their lives, take ownership and develop personal interest in their own work stimulate students' motivation, and increase their drive to learn. The authors concluded that the university lecturers in Ogun and Oyo States exhibited a good amount of productivity and capacity building based on their creativity fostering behaviours (p. 259). Register a free Taylor & Francis Online account today to boost your research and gain these benefits: Creativity fostering teacher behaviour around the world: Annotations of studies using the CFTIndex, Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, 287 Ghim Moh Road, Singapore 279623, Singapore, Fostering creativity in the classroom: General principles, The dark side of creativity in the classroom: The paradox of classroom teaching, The adaptation of creativity fostering primary teachers index scale into Turkish, Identification of potentially creative persons from the adjective check list, Creativity in Hong Kong classroom: What is the contextual practice, School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, The University of Western Ontario, The International Center for Studies in Creativity. Cover your walls with art and other evidence of creative expression. In terms of teaching experience, 20% had less than 10years, 39% had between 11 and 20years, and 41% had 21 or more years. It was determined that democratic, workshop-based classrooms are likely to result in students being empowered to make decisions . classroom environment, including the teacher and student relationship, and its role in fostering creativity in middle school students. This article is of interest not only to creativity researchers but perhaps more to educators in general who are concerned with developing creativity in the students. When teachers behave in a manner that foster creativity, students are likely to respond in a creative manner and thus develop their own creativity. In view of the necessity to evaluate teachers' classroom creativity, this paper designed a valid and . In a context of productivity and capacity building, Olawale, Adeniyi, and Olubelas (Citation2010) study aims to ascertain the creativity fostering behaviour of university lecturers. Table 7 below shows the results, worked from Table 4 of the paper for the three schools. How teachers respond to their students' ideas, views and suggestions during lessons can be expected to have an influence on the students' subsequent effort and inclination in coming up with new ideas, views and suggestions. We use cookies to improve your website experience. Creativity is a pivotal soft skill to be developed in students but is rarely emphasized by teachers in learning due to many factors, the teacher not knowing the right way to improve student . In a context of productivity and capacity building, Olanisimi, Adeniyi, and Olawales (Citation2011) study aims to ascertain the creativity fostering behaviour of primary school teachers. The article also reports inter-subscale correlations for the CFTIndex. If it is imperative to modify, also reported rescaled scores as have been demonstrated above. There is, however, a dearth of suitable instruments for measuring this type of teacher behaviour, although there are many instruments for measuring student creativity. Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine. 2018 H. Jerome Freiberg There will, of course, be exceptions to this rule, but generally thus is the case. Leverage their intrinsic motivation to learn by giving them opportunities to choose their own topics while learning and sharing that knowledge with the class. - Encourage independence. As a result of the language equivalence analysis, high correlation was observed between the Turkish and English forms of the CFTIS, developed by Soh (Citation2000) . SCAMPER) a year prior to this study conducted by the first author. > Role of Teachers in Fostering Creativity Among Students. It is interesting to note that the greater faculty-student discrepancies are found for the faculty members with less than six years of teaching experience and also for those with more than 20years, while the three groups in-between have much smaller discrepancies. These were rescaled for five items. This requires the SD. Used for data collection was the CFTindex which has 45 items forming 9 subscales. In Hondzels (Citation2013) Ph.D. thesis, Hondzel intended to find out the creativity fostering behaviours of primary school teachers. Two heads are better than one. The mean shows the averaged performance level of a group but does not show the spread of its scores which has implication for its precision and hence trustworthiness. This implies that if training are to be given, trainers are likely to find it more difficult to raise the level and, at the same time, to attain greater consensus. Of the teachers, 62% had a university degree and a majority (62%) of them taught language while the rest taught science, mathematics and humanities. Besides, parenting educators could benefit by including creativity fostering parental behaviour as part of their programmes by following the nine principles propounded by Cropley (Citation1997) and modify the CFTIndex as both research tool and instructional material. With the results above, the author concluded that The behaviours and practices of teachers in class are important to foster student creativity. Those with lower reliabilities (<.80) are Flexibility, Independence, Motivation and Evaluation. This is when self-confidence issues kick in. The lowest means go to Judgement, Evaluation and Independence. It was concluded that Results from the study showed that there was variation across subject, subscales and schools in the capacity building and productivity of teachers (p. 25). The purpose of Soh and Queks (Citation2007) study was to explore further the validity of the CFTIndex using fresh data from another group of Singaporean teachers. The CFTIndex as a whole has reliability of =.85. In the middle range are Question, Frustration and Flexibility. The Journal began its publication as the Classroom Interaction Newsletter by Dr. Anita Simon of Temple University in Philadelphia, with editorial adviser Dr. Ned Flanders. As shown in Table 8, the Cronbachs coefficients for the nine