Matthew Worwood:
Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Matthew Werwood, and.

Cyndi Burnett:
My name is Dr. Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood:
This is the fueling creativity in Education podcast.

Cyndi Burnett:
On this podcast, we’ll be talking about various creativity topics and how they relate to the fields of education.

Matthew Worwood:
We’ll be talking with scholars, educators, and resident experts about their work, challenges they face, and exploring new perspectives of creativity.

Cyndi Burnett:
All with a goal to help fuel a more rich and informed discussion that provides teachers, administrators, and emerging scholars with the information they need to infuse creativity into teaching and learning.

Matthew Worwood:
So let’s begin. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast. And this is our third episode of our winter 2023 listen and learn series, where Cindy and I produce a collection of short episodes, super duper short episodes, to support professional learning.

Cyndi Burnett:
This listen and learn series is dedicated to generative AI and its future use in creativity in education. And like our 2023 summer listen and learn series, these episodes will provide one key takeaway that our listeners can use as they bring creativity into the classroom.

Matthew Worwood:
So let’s begin.

Cyndi Burnett:
So our theme for this week is enhancing our creative process. So, Matt, do you have a clip for us?

Matthew Worwood:
I do, and this clip comes from, oh, I’ve forgotten when we recorded it. I think it was maybe December 2022. And it’s with Dr. David Cropley. And David Cropley is in fact, David Cropley is putting some really great LinkedIn posts at the moment. So I would encourage anyone who’s interested in generative AI creativity definitely follow Dr. David Cropley. And we had him on the show and he said this really fascinating thing.

Matthew Worwood:
Again, it was before the release of Chat GPT, but this quote was kind of like we was asking, well, hey, what’s the future of creativity? And this was his response.

David Cropley:
I think the first thing is probably for people to understand this issue of what is it that we do? What is it that we bring to the table, so to speak, in work? And then what is it that robots AI and so on bring to the table? So we kind of have to understand each other’s strengths in order to understand how AI and humans can work together. My view is that robots AI will never be creative in the sense that we’re talking about, but that the likely future is some sort of blend where human beings, for example, define the problems that need to be solved. But when it gets to the idea, generation and evaluation that that is much more of a collaborative exercise where we bring certain things to the picture, but that AI can support that. But then again, right at the end, when we’ve got a solution, and we’re testing or validating that solution, that that’s essentially the domain of humans. So we decide what the problem is. We work together with AI to generate the solutions, but then only humans can tell you if they’re satisfied with the solution. So it’ll be this kind of blend of activity in the different stages of creative problem solving. But the key to me is we need to understand what it is that we’re good at and what it is that AI, robots and so on are good at.

Cyndi Burnett:
So, Matt, what did you think?

Matthew Worwood:
Well, I think the big thing there, I do want to highlight again, this was before Chat GPT came out, but everyone’s been playing around with Chat GPT, and a lot of it is just figuring out what is it that it can do? And I think, how might it assist me in my process? And I think, for me, that’s very much what David Cropley is talking about, and I think it’s something that we all should do as we kind of referenced in our first episode of the listen and learn series. Start small, but start exploring how you might be able to integrate this into your classroom environment and therefore part of your creative process.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yeah. And I think that word enhancing our creative process is really where the sweet spot is, because I know for myself I enjoy writing, and when I’m writing, if I get stuck, I will use generative AI to help me think through the next stages. So it’s like having a really good writing coach to say, hey, do you want to talk about this, or do you want to talk about this? I’m like, oh, I want to talk about this. All right, let’s go in that direction. So I think looking at what David said about finding your strengths and then really maximizing on those strengths with generative AI is where we should be looking at in terms of nurturing that creative potential.

Matthew Worwood:
Yeah. And just talking about the concept of creative potential and really trying to individualize it, I think what’s really important, you had referenced how you utilize it in a particular context that’s relevant to a need that you have. You have a blog. I’ve heard other people say that they’ve used something like Chat GPT, for example, to actually provide them feedback on their existing work. So how might they enhance it or improve it, or where is it weaker? And so been listening to all these different uses that people are discovering, but they seem very personalized, and I think there’s something special about that. There’s lots of conversations around the future of chat bots and the idea of everyone having their own personalized chat bot to a certain extent, with some of the most recent updates. With Chat GPT, we’re all kind of like being tasked to kind of find out what type of chat bot do we want to assist us. And so I think this is a great tip to begin that process is starting to think about how might I use a generative AI tool? It doesn’t have to be Chat GPT to enhance an aspect of my creative process.

Matthew Worwood:
Do you want to bring more creative and critical thinking into your school? Look no further than our podcast sponsor, curiosity to create.

Cyndi Burnett:
Curiosity to create is a nonprofit organization dedicated to engaging professional development for school districts and empowering educators through online courses and personal coaching.

Matthew Worwood:
And if you’re craving a community of creative educators who love new ideas, don’t miss out on their creative thinking network. Get access to monthly webinars, creative lesson plans, and a supportive community all focused on fostering creativity in the classroom.

Cyndi Burnett:
To learn more, check out curiositytocreate.org or check out the links in the show notes for this episode. So as we wrap up, we want to make sure that we give our listeners the letter for today’s episode. So are you ready? Matt? I’m going to let you give the letter today.

Matthew Worwood:
Yes. All right, so just before I give the letter, I’m going to kind of like, remind everyone we’re giving a letter at the end of every single one of our listen and learn episodes. And once you’ve got all of the letters, they form a code word, and you’re going to grab that code word, and you’re going to email Cindy and I before the end of January that code word, and then a one or two sentence summary of what you’ve taken away from this listen and learn series. And the letter for that episode is. Drumroll. It is C. Cindy. Cindy.

Matthew Worwood:
Yes.

David Cropley:
Cat.

Matthew Worwood:
Candy caterpillar.

Cyndi Burnett:
Courageous colleague, capital.

Matthew Worwood:
Did you say courageous?

Cyndi Burnett:
I did.

Matthew Worwood:
Okay, let’s end it there. I’ve run out of small vocabulary. My name’s Dr. Matthew Werwood, and my.

Cyndi Burnett:
Name is Dr. Cindy Brunette. This episode was produced by Matthew Warwood and Cindy Burnett. Our podcast sponsor is curiosity to create, and our editor is Sam Atkinson.