Creative Learning Practices2006

This book results from The Creative Learning and Student’s Perspectives (CLASP) research project which examined processes of creative learning. Nine research groups throughout Europe explored creative learning practices in a variety of different educational contexts. The research observed teachers across the cultures constructing real and critical events, incorporating external collaborations, being innovative with space and modeling their own creativity for students. Secondly, it identified some characteristics of creative learning itself, e.g. intellectual enquiry, engaged productivity and process and product reviews. Thirdly, the research demonstrated how teacher strategies and creative learning became meaningful to students with the students gaining self affirmation, developing social identities and appreciating being given a social role in pedagogic evaluation. The book details the research in Austria, Denmark, England, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Spain and Sweden. Topics which are highlighted include: How the use of the outside environment engaged learners; The radical use of new technologies to engage with other cultures; How specialist programmes galvanized teacher and student creativity in performativity cultures; The development of positive relations and meaningful educational identities for students on the fringes of education; How graduate students negotiated pedagogic changes in practice with lecturers; How community projects organized by students engaged commitment; The extent to which good second language learning involves creative inputs; How control over curriculum can be given to very young children; and How even when flexibility is a policy imperative class differences in access to the curriculum are difficult to overcome. The varied examples in this book should inspire teachers and practitioners and act as a force for good in the development of creative learning across cultures.