How do exemplary teachers incorporate creativity in their teaching? For her dissertation study, Dr. Danah Henriksen interviewed several National Teacher of the Year award winners (and finalists), to better understand their beliefs, interests, and practices involving creative teaching. Analysis of the data help us identify key themes of how these teachers approach the creative process, as well as the connection between their personal interests and professional creativity. This paper has finally been published!! (Yes it took a while). Those interested can download it from the link below:
Henriksen, D., & Mishra, P. (2015). We teach who we are: Creativity in the lives and practices of accomplished teachers. Teachers College Record Volume 117 Number 7, 2015, p. – http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 17947, Date Accessed: 5/22/2015 12:08:16 PM
The publication of the paper was followed up some media attention. This has been one of the best pieces of research I have had the privilege to be a part of. I think Danah has done a fantastic job and she (and the work) deserves all the attention that it has been getting.
Here is a video created by Vialogues & TCRecord where Danah describes the research and findings. You can join in the conversation here.
Below are some of the other links to media reports and related publications:
- A media release prepared by Michigan State University that got the ball rolling (Thanks to Andy Henion for all his help with this): America’s Best Teachers Get Creative. This was also posted on the College of Education’s website here.
- MSU Today, at the same time posted a profile of Dr. Henriksen: Learning from best
- The National Education Association’s online presence neaToday wrote about our work in an article titled: How Teachers Stay Creative In the High-Stakes Testing Era.
- An article in Quartz magazine: America’s best teachers use theater and rap to make kids like math
- A blog post on Science20: How exceptional Teachers use Creativity in the Classroom
- A blog post on Ed Week: Creativity and Making Great Teachers
In addition here are a couple of other articles that are related to this line of research:
- An article in Educational Leadership (Henriksen & Mishra, 2013): Creativity Now! Learning from Creative Teachers
- An article in the STEM Journal (Henriksen, 2014): Full STEAM Ahead: Creativity in Excellent STEM Teaching Practices
Yup that’s right linda creativity is one thing that is have change the world in the upcoming days . But sometimes it is harmful .
I believe creativity can change the world. I recently studied creativity in education while in doing a MSc in Creative Studies at Buffalo State and found there are many teachers that also believe creativity is important. They however did not know how to bring it into the classroom or did not have support from administration and even parents. The focus on standardized testing pushes creativity away which I consider the larger issue.