Facilitating creativity in higher education: a brief account of NTFs' views, Marilyn Fryer

Published in the book Developing Creativity in Higher Education¹. A report on a survey of 94 recipients of the Higher Education Academy National Teaching Fellowship (90 email questionnaires and 24 in-depth interviews)².

The chapter begins with a survey of research into attitudes towards and perceptions of creativity amongst teachers in schools and (much less commonly) in higher education. The results of such studies seem to confirm the intuitively obvious: for example, that the valuing of creativity varied with preferred teaching styles.

The NTF survey is impressive in its sample size - Fellows from across the broad spectrum seemed to be quite keen to respond. The details of the response are equally impressive. The NTFs were asked to describe aspects of creativity. Their answers were compiled into a useful table (p.78), with "imagination" at the top (90%) and several other somewhat general notions proving to be popular, including "innovation" (76.6%) and "invention" (66.7%). However, it's interesting to see that several more tangible behaviours are rated highly, for example "seeing unusual connections" (86.7%), "combining ideas" (80%) and "generative thinking" (53.3%), suggesting a more pragmatic engagement with creative actions - indeed 92.2% of respondents believe that "creativity can be developed" p.79. Also of interest is the fact that there were no strong disciplinary biases expressed. Fryer suggests that these attitudes may be the result of the widening debate concerning creative education (p.79), with active teachers readily accepting its importance for all students.

The NTFs, however, seem less optimistic concerning the ability of HE to adopt creativity more consistently:

Most NTFs [National Teaching Fellows] are highly motivated and keen to develop students’ creativity.  …  Even though most of the NTFs see themselves as having more autonomy, flexibility … many struggle with challenging working conditions… responses highlight the fact that, despite some really innovative teaching, much HE provision is still geared to the previous century (in some instances, the century before that). p.82

This could be blamed upon an entrenched legacy HE culture, defining assessment goals and practices, that is biased towards bahaviours that are not creative.

Whilst 75% of the NTFs believe that the capacity to be creative enhances academic performance, few (13.5%) believe that the most academically successful students are also the most creative. p.80

Fryer concludes that "questions need to asked about the criteria for academic success." (p.87) - a significant, if not revolutionary question to pose. Assessment was especially singled-out as a blocker to a revaluation of creativity. (p.86)

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¹ Developing Creativity in Higher Education: An Imaginative Curriculum, Norman Jackson, Martin Oliver, Malcolm Shaw and James Wisdom, Routledge 2006
² Facilitating creativity in higher education: a brief account of National Teaching Fellows' views, Marilyn Fryer in Jackson et al 2006.

Robert O'Toole : 27 Oct 2009 00:27 |  Tags: Creativity Inspiration National Teaching Fellows |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem