Creativity is an aspect of the human condition that eludes a common definition, description, and experience. When trying to make sense of creativity, some describe creative behavior while others describe creative products. There are those who are curious about the process of creativity and others who want to understand what inspires that process.…

In late 2006, the Columbus Museum of Art adopted a new framework that established creativity as the lens for learning and visitor experiences. Unlike museums in destination cities where cultural tourism drives visitation numbers and revenue, the Columbus Museum of Art, like many others, depends heavily upon repeat visitors, drawn from the…

Arguments over conceptions of giftedness and provisions for the gifted bear similarities to arguments over key constructs in other disciplines. We can clarify and strengthen the conceptual foundations for gifted education by going beyond psychology and education to explore theory and research in other disciplines such as cultural anthropology,…

The author argues that general education teacher candidates must learn to "­re-start" art to empower them with the skills needed to realize art's promise within their future classrooms. Entry/exit surveys completed by candidates ­revealed that an art methods course corrected misconceptions about the nature of creativity and improved…

Background: There is a growing interest in STEAM (STEM + the Arts) education as a means to enhance the creativity of STEM students and broaden interest in STEM fields. Many art educators, however, object to the instrumental justification for study in the arts as a way to improve student performance in other areas. Purpose: Drawing on the first two…

This paper focuses on how wise humanising creativity (WHC) is manifested within early years interdisciplinary arts education. It draws on Arts Council-funded participatory research by Devon Carousel Project and University of Exeter's Graduate School of Education. It is grounded in previous AHRC-funded research, which conceptualised WHC in the face…

This paper explores the political and social forces that have led to the well-documented narrowing of the curriculum, squeezing out arts programming in schools. While not intended to be an exhaustive literature review, this work highlights important findings that correlate arts learning with biological changes as well as cognitive and academic…

Guided by its arts educators, every school can learn to design activities that foster the serious play of a creatively invested learner. Bring arts educators into one's planning meetings; give them opportunities at faculty meetings to catalyze teachers' creative instincts. This effort does not require a new program or new curriculum. Teachers…

Students are so creative! How can teachers help them use that creativity to learn? This question haunted the author while she was teaching art in a K-8 public school. In art class, she frequently saw students demonstrate refreshingly original ideas in their drawings and paintings as well as innovative problem solving related to their projects.…

Art-related learning should be the central way of doing and playing in preschool, because the high quality of art-related education has a positive effect on children's well-being, identity development, and creative thinking. In our study we tested an integrated learning process where reading literature and telling stories is combined with the…

This article takes an analytical look at Engaging Creative Minds, a pilot community program geared to enrich learning of common core standards through a local artist-in-residence partnership with public schools. This program was designed to increase the level of engagement and student growth in classes that typically relied on rote memory and…

The Creative Learning Initiative (CLI) is a community-wide effort to bring creative learning and the arts to each and every student in Austin. Lead by MINDPOP, the City of Austin, and the Austin Independent School District (AISD), CLI designs systemic and sustainable programs that integrate creativity, creative teaching strategies, and the arts…

In late 2006, the Columbus Museum of Art adopted a new framework that established creativity as the lens for learning and visitor experiences. However, the museum's most passionate and supportive advocates, docents, were not necessarily aligned with this new direction. This article explores how staff worked to gain docent support and advocacy for…

In late 2006, the Columbus Museum of Art education department adopted a new framework that established creativity as the lens for learning and visitor experiences. But what does creativity look like in a gallery experience? What are visitor attitudes toward creativity? This article explores how the drop-in visitor experience was reimagined at the…

A visual artist and teaching artist considers teaching as performative, conceptual arts practice.