Fueling Creativity in Education

When is Creativity appropriate? Part One with Dr. Ron Beghetto

How do you teach kids to be creative and behave appropriately within the constraints of the classroom? In this episode of Fueling Creativity, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with Dr. Ron Beghetto, a renowned expert on creative thought and action in educational settings. Ron is also the Editor for the Journal of Creative Behavior, Editor for Review of Research in Education, Series Editor for Creative Theory and Action in Education (Springer Books), and has served as a creativity advisor for LEGO Foundation and the Cartoon Network.
 
Tune in to learn about Ron’s definition of creativity inside the context of a teaching and learning environment, along with how to teach children how to identify when creativity is most appropriate. He also sheds light on when and why we should be rethinking rules and structures in the education system.
 
“Most educators are already half way to creativity, they just have to open up the curriculum and the experience for themselves and for their students to do things differently… The really beautiful thing about that is it helps us realize that creativity requires difference.”
            - Dr. Ron Beghetto
 
Resources Mentioned:
Listen to Part 2 with Ron Beghetto
Read the article Ron wrote with James Kaufman
 
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. Ron Beghetto:
Dr. Ronald A. Beghetto, PhD is an internationally recognized expert on creative thought and action in educational settings. He holds the Pinnacle West Presidential Chair and serves as a Professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University.  
 
Dr. Beghetto is the Editor for the Journal of Creative Behavior, Editor for Review of Research in Education, Series Editor for Creative Theory and Action in Education (Springer Books), and has served as a creativity advisor for LEGO Foundation and the Cartoon Network.
 
Visit Ron’s website
Buy his books

Building the Thinking School with Dr. Kulvarn Atwal

How do you facilitate teacher-led change in the classroom? In this episode of Fueling Creativity, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with Dr. Kulvarn Atwal, an executive headteacher of two large primary schools in East London and author of The Thinking School.
Listen in to hear Dr. Atwal share his thoughts on educational leadership and how to facilitate teacher-led change in the classroom. He sheds light on the importance of trial and error in school systems, how school leaders can support the creativity of teachers, and ways administrators can spark curiosity and professional development in tenured teachers.
Dr. Atwal also gives advice for teachers who crave professional development but don’t have opportunities to foster it. Then, he talks a bit about his next book for empowering teachers, The Thinking Teacher.
“The greatest single factor that impacts upon the quality of children’s learning in school, students’ learning, is quite straightforward. It’s the quality of teaching.” - Dr. Kulvarn Atwal
Dr. Atwal’s Tips for School Administrators:
Give teachers more opportunities to collaborate with other teachers and engage in dialogue without having to report back or hit a target.
Create culture in which you actively inquire or ask about what your teachers are good at and what they’d like to improve in. This works well if you lead by example.
Express your school’s values, mission, and goals. Don’t deviate from those.
About Dr. Kulvarn Atwal:
Dr. Kulvarn Atwal was born and educated in East London and has been headteacher for nine years of the school he attended as a child. in 2018/19 he was Executive Head Teacher of two primary schools; both of which were graded Outstanding in all areas by Ofsted. His doctoral thesis, completed in 2016, examined the factors that influence teacher learning in schools. He has recently published his first book, ‘The Thinking School – Developing a Dynamic Learning Community’.
Follow Dr. Atwal on Twitter
Resources Mentioned:
Learn more about Highlands Primary School
Buy The Thinking School by Dr. Kulvan Atwal
Read Dr. Atwal's Blog Posts here:
The Need for Creative Thinking in Our Schools
Cultivating An Environment for Creativity in Schools
If You Want Creative Thinkers, Focus on Emotional Literacy
Five Strategies for Building a Thinking School
 
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!
 
 
 

