The past few years have proven a need in higher education for tools that help educators and students maintain a flexible and highly adaptive approach to their coursework. Research into applied improvisation has shown that the improvisational mindset is beneficial to educational settings in this way, in part because of the way it encourages…

The Maker Movement (Dougherty 2012) highlights innovation and creativity through "activities focused on designing, building, modifying, and/or repurposing material objects, for playful or useful ends, oriented toward making a 'product' of some sort that can be used, interacted with, or demonstrated" (Martin 2015, p. 31). When engaged in…

This paper encourages educators in library and information science (LIS) to adopt the "creative deliverable," that is, an assignment that gives students the freedom to display their understanding of course material in an almost unrestricted range of alternative formats and genres, while retaining some key features of traditional…

People who do not know theatre may think the only creative artist in the field is the playwright--with actors, directors, and designers mere "interpreters" of the dramatist's vision. Historically, however, creative mastery and power have passed through different hands. Sometimes, the playwright did the staging. In other periods, leading…

Students love nothing better than personalizing their space--desk, bedroom, or even their cars. This article describes a classroom challenge that gives students a chance to let their spirits soar with the invention of a new form of wall treatment. A trip to a big box store might prove to be most helpful for students to visualize their new product…

The critical examination of language and the deconstruction of truth claims play an important role in how we build with diversity in our classrooms. We, as social work educators involved with playful postmodernism, recognize the significance of improvisation and playfulness in engaging the question: how is this examination and deconstruction done?…

An implementation and assessment of three creative-learning mechanisms in a research-inspired split undergraduate/graduate course in Analytical Microdevice Technology is described. Microscale research is challenging to incorporate into the classroom due to the phenomena length-scales and the creating learning strategies were used to promote…

Artworks that are circular in nature are often referred to as mandalas. "Mandala" means center, circle, or circumference. Mandalas are created in many cultures for a variety of reasons, most of which are related to self-expression, ritual, and religion. In this article, the author describes how her students created mandalas. She also provides…

Early in her life, Nancy King discovered that stories are rich sources of wisdom, imagination, creativity, and comfort. In this essay, King describes her personal experiences developing and using the collaborative storymaking process with young people and adults in various school settings. The author states that collaborative storymaking…

How can university faculty use communicating-to-learn activities to enliven discussions, check understanding, and assess learning? By incorporating various reading, writing, listening, speaking, and thinking strategies into their classes, faculty are teaching through example and are making classes invigorating. As such, their undergraduate and…

This paper presents the first phase of a study in teacher education, which explored how a conceptual framework for creativity with information and communication technology (ICT) might be developed and expressed in professional development for primary education pre-service and newly qualified teachers. The Creativity and Professional Development…