Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast

bridging the gap

where it started

Like so many other podcasters, we started our journey during the pandemic. At first, we called the show Fueling Creativity because we wanted to emphasize the idea of a conversation about creativity shared during a cup of morning expresso. However, we quickly recognized the need to emphasize that our focus of conversation was toward teaching and learning environments, so we extended the title of our podcast to include the word, education.

We identified the tagline, Bridging the Gap, because we saw a disconnect between the knowledge generated from the field about creativity and the unique ways teachers and administrators are working to promote, nurture, and design effective ways to encourage and develop creativity in the classroom.

We get challenged to articulate our audience, and from our perspective, we think many of our episodes focus on the intellectually curious educator or the emerging scholar who wants to learn more about creativity and education and, more specifically, utilize ideas and an experienced knowledge base to support their creative efforts in teaching and scholarship.

Creativity is taking old stuff, and putting it together with other old stuff, to make new stuff.

Meet the Team

Dr. Matthew Worwood

co-host & producer

Matthew Worwood is an education consultant and full-time faculty member at the University of Connecticut’s Digital Media and Design Department. He is also the director of Digital Media CT, a consortium of Connecticut-based higher education institutions working in collaboration to promote digital media careers in Connecticut. His research interests focus on Teacher Creativity, Co-Creativity with Generative AI, and Design Thinking. 

Matthew has produced a collection of low-budget documentary films exploring education issues. He also writes about various education and creativity topics and shares his ideas for teacher creativity and how it supports long-term professional growth on his website, WorwoodClassroom.com. Matthew’s current projects include TeacherRoundtables.com, the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast, and research on a new proposed model for creativity called the CAUSE model. Matthew also continues to work with local school districts on his framework for teacher creativity, which utilizes different aspects of design thinking, creativity theory, and research into teacher transformation. 

Dr. Cyndi Burnett

co-host & producer

Cyndi is the Vice President of Curiosity 2 Create, a non-profit dedicated to empowering educators to infuse creative thinking into the classroom. She spent 20 years as an academic teaching deliberate creative thinking and creativity problem-solving at the Center for Applied Imagination at SUNY Buffalo State University. Her work includes projects such as working with educators to bring creative thinking into the classroom, connecting communities of creative thinkers via social media, and designing and running a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Igniting Your Everyday Creativity. 

Cyndi is the author of various books and journal articles on creativity and has been featured in Women’s HealthWomen’s World, and the New York Times article “Creativity becomes an Academic Discipline.” More recently, Cyndi co-founded the Creative Thinking Network, a professional network for educators who love new ideas, led by Curiosity 2 Create, and published Weaving Creativity into Every Strand of Your Curriculum. 

Sam Atkinson

Podcast editor

Sam Atkinson is a podcast editor based in the UK. He’s been assisting with audio & video edits for the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast since September 2023. Working in the audio space is his passion and a hobby turned job so it’s a pleasure to be a part of a podcast that focuses on what creativity means for educators.

Jimmy Wilson

Scholar in-residence

Jimmy Wilson is a doctoral student in Educational Psychology at UConn’s Renzulli Center for Creativity, Talent Development and Gifted Education. He has taught creative writing, English, and ESL in rural and Title 1 schools in Texas for the past decade and has his M.Ed. from Southern Methodist University. At 6’8” he is easy to spot and always willing to chat about his research interests of creativity, equity, and neurodiversity, or his adorable dog, Luke. 

Latest Debrief

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