Fueling Creativity in Education
The Fueling Creativity in Education podcast provides listeners with unique insights into the field of creativity research, including best practices for applying this knowledge to a traditional school environment. Thanks to deep dive interviews with renowned creativity scholars, respected practitioners, and passionate educators, every teacher and administrator will walk away with new strategies that inspire and support student and teacher creativity in and out of the classroom.
Episodes
Tuesday Feb 22, 2022
Integrating Inquiry-Based Learning with Dr. Frank LaBanca
Tuesday Feb 22, 2022
Tuesday Feb 22, 2022
Why is inquiry-based learning such a powerful part of modern education? In this episode of Fueling Creativity, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with Dr. Frank LaBanca, a teacher, educational researcher, and change agent based in Connecticut. Frank is one of the few public-school principals, nationally, that teaches students in his own classroom. Tune in to learn his approach to inquiry-based learning, a significant part of his strategic planning in founding the Westside Middle School Academy Magnet.
Frank shares why he prioritizes inquiry-based learning in the classroom over other approaches to education as well as the role of inquiry-based learning in developing creativity and problem-solving skills. He speaks on the power of teaching students to ask meaningful questions, how he does that, and how he helps teachers develop the capacity to implement and manage project-based learning in the classroom.
“Inquiry is questioning and investigation. In that simple elegance, it’s a wonderful way to approach learning because children can ask meaningful questions and seek their own idiosyncratic, diverse methods to try to solve those problems.” - Dr. Frank LaBanca
Frank also highlights the value of teachers not being the ultimate evaluators of students’ work, rather their work being evaluated by others in the real world. Then, he divulges how he selected new faculty for his school, the challenges he and his administrative colleagues are currently facing, and how his creative projects outside of school that inspire his professional development.
Frank’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Spend time problem-finding. Don’t rush students through the process of developing ideas for study.
Don’t be afraid of what you don’t know. Let it be exciting to not have answers for your students’/kids’ questions. Have confidence to facilitate the process of finding their own answers.
There’s a continuum between developing ideas and solving ideas. Don't be focused on just solving ideas.
“Developing questions takes time and students need and deserve the time to go through that process of evaluating questions.” - Dr. Frank LaBanca
“I think a really important part of inquiry is you learn to do and about at the same time.”
- Dr. Frank LaBanca
Resources Mentioned:
Listen to the episode with Natalie NixonListen to the episode with Jeffrey Davis
Listen to the episode with Dr. Vlad Glaveanu
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 Dr. Frank LaBanca:
Dr. Frank LaBanca is a teacher, educational researcher, and change agent. He is the Founding Principal of the Westside Middle School Academy magnet in Danbury, Connecticut. Previously he was the Director of the Center for 21st Century Skills at Education Connection as well as a 16-year high school biology and science research teacher. Dr. LaBanca has also taught and supervised research at the university level in both Biology and Educational Leadership. He has published over 60 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, whitepapers, and research conference presentations. Having taught well over 2000 students, Dr. LaBanca’s most meaningful contribution to education is conducting extended open-inquiry authentic applied research with students. Over his tenure, numerous students have been nationally recognized for their work. He is one of the few public school principals, nationally, that teaches his own class with students.
Visit Frank’s website
Visit his blog
Follow him on Twitter
Connect with him on LinkedIn
Tuesday Feb 15, 2022
How Culture Influences Student Creativity with Genein Letford
Tuesday Feb 15, 2022
Tuesday Feb 15, 2022
How does culture impact a person’s ability to learn and be creative?
In this episode of the Fueling Creativity podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak withGenein Letford, Founder and CEO of CAFFEE Strategies, a top 'intercultural creative thinking' professional development training organization that trains employees to unleash their innovative thinking and create sustainable, organizational inclusion strategies. Tune in to learn the fundamentals of cultural competence and Intercultural Creativity™ along with neuroscience-backed tips for teachers on helping kids grow their cultural competency.
As a trainer on creative thinking and Intercultural Creativity™, Genein has inspired and led many to reconnect to their creative abilities and produce innovative ideas for an inclusive workspace.
Genein shares her thoughts on the impact of knowing your students’ cultural value as well as how to help students become aware of their value and their cultural capital. She highlights the powerful role of emotions and storytelling in learning, then breaks down a few of the gems from her book, The 7 Gems of Intercultural Creativity, including empathetic imagination and perspective shifting. Plus, Genein sheds light on how her work as an educator has inspired her role as a mother.
“We can’t really ask people and young people to be at their full creative best if they’re not in an inclusive environment that really has those cultural connections… That cultural competence is a big part of your creative thinking and creative growth.” - Genein Letford
Genein’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Share last. Your perspective may skew the perspective of the students, so encourage them to share their views and ideas first and then share yours afterwards.
Say “thank you” to students who share their answers, ideas, and views.
There are miracles in the metaphors. Bring metaphors into your day, your lessons, and your meetings and have fun with it.
Arts are key. Artistry helps grow creativity.
Observation is also key. You can’t be creative if you have no data to be creative with, so create activities that combine sensory information, for example, going outside and listening to the sounds of nature.
“Knowing that the cultural capital and the cultural experiences that the children are coming in with is key. That is gold because the brain doesn’t learn by just throwing new information to it, the brain learns through integration, by integrating new information to already learned information. And so, if the teacher or the educator… doesn’t know what the child already knows and what is important to the child, that integration is low.” - Genein Letford
Resources Mentioned:
The 7 Gems of Intercultural Creativity by Genein Letford
Listen to the episode with Dr. Vlad Glaveanu
The Torrance Incubation Model (TIM)
Listen to Create and Grow Podcast Ep 74
Listen to Create and Grow Podcast Ep 66
Listen to Create and Grow Podcast Ep 79
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 Genein Letford:
Genein Letford is an award-winning speaker, best-selling author and corporate trainer on creative thinking and Intercultural Creativity™. She is the founder of CAFFE Strategies, and has inspired and led many to reconnect to their creative abilities in order to produce innovative ideas for an inclusive workspace. Her unique training intersects creative thinking development with building a culture of inclusion and belonging. She believes creative literacy is a critical skill and she is often called ‘America’s Creativity Coach’ for her work in reigniting creativity in our workforce.
Visit Genein's website
Connect with her on LinkedIn
Follow her on Instagram
Listen to the Create and Grow Rich Podcast
Tuesday Feb 08, 2022
Multi-Passionate and Reluctant Creatives with Caroline Brookfield
Tuesday Feb 08, 2022
Tuesday Feb 08, 2022
How might we help ourselves and others be more willing to express our creativity? In this episode of the Fueling Creativity podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with Dr. Caroline Brookfield, a veterinarian, researcher, and stand-up comedian who delights in using humor and immersive experiences, backed up with research, to sway the most reluctant creative. Today, the dynamic trio delves into Caroline’s experience melding the worlds of veterinary medicine, comedy, and creativity. They also talk about the relationship between multi-passionate creatives and reluctant creatives.
For some of us, there is a desire or need to explore as many interests as we possibly can. Hence, the terms multi-passionate and multiple potentialities. For reluctant creatives, there is a resistance to acknowledging or expressing their creativity.
Listen in to learn the benefits of embracing your creativity and how to tap into it for future success. Caroline shares her science-based approach to exciting people about creativity and how teachers can use it to encourage students who say they’re not creative to express their creativity. She also highlights various creative thinking skills for dealing with judgement around what students, parents, and administration will think about integrating creativity and risk-taking into the classroom.
“Over the last 10-15 years, I kept getting drawn into these creative endeavors, like acting classes or trying stand-up comedy or building businesses, and it took me a long time to connect the dots and realize it’s all about expressing my creativity.” - Dr. Caroline Brookfield
Caroline’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Try to incorporate more M’s for Maybes. School can be very black and white at times, so try to build in ambiguity to your lessons.
Edit later! Just try something new. Nobody is really going to care about what you do if the stakes are low.
Take time to regularly relax and turn things off. We need you so take care of yourself.
“You actually don’t have to even be good at what you do creatively to get the benefits of it.” - Dr. Caroline Brookfield
Resources Mentioned:
Read Caroline’s New Book: The Reluctant Creative!
Listen to the episode with Dr. Sally ReisListen to the episode with Natalie NixonListen to the episode with Jeffrey Davis
Listen to the episode with Wendy Ross
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.
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 Dr. Caroline Brookfield:
Caroline believes that if everyone took small, unconventional actions to embrace their creativity, we could change the world. Veterinarian, researcher, and stand-up comedian, she delights in using humor and immersive experiences, backed up with research, to sway the most reluctant creative. Benefits range from personal physical and emotional results to organizational success. Caroline presents convincing evidence of the ROI of creativity for individuals and organizations, expressed in her passionate yet lighthearted and engaging style. She is always up for a challenge, like learning guitar, rock climbing, getting her kids to eat vegetables, surfing, meditation retreats with sniper rifles. You know, the usual stuff.
