Digital Differentiation as a Form of Pedagogical Creativity

The goal of this chapter is to explain differentiation and digital differentiation and their intersecting points with pedagogical creativity, which become a necessity for 21st century teachers. In regards to pedagogical creativity, three main elements, which are creative teaching, teaching for creativity, and creative learning, will be discussed. Differentiation techniques and digital differentiation tools used for digitalizing in-class techniques will be explained. Further, an example of a digitally differentiated lesson plan will also be presented as a guide for teachers that require it.

Measuring Beliefs about Teaching for Creativity

Background/Context Beliefs about teaching for creativity is a newer area of empirical investigation in education. Purpose The purpose of the quantitative study was to measure teachers’ domain-specific beliefs about teaching for creativity, piloted for the first time in this study, and compare these beliefs with domain-general beliefs about creativity. Subjects The study subjects were preservice and practicing teachers enrolled in bachelor's, master's, and doctoral (PhD and EdD) education programs within a private university located in the northeastern United States. Research Design This study surveyed a convenience sample of preservice and practicing teachers’ beliefs about creativity and their beliefs about teaching for creativity to examine their creative self-efficacy, growth and fixed creative mindsets, desirability of creativity for teaching success, and valuing creativity for student learning. Data Collection and Analysis A total of 149 students completed a measure on beliefs about creativity (domain-general) and beliefs about teaching for creativity (domain-specific). Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to examine potential newly aligned items and factors with a change in wording. Results The factor structure of the Fixed Creative Mindset items, Creative Self-Efficacy items and Desirability items was stable when rewording them to represent teacher perspectives. The Growth Creative Mindset items do not show the same stability, but two of the items seem to be related to a single factor, which is evidence that these items are functioning well. The newly worded Value items loaded on a separate factor, with only one cross loading. Educators rated themselves high in most areas, and low in the area of Fixed Creative Mindset. The results indicate that the Beliefs About Teaching for Creativity scales are reliable, with significant correlations among factors. Recommendations We propose research and policy recommendations to further examine the complex relationship between teachers’ beliefs about teaching for creativity and their pedagogical practices, especially in the area of growth and fixed creative mindset.

A Study of Teachers' Attitudes Toward Teaching for Creativity in Relation to Their Professional Development: دراسة علاقة اتجاهات المعلمين نحو التدريس من أجل الإبداع وتطورهم المهني

The main aim of this research was to investigate the relationship between secondary teachers' attitudes toward teaching for creativity and their professional development via the correlational-descriptive method. The sample consisted of 49 Saudi secondary school teachers who were selected randomly from the Qatif's secondary schools of KSA. The instrument of this study was developed by Wadaani (2015), which consisted of 16 items on a five-point Likert scale. One hypothesis was established to examine the correlation of the research variables via the descriptive analysis and the multiple regression analysis The findings of this study show that there is a significant positive relationship between teachers attitudes toward teaching for creativity and their professional development, but this relationship is weak based on its effect size, which is just 16.03% since R (square) is at 0,1603, indicating that teachers' attitudes toward teaching for creativity are partially related to their professional development and it may be possible to predict it. This study recommended that teachers should focus on their development via the training programs and these training programs should be designed in a way that encourages them to participate and react by means of providing incentives during the training.