Effects of Creative Computing on Preservice Elementary Teachers' Design Thinking, Innovation, and Scratch Story Creativity

• In Event: Teachers and Learning Technology

Abstract

Despite numerous calls from educational policymakers and business leaders to include creativity in K-12 education, teachers struggle to integrate this critical 21st-century skill in a classroom due to insufficient knowledge about creativity and ways to integrate it into various subject areas. Toward this end, we developed a creativity-enhancement intervention for preservice elementary teachers (N = 76) as part of a teacher preparation educational technology course. Using pre-/posttest quasi-experimental design, we examined the effects of the creativity-enhancement intervention in a Creative Computing instructional module on participants’ design thinking, innovation, and creativity of their Scratch Story projects compared to a traditional approach (without the creativity-enhancement intervention). The creativity-enhancement intervention had a positive effect on participants’ design thinking and innovation stance.

Authors

• Elena Novak, Kent State University
  Presenting Author

• Chia-Ling Kuo, Kent State University
  Presenting Author

• Grace Morris, Kent State University
  Presenting Author