Celebrating One Year of Fueling Creativity! Four Key Themes

Bridging the Gap, Season 3

“This pandemic, although challenging, is really highlighting the creativity that exists within the teaching profession.”   – Dr. Matthew Worwood
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Celebrating One Year of Fueling Creativity! Four Key Themes
For this very special, one-year anniversary episode of the Fueling Creativity Podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood have gone through all 28 interview transcriptions from the Fueling Creativity episodes and identified four powerful themes that have emerged from these discussions. They originally presented these themes at the Creativity Expert Exchange at SUNY Buffalo State. Today, you get to listen in on this informative and powerful presentation!  Or, you can read the transcript here. If you’d like to book Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood to deliver this presentation as an interactive workshop to your school or institution, don’t hesitate to send them an email at questions@fuelingcreativitypodcast.com.   Themes & Subthemes from Year 1 of Fueling Creativity: #1 – Setting the creative environment of the classroom
  • Trust and Safety
  • Risk-Taking- feeling comfortable making mistakes
  • Openness to new ideas and perspectives
  • Allow time for questions and exploration Encourage respectful debate
  • Challenging students to highest ability- not average
  • Value differences
  • Think beyond the walls of the classroom
#2 – Creative Teachers
  • Creative Teachers are designers
  • Creative Teachers Model Creative Behaviors and Attitudes
  • Creative Teachers are Lifelong Learners
  • Creative Teachers are open and willing to try new things
  • Creative Teachers take risks and are willing to admit if they failed or made a mistake
  • Creative Teachers make time for self-care
  • Creative Teachers don’t have all the answers
#3 – Instructional Practice
  • Ask Open-Ended questions
  • Embed time for wondering and curiosity
  • Expose students to diverse things (books, museums, nature, etc).
  • Use Inquiry/Problem Based Learning
  • Spend time problem-finding
  • Help students find meaning, purpose and connection to content
  • Work through ambiguity, uncertainty and complexity
  • Get students comfortable with discomfort and failure
  • Shift student perspectives, allowing an openness to new ideas
  • Explore feelings and emotions related to the learning/creative process
  • Give students agency- a choice and voice on what they are doing
#4 – The Future Creative (Preparing our students for the future!)
  • A person who is cable of working with people of varied backgrounds and perspectives
  • A person who can think ethically when selecting ideas and developing solutions
  • A person who can work though complex problems and manage change
  • A person who can identify what humans do best, and what machines might do better
  • A person who can work in collaboration with AI
   

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Podcast Sponsor

We are thrilled to partner with Curiosity 2 Create as our sponsor, a company that shares our commitment to fostering creativity in education. Curiosity 2 Create empowers educators through professional development and community support, helping them integrate interactive, creative thinking approaches into their classrooms. By moving beyond traditional lecture-based methods, they help teachers create dynamic learning environments that enhance student engagement, improve academic performance, and support teacher retention. With a focus on collaborative learning and exploration, Curiosity 2 Create is transforming classrooms into spaces where students thrive through continuous engagement and growth.

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