Teachers as Designers: A conversation with IBM designer, KC Lathrop

How do you go from teaching to designing? In this episode of the Fueling Creativity podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with creator, educator, and designer, KC Lathrop. As a former teacher turned designer, KC works to empower people to go against societal norms, change careers, start over, start again, learn anything they want, and follow all creative desires.
Tune in to learn about her transition from educator to full-time designer at IBM, the similarities between teaching and design professions, and how her administrative role allows her to be creative in new ways. She also describes the fascinating 100 of Making practice and how it nurtures her creativity, design, innovation, and even mental health.
“I kind of think about creativity in support your mental health. I think it’s almost the same idea as going to the gym every day for your physical health. To me, maintaining a creative practice is one of the ways that I maintain my mental health.” - KC Lathrop
KC’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Take every lesson you teach as a new opportunity to learn something for yourself. Not every class is going to be the best class you’ve ever taught.
A part of learning is being vulnerable. If you want your students to be vulnerable, you also need to be vulnerable with them.
Meet people where they are. No matter how much experience you have, there’s always space for learning and growing.
About KC Lathrop:
KC Lathrop is a designer, creator, and educator. She currently works in strategy and operations for IBM’s IT department. KC started at IBM as a User Experience Designer 5 years ago while getting her master’s degree from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). During her time at NYU, KC enrolled in the class 100 days of making, which she ended up teaching the following year. As a former teacher turned designer, she works to empower people to go against societal norms, change careers, start over, start again, learn anything you want and follow all creative desires. KC currently lives in Brooklyn, NY with her adorable dog, Waffles.
Visit KC’s website
Connect with her on LinkedIn
Follow her on Instagram
 
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!

Looking Ahead to Creativity and Innovation Week with Dr. Jim Friedman

How are creativity and innovation related? In this episode of the Fueling Creativity podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with Dr. Jim Friedman, a Wordsmith/Dreambuilder best known for creating television shows and movies. He is a serial creative entrepreneur, teaches Creativity and Entrepreneurship at Miami University, and is a frequent speaker on creativity and personal branding. Jim’s also the Chief Steward for World Creativity & Innovation Week and Day, supporting a team of students and professionals creating around the world. The theme in 2021 is creativity and education.
Tune in to learn about the history of Creativity and Innovation Week, upcoming events, and other topics related to the teaching and facilitation of creativity in education.
Jim shares his candid thoughts on what types of experiences and discussions are important in facilitating creativity and innovation, along with his hopes for World Creativity & Innovation Week and Day (taking place in April 2021). Stick around to hear his advice for teachers and parents on fostering creativity and innovation at home and in the classroom.
“Creativity is the thinking part and innovation is the doing part. So, people have creative thoughts all the time. How do we empower them to actually take action and move it forward?” - Dr. Jim Friedman
Jim’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
We need to reinvigorate our own creativity, empower students who have lost their creativity, and maintain those who are actively using their creativity.
Create a “failure bonus” in your classroom or home. If your kids are willing to go further beyond the risk, share their mistakes, and identify the learning they had to make their learning better, they get a bonus or a grade boost.
About Dr. Jim Friedman:
Jim Friedman is a Cincinnati native and resident Wordsmith/Dreambuilder who may be best known for creating television shows and movies.  He is a serial creative entrepreneur.  In addition to his broadcasting ventures, he has been granted multiple patents; written books; written, recorded, and performed music; and danced the hokey pokey at age three on television.
He teaches Creativity and Entrepreneurship at Miami University and is a frequent speaker on creativity and personal branding. He is also the Chief Steward for World Creativity & Innovation Week and Day, supporting a team of students and professionals creating around the world.
He holds a doctorate in communication (Ph.D.) which he earned - and a doctorate in Creativity (Cr.D.) which he made up himself.   He has won 65 Emmy Awards, has been inducted into three Halls of Fame.
Besides wordsmithing, Friedman enjoys asking questions, finding second right answers, silencing his voice of judgment, taking risks, and failing often and well.
Follow Jim on Instagram
Connect with him on Facebook
Connect with him on LinkedIn
Follow him on Twitter
 
Resources Mentioned:
Learn more about World Creativity & Innovation Week
 
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!

A Scholarly Journey to Redefining Creativity with Dr. Marta Ockuly

What is the definition of creativity? Is there only one right answer? No way! In this episode of the Fueling Creativity podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with Dr. Marta Ockuly, a humanistic psychologist and heuristic creativity researcher focused on the lived experience of human creativity. She’s also the founder and CEO (Chief Encouragement Officer) of the Creative Potential Institute.
Tune in to learn about her redefined definition of creativity, which has been adopted by UN-sanctioned World Creativity & Innovation Day/Week.
You’ll gain insight into the incredible experience that led her to redefine creativity, the qualitative research she did to identify that definition, and her lexicon of creativity terms. Marta also shares a few activities you can do at home or in your classroom to foster creativity.
“I really never looked at creativity as something to be evaluated by certain criteria. I looked at it as a process to test and put out in the world and enjoy or explain something phenomenally. It’s a multi-phenomenon construct and it’s also dynamic, not static.” - Marta Ockuly
 