subscales are generally high and the median of the coefficients is =.83 which is greater than the conventionally expected =.7 for research instrument, though somewhat lower for the expected =.9 for making decisions on individuals. Rather than the teacher providing them with their opinion on where the student might want to improve, make an effort to ask the students what feel they need to improve upon on the basis of their current work. Children are some of the most creative units there are. A creative learning environment is one that encourages students to learn through trial and error, use their imagination, and to think critically to solve problems. With the given sample size, all correlations are statistically significant (p<.05). Giving creative feedback is one of the simpler ways to stimulate creative thinking, which can make it easy to overlook. These differences in the means and reliabilities might be attributable to the fact that the replication groups were more homogeneous, mostly university graduates teaching language in the main. At the same time, 35% of the teachers held a Bachelors degree and 65% a Masters degree. The three largest differences are for Frustration, Consultation (originally, Question) and Integration. Others are as simple as learning to identify opportunities to help students exercise their creativity. Expanding their creative capacity can make students more adept at forming original ideas, as well as exercising their critical thinking skills. Teachers must refrain from commenting or passing judgment on a piece of work a student has done without proper observation. There is a moderate correlation between years of teaching experience with overall CFTI (r=.51), Motivation (r=.59), Opportunities (r=.44) and Flexibility (r=.51). These inter-subscale correlations are comparable in range with those found in Sohs (Citation2000) original study, although the Hong Kong study has a lower median (as compared with r=.82). Where academic qualification is concerned, 36% held a Bachelor degree, 46% a Masters degree and 18% a Ph.D. degree. The need for an instrument such as the CFTIndex is witnessed by many studies based using it subsequent to its first publication. Involved in the study were 31 secondary school teachers 97% of whom were university degree holders teaching language. Participants ability to foster creativity in the classroom was improved by supportive administration and instructional peers but was constrained by a lack of time and the constricting standardized testing environment. Although creativity can develop outside of the classroom, teachers play an indispensable role in maintaining and encouraging its continuous development. This drops to 75% among teachers who foster classroom creativity but use technology in more substitutional ways (replacing paper and pencil with tablets or . Cronbachs coefficients are slightly greater for the replication groups for Motivation, Question, Opportunities and CFTIndex as a whole. the extensive literature review) in the cited publications are inevitably (and reluctantly) excluded. They further argued that there was a relevant desirability that acquires a substantive priority, taking into account how important it is for developing professional competencies, the transfer value it has for meaningful learning, and the pertinence it gives to a sensible curriculum (p. 28). As of 2014, the Journal of Classroom Interaction has been publishing relevant and well-researched articles for 50 years. This serves two useful purposes. Seen from this perspective, creativity is a behavioral trait which teachers are expected to promote or foster in the students. - Teachers, schools and education systems have an important role to play in promoting lifelong learning attitudes. Help students to adapt to different learning styles and methods of communication / knowledge sharing. The majority of the teachers were between 20 and 30years old, and 104 (36.1%) of the teachers have between one and five years of teaching experience, with another 86 (29.9%) worked as novice teachers. In short, teachers are in a strategic position to foster creativity of their students, if the teachers are able to and in a habit of demonstrating creativity fostering behaviour in the day-to-day interaction with their students. Teachers play a critical role in the development of student creativity. As the author reported the mean (and SD) for the average of five items of each subscale, these were rescaled for the original five items. The more diverse and unique their experience is, the more creative the child will be. Table 6 below shows the means and SDs for the 40 lecturers worked out from Tables 1Table 2Table 34 of Olawale et al. For instance, during the planning stages of a group project vs. during a standardized test. 1. They taught Chinese, mathematics and General Studies. Creativity and innovation are the main drivers behind any successful idea. Seven of the forty-five correlations are significant at the .05 level and the remaining 38 items have correlations significant at the .01 level. Possible further research studies using the CFTIndex are suggested and discussed. Helping students develop their creative capacities can have both direct and indirect benefits. Of these teachers, 45% had five or less years of teaching experience, 25% had 610years and 30% had 16 or more years. Tell your kids all about your favorite artists, musicians, and scientists. For the retained 33 items as a whole, the Cronbachs coefficient is =.94. The translation of the original English version into the Turkish version involved 30 lecturers from the Nigde University School of Foreign Languages. Request Permissions, Published By: Journal of Classroom Interaction. To learn about our use of cookies and how you can manage your cookie settings, please see our Cookie Policy. These were recalculated from the original article which presents the descriptive statistics separately for the females and males. Read to learn more about the importance of creative learning environments and how teachers cab learn to nurture creativity in a classroom environment. The studies were conducted in various countries in the past few years as listed below: America (Edinger, Citation2008; Lee & Kemple, Citation2014). In this context, CFTIndex seems to have proven that it is a data collection tool much needed by creativity researchers, especially those who are concerned with the development of student creativity. To facilitate comparisons, the means and SDs were rescaled for five items per subscale. When teaching creativity in early childhood classrooms, students may not understand the context where creativity is most valuable or appropriate. Embracing creativity in the classroom is a great way to challenge the notion of static . If youre interested in learning more about developing creativity in students, take a moment to learn more about Drexel University School of Education's MS in Creativity and Innovation, MS in Creative Education and Entrepreneurshipand post-bachelor's certificate in Creativity and Innovationand how you can further your own learning as an educator. Deprioritize memorization-focused tasks and replace them with tasks that allow students to challenge assumptions. The author might have some good reasons to change the format and reporting, but doing so prevent direct comparisons to be made across studies. Following the same approach of the original study (Soh, Citation2000) by factor-analysing the subscales separately, it was observed that Independence, Integration, Flexibility, Evaluation and Frustration retained the original structures, with total variances explained varying from 53% (Evaluation) and 75% (Judgement). Register to receive personalised research and resources by email. For this reason, it can be said that Cronbachs Alpha coefficients obtained from the scale and subscales is sufficient (p. 321). More details can of course be found in the original articles and interested creativity researchers are certainly encouraged to read them in their original forms. Teachers can be the biggest influence in funneling the children's creativity in such a way that they can use it in contexts both within and outside the paradigm . How Can Teachers Support Children With Special Needs? In their conclusion, the authors noted that there is a need to use instruments for data collection grounded in the classroom context so as to inform in-depth study. However, through a confirmatory factors analysis, the CFTIndex was modified to have only three items each for the nine subscales instead of the original five items. To establish the concurrent validity of the CFTIndex, 16 adjectives were selected from Dominos (Citation1970) 59-item Creative Adjective Scale through several rounds of factor analysis. They also pointed out that their research question remains unanswered but the study point to possible pathway to its eventual answering. They may and may not be conscious of the impact of their own behaviour on that of their students where creativity is concerned. Table 5 below shows the means and SDs for the subscales and CFTIndex as a whole. For data collection, self-report was gathered by using the original CFTIndex; six-point scale was used. Since the two studies used the same methodology, these differences are unlikely a methodological effect. Within the context of No Child Left Behind, Edingers (Citation2008) study investigated creativity fostering teacher behaviours in a high-stakes standardized testing environment. An interesting aspect of this study is the comparisons of facultys scores with students scores. Those with higher scores on Openness and who creativity-related experiences were more likely to espouse creativity fostering teaching styles. The review process usually takes 9-12 weeks, somewhat longer if received in December, January or during the summer months. The availability of the CFTIndex by the present author in 2000 has spawned many relevant studies over the decade. Controlling the classroom environment where students spend hours each day, teachers have ample opportunities to nurture and cultivate creativity. The teacher has the power to make or break a childs creativity. So, teachers need to create opportunities and avenues for children to improve their creative skills and come up with more and more creative ideas. Further evidence of validity was procured by the differences between Chinese and non-Chinese teachers, in view of the popular stereotype that Chinese teachers, at least in the context of Singapore, tend to be more restrictive and hence less creative than non-Chinese teachers. The journal was passed from Anita Simon to Myra and David Sadker at American University who began the transition into a journal format. The teachers were observed for their classroom teaching. This information enables other researchers to decide how much they can trust what has been reported in a study. Celebrate innovation and creativity. The correlations lend support to the concurrent validity of the CFTIndex. For these, the author asserts that It is nearly impossible in the areas of education and psychology to develop a scale with a reliability coefficient of+1. This suggests that teachers found it more difficult to withhold their judgement on students ideas and suggestions, to refrain from premature evaluation these, and to encourage students independent learning. Introduction. Table 9 below was reconstructed from the text which reports that These results were similar to the construct validity results of the original scale developed by Soh (Citation2000) (p. 321). Excluded from this annotation are other articles citing the CFTIndex but not using it as a tool for data collection. Table 1 also shows the means (and SDs) for the subscales and the CFTIndex as a whole. The positive response of teacher towards student ideas helps to develop creativity among the students (Gajda, 2017). As shown in Table 1, the correlations between CFTIndex subscales and Creative Person scores varied from r=.25 (Evaluation) to r=.45 (Integration), with r=.45 for the CFTIndex as a whole. This shows the subscales to have moderately correlated with one another. Conceptual rubrics were designed to clarify "what counts" or "what sub-skills should be developed" in relation to creativity and critical thinking and to guide the design of lesson plans and . The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin MSA of .925 indicates a perfect sampling adequacy. How teachers respond to their