Matthew Worwood [00:00:00]:
Faculty in many ways are very entrepreneurial because they’re coming up with new theories and they’re going and designing those new theories and they’re sharing those new theories. Then they’re seeking funding to help develop those new theories. So it’s important that we can take that entrepreneurial mindset and apply it to every single domain. And why not go and apply it to the classroom environment? Hello everyone. My name is Doctor Matthew Werwood.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:24]:
And my name is Doctor Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood [00:00:26]:
This is the fuelling creativity in Education podcast.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:30]:
On this podcast, we’ll be talking about various creativity topics and how they relate to the field of education.

Matthew Worwood [00:00:36]:
We’ll be talking with scholars, educators and resident experts about their work, challenges they face, and exploring new perspectives of creativity.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:44]:
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 [00:00:56]:
So let’s begin.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:59]:
Today we have two special guests from the University College Dublin Innovation Academy. If you’re interested in creativity and design through experiential learning or creativity in higher education, you will love this episode. So first up is Rosie Leonard Kane. Rosie started her career as a secondary level maths teacher. She worked in London’s most deprived areas, where educational outcomes are still closely linked to socioeconomic backgrounds. Amidst a culture of high stakes exam pressure, Rosie found joy in finding creative ways to engage her students in learning and loving math, and soon found herself sharing her approaches with other colleagues. This led to a move into teacher training and development, where Rosie’s passion for supporting others to unleash their own creativity and innovation in their teaching grew. She now works as a facilitation specialist at the UCD Innovation Academy, where she has what she describes as the absolute privilege of working with educators across levels of education to develop creative confidence and adapt their approach to teaching and learning so that the students get the kind of education that they deserve.

Matthew Worwood [00:02:10]:
Next, we have Alan Morgan. Alan joined the UCD Innovation Academy in 2019 and he now holds positions as an entrepreneurial specialist, facilitator, and program director for the Professional Diploma in creativity and innovation in education. Before joining the academy, Alan held key positions at Kaplan Dublin Business School. While working at DP’s. Alan studied entrepreneurial education at the Innovation Academy and this changed his life. It was at this time that he developed a passion for creativity, innovation and entrepreneurial thinking in education, winning two awards at DP’s for above and beyond in his work with students. Alan then moved on and joined UCD Innovation Academy where he became program director for the course that changed his life. Alan has built and developed the educators program, particularly through the pandemic years to it now being an internationally recognized program for all educators at all levels.

Cyndi Burnett [00:03:07]:
So welcome to the show, Rosie and Alan.

Rosie Leonard-Kane [00:03:10]:
Thanks, Cindy. Great to be here.

Alan Morgan [00:03:12]:
Thanks, guys. Great to be here. I’ve listened to your podcast for so many years now and it’s lovely to be a participant.

Rosie Leonard-Kane [00:03:18]:
Thank you.

Cyndi Burnett [00:03:19]:
So we want to start with a question that one of you posed in the forum that we have all of our guests complete before they come to the show, which is what’s a question you really want to talk about? And the question you posed is why are we still talking about creativity in education?

Alan Morgan [00:03:37]:
Thanks, Cindy. This is a question that comes up all the time with the participants on our program, which are primarily teachers, primary and secondary school teachers, and indeed third level educators from different faculties. And they often say, I’ve read this book in creativity. I watched this video on creativity, and, you know, I always say to them, why are we still, why is there so much written about creativity in education? Why is there so much being taught at different levels? But as educators and indeed teachers and participants, we don’t seem to get to the bottom of it. We never seem to understand the ultimate goal as to how it can be utilized, used, embedded, and indeed, I think curriculum, a curricula, a curricula around the world does allowed the time and space for it either, you know, so I think it’s always going to be that big question, Rosie. Yeah.

Rosie Leonard-Kane [00:04:30]:
And I think for us in the innovation academy, you know, we talk about education needs to change, it needs more creativity. We’ve been talking about it for years and years and years, but still things don’t change. And ultimately it’s because students deserve a more creative education, which they’re not getting in many of the systems, certainly in the systems that we’re working with around the world, where they’re still very exam focused, rote learning, conforming. But in the innovation academy, we look at what are the big challenges and opportunities in the world around us, and you can’t solve that. These challenges are these sort of problems with the kind of thinking that we created them with. So we need to help our students to think differently, but it’s not happening at scale yet. So we’re still talking, we’re still working towards it.

Alan Morgan [00:05:17]:
And I think it’s also a fact that a lot of academics, teachers included, don’t understand actually what creativity is or what it means in an educational setting. So, you know, one of the things we say is everyone can be creative, but creativity is a muscle that needs to be trained and it needs to be brought into a classroom or a faculty or an institution in a collaborative way that needs to be nurtured, that needs to be embraced and needs to be followed. But very often that doesn’t happen.

Cyndi Burnett [00:05:47]:
So we have the same problem here in the US, where we find that most people don’t really understand the why. It’s like creativity is an add on, and creativity shouldn’t be an add on, as we know. But how do you get buy in? How do you get people to actually stop and pay attention to what it is that you’re doing and the value that it brings?

Rosie Leonard-Kane [00:06:08]:
So for me, and certainly on the program that we have a lot of people coming to, they come to us because they’re burnt out in education and they’re in their institutions or they’re in their classrooms, and they’re feeling a disconnect between what’s happening in the classroom or the pressures that they’re facing as educators and actually what’s needed for their students. And they feel that. They feel the disengagement of their students and they feel that, you know, it’s not matching up with their values as an educator. So often we get people coming just because they’re nearing the end of their tether in the education space and they’re thinking, this isn’t right, it’s not good enough. What can I do differently? So for me, the creativity element is actually just reconnecting to yourself as the first starting point, that you are a creative person, that you have the opportunity to make changes and to adapt and to change your practice in a way that is more fulfilling for you individually, but also will better meet the needs of your students. So I think once people experience it, and that’s a big part of the innovation academy, is helping them to experience what creativity in education is and can feel like and can lead to. Once they’ve had that experience, they’re bought in, they’re ready, they know they can take it back and they can make changes in their classrooms.

Alan Morgan [00:07:22]:
And it’s also, I’m sure Rosie will agree with me. The concept of which we see all the time is the lack of creative confidence. And, you know, the program, particularly in module one of the program, we focus a lot on developing the teachers creative confidence, understanding their own creativity, understanding their own power of having a creative mindset, to be able to bring that forward into their own classrooms.

Matthew Worwood [00:07:48]:
There was something you said earlier, Alan, and it was almost as if you were suggesting that the first step is that teachers almost get curious about what creativity is as a topic of study. Oh, wow, there’s this thing and I can go and study it and then they find your program. I wonder if we could just elaborate a little bit more on that, because obviously what that means is perhaps that curiosity isn’t being met or found within the teacher training programs. Do you think your program is only drawing teachers that discover creativity outside? And what is that typical journey of how creativity is discovered as a topic of study?

Alan Morgan [00:08:23]:
I don’t think so. I think Rosie will come in on this as well because it’s a really good question, Matt. I think the main reason why teachers join our program is they’re looking for something to reimagine their own practice. Initial teacher education in, I can only speak for Ireland, initial teacher education, both at primary and secondary level, has creative elements involved in it, but it lacks that embeddedness of creativity and innovation. I would also say that the teachers are looking, I mean, curiosity is at the heart of it, but they’re also looking for a different way of creating value for their students, creating value for themselves as well in the first instance, so they can bring that value into their classroom in a different way. And again, as I say, to look at reimagining their own practice, Rosie would have a thought on this, I’m sure, as well.

Rosie Leonard-Kane [00:09:12]:
Yeah, I think it’s quite interesting that people join our program for a whole range of reasons. And, you know, some people will have seen the module on leadership and they think, oh, yes, yes, leadership. I want to go back to university and do an element of leadership. And then they join. And with the first thing we do is actually introducing the concept of creativity, the importance of creativity, the importance of making time for creativity for yourself, and building that habit of curiosity as well. But then how do you bring that into the classroom? And quite often in the reflections and afterwards, it’s only after the program that people sort of have this awakening and say, oh my, I didn’t realize this is what was lacking in my practice and actually where I’m going to focus my energy. So sometimes they’ve come in for a different reason, but it ends up being the curiosity and the creativity that really captures their imagination.

Matthew Worwood [00:10:04]:
I mean, again, I think this is still with that big question that we asked at the beginning. Why are we still talking about it? So, you know, we’re all creativity advocates. The podcast is about creativity and education. But just going back to teacher training, why do you think this isn’t getting covered in teacher training? Because it is a little odd, because the people who typically find this creativity, Rosie, you’ve referenced it. They maybe get sparked new life. They bring new purpose and meaning both to themselves and to their classroom environment. And you spoke about, like, the passion that you ignited because of you going on the program. Wouldn’t it be great if this was just part of teacher training? And if so, why not?

Rosie Leonard-Kane [00:10:41]:
So, couldn’t agree more. I would love to see this integrated more into the teacher training programs. The reasons that people become teachers being valued and supported and nurtured as they’re through that training program. It’s a hunch, my sort of hunch, about why it has been pushed maybe out of a curriculum in initial teacher education is around lowest common denominator. And actually there is just so much content to cover nowadays that there just isn’t time. You know, we’re rushing people through these one year, two year master’s programs to become qualified teachers, and they have to cover all the procedures and policies, but also their subject content and theory of education and theory of pedagogy. And it just gets put, pushed out and out and out. And I don’t say that’s the right thing, but I think we need to take a different view of teacher education that is not just a one or two year, three year program that you’re doing, but it’s a lifelong learning journey and that would give us a longer time to engage in things like creativity.

Rosie Leonard-Kane [00:11:49]:
And so we’re not just trying to tick loads of boxes to get through to pass the exam, even at the teacher training level.

Alan Morgan [00:11:56]:
A big moment of change for Rosie and I was last year when we had one of the, you know, I won’t mention names, but a very eminent professor of initial teacher education in a university in Ireland join our program and do the program. And, you know, she came out of that program and was, like, incredibly inspired and came to us and asked Rosie and I to help her develop a module within initial teacher training. And indeed the postmasters in education around creative thinking, innovation, which for, for us was a lovely tick the box that seems to have worked. But listening to this professor, and she’s a maverick and she’s out there to change, but still, it’s still a packed agenda. What we say in the program, one of the big original reasons why the program was originally developed, and it’s ten years old this year, it was developed first in 2014, was to create a space and time for teachers to think, to take a step back and understand their own creativity, understand that they can be creative and understand how they can bring that into their classrooms. And obviously, we’ve developed and developed a program over the last ten years, but that’s still a very important part. And I think as well, if I may, most of the participants on the program don’t really have an understanding of the content. We have a basic outline of it on our brochures and websites and so on, but it’s really only at the end of the first module that they understand, oh, my God, this is where we’re going.

Alan Morgan [00:13:34]:
We say the first module is all about looking inward, looking at your creative juices that flow. And how do they flow, and how can you let them flow within the wider classroom and develop it into more collaborative creativity, if you like?

Matthew Worwood [00:13:51]:
I just want to throw something out there if we have any kind of emerging scholars in the field of creativity. I’m actually starting to think of a potential research question. I’m just wondering if there’s an opportunity to investigate teachers that have had some form of creativity training and to determine whether or not there’s kind of a relationship to the type of creativity that’s expressed in the classroom. Because what I’m sitting here and I’m thinking about this big question that we started off with, I’m wondering if, to a certain extent, yes, there’s a lot of content. I’m going to be a social studies teacher. I’m going to be a math teacher. I’ve got to learn all my content. But then we have kind of like, you know, a lot of years of research these evidence based best practices that then almost become prescribed ways of doing things in the classroom.

Matthew Worwood [00:14:33]:
And I suppose it does slowly strip away any of the uniqueness that me as an individual can go about when I design my best practices. And we’ve just got so much of it. So maybe in some ways, it’s a little bit too much attention that the system is providing on how to be the best educator, which, to be fair, let’s say, obviously a lot of good intentions to do that. But then when you look at something like the pandemic when there was no best practices, to me, that’s where we really kind of had to leverage our own creativity to get through that.