Marta’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:
Marta’s universal definition of creativity: “Creativity is the person-centered process of imagining possibilities and taking bodied, expressive action that makes your ideas real.”
All art requires creativity, but NOT all creativity is art.
When you take away the fear of evaluation, you take away the fear of failure. Kids will feel safe to take risks and fail forward when there’s no evaluation. Give extra points for failing forward!
The one characteristic of all creative people is an awareness of their creativity. They self-identify as creative. When you understand you are creative, you practice doing what you most enjoy or find meaningful.
No definition of creativity is the only definition. Marta encourages you to come up with your own definition. She asks you: What is the future you’re imagining?
About Dr. Marta Ockuly:
Dr. Marta D. Ockuly is the lead consultant with the Creative Potential Institute. She serves as a creativity catalyst/coach working with organizations, leaders, and individuals looking for future-focused strategies for disrupting conformity in the workplace, higher education, and creativity training initiatives. Her project interests range from on-site to remote programs for building creative confidence and competence, custom-designed creativity courses, and certification programs relating to the lived experience of human creativity, Awakening Creative Potential with J.O.Y., and "Actualizing Creative Potential for Personal and Professional Growth." Dr. Ockuly's research focus is the lived experience of human creative potential across the lifespan. She speaks and teaches internationally promoting imagination and embodied action as essential components of human creativity. Her new definition has been adopted by United Nations sanctioned World Creativity & Innovation Day/Week celebrated globally April 15-21st.
Connect with Marta on LinkedIn
Follow her on Twitter
 
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!

Infusing Creativity into the Classroom with Dr. Susan Keller-Mathers

How do you find joy in your classroom and infuse creativity into your students’ curriculum? In this episode of the Fueling Creativity podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with Dr. Susan Keller-Mathers, an Associate Professor at the Center for Applied Imagination at SUNY Buffalo State.
Susan teaches graduate courses in creativity, chairs the curriculum committee, and serves on leadership teams of various departments across campus dedicated to infusing creative learning into their teaching and learning practices. Her focus is educating the next generation of creativity experts who will utilize their degree in creativity in diverse professional and personal arenas. 
“Good teaching is creative teaching.”                        - Susan Keller-Mathers
Tune in to learn how to infuse creativity into your curriculum and how to find joy every single day you walk into your classroom!
You’ll gain insight into the importance of the practitioner-scholar model, the difference between teaching creativity and creative teaching, and the best practices for nurturing long-term professional learning in teachers. Susan also gives great advice for teachers who are overwhelmed or challenged with constraints in the classroom.
“You have to be an advocate for creativity outside of your classroom to do it in your classroom. You can close your door and you can do what you want to do, which is what a lot of teachers want to do, but you must also be that teacher leader who helps others understand the value of it. Then, it becomes more embedded in the educational environment because you can’t do it in isolation.” - Dr. Susan Keller-Mathers
Susan’s Tips for Teachers:
Your attitude and energy make a difference in the classroom.
Remember why you’re an educator and come in refreshed and ready to engage with your students.
Always think about how you can meet the needs of your students and bring out their creative thinking.
 
About Susan Keller-Mathers:
Susan Keller-Mathers is an Associate Professor at the Center for Applied Imagination at SUNY Buffalo State. Susan holds a BS in Elementary Education, an MS in Creativity, and an Ed.D in Curriculum and Instruction.  She teaches graduate courses in creativity, chairs the curriculum committee and serves on leadership teams of various departments across campus dedicated to infusing creative learning into their teaching and learning practices.
Susan’s focus is educating the next generation of creativity experts who will utilize their degree in creativity in diverse professional and personal arenas.  For nearly three decades she has continued the development of the Torrance Incubation Model (TIM) to infuse creativity into lesson, unit, course and training frameworks, develop creative learning and creative problem-solving initiatives in educational and business institutions and travel the globe teaching creativity to international educators on five continents.
 
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!

SEASON 1: Introducing The Fueling Creativity Podcast

Welcome to the Fueling Creativity Podcast! In this debut episode, hosts Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood share their mission and goals for the podcast. They shed light on their professional backgrounds and why they value the integration of creativity in education and at home, especially during the pandemic.
 
“We’ll be talking about creativity topics and how they apply to the field of education. We’ll be speaking with scholars, educators, and resident experts about their work, challenges they face, and digging deeper to new and varying perspectives of creativity – all with the goal to help fuel a more rich and informed discussion that provides teachers and parents with knowledge they can use at home or in the classroom.”
- Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood
 
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!