Learning to Create - Creating to Learn

Creativity has been recognized as a fundamental future competence, but there has been a lack of research on pedagogies in nurturing learners’ creativity in K–12 education. This chapter explores how students’ and teachers’ competencies for creativity can be applied and developed through participation in invention projects. An invention project called We Design & Make, in which eighth-grade students used the design thinking approach for co-creating e-textile products for local preschoolers, is presented. By describing the nature of their creative process and practices, and the teachers’ pedagogical practices for building a creative classroom culture, how competencies for creativity include various skills and capabilities that concern both students and teachers is illustrated. These include creative and critical thinking skills, social and emotional skills, and certain domain-specific concepts and practices.