Creative, critical, digital: Connecting home and school literacies

Author(s):

Kirsten Hutchison(presenting / submitting)Anne Cloonan(presenting)Louise Paatsch

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 07 A, Professional Identity & Teacher Identity: Learning outside, in school, at home

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-23

17:15-18:45

Room:

K5.18

Chair:

Isabelle Nédélec Trohel

Contribution

In Australia, as in Europe, the transformation of education to address the new skill sets required to address the critical social, environmental and economic crises is a key dimension of government policies. Creativity, criticality, innovation, ICT and digital media skills, together with entrepreneurship continue to be among the most lauded concepts across global educational systems, with creativity considered to be a key 21^st century skill (Csikszentmihalyi, 2006; Trilling & Fadel, 2009; Neergaard et al, 2012; Tangaard, 2014). While the foregrounding of creativity, imagination and problem solving, critical thinking and digital literacies within curriculum is pervasive throughout world education economies, knowledge of the relationships between learning and creativity is rarely made explicit (Tanggaard, 2011). Educational research has previously foregrounded the relationship between teaching and creativity, with learning often remaining a secondary concept (Torrance, 1972; Hennessey & Amabile, 1987; Fasko, 2000-2001). If creative teaching and learning are to occur, it is essential that teachers are clear on what creativity means to them and also which teaching practices support and encourage creativity in their classrooms (Cheung, 2012). Studies in the European context argue further that an understanding of both “barriers and enablers for creativity and innovation” in education are essential in order to foster creative learning and innovative teaching through curriculum design, pedagogy and assessment and ICT (Bocconi et al. 2012).Several scholars have noted that studies aimed at informing theorising, policy development and teacher professional learning to encourage creative teaching and learning practices within schools are relatively underdeveloped (Tangaard, L. 2014; Bocconi et al. 2012; Cachia et.al, 2010, Peters, 2010). Further understanding of the ways in which ICT might contribute to the creative affordances of learning and promote collaborative, creative and critical teaching and learning are required; this aim is one of the potential contributions of the Creative, Critical, Digital researchproject conducted in Melbourne.

In Australia, national and state curriculum documents (ACARA, 2012; VCAA, 2015) position all teachers as teachers of literacy, creative and critical thinking and information and ICT and digital literacies with teachers required to concurrently address and assess learning in these areas. The Creative Critical Digital research project focuses on teachers’, students’ and parents’ understandings and practices of ICT and creative and critical thinking as they intersect with literacy learning; and how literacy teaching practices integrate creative and critical thinking with ICT and home–school connections. The aim of this study was to investigate how literacy learning opportunities that integrate ICT, creativity and critical thinking are understood and practiced in and out of school. This school-based research used a mixed methods design that enabled insights to be gained from quantitative and qualitative data, including surveys and case studies. It explored the experiences of middle years (Years 5–10) teachers from nine primary and secondary Catholic schools during 2014/15. The following key research question drove the investigation: How are literacy teaching and learning opportunities that integrate ICT, creativity and critical thinking understood and practised in and out of school?

Specifically, in this presentation we address the following research questions:

What are teachers’, students’ and parents’ understandings of ICT, creativity and critical thinking in literacy learning?
What are teachers’, students’ and parents’ ICT practices in literacy learning?

We document and analyse a collaboration between university and school based teacher researchers’ efforts to develop pedagogies synergising creative and critical thinking, through use of digital literacies across home and school learning sites and present key findings from the research relating to teachers’, students’ and parents’ understandings, practices and experiences of integrating creativity, critical thinking and ICT in literacy across home and school learning.