Rosie Leonard-Kane [00:15:02]:
Maybe in response to that, Matt, it makes me think of adaptive expertise. For me, this is the place that we want to get to for educators, which is that, yes, there is best practice and there are things, you know, there’s a huge evidence based now, and we should not dismiss the research that’s gone on in terms of practices within the classroom. That have better chances of having good outcomes for your students. But where we’ve stripped away the individual’s creativity and individualism and their sort of sense of purpose and fulfillment within the classroom, that’s the thing that we love to focus on in this program is actually we don’t give you tips and tricks. And here’s the ten things that you can do to be more creative in your classroom or to help your students to be more creative. It’s really about the individual learning themselves, that they are creative as a human and they can come up with new ideas and they can adapt and flex and try different things and see what works and contextualize it for their students in their setting. And really, at the end of the program, success for us is when a person says no, I feel really inspired that I’m going to try something different, I’m going to take action, and it’s going to be for me and my students in my classroom. It’s not that I’m going to take the sort of best top tips that you’ve given me and apply it.

Rosie Leonard-Kane [00:16:22]:
It’s I’m going to build on that in my classroom. So I would love to see that within that research question, I’d love to know the difference between someone who’s attended a program like ours, where we look at mindset, and someone who’s attended a program on creativity, which is here is the best evidence, and here’s what you should do in your classroom and to see over the long term what difference has happened and whether it’s sustained over the long time.

Cyndi Burnett [00:16:48]:
I think it’s definitely a yes, and I think it’s interesting. I’m writing a book right now on five points to a creative pathway. And the first point is to understand what creativity is and why it’s important in your classroom. Because, as you both just mentioned, if we don’t understand it and why it’s important, then it’s not going to happen. The second step is to embody creativity as an educator, that we have to really see ourselves as creative people, and we have to look at the curriculum we’re working with and say, I’m going to approach this as a creative person. And we’ve had some great guests on our show, Casey Lathrop, who talked about teaching as design. The third step in this pathway is about supporting an environment for creativity. And that sort of happens organically.

Cyndi Burnett [00:17:31]:
When we set up a space for trust and openness, and we set up a space for dynamism and liveliness, then creativity naturally flourishes. And then the fourth piece is around these strategies that can help you. And I always like to give the example of, you know, for homework, when you give your students homework, instead of having them go find answers, you have them find questions, because just one simple strategy like that can turn an assignment around and make it more engaging. So I think it’s absolutely a mindset piece for the teacher that has to come first, actually, in my opinion, comes back after you understand it. But then I think you can employ some easy strategies that can potentially change the lesson to make it more engaging and creative.

Rosie Leonard-Kane [00:18:13]:
And yeah, I totally agree with that, Cindy. And I guess one of the things that I was hoping that we could talk about maybe in this podcast is, you know, can you teach creativity and what does that look like? And very, very similar to what you’re saying. I was thinking around, it’s that mindset piece, the reawakening of the creative self, but then having experience techniques and, you know, it’s not a formula, but there are techniques that you can apply and processes that you can use to support and structure creative thinking, both for yourself when you’re working with the team, but also for your students. You need inspiration for those. And that’s why our program, you know, the community aspect is a really big part of that is we have to find time in a busy teacher schedule to step outside your classroom and to get ideas and inspiration from other people and other sources, because that’s how you can bring new creative ideas back to the classroom.

