Evaluating creative learning environments: New instrument

by | Sunday, February 18, 2018

Note: There is a more recent, May 2023 post (Scaling up the SCALE instrument) that offers
an update on other researchers who have utilized the instrument for their own research.

Creativity is a key educational goal and essential 21st century skill. That said, much of the existing research in the field of creativity has focused on individual, psychological, and/or personality variables, which, while important, offer minimally practical advice to educators.  The intentional design of learning environments is an area that has not seen much attention in the literature, yet it is profoundly important to supporting creativity in children.

In a recent paper (link below) Carmen Richardson and I propose an instrument (Support of Creativity in Learning Environment: SCALE) that is designed to assess the ways in which a learning environment supports student creativity. SCALE is modeled on The Three-Minute Classroom Walk-Through and is a short, focused, and informal instrument aimed not to evaluate the teacher but rather to gather information about practice. SCALE measures three different aspects of a learning environment: Learner Engagement; the Physical Environment; and the Learning Climate.

The complete process that led to the development of the SCALE instrument can be found in:

Richardson, C., & Mishra, P., (2017). Learning Environments that Support Student Creativity: Developing the SCALE. Thinking Skills and Creativity https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2017.11.004

The actual instrument, along with some background information and instructions for use can be found below:

Richardson, C. & Mishra, P. (2017). Support of Creativity in Learning Environment: SCALE).

A few randomly selected blog posts…

TPACK in Science: New book & chapter

I was invited to write an epilogue for a new book on the development of science teachers TPACK (with a specific focus on East Asia), and I "volunteered" my colleague Danah Henriksen to help with it (thanks Danah). The book was recently published. Here is the citation...

Miami / Globe Video Update

Miami / Globe Video Update

I had posted earlier about the work our design initiatives team is involved with at Miami Junior-Senior High School. Essentially the entire faculty and leadership at the school have taken on the challenge of re-imagining the 7/8 curriculum through an integrated...

Slumdog night (and Rahman)

Slumdog rolled into the Oscars tonight. More important to me were the two Oscars for A. R. Rahman for original score and song. It is time that the world recognized his genius. Here is a cartoon by Kaladhar Bapu from his site Point Blank A.R. Rahman by Kaladhar Bapu

Reading Obama, and getting it right!

I rarely if ever blog about politics - though I follow it avidly. I spend large parts of my day reading the news, keeping up with what is going on. Most of my news gathering happens online (the little TV I watch, usually the Daily Show, also happens online). And it is...

Help me, find a story by Ursula Le Guin

Help me, find a story by Ursula Le Guin

 I am looking for a short story by Ursula Le Guin that I read many years ago growing up in India. The story has stayed with me but I cannot find it, despite many deep dives into the internet. I have posted on reddit, on the Ursula Le...

designing research | designing technology

Matt Koehler and I usually have a end of semester show-case of work done by the students in our classes. This semester Matt has been teaching CEP955 (Research design and methods for educational psychology and educational technology) and I have been involved with...

The blame (& praise) game continues

I have shared earlier a design for a reflection ambigram for the two words "praise" and "blame" - where one word becomes another when reflected in a mirror. In fact the design has been printed in 3D. As it turns out this was a design that I had made many years ago -...

Flipping the Tech & Ed equation

My research and scholarship has mostly been in the area of educational technology - i.e. how to improve / facilitate learning through the use of technologies. David Brooks in his latest op-ed (The biggest issue) in the NYTimes flips this around somewhat. Citing...

2 Comments

  1. Mithun Ranjan Dey

    I am really grateful to be a part of such informative webinar

    Reply
  2. Saad Raja

    Good creative information is shared, it is all about creative thinking.

    Reply

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Education & Skills Sector Reading List, February 2018 – The Learner - […] While creativity is a key 21st Century education goal, how can we measure the ways in which a learning…

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *