If I was to ask you: “who is the most creative person you know?”, who would come to mind? Would it be someone from the so-called ‘creative’ arts <insert favourite musician/artist/mime/magician etc. here>? Or would it be a Nobel Prize winning scientist, or influential politician? When we think about creativity, it’s impossible not to reflect on the individuals who epitomise creativity and leave us questioning whether there are traits or characteristics that differentiate them from ‘others’. To bring this line of questioning back to our role as educators, it is important to understand how the characteristics of the creative person can be modelled, in order to reflect on how we can best optimise these characteristics in our students (and in ourselves as educators).
A multi-faceted model of creative behaviour was introduced by Torrance (1966) who identified three main characteristics of creative individuals: creative abilities, creative skills, and creative motivations. In this model, high levels of creative achievement are only attained by those who are motivated and who have the skills necessary to accompany their creative abilities. Key to this idea is Torrance’s focus on motivation as a critical component of the creative person. This emphasis was echoed by Amabile (2012), who also referred to a similarly focused three-faceted model: domain-relevant skills, creativity-relevant skills, and task motivation.
But what is ‘motivation’, and how can we foster it in our own work and in our students? In psychological terms ‘motivation’ identifies the reason(s) for acting or behaving in a particular way. As such, it refers to energised and persistent goal-directed behaviours. One of the most well-substantiated theories of motivation is Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985), which provides a comprehensive explanation for the full range of reasons why people do what they do. The theory suggests that there are two types of motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. In the following video Professor Edward Deci, one of the founding developers of SDT, explains the theory:
Professor Edward Deci, one of the founding developers of Self Determination Theory (SDT), explaining the various components of the theory.
The learning and teaching framework that embodies self-determined learning is heutagogy. Heutagogy is learner-centric and future focused, emphasising the need for the learner to acquire life-long learning skills in preparation for an uncertain world – a mandate that has grown in salience this year as we look to the future new-normal of teaching and learning post-COVID. A heutagogical approach espouses flexibility in learning design, with learners being able to negotiate their individual learning journeys, while teachers provide the resources necessary for that journey. In a heutagogical learning scenario assessment becomes more of a learning experience and less of a means to measure attainment of skills and knowledge (Hase & Kenyon, 2001). In reflecting on this last point, one idea that I have been mulling over for quite some time is to trial a ‘design and choose your own rubric’ activity with my students, where they are able to design a rubric that they feel best aligns with their learning goals for a creative activity.
Taking this heutagogical approach into the technology enhanced learning space, I am very interested in reflecting on ways in which we can use technology to provide students with self-determined choices and the flexibility to navigate content to best serve their individual needs and interests. This desire to select technology that reinvents the types of tasks and activities we are able to offer our students can be viewed as the Redefinition level of the Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition (SAMR) model (Puentedura, 2006; see figure 1):
Figure 1. Puentedura’s (2006) Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition (SAMR) model. From Hamilton, E. R., Rosenberg, J. M., & Akcaoglu, M. (2016). The Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition (SAMR) Model: a Critical Review and Suggestions for its Use [Article]. Techtrends, 60(5), 433-441 (p. 434).
For example, instead of presenting a class of students with a series of videos, readings and activities they all must follow, knowledge could be presented as different ‘knowledge objects’ that are virtually (sculpturally) presented in a virtual learning museum, and students could wander around the virtual space and activate and engage with the objects based on their individualised learning objectives. As a potential assessment activity (that aligns with a heutagogical approach to assessment design that places the learning experience at the heart of the assessment) the student could be asked to curate a virtual museum exhibition and act as a tour guide for their peers, walking them through the knowledge objects they chose to engage with, explaining why they chose those objects, and discussing the impact of their choices on their learning outcomes.
While it is only one piece of the creativity puzzle, fostering students’ competence, relatedness, and – key in our discussion of heutagogy – autonomy, will undoubtedly increase their desire to engage creatively with their learning.
Thom, this one’s for you!*
(*no fonts were harmed in the writing of this blog post)
And because no blog post would be complete without music, here’s a heutagogically-correct ‘choose your own adventure’ music video by jaye, entitled ADHD. I recommend you watch it via YouTube on your desktop so that you can play with the manual controls, which will allow you to choose your own fate while being presented with experiences that were adapted from jaye’s memories.
Reference List
Amabile, T. M. (2012). Componential Theory of Creativity. Harvard Business School. To appear in: Encyclopedia of Management Theory (Eric H. Kessler, Ed.), Sage Publications, 2013.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York, NY: Plenum.
Hamilton, E. R., Rosenberg, J. M., & Akcaoglu, M. (2016). The Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition (SAMR) Model: a Critical Review and Suggestions for its Use [Article]. Techtrends, 60(5), 433-441. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-016-0091-y
Hase, S. & Kenyon, C. (2001). Moving from andragogy to heutagogy: implications for VET. Proceedings of Research to Reality: Putting VET Research to Work: Australian Vocational Education and Training Research Association (AVETRA), Adelaide, SA, 28-30 March, AVETRA, Crows Nest, NSW.
Puentedura, R. R. (2006). Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition (SAMR) model. From Hamilton, E. R., Rosenberg, J. M., & Akcaoglu, M. (2016). The Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition (SAMR) Model: a Critical Review and Suggestions for its Use. Techtrends, 60(5), 433-441 (p. 434).
Torrance, E. P. (1966). The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking-Norms-Technical Manual Research Edition-Verbal Tests, Forms A and B-Figural Tests, Forms A and B. Princeton, NJ: Personnel Press.
Motivation has been a huge preoccupation in work on languages learning and teaching. Early work built on Deci and Ryan’s SDT (see Kim Bower (2019) Explaining motivation in language learning: a framework for evaluation and research, The Language Learning Journal, 47:5, 558-574, DOI: 10.1080/09571736.2017.1321035
for a historical panorama of motivation in language learning) with one name coming to the fore again and again in this area: Zoltán Dörnyei. Dörnyei’s been looking at motivation in languages learning for 30 or more years and, like his view on motivation (that it is dynamic and constantly changing), his theorisation has changed over time. In his early work in the 19902 he describes a framework of distinct but interrelated levels: the language, the learning and the learning situation. By the early years of the 21st century, he had come up with the L2 (second language) motivational self system to tackle questions of motivation – what’s really interesting about this is it takes in the whole identity of the learner including their social context/s as well as combining with the future-focused view. This is a far more sophisticated model than Gardner’s mid-20th-century instrumental versus integrative motivational model which still dominates much thinking on language learning motivation. The L2 motivational self system considers 1) the ideal L2 self (aspirational and future-focused ideas about what the learner wants and hopes to achieve in the language) 2) the ought-to L2 self (what the learner must do to realise their ideal L2 self, including constraints imposed by external forces, e.g. education) and 3) the L2 learning experience. The history of work in motivation in languages learning has also looked at de- and re-motivation. This is a good recent piece about motivation in languages research over time https://b9f19ceb-f720-4252-a2be-ccde56c0821f.filesusr.com/ugd/ba734f_6c45e27c3304461196697c383f12645d.pdf
Hi Solange, I really enjoy reading your post! 🙂 It is interesting that in taking the heutagogical approach, there is a greater reliance on the students’ intrinsic motivation, but at the same time, the autonomy and creativity in learning fostered through such approach further develops learners’ intrinsic motivation (Shroff, Vogel, Coombes, and Fion, 2007).
However, taking this approach also requires a level of sophistication/maturity from the students to be able to manage the autonomy (Hase, 2009). Although I would love to be able to apply this approach to my own teaching, what I struggle with is the fact that most students from commerce are more extrinsically motivated (e.g., to get a corporate job). As such they are more focused on what they need to do/know to get the job (e.g., achieving a certain WAM or specific knowledge/skills), and not necessarily in deepening their learning in the subject area (disclaimer: this applies to significant number of commerce students, but not all). My concerns with applying the heutagogical approach in my teaching are that students may be overwhelmed with choices of learning paths (something they are not used to), and also at the extreme, students lowering standards of learning goals, to achieve a better outcome.
In saying that, I still believe that there is a huge value in the heutagogical approach and this is, in my mind, an ideal of how teaching should be (i.e., where both the facilitator/teacher and leaners simultaneously take on active role in learning).
p.s. Please keep us updated on the “design your own rubric” activity. I am really interested to hear about the outcome of this activity 🙂
References
Hase, Stewart. (2009). Heutagogy and e-learning in the workplace: Some challenges and opportunities. Journal of Applied Research in Workplace E-learning, 1(1), doi: 10.5043/impact.13
Shroff, R.H., Vogel, D.R., Coombes, J., & Lee, F. (2007). Student E-Learning Intrinsic Motivation: A Qualitative Analysis. Communications of the Association for Information System, 9(12), 241-260
A great exploration and examples of applying Heutagogy Solange – well done.