Alan Morgan [00:19:07]:
I think as Matthew said about the, you know, the pandemic was a, was a turning point in creativity, I would say in education globally, and certainly a turning point for us at the academy, because what has, what happened? Everything we do is based around experiential learning, learning from doing and bringing that concept of practical learning skills in a classroom environment. All of a sudden, we were kicked out of the classrooms as everyone was around the world and into the online virtual space. We had to rethink, we had to redevelop, and we had to leverage and pivot to a certain extent and use our entrepreneurial thinking as we’re all trained in the academy to move. And that’s been a key, I would say a key element of the success of the program since the pandemic. I mean, the interesting thing about it is since the pandemic, we went online and now we’re still online and we stay online. It’s been such a sea change for us, not just with the reach of the program internationally now, but also teachers and academics who are coming on the program are learning ways of teaching creativity and innovation that they can bring to their students in the virtual world as well. And we’ve had to change our techniques and our tools and our approaches for that. But I think understanding, I mean, looking at the, going back to the very first question you asked, Cindy, in relation to why creativity? What is creativity? I think we could be here until the end of next week quoting all the definitions of creativity and the papers that have been read, written and books and so on, notwithstanding your own, Cindy, which is great, but to understand, I think in each person’s individual setting, because I think, you know, every teacher’s classroom is different, every academic’s faculty is different, and it’s how they interpret their own creativity from what they’ve learned and how they want to bring that into their own curiosity filled classroom, that they can bring it to their own students.

Cyndi Burnett [00:21:06]:
And yeah, so I would love to hear from both of you an example of how you’ve done experiential learning creativity virtually. But before we do that, we’d like to hear from our sponsors.

Matthew Worwood [00:21:21]:
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 [00:21:29]:
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 [00:21:40]:
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 [00:21:55]:
To learn more, check out curiositytocreate.org comma or check out the links in the show notes for this episode. So Alan and Rosie, we’d love to hear from you an example of how you have merged experiential learning with creativity and distance education.

Alan Morgan [00:22:13]:
Okay, I’ll jump in first, Rosie. So, very broadly, the program is structured over three modules. All the modules are five days long, fully online. We do it on a part time program across the academic year, and we deliver the program in a full time summer school type delivery in three intensive weeks in June every year. In module one, we particularly bring in activities around inverted thinking, design thinking, and asking the students to work in teams. A breakout room function in Zoom, as we use, has become incredibly important to develop discussions, to develop team talks, and let them present as well in that team environment. One specific creative task that works really well in module one is when we engage in design thinking, and we specifically and always bring in an external organization deliberately not in education so to get them thinking in a different way, we might bring a charity organization in or a not for profit. And they give the teachers a problem to solve.

Alan Morgan [00:23:28]:
And using the design thinking methodology, we bring them through that problem solving methodology. We use online tools like mural padlet to a lesser extent, but we’ve designed all our own templates on mural, which we share with our students, which really help. And then we share a lot of resources through the UCD virtual learning environment as well. Rosie?

Rosie Leonard-Kane [00:23:50]:
Yeah, I guess one thing you asked there was about the experiential learning, and I think that’s a really important element of our programs. And something, when we pivoted to online learning, were very anxious about losing that experience of being together. And how do you create an experience for people? And I’ve done a bit of thinking. I know in the innovation academy, we did a lot of thinking together around what makes an experience, and through a lot of discussion, dialogue, talking to other people and reading around it as well, we would summarize, an experience is any moment or happening that makes you stop and think and just pause and say, oh, something different there. So that doesn’t have to be in person. We still have classes in person at the Innovation Academy. But for this educators program in particular, we create experiences online by bringing in speakers, by providing prompts, by providing activities using real world problems or real world examples. But the important thing is what happens after that experience.

Rosie Leonard-Kane [00:24:49]:
So there’s always an experience, and then the following, sort of Culb’s experiential learning theory cycle. We go into reflection, meaning making, and then taking that forward into action, and we build that cycle into everything that we do. So as Alan mentioned, there, there might be the design thinking challenge, the real world host. There’s this big experience of coming up with problems and, or coming up with solutions to problems and coming up with your solution and presenting it back. But then beyond the experience, we always have the time of, okay, what happened? So what did that mean? What are you noticing? What are you noticing about yourself? What are you thinking about groups? How are you going to then take that back into your classroom, either for yourself as an educator? How have you changed? How will you change? But what might you take back and apply in the classroom? So it’s really we just lean on the theory, you know, build around that.

Matthew Worwood [00:25:41]:
And while we’re talking about the program and experiential learning, you know, I want to say that was about a year ago, Cindy, you and I was having a conversation, in essence, about the semantics, you know, particularly in education, creativity, or is it innovation or is it entrepreneurship? And you kind of got all three within, in essence, the brand, the program. So just focusing specifically on entrepreneurship, where do you see that connection between entrepreneurship and the classroom?