Method

Mixed methods research was used combining elements of qualitative and quantitative research approaches for the purposes of breadth and depth of understanding and corroboration (Johnson, Onwuegbuzie & Turner, 2007). Quantitative data was collected in the form of an anonymous, online survey, which included a set of Likert-scaled and tick-the-box items. Qualitative data was collected in the form of open-ended survey questions, focus group and individual interviews with parents, teachers and students from a group of catholic primary and secondary schools in Victoria, Australia. Participants were sought from nine primary and secondary schools who were participating in an ongoing professional learning program specifically aimed at providing teams of middle years teachers with support to plan, implement and assess learning experiences for students at the intersection of the learning areas English/Literacy, ICT, and Creative and Critical Thinking (CCT); and connect home and school learning. These nine schools were located in metropolitan settings across Victoria, with the student population ranging from 157 students to 2,010 students. Four of the schools were primary schools and five were secondary schools, including one Year 7–10 college. Principals, teachers, parents and students from all nine schools were invited to complete an anonymous online survey. Of the 426 participants who completed the survey, there were 203 (48%) students, 116 (27%) teachers, 102 (24%) parents, and 5 principals (1%). Respondents included a broad age-range for teachers and parents, while the majority of students (85%) were aged 10 to 12 years. Three middle years literacy/English teachers drawn from three school teams participating in the professional learning program, in addition to a small group of students drawn from classes taught by these three teachers, and these students’ parents participated in either group or individual interviews. In order to gain more in-depth understandings of teachers’, parents’ and students’ understandings and practices of ICT, creativity and critical thinking in literacy learning, the three teachers were asked to nominate three indicative literacy ‘spotlight tasks’ that integrated creative and critical thinking with ICT and home-school connections through their school-based area of inquiry. The researchers visited each of the three schools to observe the focus teachers during their teaching of the three spotlight tasks and conducted individual teacher interviews, focus group interviews/discussions with six students from each literacy/English class and a focus group with the parents of these students. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed.

Expected Outcomes

Findings suggest that while teachers, parents and students underscore the importance of creativity, critical thinking and ICT in English/literacy classes and at home, there are variations in the emphases various participant groups placed on the role of ICT in literacy learning and purposes and forms of parental involvement in children’s learning. While teachers, parents and students believed that everyone can learn to be creative, think critically and use ICT, and that all are important, there was a conflating of the understandings of ‘creative’ and ‘artistic’. Creativity was at times understood as something requiring participation in informal activities, and restricted to some people and endeavours. Understandings were open to change over time; as teachers and students engaged in school-based research, their understandings of creativity evolved to acknowledge the importance of risk-taking, openness to different perspectives and possibilities, collaboration and criticality. Some parents did not share teachers’ and students’ understanding of the importance of ICT practices in developing literacy, critical thinking and creativity. A notable proportion of parents valued teaching of traditional skills over multimodal and digital literacies. One-third of teachers used technology daily in their/English literacy classes and only 22% of teachers involved students in daily use of ICT in English/literacy classes. Comparison of ICT use at home and school indicated that mobile devices and gaming were frequently engaged with at home, while creation of documents and researching online were more common at school. All participant groups wanted to increase their ICT skills through a staged, structured approach to professional and collaborative learning and access to suitable ICT resources, dedicated time and support. Further comparative international research into “barriers and enablers for creativity and innovation” in schooling, in teacher education and in teacher professional learning are intended outcomes of this research.

References

Bocconi, S., Kampylis, P. G. and Punie, Y. (2012) Innovating Learning: Key Elements for Developing Creative Classrooms in Europe, European Commission Joint Research Centre, European Union, Luxembourg. Cachia, R., Ferrari, A, Ala Mukta, K. and Punie, Y. (2010) Creative Learning and Innovative Teaching: Final Report on the Study on Creativity and Innovation in Education in the EU Member States, Joint Research Centre, European Commission. Cheung, R.H.P. (2012) Teaching for Creativity: examining the beliefs of early childhood teachers and their influence on teaching practices, Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 37(3), 43-51. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2006) Foreword: Developing Creativity, in N. Jackson, M. Oliver, M. Shaw & J. Wisdom (Eds) Developing Creativity in Higher Education: an imaginative curriculum, pp. xviii-xx. London: Routledge. Fasko, D.Jr. (2000-01) Education and Creativity, Creativity Research Journal, 13(3-4), 317-327. Hennessey, B.A. & Amabile, T.M. (1987) Creativity and Learning. Washington, DC: NEA Professional Library. Johnson, R. B., Onwuegbuzie, A. J., & Turner, L. A. (2007). Toward a definition of mixed methods research. Journal of mixed methods research, 1(2), 112–133. Peters, M. A. (2010) Three Forms of the Knowledge Economy: learning, creativity and openness, British Journal of Educational Studies, 58(1), 67-88. Tanggaard, L. (2011) Stories about Creative Teaching and Productive Learning, European Journal of Teacher Education. 34(2), 217-230. Torrance, E.P. (1972) Can we Teach Children to Think Creatively? Journal of Creative Behaviour, 6, 114-143. Tangaard, L. 2014, ‘A Situated Model of Creative Learning’ European Educational Research Journal, 13 (1), 107 – 116.

Author Information

Kirsten Hutchison (presenting / submitting)

Deakin University, Australia

Anne Cloonan (presenting)

Deakin University

School of Education

Melbourne

Louise Paatsch

Deakin University

Education

Waurn Ponds

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