students ideas, views and suggestions during lessons can be expected to have an influence on the students subsequent effort and inclination in coming up with new ideas, views and suggestions. The teachers taught mainly English and Social Studies, with one quarter taught Science or Mathematics. Thus, if training is to be offered to foster teachers creativity fostering behaviours, these three will need more attention and effort. Based on Arthur J. Cropleys nine principles, the Creativity Fostering Teacher Behaviour Index (CFTIndex) was developed and trialled with a group of teachers (N=117) in Singapore. A good visual-based alternative is concept cartooning. Role Of Teacher In Fostering Creativity Among Students Teachers reported that they are more likely to use creativity in learning if they allow students to do each of the following: 1) choose what to learn in class; 2) try different ways of doing things, even if they might not work; 3) come up with their own solutions to a problem. Note: The rescaled means and SDs are for five items per subscale using six-point scale as in the original CFTIndex. Hong Kong (Forrester & Hui, Citation2007). Pioneer classroom ecology researches like Bronfenbrenner (1977), Moos (1979), and much later Fraser (2002) all emphasized the importance . How Teachers Can Foster Creativity in Students Now that you have an idea of the factors that affect a child's creativity, the role of teachers in helping them develop it comes in. Support for childrens creativity was measured by using the CFTIndex. Share your passion for architecture or photography or that new band you want to listen to all the time. Each item was presented with a six-point scale, with 6 for All the time and 1 for Never. By leveraging such learned skills as setting goals, sharing knowledge, and building relationships, a creative learning environment can help students practice and develop their own theories, ideas, and set them in motion. Mexico (Belio & Urtuzuastegul, Citation2013). In the first stage of the study, teachers completed online the CFTIndex and, in the second stage, they were observed in the classroom as well as interviewed. The authors suggest that the special teachers should be creative, resourceful and innovative to adequately meet the needs of the students who have special needs or disabilities, because the absence of such creative teachers could make children with special needs waste away, half-baked and remain dependent for survival. Having had the studies thus annotated and their information integrated, a logical question is, Where do we go from here? Twenty 9th and 10th grade teachers from a high school in a large, mid-Atlantic suburban school district were involved in the study. Thus, generally, the CFTIndex and its subscales yielded reliable scores and can be confidently used for further research. Demographic data includes gender, age, academic qualification and teaching experience. However, the reduction of items down to three for each subscale needs be cautious; a (sub-)scale normally needs 812 to be stable and the five items per subscale in the original CFTIndex is already on the low side. With our advanced learning management system, you can improve the teaching-learning experience. Almost one-and-a-half decades have passed since the publication of CFTIndex on 2000. The 'Teacher Roles in Free Play Scale' and the 'Creativity Fostering Teacher Index Scale' (CFTIndex) were used during data collection. Inter-subscale correlations vary from a moderate r=.49 (between Independence and Motivation) to a high r=.82 (between Flexibility and Opportunities), with a median of r=.67. - Provide immediate feedback on pupils' inventiveness. Table 11 shows the overall CFTIndex scores for the groups. Fostering understanding through education, organizing and advocacy. The findings indicate that pre-service teachers with higher scores on Openness had more engagement in creativity-related experiences. Educators can set the guidelines for how students can offer constructive feedback in ways that will be well-received and helpful to their classmates. Instead, give them time to figure things out on their own. Well-timed positive teacher responses will naturally encourage students further efforts while, in contrast, premature and especially negative teacher responses will discourage students from further creative exploration. - The OECD Skills Outlook 2021 explores how policies can best promote lifelong learning for all. Formal education has a controversial dual role regarding human creativity: it simultaneously kills and cultivates it. Moreover, mean comparisons for each of the three demographic variables (i.e. There were 6 respondents aged 25 or younger, 12 aged 2635, and another 12 aged 36 or older. Although the study does not report as a routine the reliabilities of the CFTIndex and its subscales, it provides interesting new information in the correlations between subscale scores and student creativity; these lead evidence to the validity of the CFTIndex in a different way. Carolina's Asian American Center is a space for Carolina students, faculty and staff to learn about Asian American identity and culture through resources and programming, like visiting scholars and guest lecturers. Groups tend to find more creative solutions, as well as foster a sense of collaboration. However, the reliability for the whole scale of 45 items is =.95, which is very high for research instrument. Having the opportunity to create a learning environment that encourages creative thinking, teachers are in a unique position to help students develop one of their most important life skills. Of course, it remains to be seen how the changes affect the interpretation of the results. Classroom observation and face-to-face interviews were conducted with teachers who scored above the 50th percentile of CFTIndex. age, academic qualification and teaching experience) showed no significant differences. They indicate that teachers of the studies displayed these three creativity fostering behaviours more visibly. This entails the need to define and describe creative fostering teacher behaviours first and then develop an instrument based on them. A change to the environment will impact the level of creativity.