Applying Research Thought Leader Wisdom

The Collaborative’s Research Thought Leaders help provide the strong research foundation upon which the Collaborative’s work rests. Each Thought Leader is nationally and internationally recognized in their own field and brings an extensive depth of experience and expertise. They also are adept at working across disciplines.
In our previous newsletters, we brought you interviews with each of our Thought Leaders. This new series will consider how you might apply some of their most important ideas in your STEAM work. To do so, we’ll use examples of the Collaborative’s successful application of these ideas in K-12 classroom implementation and teacher professional development. This first in a series of articles looks at STEAM’s relation to creativity and innovation. Future series articles will look at such topics as equity; interdisciplinarity; applications of these concepts to learning settings; STEAM educator training; and creating effective STEAM models. The easily readable information below is built upon the Thought Leaders’ newsletter interviews, on conversations with them, and on an in-person convening in Washington, DC, that was supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
 
Creativity and Innovation
For the Collaborative, the definition of creativity relates to novel ideas, while innovation refers to the application of those novel ideas to appropriate uses.

THOUGHT LEADER INPUT

• Let Them Play the Music. Creativity in Education Thought Leader Bonnie Cramond, PhD, cites University of Georgia mathematics professor Jason Cantarella, PhD, who said, “If we taught music like they teach math in schools, we would only teach the music scales and not get to play the beautiful music”. In addition to teaching the required content (the “scales”), she points out, we also must integrate the wonder that’s found in all disciplines when using creativity. She adds that creativity is found not just in the arts, but that it also is involved in any human endeavor. For, she points out, creativity is looking at something in a different way, solving a problem in a new way, or expressing something in an original manner. This is greatly needed in STEM (Sciences, Technology, Engineering, and Math), as this is where our greatest breakthroughs are developed, she adds.
• Innovative Cognition. Neuroscience Thought Leader, Sandi Chapman, PhD, agrees with the importance of the use of these concepts across disciplines. She adds that innovative cognition is the most powerful function of the human brain, for our brain was designed to create new knowledge – not just to be a fact storage-retrieval machine. Innovative thinking, she points out, is important in all types of disciplines, from sciences, technology, engineering, and math to the arts and humanities. To improve the well-being of our society, she adds, we must introduce innovative cognition starting in youth to build a lifelong desire for ingenuity.
• SMART Strategies. Dr. Chapman adds that there are specific strategies to promote these innovative thinking skills. These include: 1) Strategic attention, where information is narrowed down to the information most applicable to the situation; 2) integrated reasoning, where you get the “Big Idea” of what your problem is about, then integrate across disciplines, as well as apply the synthesis to your life; and 3) innovation, where you can use multiple approaches to create change.
• Transfer. Arts Thought Leader Rob Horowitz, PhD, agrees with the importance of synthesizing across disciplines and points out how creativity, imagination, and the willingness to express oneself also are applied in the STEM world. He adds that while cognitive, social, and personal competencies, such as fluency, imagination, and collaboration, can transfer from the arts to other disicplines, other disciplines’ competencies, such as problem-solving, can transfer back to the arts. This can be a mutually-reinforcing system where each discipline’s processes and competencies can reinforce those of other disciplines, he says.
• Imagination. Science Thought Leader Hubert Dyasi, PhD, agrees with Dr. Horowitz that imagination is an important element in science that is not stressed enough. That’s how scientists move from data to generalizations to modeling, he says. He adds that visualization and imagination are important in helping students “see” science ideas.
• Connecting Seemingly Unrelated Ideas. Dr. Chapman notes that the use of creative thinking and imagination inspires students to generate as many ideas as they can across disciplines, based on meaningfulness, then apply these ideas to solve a problem. This, she says, helps students connect seemingly unrelated ideas.
• Process. All Thought Leaders point to the primary importance of integrating processes and competencies across disciplines, in addition to teaching the fact-based content. In this, they say, we want to include failure, feedback, and multiple iterations, for in doing this we are allowing the brain to do important work.

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​APPLICATION

• The Collaborative’s National Endowment for the Arts-supported multi-year and multi-session teacher professional development (PD) effective practices project addresses these important Thought Leader concepts. It first trains K-12 classroom teachers from all disciplines across the US in the Collaborative’s creative and innovative thinking skills and their application to effective STEAM practices. The development of these thinking skills was a collective effort by Collaborative members who are leaders in the arts, STEM, humanities, and higher education. These skills and their usage are continuously improved, based on feedback from the Collaborative’s studies of these thinking skills in action. A number of teachers in the PD project said these thinking skills and their application was one of the most important and useful things they learned in the training. Teachers also have said that these thinking skills are so valuable, they are making a poster to use each time they plan lessons.
• These thinking skills are assessed by the Collaborative’s thinking skills rubric. Another rubric, addressing interdisciplinarity, will be addressed in the next newsletter. It is these rubrics and the thinking skills they are assessing that, among other things, are looking at this important concept of transfer among disciplines, Dr. Horowitz points, out,
• The thinking skills also are taught to administrators who are another important part of this Collaborative PD. This training better equips them to provide effective STEAM leadership for those with whom they work.
• The importance of these thinking skills was validated in a recent Collaborative study of students across the US. It found that use of the Collaborative’s thinking skills and STEAM lessons increased creative thinking 188% in elementary students and 126% in secondary students. Importantly, this growth was the same for white and other ethnic groups.
• Other aspects of the study found that elementary students who participated in the STEAM instruction reported significant gains between pre- and post-intervention in their enjoyment of school in general, learning math, learning science, and thinking outside the box. Among secondary students, students who received the STEAM instruction reported significantly more enjoyment of school, enjoyment of math, interest in science, perception of the importance of cross-disciplinary work and perception of the arts’ helping to learn science than students in traditional art and science classes.
• In the Collaborative’s STEAM lessons, students creatively integrate STEM and the arts with innovative approaches advocated by the Thought Leaders. They use imagination that the Thought Leaders say is so important. They visualize science principles that Dr. Dyasi points out is important. They are using their brains for processing and use the mandated content instead of just memorizing it, as Dr. Chapman points out is important. These students, as Dr. Cantarella points out, do, indeed “play the music”.