Fueling Creativity in Education

Educating for Creative Potential with Mark Runco

To kick off Season Four of the Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with world-renowned creativity researcher, thought leader, and cognitive psychologist, Dr. Mark Runco. In part one of this knowledge-packed “double expresso” discussion, Mark talks about the meaning of creative potential and divergent thinking as well as why creative potential is the REAL target of education.
 
“Creative potential is very frequently overlooked and that’s in part because it is so hard to see.”  – Dr. Mark Runco
 
Listen in to learn about the best indicators of creative potential and divergent thinking, the needs that students with creative potential have, and the difference between personal and social creativity. Mark also breaks down the difference between creativity and divergent thinking, the essential components of divergent thinking, and how educators and parents can teach divergent thinking to children. 
 
Plus… Do we have the tools to assess for creativity and originality in the classroom? Tune in to hear Mark’s answer as he highlights his research on creativity assessment!
 
 “One of the big things is just for an educator to think divergently him or herself and thereby, to model and value divergent thinking and originality.” - Dr. Mark Runco
 
Resources Mentioned:
Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT)
Listen to the episode with Jonathan Plucker
 
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
 
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom? 
Access various creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting www.CreativityandEducation.com.
 
What to learn more about Design Thinking in Education? 
Do you want to build a sustained culture of innovation and creativity at your school?  Visit WorwoodClassroom.com to learn how Design Thinking can promote teacher creativity and support professional growth in the classroom. 
 
Have a question? Email Dr. Burnett and Dr. Worwood at questions@fuelingcreativitypodcast.com!
 
You can also find The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Make sure to rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!
 
About Dr. Mark A. Runco:
Dr. Mark A. Runco is a leading creativity scholar who is active in empirical research and has published cognitive, economic, genetic, historical, developmental, and educational books and articles on the topic. To help people fulfill their capacity for creativity, he has devised a battery of tests that measures creative potential and performance. He teaches a variety of graduate and undergraduate classes on creativity and innovation, and once each year he organizes an international creativity conference. Mark earned his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from the Claremont Graduate School in California and has studied creativity ever since. He is currently the Director of Creativity Research and Programming at Southern Oregon University.
Connect with Mark Runco on LinkedIn
Visit his website

SEASON FOUR: A new season. A new name!

In this short episode, Drs. Cyndi Burnett and Matthew Worwood discuss the reasons why they renamed the podcast - Fueling Creativity in Education, and provide an overview of the upcoming guests in Season 4. 
 
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
 
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom? 
Access various creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting www.CreativityandEducation.com.
 
What to learn more about Design Thinking in Education? 
Do you want to build a sustained culture of innovation and creativity at your school?  Visit WorwoodClassroom.com to learn how Design Thinking can promote teacher creativity and support professional growth in the classroom. 
 
You can also find The Fueling Creativity Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Make sure to rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!

CREATIVITY TIP: Originality

In this short Creativity Tip episode, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood offer advice on how to promote originality in the classroom. Matthew focuses his response on project-based learning at the higher education level. Cyndi offers advice for K-12 educators and how to facilitate originality in a test-driven culture. 
Interested in more tips to help bring creativity into the classroom?  Check out Cyndi's Books, Weaving Creativity into Every Strand of Your Curriculum, and 20 Lessons to Weave Creativity into Your Classroom.
 
Episodes related to Asking Questions:
 
Listen to the episode with Frank LaBanca
Listen to the episode with Eitan Buchalter
Listen to the episode with Ron Beghetto
 
Watch short clip from the film, Creativity in Education: Exploring the Imbalance. 
 
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
 
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom? 
Access various creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting www.CreativityandEducation.com.
 
What to learn more about Design Thinking in Education? 
Do you want to build a sustained culture of innovation and creativity at your school?  Visit WorwoodClassroom.com to learn how Design Thinking can promote teacher creativity and support professional growth in the classroom. 
 
You can also find The Fueling Creativity Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Make sure to rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!

CREATIVITY TIP: Asking Questions

In this short Creativity Tip episode, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood offer advice on how to facilitate asking questions in the classroom. Matthew and Cyndi highlight the importance of prioritizing sufficient time for questions and planning for incubation. 
Interested in more tips to help bring creativity into the classroom?  Check out Cyndi's Books, Weaving Creativity into Every Strand of Your Curriculum, and 20 Lessons to Weave Creativity into Your Classroom.
 
