Fueling Creativity in Education

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:

1. Your attitude and energy make a difference in the classroom.
2. Remember why you’re an educator and come in refreshed and ready to engage with your students.
3. 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.

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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!

What were the biggest lessons learned so far in Season Two of the Fueling Creativity podcast? In this episode, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood sit down and have a debrief to reflect on the first 5 episodes of Season Two, highlighting the key takeaways and major lessons these conversations have taught them about creativity and education.

Listen in as Cyndi and Matthew break down the following insights.

Major Takeaways from Season Two, Episodes 1-5:

1. Heightening anticipation for students increases engagement and excitement about learning any content. Learn more about creating “hooks” in the classroom, by listening to the episode with Dr. Sally Reis and read about the Torrance Incubation Model.
2. There is immense value in identifying interests from an early age. It’s important to note that having too many interests may make it difficult to focus on one. Additionally, it may be hard for students to develop interests, so don’t force it. Simply help your children or students explore different areas and see what sparks curiosity.

• Think about the future, and the skills that your students/children may need. For more information on this, listen to the episode with Jonathan Nadler.
• Human-centered education, or personalized learning, focuses on what each individual student needs to be successful, rather than treating everyone as though they have the same needs. To learn more, listen to the episode with Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman.

Resources Mentioned:

Read about the Torrance Incubation Model.

20 Lessons to Weave Creative Thinking into Your Curriculum

Listen to the episode with Jonathan Nalder

Listen to the episode with Dr. Sally Reis.

Listen to the episode with Leon Tynes.

Listen to the episode with Donna Luther.

Listen to the episode with Dr. Scott Barry 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!

What role do emotions play in creativity? Are we more creative when we’re happy? In this episode of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood continue their discussion with Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, Ph.D., a Senior Research Scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. In part 1 of this double expresso, Zorana talked about how people engage in the creative process and how that applies to the classroom environment.

In part 2, you’ll learn more about the emotional side of creativity along with strategies for supporting students as they navigate emotions and creativity in the k-12 classroom. Zorana highlights the Theory of Emotional Intelligence, detailing how we can harness the power of our emotions to express creativity and achieve our creative goals. This insight is very helpful for teachers in helping students be more creative and more in touch with their feelings, moods, and emotions.

Zorana also shares insights from her new book, The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity and Emotion, and how they apply to creativity in education.

“What we have learned from these studies is pretty unanimous, actually - that positive, pleasant, highly energized moods, such as being happy, is helpful for creative thinking. People come up with more ideas and more original ideas in these states.” – Zorana Ivcevic Pringle

Zorana’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:

1. Creativity is full of emotions. From anxiety in front of an empty screen to frustrations when you’re facing obstacles to the joy and pride of success. All are part of the creative process. Remind yourself and your students that challenging feelings are not a sign of lack of creativity skills, but they are a normal part of the creative process and can be expected.
2. When teaching for creativity, it’s important to model and support the process of transforming ideas into an end product. That process may be long and will require flexibility, adjustment, and facing frustrations.
3. Teach students how to regulate their work on creative projects. They need to be aware that they will have to persist through difficulties, but they can use the emotions they experience in service to their project.

“The advice shouldn’t be that we have to be happy or joyful in order to be creative, but it oftentimes happens like that. There are also other people who got inspired by grief and by pain and by anxiety, so that is possible too and we shouldn’t discount it, especially when we are giving advice of how to be inspired.” – Zorana Ivcevic Pringle

Check out Zorana's Newsletter!

Recommended Resources:

Listen to Part 1 with Zorana Ivcevic Pringle

The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity and Emotion by Jessica D. Hoffmann, James C. Kaufman, and Zorana Ivcevic

Listen to the episode with Dr. James Kaufman

GoNoodle

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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 [email protected]!

You can also find The Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Please rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!

About Zorana Ivcevic Pringle:

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Dr. Ivcevic studies the role of emotions in creativity and well-being, as well as how to use the arts (and art-related institutions) to promote emotion and creativity skills. She has served as Associate Editor of Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, International Journal of Creativity and Problem Solving, and Creativity Research Journal. Her work has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, ArtNet, US News, Education Week, Science Daily, El Pais, a...

In this introductory episode, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood offer a summary of season five, which includes a collection of exceptional educators, administrators, and creativity researchers, as well as a subtle change to the format of the show.

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!

In this sixth episode of the Listen & Learn Summer Series, Cyndi and Matt discuss "Build Relationships" - one of ten actions they've identified for classroom creativity during their 60+ podcast interviews with creativity researchers, practitioners, and talented educators.

During the conversation, Cyndi and Matt revisit advice shared by UK elementary teacher Juliet Desailly, who reminds us that every new cohort of students is always a little different than the last, and South American educator Lola Schnapp, who emphasizes the importance of relationships with like-minded colleagues.

Featured Episodes

Lola Schnapp, Creative Thinking at the Engine for Change

Juliet Desailly, A Reflection on Education Standards

The Listen & Learn Summer Series offers teachers and educators a collection of short episodes to support professional learning around creativity in education. Cyndi and Matt have created an online resource to help educators who want to engage in the learning experience actively. You can learn more about this series on WorwoodClassroom.com or visit CreativeThinkingNetwork.com to join online discussions on each tip with Dr. Cyndi Burnett.

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 understand how Design Thinking can promote teacher creativity and support professional growth in the classroom.

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!