Alan Morgan [00:26:09]:
Yeah, great question, Matt. I think we need to be careful with language here. The language of entrepreneurship is very different than the language of entrepreneurial thinking or the cultivation of an entrepreneurial mindset. So what we focus on in the program is particularly in module two, which is module is called the entrepreneurial mindset, is the cultivation of the teachers entrepreneurial mindset. What does that mean? That means the cultivation of creativity and innovation, the cultivation of flexibility and adaptability, the cultivation of opportunity recognition, the cultivation of seeing with fresh eyes. And, you know, going back to the actual exercises we do around this is around the concept of what we call seeing with fresh eyes, repurposing and reimagining. So taking something old that is no longer of use and how can we bring that into society to create value? We do a lot of work around the concept of value creation pedagogy. And, you know, I think if you look at the look, some of the definitions of creativity is about creating value for others in some way.

Alan Morgan [00:27:15]:
And certainly when we look at that cultivation of an entrepreneurial mindset, particularly around using tools like design thinking for opportunity recognition, using tools around creative thinking for bringing creativity and innovation to ideas. So the cultivation of an entrepreneurial mindset, entrepreneurial thinking. And I think what’s really interesting is in the early years of the program used to be called the Entrepreneurial Educators program, and we had to change the name because no one understood what an entrepreneurial educator was. And we changed it to creativity and innovation in education. Now, I think today entrepreneurial education is more widely understood, if you like.

Rosie Leonard-Kane [00:27:56]:
And I think people are fearful of the word entrepreneur and they think that’s not relevant to me, that doesn’t resonate with my thinking or who I am or what my purpose is in education. And so I think by changing the name, we were able to draw people into the program. But once they’re there, we have the opportunity to explain around what we determine creativity and innovation to be and how those are encapsulated in an entrepreneurial mindset. And maybe a definition from the innovation academy that we build upon is the creativity we see as the idea generation and the novel aspects of coming up with alternatives and solutions and thinking of different ways of doing things. Innovation for us is then the application of those ideas into a context. So taking, you know, you can have all the ideas in the world, but you’re not an innovator until you actually take an idea and you do something with it. So taking action and then underpinning both of those is that you need to have an entrepreneurial mindset, especially as you move towards action, that you need to be willing to take a risk to do something, even if you don’t know how it’s going to turn out. You don’t have all the proof before you take that first step that you are willing to sort of engage with other people, build your network.

Rosie Leonard-Kane [00:29:12]:
And those are, I guess, what traditionally might be seen as entrepreneurs and people who are coming up with new tech businesses and being entrepreneurs in the world. But if we could take that way of thinking and apply it to the classroom. How amazing. You mentioned dynamism earlier. What a dynamic and lively space that you’re creating with that mindset.

Matthew Worwood [00:29:31]:
Well, that was an absolutely awesome response and I feel like we could actually go back to when we had that conversation, Cindy, and actually just skip the 20 minutes conversation and just plot Rosie’s response because we were battling with all three of those words. And I don’t want to go off on a tangent, but I will say, coming from the UK over to the US, entrepreneurialism. And Alan, I really appreciate you clarifying the difference between an entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurialism, or just entrepreneurship, but it’s so much of a bedrock within us culture. But some of the stuff that you reference typically within the school of business or business settings. And I had a conversation with a colleague at the University of Connecticut and I said, you know, faculty in many ways are very entrepreneurial because they’re coming up with new theories and they’re going and designing those new theories and they’re sharing those new theories, then they’re seeking funding to help develop those new theories. So it’s important that we can take that entrepreneurial mindset and apply it to every single domain. And why not go and apply it to the classroom environment? That’s a really kind of like wonderful spin on that.

Alan Morgan [00:30:35]:
Yeah. At the moment, I’m in the final year of my doctorate of education with the University of Wales, Trinity St. David in the UK. And my research topic is the cultivation of an entrepreneurial mindset in primary schools in Ireland. And I’m working with one primary school in particular. And when I do, and I do workshops with the teachers and indeed one of the classes, the fifth class children who are like 1112 years of age, and when I see the joy in their learning, and that’s one of the, like from my data collection. One of the big things that’s emerging from. From it is the joy of learning.