Episodes related to Asking Questions:
 
Listen to the episode with Frank LaBanca
Listen to the episode with Natalie Nixon
Listen to the episode with Ron Beghetto
 
Watch Cyndi describe how use questioning in the classroom
Weaving Creativity into Every Strand of Your Curriculum
 
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
 
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom? 
Access various creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting www.CreativityandEducation.com.
 
What to learn more about Design Thinking in Education? 
Do you want to build a sustained culture of innovation and creativity at your school?  Visit WorwoodClassroom.com to learn how Design Thinking can promote teacher creativity and support professional growth in the classroom. 
 
You can also find The Fueling Creativity Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Make sure to rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!

CREATIVITY TIP: Ambiguity

In this short Creativity Tip episode, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood offer advice on integrating the teaching of ambiguity in the classroom. Rather than focusing exclusively on ill-defined problems, Cyndi and Matthew highlight the connection to socio-emotional learning and why it's necessary to help students understand how they feel when presented with an ambiguous challenge or situation in the classroom environment.
Interested in more tips to help bring creativity into the classroom?  Check out Cyndi's Books, Weaving Creativity into Every Strand of Your Curriculum, and 20 Lessons to Weave Creativity into Your Classroom.
 
Episodes related to Ambiguity:
 
Listen to the episode with Caroline Brookfield
Listen to the episode with Monica Kang
Listen to the episode with Wendy Ross
Listen to the episode with Ron Beghetto
 
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
 
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom? 
Access various creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting www.CreativityandEducation.com.
 
What to learn more about Design Thinking in Education? 
Do you want to build a sustained culture of innovation and creativity at your school?  Visit WorwoodClassroom.com to learn how Design Thinking can promote teacher creativity and support professional growth in the classroom. 
 
You can also find The Fueling Creativity Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Make sure to rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!

Bridging the Gap: Discussing Innovation v Creativity v Entrepreneurship

What were the biggest lessons learned during the last five episodes in Season Three of the Fueling Creativity podcast? In this final debrief, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood sit down and reflect on episodes that discussed the relationship between Innovation, Creativity, Entrepreneurship, breaking with habit-bound thinking, developing a sense of awe in students, and Inward and Outward Creativity.
 
Listen in as Cyndi and Matthew break down the following insights.
 
Major Takeaways from Season Two, Episodes 6-10:
 
Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship. What's the connection? Do different groups have increased value for one over the other? Or are we discussing similar things in a different context?
 A sense of awe in students. Awe is a sense of considerable astonishment in a person or topic. How might teachers facilitate awe toward the curriculum or subject? Should that be an ambition for creative teachers? 
Inward and Outward Creativity.  Sociocultural theory informs us that the actor engages in internal and external actions that include thoughts, ideas, and reactions in response to an environment. How do internal actions interact with other people inside a classroom environment? Does a sense of connection drive these actions, and is arts a bridge between inward and outward Creativity?
 
Resources Mentioned:
 
Listen to the episode with Anna Abraham
Listen to the episode with Monica Kang
Listen to the episode with Rachelle Archer
 
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
 
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom? 
Access various creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting www.CreativityandEducation.com.
 
What to learn more about Design Thinking in Education? 
Do you want to build a sustained culture of innovation and creativity at your school?  Visit WorwoodClassroom.com to learn how Design Thinking can promote teacher creativity and support professional growth in the classroom. 
 
You can also find The Fueling Creativity Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Make sure to rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!

Deploying Artful Leadership in Teaching and Learning with Rachelle Archer

What is Artful Leadership, and how might it help facilitate creativity in teaching and learning? In this episode of the Fueling Creativity podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with Rachelle Archer, an arts-based consultant & founder of Artful Leadership. The episode shares Rachelle's 25 + years of experience working at the intersection of arts, education, and healing, primarily with unhoused and systems-affected youth. Discussions include how artful leadership can help students reflect and connect as they interact and engage with others around them.
 
“Learning happens when we feel safe and when we feel connected to others in a space; it's not just something that happens inside our brains.”              - Rachelle Archer
 
Rachelle’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Start with your own curiosities. Don't do anything major. 
Find out what your students enjoy. Pleasure is a helpful entry point to creativity.
Avoid judgment in terms of this is good or bad, instead celebrate whatever emerges from the experience.
 