Caroline received honors for her veterinary degree from the Ontario Veterinary College, is a certified level 2 Creative Problem Solving facilitator, and holds a Certificate of Professional Management from the University of Calgary, where she lives, Her lectures go unheeded by her family. The dog listens, sometimes.
Visit Caroline’s website
Connect with her on LinkedIn
Follow her on Instagram
Tuesday Feb 01, 2022
Tuesday Feb 01, 2022
How can teachers prepare students for the innovative future of work? In this episode of Fueling Creativity, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with world-renowned author and Professor of Engineering Innovation, Dr. David Cropley, about the psychology and ethics of creativity and innovation in the context of technology, engineering, and design. Listen in to learn how educators can prepare students to be better equipped to work with machine learning and AI in creative and problem-solving environments.
“The big issue with creativity right now revolves around the future of work and the growing role of AI, so artificial intelligence and automation and related technologies, that are impacting the work place.” - Dr. David Cropley
David explains the difference between domain general and domain specific creativity, why it’s more challenging to feel creative as a teacher in the sciences or humanities, and the unique role of malevolent creativity in education and business. He also speaks on how rigorous, objective creativity testing can be made accessible to schools. Plus, David shares his thoughts on the relationship between and prioritization of aesthetics, novelty, and functionality in any design process.
David’s Tips for Teachers:
Creativity is a multifaceted competency. Don’t think about creativity as a 21st century skill, it’s better to think about it as a general competency or capability.
Creativity is about how we think and personal qualities, like openness to new experiences, willingness to take risks, tolerance for uncertainty, etc. It’s also a matter of the environment. You have the opportunity to demonstrate aspects of creativity in the classroom.
Try and be very concrete about making creativity happen. Shift towards asking more open-ended questions and prompting students to solve open-ended problems.
Resources Mentioned:
Books by Dr. David Cropley
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.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
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 Dr. David Cropley:
David Cropley is the Professor of Engineering Innovation at the University of South Australia. He specialises in helping people and organisations become better, more effective, problem solvers.
Dr Cropley joined the School of Engineering at the South Australian Institute of Technology (SAIT) in 1990, after serving for four years in the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy, including deployments to the Caribbean and Middle East. Following the establishment of the University in 1991, he completed a PhD in Measurement Systems Engineering in 1997, and a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education in 2002.
Dr Cropley is author/co-author of nine books including Creativity and Crime: A Psychological Analysis (Cambridge University Press, 2013); The Psychology of Innovation in Organizations (Cambridge University Press, 2015), and Femina Problematis Solvendis – Problem-Solving Woman: A History of the Creativity of Women (Springer, 2020).
Books by Dr. David Cropley
Connect with him on LinkedIn
Follow him on Twitter
Tuesday Jan 25, 2022
Season Three: Welcome Back to the Fueling Creativity Podcast
Tuesday Jan 25, 2022
Tuesday Jan 25, 2022
In this short episode, Drs. Cyndi Burnett and Matthew Worwood discuss the community they are building on Linkedin, as well as upcoming guests for the third season of the Fueling Creativity podcast.
Join the Linkedin Community!
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.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
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!
Monday Dec 27, 2021
Bridging the Gap: Serendipity, Excellence Gaps, and the role of Wonder.
Monday Dec 27, 2021
Monday Dec 27, 2021
What were the biggest lessons learned during the last five episodes in Season Two of the Fueling Creativity podcast? In this final debrief, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood sit down and reflect on episodes that discussed Serendipity, Student Engagement, Excellence Gaps, and Wonder.
Listen in as Cyndi and Matthew break down the following insights.
Major Takeaways from Season Two, Episodes 6-10:
Check for parent bias. We can't always control where our children might excel. We also can't direct the career paths where they express interest. However, we can monitor our biases and do our very best to support them in whatever direction they pursue.
Embrace incidents of serendipity. When things go wrong, or we experience disruptions on our journey, we can benefit by hitting the pause button and opening ourselves up to what we think, feel, and notice in the experience.
Resources Mentioned:
Listen to the episode with Wendy Ross
Listen to the episode with Heather Lyon
Listen to the episode with Jonathan Plucker
Listen to the episode with Jeffery Davis
Listen to the episode with Ron Beghetto
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.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
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!
Friday Dec 17, 2021
Discussing Excellence Gaps and Creativity with Dr. Jonathan Plucker - Part 2
Friday Dec 17, 2021
Friday Dec 17, 2021
It’s easy to have a negative view of testing, but testing does have value in terms of content knowledge acquisition. In part two of this two-part interview, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with researcher and creativity expert, Dr. Jonathan Plucker, about the relationship between gifted education and creativity. Jonathan also speaks on why he believes every school should have a Chief Creativity Officer and what that would look like.