Alan Morgan [00:31:13]:
And I think if you just bring that into, you know, adult teaching and learning, when you’re enjoying what you’re doing, when you’re really having that kind of moment of flow in how you’re doing your job or learning, then it becomes, you become a different state of mind. And that’s something that I see emerging from this research that I’m doing. And I think it’s on a final note. Sometimes Rosie and I say we won’t mention the e word because Matthew’s right. It’s so confusing. And we replace it with imagination, curiosity, flexibility, adaptability, and all those kind of competencies that make up an entrepreneurial mindset.

Rosie Leonard-Kane [00:31:54]:
And one thing I was just going to add is that we’re very inspired in the innovation academy by the work of a gentleman called Martin Lutias. He’s from Chalmers University in Sweden, and he talks about, I think it’s mentioned already, this value creation pedagogy and bringing this to our students and saying, in an entrepreneurship or business sense, the value you’re creating might be monetary. We can take these same principles, but the value that we create for our students, or the value that your students are creating could be cultural, it could be societal, it could be relational. And when we start to reimagine our curriculum in terms of creating value, how do my students create value for others through the curriculum? And what is the value that they’re creating? And then I think that brings the entrepreneurial mindset in a very realistic way to the classroom.

Alan Morgan [00:32:43]:
And that culminates then with the teachers. When they finish the, the three modules or the certificate stage of the program with us, they then have the option, which most of them do go on to do the diploma stage, which is Rosie. And I say it’s where the magic happens. So they bring the learnings of the program in an action learning environment. They bring it to their classroom, their school, their institution, their faculty, and they implement a value driven or value creation project with their students or with their colleagues that depends on the situation that’s going to create value in some way. And that, to us, is the entrepreneurial thinking that really comes to fruition from the program.

Cyndi Burnett [00:33:24]:
Well, Rosie and Alan, thank you so much for this really interesting episode. I think Matt and I will have a lot to talk about in our debrief of this particular session. So before we leave, we ask all of our guests to share three tips that you would give to educators to help them bring creativity into the classroom. And because we are short on time, actually, we’re quite over. But this is really worth it because we’re short on time. If you could each give two tips that you would give to educators, that would be great.

Rosie Leonard-Kane [00:33:53]:
Okay. My first tip would be to not think that you have to do it all yourself and to seek out inspirational ideas from the people around you, from colleagues, from communities on the Internet or all over the world. So seek out other inspiration to get you started. And my second tip is just to do it. Start small, take the first step. It might seem scary, but making one small change in your classroom will give you that confidence to keep going on the journey.

Alan Morgan [00:34:22]:
And mine would be just an openness and willingness to be curious and to adopt a curious mindset and take that openness to try and just do things in a different way, in a different approach. And secondly, engage in creative collaboration or collaborative creativity with your colleagues, with your communities of practice, like the ones you’ve created, Matthew and Cindy, because there’s people around the world who want to do more of this, and we have to stay connected and work together.

Matthew Worwood [00:34:54]:
Well, this was an absolutely fantastic episode, and I don’t know about you, Cindy, but there’s going to be a pretty long debrief when we go through this. I was kind of making a few notes down as we were going through the episode. But once again, thank you so much to Rosie and Alan for coming onto the show and listen. We would post a link to the program, definitely check it out if you’re interested. I remind all of our listeners coming from different parts of the world that this is an online program, so you don’t have to be in person. And if you think another one of your colleagues would be interested in this program or just this was kind of very much a general chitchat about creativity. So anyone who’s just kind of like, as we said, the very beginning of the show, potentially just getting a little curious about creativity and its relationship to their classroom or their education. This is probably a great episode for you to share with them.

Matthew Worwood [00:35:41]:
My name is Doctor Matthew Werwood, and.

Cyndi Burnett [00:35:43]:
My name is Doctor Cindy Burnett. This episode was produced by Matthew Werwood and Cindy Burnett. Our podcast sponsor is curiosity to create, and our editor is Sam Atkinson.