Inquiry summary - to be updated

Inquiry Summary

Title -  The Nature of Creativity within a Structure of Learning

Creativity is about developing thinking skills, across all subjects, is a lifelong learning skill that is also needed for business and personal development. Creativity gives purpose to learning which is often needed in and outside school. Applying creativity to next steps at an early age could also provide the tools needed to help the youth find their first job, develop a career  or be part of a community. Structure is important because it provides routine, gives security to people and children, helps to organize and plan, can provide a scaffolding for learning and give guidance. Projects and cross-curricular learning is also increasing within Primary Education and so my inquiry is also building on my art form 'Graphic Design'.

The inquiry will optimally as previously said in my proposal, develop my professional practice in my delivery of teaching to arrange of needs and variety of lessons that applies the core subjects It will be a stepping stone that will lead on for me to do a PGCE in Primary Education. So it will also need to demonstrate broadness.  It will see how  nature of creativity can be improved within a structure of a lesson and learning environment, to help the learning, the natural talent of a child and a school move forward.

How does the nature of creativity affect the learning within a structure of learning in Primary Education?

What is the difference between structured and non-structured creativity? What happens if the creativity is pupil led or teacher led? What would be the affect on behaviour, attitude and learning?  How can the use of creativity and cross-curricular projects develop learning in children with different learning needs and backgrounds?  

How has the nature of creativity revolved and how has this affected learning?

Does Professionalism and the need for results limit creativity, halter thinking skills that are needed for long-term learning development? How does creativity or cross-curricular learning get demonstrated or recorded to show improvement in a primary school?

A few of the above questions I have begun to answer through experience, knowledge, afterschool projects and pilots and from covering classes and group work. Although I plan to continue to learn and build on this, developing my knowledge on cross-curricular learning and creativity within a structure, my next afterschool pilots are going to be more guided yet still allowing creativity thinking to naturally flow and develop, aiming to improve the quality of the learning.

The inquiry will develop my understanding of how creativity is perceived within learning knowing when creativity is needed in a structure as previously said in my inquiry proposal, taking in a variety learning needs; additionally developing my teaching of cross-curricular subjects leading to my specialism that I will pursue whiles doing a PGCE and extending extra-curricular activities.  

Inquiry tools

I changed the projects that I had planned to use, because I felt although I had permission to run them from the gate keeper.  I felt I needed to run these projects within the 12 weeks and waited for any additional ethical permission I may have needed from the University. In addition I also needed allow time to analysis the observation grid and field journal further, that I would be using, as a result I have decided to run two projects during the next six weeks

Projects
 

Product Design

Designing a creating a board game within a defined area of space.

Main Objective 

•  develop ideas and thinking skills
• to use Art & Design/Design & Technology
•  apply Literacy and Maths

  Digital Media

Creating a 1 to 3 minutes silent movie/trailer

Main Objective 

•  develop ideas and thinking skills
• to use Digital Media/ICT - filming, cutting and editing video/film
•  apply Literacy and Maths

In addition, I want to see if I can get a natural creative atmosphere in both projects, which would lead to children to automatically start to plan their next steps.

Questionnaire to Head Teachers + Teachers

(Add info)

Ethics

Keep my employer/professional mentor informed and up to date about my inquiry and ethics involved to stop unnecessary repercussions.  Gatekeeper/employer to check any letters sent out to parents. Parents to sign permission slips for children attending afterschool club. The letter and permission slips to be kept in the office at work, no names of children to be recorded other than for a register for Health & safety reasons, which is to be kept at school. The questionnaire to be checked by the gatekeeper and a covering letter to be sent to Head Teacher or Teacher where needed, to inform them of the inquiry and that it will be anonymous. Any documents or literature used will either be added to a Bibliography or quoted using Harvard referencing. No need to access or use confidential records As I am an insider researcher and participate, I will aim to be impartial and unbiased and give a critical reflection.

Literature

• Extracts from National curriculum (English, Maths, Art, ICT, Science - Design & Technology)
• Extracts from IPC
• Extracts from Robinson – (creativity and the way we learn)
• Possibly extracts from policy
• Thinking Hats - Thinking Schools
• Structures (Graphic Design +(module 1 blog – note to me))
• Extracts from Current jobs and skills,
• The creative process and how we learn (pull elements from module one)
• Creative History
• Next steps

Ideas for Professional Artefact

Book, audio/CD Rom,  or learning resources

Getting into Module 3 to be continued

Starting to get into module 3, my senses are starting to come alive and my intuition is kicking in and giving me some guidance. I feel things are going to come together. My confidence has grown somewhat throughout the last couple of modules and I am starting to believe in myself more.

My reflection journal has become my soul mate as well as allowing me to take control of my emotions, helping me move forward it has also helped me to break things down and see things from a different perspective.  I feel I have learnt a lot of life skills throughout the last two modules.

(reflect on previous modules)

I have started to organize my afterschool projects for my inquiry and have sent out parent letters, which have also been checked by the gate keeper. The projects will start after half-term. I have arranged the resources needed for one of the projects and am currently sorting the software I will use for the other project. I plan to create the observation grids I will use for the projects either later today or tomorrow and code my journal ready for analysing. These projects are more guided than my previous projects, the reason for this, is because I hope to improve the quality of the learning and creativity used as well as the engagement. The projects will last for 6 weeks, one hour per week and will end just before the Easter Holidays, allowing time for deeper analysis. (reference and explain inquiry and some reference from Alan - note to me)

I also would like to be able create a bounce effect of my delivery/planning of the lesson of controlled answers and questions, although the questioning will naturally come for the student. This could help open a discussion if needed when ideas and engagement is limited. (reference Teacher - note to me)

Understanding the complexity of the structure within Graphic Design and how this relates to teaching, learning and education. (understanding the flexibility within a grid - note to me) What are structures of education? Where are the structures? E.G the 'National Curriculum' is a structure, The school day is a structure etc... Policy is a structure etc...

I am also in the process of developing my questionnaire for Head Teachers and plan to send it out during next week. I will write up my summary and send it to Alan over the next few days.

Module 3 - Getting Started

Feeling like I lost some of my stride because we haven't actually got our results back. I keep feeling there is something missing or that I haven't finished something, although the feedback from Alan has been helpful. I think I was probably a little hyped up for the 3rd Feb and ready to go, but then the batteries went flat and needed changing. Although I am starting to move forward now in this module and have a sense of direction. I still feel like I am in Limo Land floating in the air at times and won't actually come back down to earth fully until 25th February 2014.  I know, having the results back late shouldn't make a difference, but it does a little bit. But! On a much more positive note I now have two things to look forward too, because the school I am a Governor at was Ofsted and I have to wait for the result of that too, so the 25th February now feels like 25th December, although the results of Ofsted inspection maybe a little later.

I am currently in the process of organising my primary research and getting it running, E.G, club projects and questionnaire etc... I will reflect more on module 2 and feedback etc...and blog my inquiry.
In addition I am starting to become more conscious of my inquiry/project whenever I am teaching a group or covering a class, although I haven't directly linked this with my inquiry.  I also feel my reflection in-action is starting to increase naturally. I also realised, as I am the main participant within my inquiry (as it is about improving my practice), I could have used many elements of my job for my primary research. When I think of creating an Artefact, I get a couple goosebumps down my arm, I am not sure 'why?' Because the task does involve writing a few thousands words, perhaps its the word 'Artefact' that makes me think I am going to be creating something special. I don't know! I am looking forward to all coming together though.