Tune in to learn Jonathan’s approach to testing students, assessing for gifted education programs, and how to identify students who are talented or gifted. He sheds light on why it’s a huge mistake to drive advanced learning and creativity out of our schools. Plus, he shares his thoughts on why educators should be focusing on students with true potential who are underperforming and turning that potential into advanced performance.
“If a student’s performing at advanced levels, I encourage people not to overthink that. Just accept it. Great, they’re working at advanced levels. That’s the goal. How much further can I push this student?... But we have so many students who are not performing at those advanced levels who have the potential to get there and that’s what I’m really concerned about is we tend to look right past those students.” - Dr. Jonathan Plucker
Jonathan’s Tips for Teachers, Administrators, and Parents:
The best way to use teacher involvement is to focus on what they are trained to do: to help students, especially those who aren’t being noticed. If you’re going to be identifying for a talent, don’t use teachers as gatekeepers. Collect all your data and then use teachers as the safety net to catch those whom the administrators missed.
Modeling is incredibly important for creativity. If you run into a problem, have your students/children work with you to solve it.
Creative Articulation: Professional, long-term creators are very good at convincing people that their work is creative. They are also masterful at incorporating feedback and using it to improve their work. Help your students/children learn how to share their creativity and persuade others that their perspective is valuable… at ALL ages.
About Dr. Jonathan Plucker:
Jonathan Plucker is a prominent education policy and talent development scholar, and the inaugural Julian C. Stanley Professor of Talent Development at Johns Hopkins University. He holds a joint appointment at the Center for Talented Youth and School of Education.
His work focuses on education policy and talent development and has been supported by over $40 million in external grants and contracts. Jonathan has published over 300 articles, chapters, and reports. He recently became editor for the Psychological Perspectives on Contemporary Educational Issues series at IAP. His work defining and studying excellence gaps (http://cepa.uconn.edu/mindthegap) is part of a larger effort to reorient policymakers’ and educators’ thinking about how best to promote success and high achievement for all children.
Visit Jonathan’s website
Follow him on Twitter
Book & Publications by Dr. Jonathan Plucker
Resources Mentioned:
Book & Publications by Dr. Jonathan PluckerListen to the episode with Scott Barry Kaufman
Listen to the episode with Sally Reis
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.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
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!
Friday Dec 17, 2021
Discussing Excellence Gaps and Creativity with Dr. Jonathan Plucker - Part 1
Friday Dec 17, 2021
Friday Dec 17, 2021
Our last guest of the season features a double expresso with President of the National Association for Gifted and Talented, Dr. Jonathan Plucker. In part one of this two-part interview, Jonathan shares his thoughts on problems with achievement gaps and excellence gaps in education.
“I’m actually fully convinced that in the next 10-15 years, if we prioritize this, we can actually go a long way to solving this problem… and I could not have said that five or six years ago.”
- Dr. Jonathan Plucker
Listen in to gain insight into the connection between academic excellence and creativity later in life, and why there’s never a blank canvas to work with when being creative. Jonathan also shares his candid thoughts on creativity in imaginative play, as well as how we can diminish the harmful impact of poverty on children’s ability to develop imagination.
“The more that students learn, the more information, the more ‘stuff’… that they have at their mental fingertips, the better off they will be as they try to be creative, especially as they move into their careers later in life.”
- Dr. Jonathan Plucker
About Dr. Jonathan Plucker:
Jonathan Plucker is a prominent education policy and talent development scholar, and the inaugural Julian C. Stanley Professor of Talent Development at Johns Hopkins University. He holds a joint appointment at the Center for Talented Youth and School of Education.
His work focuses on education policy and talent development and has been supported by over $40 million in external grants and contracts. Jonathan has published over 300 articles, chapters, and reports. He recently became editor for the Psychological Perspectives on Contemporary Educational Issues series at IAP. His work defining and studying excellence gaps (http://cepa.uconn.edu/mindthegap) is part of a larger effort to reorient policymakers’ and educators’ thinking about how best to promote success and high achievement for all children.
Visit Jonathan’s website
Follow him on Twitter
Book & Publications by Dr. Jonathan Plucker
Resources Mentioned:
Book & Publications by Dr. Jonathan PluckerListen to the episode with Scott Barry Kaufman
Listen to the episode with Sally Reis
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.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!
Follow Cyndi and Matt on Linkedin.
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!