Teaching for Creativity: Mini-c, Little-c and Experiential Learning in College Classroom

• Main Author: Magdalena Grohman
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Lodz University Press 2018-12-01
• Series: Nauki o Wychowaniu
• Subjects: creativity; mini-c; little-c; education; experiential learning; pedagogy
• Online Access: https://czasopisma.uni.lodz.pl/wychow/article/view/4508

The wave of changes in teaching approaches due to the introduction of the 21 century skills – including creativity and problem solving – has affected not only K through 12 classrooms, but also colleges and universities. Thompson (2014) suggests that when designing courses and curricula college educators should consider not only the content knowledge, skills and dispositions their students need to learn, but also what capacities ought to be developed and through what type of pedagogies. In this article, I propose that pedagogies of engagement are developed and used to teach content and skills in a college level course on Psychology of Creativity. In the main section of the article, I present three groups of creative assignments developed in collaboration with Dr. Heather Snyder: journal activities, creative project assignments, and creative problem-solving workshops. I argue that these assignments not only affect students’ motivation, engagement, and deep learning, but they also facilitate the development of mini-c and little-c creativity.