Resources Mentioned:
Linchpin by Seth Godin: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7155145-linchpin
Burnout by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski: https://amzn.to/398PEuX
Listen to the episode with Jonathan Plucker: https://bit.ly/3KZ1Ds9
 
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
 
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom? 
Access various creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting www.CreativityandEducation.com.
 
What to learn more about Design Thinking in Education? 
Do you want to build a sustained culture of innovation and creativity at your school?  Visit WorwoodClassroom.com to learn how Design Thinking can promote teacher creativity and support professional growth in the classroom. 
 
You can also find The Fueling Creativity Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Make sure to rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!
 
About Rachelle Archer
Rachelle Archer, arts-based consultant & founder of Artful Leadership,  helps educators impact young lives sustainably by putting their own well-being first, so that they can lead with a full tank and create a community culture that supports students and staff. She has 25 + years of experience in youth development, working at the intersection of arts, education, and healing, primarily with unhoused and systems-affected youth. She supports organizations with healing-centered professional leadership & organizational development, helping to foster the individual, interpersonal and institutional wellness that will empower them to live into their full potential. Rachelle believes that everyone can be a leader, humans thrive in community, and the well-being of that community starts with us doing our inner work first.
 
Visit Rachelle’s website
Connect with her on LinkedIn
 

Creativity and a Global Perspective of World Problems with Monica Kang

How does one approach creativity within a global context? How can the creative process help us and the future generations solve global problems, like climate change? In this episode of the Fueling Creativity podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with Monica Kang, Founder & CEO of InnovatorsBox, Author of Rethink Creativity & Have You Seen My Friends?, and Podcast Host of Dear Workplace and Curious Monica. She’s a creative educator who’s transforming today’s workforce with the mission to build a workplace for all by rethinking creativity. 
 
Listen in to learn how she reignited her love for her job and her life through a simple mindset shift, curiosity, and creativity, as well as how that led her to help others tap into their innate creativity through InnovatorsBox. You’ll gain insight into the difference between voluntary change and forced change and how creativity and the creative process plays a role in solving complex global problems. Plus, Monica talks about the meaning behind her  books, how she approaches creativity within different cultures, and how you can start incorporating curiosity, creativity, and courage into your curriculum.
 
“When we embed creativity as a way of living, there’s no limit to how we see and solve and approach.”  – Monica Kang
Monica’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Before stressing about the curriculum, become aware of how you talk about creativity at home and in the classroom. We tend to embed this image of what curiosity, creativity, and courage are supposed to look like, so pay attention to where your kids think differently, identify the action of them being imaginative and creative, and encourage them to enjoy and explore that feeling courageously.
If you’re ready to build this into your curriculum, add that action part into your lessons to let them feel and experience curiosity, creativity, and courage. 
Make curiosity, creativity, and courage FUN. If they’re doing it for the grade, it’s not fun. Be intentional about getting to know your kids/students and what’s fun to them.
 
“The whole reason why I wanted to do this was I felt creativity was inaccessible. I felt, as somebody who was in a space that was traditionally not creative, that it wasn’t for me and I know a lot of people that still feel that way.”
- Monica Kang
 
Resources Mentioned:
InnovatorsBox
Rethink Creativity by Monica Kang
Have You Seen My Friends? by Monica Kang
Dear Workplace Podcast
Curious Monica Podcast
 
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
 
Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom? 
Access various creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast by visiting www.CreativityandEducation.com.
 
What to learn more about Design Thinking in Education? 
Do you want to build a sustained culture of innovation and creativity at your school?  Visit WorwoodClassroom.com to learn how Design Thinking can promote teacher creativity and support professional growth in the classroom. 
 
Have a question? Email Dr. Burnett and Dr. Worwood at questions@fuelingcreativitypodcast.com!
 
You can also find The Fueling Creativity Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Make sure to rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!
 
About Monica Kang:
Monica H. Kang is on the mission to build a workplace for all by rethinking creativity. She is the Founder & CEO of InnovatorsBox, Author of Rethink Creativity & Have You Seen My Friends, Podcast Host of Dear Workplace and Curious Monica. An internationally recognized expert in workplace creativity, she facilitates culture transformation, leadership development, and team building in a way that is fun, actionable, and relatable. Monica works with clients worldwide including Fortune 500 companies, higher education, government, and nonprofits. Prior to InnovatorsBox®, Monica was a nuclear nonproliferation policy expert. She holds an M.A. from SAIS Johns Hopkins University in Strategic Studies and International Economics and a B.A. from Boston University.
 
Connect with Monica Kang on LinkedIn