Creativity,+Imagination+and+Assessment

**PODCAST TRANSCRIPT**


 * Creativity, Imagination and Assessment **

My name is Katie Salmon and this is my episode of group E’s podcast. My subject area was Creativity, Imagination and Assessment.

Creativity is increasingly becoming a key component to students’ individual wellbeing, sense of fulfilment and cultural identity because of this schools are finding it necessary to develop a creative and imagination framework for assessment. Creativity and imagination is a concept which has a broad range of meaning and understandings and because of this teachers find it difficult to assess.

In 2004 the Victorian Schools Innovation Commission initiated a creativity pilot to raise teacher’s awareness about creativity and to test ideas as to how best to promote children’s creativity in the classroom and across the school curriculum. The VSIC maintained that creativity entails:

• use of imaginative, intuitive, and logical thinking

• a process where ideas are shaped, refined, and managed

• disciplined application of knowledge and skills to make new connections

• originality or production of new ideas and perspectives

• collaboration, evaluation, review, and feedback

In this conception of creativity, imagination is intrinsic to the creative process and operates as

children develop their capacity for creative thinking and action.

The most effective way of assessing creative and imagination in the classroom in my opinion is through observation. Asking ourselves questions like

Are the students behaving and thinking creatively?

How do we know this is happening? And

What impact did it have on the students’ achievement and attitudes to learning?

By observing and recording our observations teachers are able to see if they are effectively allowing and encouraging creativity and imagination in their classroom.

Another effective way of accessing creativity and imagination is through both student and teacher discussion as well as whole group and small group discussions along with supporting feedback.

Rather than assessing the students on what they produce teachers should be observing the relationships between the learners, teachers and their environment, considering how students take risks, participate in critical reflection, remain open and flexible, use general and detailed knowledge, and make decisions, from these observations we are able to assess how students have engaged in the creative process as it occurs.

The principle purpose of accessing students is to better understand the needs for an appropriate experience that will promote and develop their creative behaviour.

In my opinion creative and imaginative teaching is not very evident in the Primary schools that I have observed. I believe this is because the teachers and schools don’t have a concrete framework and knowledge to be able to access creativity and imagination proficiently. By creating an observation framework focussing on how the students are behaving and thinking teachers will be able to access creativity and imagination more effectively.

**Assessment Tools**
 * The environment
 * Collaboration
 * Purpose and Imaginative
 * Value

Schools felt constrained in establishing a creative arts-based curriculum. The difficulties in evidencing the impact of creativity on achievement and the narrow focus of assessment provided by the Standard Assessment Tasks contributed to this. Without the availability of an appropriate assessment format, schools found they were unable to provide convincing information. They wanted to develop a teacher assessment system, which would record children’s learning in a creative curriculum and enable these achievements to be reﬂected in the Ofsted Self Evaluation Form. For it to work, schools needed a manageable and credible assessment tool to support teachers in identifying and documenting progress. In developing the model, they wanted to include opportunities for self and peer evaluation (Black et al., 2004) and portfolios and e.portfolios (Barrett, 2000). By embedding National Curriculum Statements of Attainment (NCC/QCA,2000) within the CLA we wanted to develop an assessment system that would have relevance and validity for schools.

//**A Framework for Creativity: Where to Look in Assessment:**//

Creativity conceptual framework:

**//The Person – characteristics, abilities, and skills we encourage and give space for. These include://** • pre-dispositions • preferences • cognitive and meta-cognitive abilities • knowledge and specific skills • flexibility and openness • facilitation of specific knowledge • skills • acceptance of alternatives • stimulus and ownership The Product – the outcomes of the creative endeavor. These include: • tangible products • personal satisfaction • social worth • ethos and culture • physical space • organization • equipment __[|The Creativity Wheel]__ Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. (2009). //Creative Learning Assessment (CLA): a framework for developing and assessing children’s creative learning// [fact sheet]. Retrieved from [] Creative Partnerships Durham Sunderland. (2003). //The creativity wheel: Assessing creative development teacher resource// [fact sheet]. Retrieved from [] Ed Partnerships International. (2004). //Creativity and Imagination// [fact sheet]. Retreived from [] Ellis, S., & Lawrence, B. (2009). // The influence of the Creative Learning Assessment (CLA) on children’s learning and teachers’ teaching .// Literacy, 43(1), 3-10. The George Lukas Educational Foundation. (2012). //Creatively Speaking, Part Two: Sir Ken Robinson on the Power of the Imaginative Mind// [video clip]. Retrieved from []
 * //The Process – the relevant strategies and approaches we adopt and employ in successful creative exploits. These include://**
 * //The Place – the environment and resources that are provided and developed. These// //include://**
 * References**

Zuvelek, K. (2010). //Creativity and Imagination in Education framework// [fact sheet]. Retrieved from []