Creativity - and some ideas about how to assess it!

This blog post is about creativity and ideas to assess it. I am lucky enough to be part of PressPlay (@Letsgetplayful on Twitter), a group of like-minded educators, passionate about play in and beyond the early years. Last week, Bill Lucas was part of a Q and A with PressPlay about this very subject. 

Bill shared many gems including:

- Assessment cannot and should not be separated from the written curriculum, learning and teaching.

- Assessment should never be about numbers, levels and grades. It is about narrative and understanding who children are, authentic and scenario-based and narrative-led. 

- A view of creativity as 5 interlocking creative habits of mind - inquisitive, collaborative, persistent, disciplined and imaginative. I connect so strongly with these habits of mind, but I was initially challenged by the idea that all 5 are necessarily a part of creativity. Unpacked so beautifully in this resource developed by a school, big ideas such as being curious, working alongside others, growth mindset, the creative process and playing with possibilities emerge. 

- Curiosity as the the oxygen of learning! What a powerful metaphor to breathe life into learning and consider this beyond a want or a wish, and view curiosity as a need!

- Creativity is a disposition that transcends curriculum. It is a transdisciplinary lens that goes beyond the arts!

- Creativity is a state or habit of mind, but alongside this, there are skills to develop. Skills are learned and practised until they become habits and dispositions. A recent document from the IB (The Early Years in the PYP) breaks down thinking into sub-skills. One sub-skill is creative thinking and highlights children being able to generate novel ideas and consider new perspectives.

- Creativity is complex! 

- Play as the driver for creativity - absorbed in a state of flow and how a playful learner exercises divergent thinking where there are no rules. The rules are the limits of your imagination! Play is our way of making sense of the world. 

- A definition of creativity developed with Guy Claxton: "Being creative is being able to have a good idea when you need one, and being able to recognise your first ideas is not your only idea." and then a connection with divergent, convergent and reflective thinking. This reminded me of Sir Ken Robinson's words: "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original."

- The use of the word "evidenced" when unpacking assessment. Viewing assessment as evidence of learning is so powerful and clarifies the process of assessment. 

- Assessment as being 'multi-modal' curated by the learner her/himself. Bill proposed an ongoing profile - a type of portfolio that showcases best work, work in progress and reflections on learning - a profile that is continuously curated and adapted. 

- Creativity can sometimes be seen as an artefact or the process of action, but sometimes it's happening in the brain or the heart. This resonated with me and affirmed the importance of self-assessment, reflection and conferring with children rather than making assumptions about what we see. 

- A field guide to assessing creativity can be viewed here. Practical strategies include the use of coloured marbles linked to the 5 habits of mind and human continuums for children to reflect on how confident they are in being creative. Clear thinking routines are needed for even the youngest children to become reflective learners. 

Reflecting on this live question and answer session and the gems I gleaned, I was reminded about this insightful animation. 

Since viewing PressPlay's session, I was lucky enough to attend Dylan Wiliam's webinar on formative assessment with Toddle. 

Some gems I extracted from Dylan's session include:

- Better evidence leads to better decisions which leads to better learning (Better in the sense of going deeper and being broader to check in on all students.)

- Formative assessment as a practice is based on 3 questions: Where is the learner going? Where is the learner now? How will the learner get to where they are going?

- The purpose of feedback is to improve the learner (in the way the PYP advocates feed forward). 

- The importance of activating students as owners of their own learning (self-regulated learners). 

- High-order questioning is more important than open-ended questioning. High-order questioning requires a deep level of thinking and this can be achieves with open-ended and closed questions. 

Strategies to promote creativity:

- Consider the depth and breadth of creativity and the connections with inquiry, play and being playful

- Model it! Show children how you are creative in school and out of school

- Name and notice creativity in the children and the spaces in and out of school

- Encourage creativity by making time for it

- Design open-ended, playful learning opportunities and ask high order questions that require creative thinking 

- Access to loose parts and open-ended materials that children can use and combine in infinite ways

- Explore creativity outdoors - in nature, neighbourhood walks, playgrounds, field trips, loose parts such as planks, wheels, crates and pipes

- Use the language of metacognition to reflect on creativity and the creative process. 

Examples of creativity in Kindergarten in the past few weeks:

Our current unit of inquiry is under the transdisciplinary theme of How we express ourselves and is based on the concepts of imagination and creativity. Beyond this inquiry, creativity of course is evidenced in children's play, some of our routines and playful learning opportunities. 

The unit started with an opportunity for children to play with fabrics, use their imagination and be creative. Children used the fabrics as props, settings and inspiration for characters. Here, a child is swimming. 

At different times, children have drawn characters, settings and props that could be part of a story. Children work collaboratively to sequence these pictures to develop oral storytelling. Later, children will express themselves in other ways of their choice, too. 

We regularly go outside of school. Here, the children were invited to look at the clouds and the sky to think creatively about what they saw. 

Although we have been using the vocabulary of being creative for a few weeks now, we took the time to have students unpack what this really meant and to document their thinking. To scaffold this, we went on a neighbourhood walk to photograph examples of creativity. Children then looked at the photographs and in groups, they chose which photos they thought they were the most creative. This then helped them think about what creativity meant to them. 

The children had been creating museums to show their cultural identities and they then used the criteria developed above to find examples of creativity in their own and their friends' museums. 

Playing with shadows outside on the neighbourhood walk prompted a group of children to be creative with shadow puppets. As they are playing with characters, stories are naturally emerging. 

Literature that we have read is chosen to model and prompt thinking about creativity. This often results in children being inspired to respond to stories in their play, perhaps through construction, drawing, role play or their own stories. 

As part of the morning routine each day, there is a message for children to read. Some of the most recent messages can be seen here:

Another part of the morning routine is a mathematical task. We are currently using the routine "Which one doesn't belong?" (Images courtesy of Simon Gregg). This daily routine encourages such creative thinking from powerful observations. 

Creativity is often seen in children's play. Here are a selection of photos showing children's choices in the past week - drawing, small world play, construction, cork boards, watercolours, pattern blocks and using the SmartBoard. Having continued access to materials encourages children to be creative agents of their own learning. 

Evidence of creativity is often found outdoors with children using loose parts in innovative ways. Yesterday, children were involved in symbolic play and imagined sticks as swords, magic wands, a piano, a swing and a large boat! 

Other times, children make creative use of loose parts in their physical play to challenge themselves with obstacle courses and reaching new heights!

Here, a group of children were interested in playing with water and used different materials to create dams and pathways to control the flow of water. 

These photographs alongside quotes from the children and their reflective insights are added to a documentation folder is always on display in the classroom for children and adults to look at. 

Reflection:

What do you think creativity means?

What examples of creativity have your learners shown recently?

How do you monitor and document children's creativity?

How do you involve the child in reflecting on their own creativity?