work together to determine the best ways to share their designs. Together, they post a number of options (in a video, on a game card poster, through paired presentations, for example) and students decide which method works best for them. The teacher works with those students who are struggling to decide and leaves others to create the method that is most meaningful for them. The teacher draws students’ attention to the criteria throughout and invites a five-minute journal reflection, when students identify a strength and a challenge. In this way, the teacher can assess which students need additional supports, instruction, or both, and which are working independently with success. The teacher may notice that as students engage in expression, they want to continue to refine their games and add additional details. The teacher encourages this because he knows that the creative process is not neat and tidy; students see gaps and errors as they construct their method of expression and see their products through their peers’ eyes.
The final step is sharing, combined with reflection and response. Students practice listening well and asking reflective questions, inviting learners to consider aspects of their design they hadn’t considered previously. The teacher also builds in a celebration component, when students acknowledge their own strengths and those of their classmates. Meanwhile, the class uses the predetermined criteria to assess the products, allowing for one last effort at refinement if the feedback dictates. The products strongly reflect subject-area goals, and the class has invited additional kinds of learning through the creative process. The teacher has nurtured collaboration, reflection, communication, and critical thinking. As the class ends this creative endeavor, the teacher invites students to reflect one last time on their approaches during the creative cycle. The teacher may ask them to consider which of their strategies were most useful and which led to unsatisfactory results. He may invite them to consider what conditions support their creativity and how they might create these kinds of conditions next time. He places these reflections in their portfolios and refers to them the next time they work in creative ways.
When I want to spot creativity working hand-in-hand with assessment, I watch closely for confidence and uncertainty in students when they engage in solving a problem or creating a product. I celebrate both emotions because when students are feeling something in relation to their complex work, it means they are assessing their efforts and the results of those efforts in relation to a goal they have. Assessment experts Cassie Erkens, Tom Schimmer, and Nicole Dimich Vagle (2017) explain that “assessment cultivates student investment, a dual kind of reflection—on learning and engagement—where students persist through tasks and pursue higher levels of learning because they now believe that with effort, they can do it” (p. 135). Emotion signals investment, and investment means the seeds for creativity and problem solving are ready to grow.
In order to further explore how assessment connects to the creative impulse, we can examine some words we use in conjunction with creativity—innovation, imagination, artistry, design—all words that reflect the kinds of rich thinking we want to develop in our learners. We might also use the phrase problem solving in relation to creativity because it helps us see creative endeavors as an attempt to solve a problem that holds meaning for the creator. Psychologist R. Keith Sawyer (2006) confirms this, noting, “Many creativity researchers now believe that creativity involves both problem solving and problem finding” (p. 116). Creating a work of art is often solving a visual problem in order to reach a desired goal (achieving balance, emotion, or message, for example). Writing a narrative or descriptive text is solving the problem of communicating meaning through written language. Designing a prototype for a scientific question means solving the problems of function and design. In these examples, problems are not bad; in fact, they are catalysts for creative action. They are the reason people heavily create and invest in the process. In this way, understanding the relationship between creativity and assessment is understanding how creativity (or innovation, imagination, artistry, or design) connects to problems and how problems connect to investment in goals.
Indeed, creativity is lived out moment to moment and decision by decision. A final product may or may not reflect a desired goal, but the journey in getting to that product might be very creative. Understanding the relationship between the creative process and the assessment that supports the development of creative products is critical to understanding creativity in all its complexity. Enmeshed firmly inside creative processes are assessment processes that propel the person who is creating forward into the next stage of the creative process. Setting goals, assessing successes and challenges, seeking feedback, refining actions, and verifying and sharing efforts are all assessment processes that are essential to the creative process. When teachers use assessment skillfully, purposefully, and at meaningful times, they enhance the results of a creative endeavor.
In this chapter, we will address a number of myths about both assessment and creativity. We will more fully explore both creativity and assessment, as well as the threats and misconceptions that may exist within classrooms and school settings that make engaging in both challenging at times. We will also explore how students may experience creativity in different classroom contexts and subject areas and the assessment processes that support these experiences.
Myths About Creativity
As mentioned in the introduction, the myths that creativity only occurs in arts-related courses and the notion that only gifted people are capable of creativity are prevalent and often inhibit the development of this important skill in our schools. Mythology surrounds the topic of creativity, and this mythology can paralyze teachers in their pursuit of developing creative thinkers. Resting at the core of creativity’s story is an either-or paradigm. Educators often feel like they need to choose between speed (getting through the content) and exploration (going where the learners want to go). They worry that they need to choose between classroom management (self-regulating and maintaining optimal learning conditions) and the free-for-all teachers imagine creative exploration requires (going where the learner wants, when the learner wants, how the learner wants). Educators wonder whether they have to give up their standards if they are going to develop creative learners. These false dichotomies set up teachers to make decisions that not only sell creativity short but sell rich learning short, too. When educators address these myths—the false dichotomies that inhibit them—they can begin to imagine classrooms where they develop self-regulated individuals who also explore ideas creatively.
Let’s explore the myths about creativity, so we can begin to imagine how we might nurture environments that foster all the skills and knowledge we hope to develop in our learners. Following are nine pervasive myths teachers must be aware of to ensure they support all students’ creativity.
1. Either you are creative or you aren’t: Sadly, if you ask an adult whether he or she views him- or herself as creative, many will emphatically assert, “I am definitely not creative. I can’t even draw a stick figure!” This illustrates a belief that people who aren’t creative will always remain so. It also shows a narrow view of what creativity means. If we are going to work to develop creative learners, we have to believe it is possible to do so. Creativity is a learned trait. Katherine E. Batchelor and William P. Bintz (2013) explain, “There is no creativity gene, a gene that individuals are born with that provides them with a predisposition for creativity. There is also no academic discipline that has an exclusive monopoly on creativity” (p. 10). People can develop creativity over time, in any number of contexts.
2. Creative people generate quality results on their first effort: This myth is the reason why so many people, adults and children alike, give up on creativity. The idea that creativity is absent of effort, trial and error, or failure is a harmful misconception, because when these things come to pass, frustration sets in and forward momentum stops. Instead of a perfect creative product emerging immediately, creativity is primarily conscious, hard work (Sawyer, 2006; Simonton, 1988, 1999). A truly creative effort requires the learner to return to ideas again and again, considering multiple perspectives, uses, adaptations, and applications. Assessment facilitates this iterative
