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A creative cocktail: creative teaching

in initial teacher education
a a a
Teresa Grainger , Jonathon Barnes & Stephen Scoffham
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Published online: 22 Jan 2007.

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 Journal of Education for Teaching
Vol. 30, No. 3, November 2004

A Creative Cocktail: creative

teaching in initial teacher education
TERESA GRAINGER, JONATHON BARNES
& STEPHEN SCOFFHAM
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Canterbury Christ Church University College, Canterbury CT1 IQU, UK.

Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT Despite government rhetoric, higher education lecturers and schoolteachers

in the UK remain under pressure to focus on standards and measurement in the core
curriculum at the relative expense of a wider and more creative education. This article
argues that the balance needs redressing and explores the nature of creative teaching in
the context of initial teacher education. It reports an investigation into creative teaching,
undertaken through peer review and analysis of sessions in geography, music and English.
Students’ responses were collected and interviews conducted. The sessions were examined
in relation to content, teaching style and student experience, from which common themes
were then identified. These themes included: contextualisation; using metaphor; style and
pace of delivery; tutor confidence and ability to inspire; valuing students; emotional
engagement; and challenging students to reflect upon their own learning. It is suggested
that creative teaching is a complex and invigorating cocktail. The ingredients of the
cocktail can be identified and may be taught, but much depends upon the vigour of the
mixing and the individual experiences of those who attend each ‘cocktail party’.

INTRODUCTION
In recent years, UK governments have taken an increasingly active and prescriptive
approach to education, both through the introduction of the National Curriculum for
schools and teacher training and the nationally imposed literacy and numeracy strategies.
As a result the UK, and England in particular, now has one of the most highly politicised
and rigidly controlled education systems in the Western world.

Inspection and monitoring at all levels of education, the setting of national targets and the
publication of results all help to ensure accountability. Like the schoolteachers they
support, many tutors working in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) currently feel dominated
by external regulatory pressures. The Teacher Training Agency standards, the Office for
Standards in Education inspection regime, the requirements of local education authorities
and the demands of partnership schools, themselves under surveillance and pressured to
ISSN 0260-7476 print; ISSN 1360-0540 online/04/030243-11
 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/0260747042000309475
 244 T. Grainger et al.

reach imposed targets, have also acted as constraints on creative and innovative ap-
proaches to teaching. Teachers have, it is argued, become demotivated and unable to halt
the gradual erosion of their professional autonomy. Concerns about the demise of
creativity in both teaching and learning have been widely voiced (Prentice, 2000;
Sedgwick, 2001; Jeffrey & Woods, 2003). Even some of the UK government’s own
reports have expressed concern that constant change and increased pressure has prevented
the development of creative education (Department for Education and Employment
[DfEE], 1999). As one agency observes: ‘The more prescriptive the curriculum, the greater
the need to be explicit about creativity and not leave it to chance’ (Design Council, cited
in DfEE, 1999, p. 83).
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In the current climate the three Rs dominate classroom time, and creative tasks are often
perceived to be less important than work in reading, writing and number. In particular,
work in early years education is in danger of becoming both limited and limiting,
preventing the achievement of the government’s long-term aim: the development of a
creative society of lifelong learners. Children quickly learn how the school system works
and as they move through school their spontaneous creativity diminishes. Sternberg (1997,
p. 203) observes that ‘it’s not that older individuals lack creative intelligence, but rather
that they have suppressed it’. Today’s learners know that to achieve the targets they have
been set they must stay on the straight and narrow paths of conditioned and measurable
conformity, whilst today’s teachers are beset with contradictory messages regarding the
breadth and balance of the curriculum.

If teachers and lecturers are to adopt innovative ways forward, they need to recognise the
tension between the incessant drive for measurable standards on the one hand and the
development of creative teaching on the other. Finding the energy and enterprise to
respond flexibly to this working reality is a considerable challenge and teachers need to be
convinced that creativity is a critical component in a world dominated by technological
innovations. Human skills and people’s powers of creativity and imagination are,
Robinson (2001) argues, a key resource in a knowledge-driven economy and in order to
move forward we need a fresh understanding of intelligence, of human capacity and of the
nature of creativity. Furthermore, if creativity is ‘imaginative activity which leads to new
and meaningful outcomes’ (DfEE, 1999, p. 29), then it is inclusive of all curriculum
subjects and all people. Making original connections in thought, movement and language
needs to be recognised as a creative act just as much as the production of a finished book
or work of art. The small-scale research project reported here was undertaken in this
context. It sought to investigate the nature of creative teaching in various ITE disciplines
and to enhance its status with the students involved. Planning and practising teaching is
in some ways like planning and hosting a successful cocktail party, so this metaphor has
been used as a framing device for the article.

EXPLORING CREATIVE TEACHING

Creative teaching has received considerably less attention than creativity itself, yet without
an understanding of both terms; productive ways forward cannot be generated (Craft &
 Creative Teaching in Initial Teacher Education 245

Jeffrey, 2003). In order for teacher education students to be able to adopt genuinely
creative approaches to their subject, they need to observe tutors teaching creatively and
take part in creative learning experiences. Explicit advice on creative teaching is offered
by the UK Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) in its publication ‘Creativity:
find it, promote it’ (QCA, 2003), but this document conflates creative teaching with
teaching for creativity. A clearer understanding of the creative teacher or ITE tutor can be
construed from the QCA description of the creative pupil, whom they describe as:
• Questioning and challenging
• Making connections and seeing relationships
• Envisaging what might be
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• Playing with ideas, keeping options open

• Representing ideas in a variety of ways
• Evaluating effects of ideas and actions (QCA, 2003).
This description has many parallels with Prentice’s (2000, p. 15) concept of the creative
teacher: those who display ‘cultural curiosity … [and] … continue to be self-motivated
learners, value the creative dimensions of their own lives and understand how creative
connections can be made between their personal responses to experience and their
teaching’. The work of others has also highlighted how creative teachers tend to place the
learners above the curriculum and that the combination of a positive disposition towards
creativity and person-centred teaching actively promotes pupils who learn and think for
themselves( e.g. Fryer, 1996; Beetlestone, 1998; Craft, 2000). However, recent research
has tended to focus on teachers’ perceptions of creative teaching rather than specific
observations of and reflections upon the art of teaching itself. It is also mostly based in the
primary classroom. Such work is not directly applicable to the ITE tutor, teaching on
longer programmes with older students. So this study was devised to explore elements of
creative teaching through the careful examination of taught ITE sessions in three different
curriculum areas—geography, music and English.

THE STUDY
The study was conducted with students who had enrolled on various ITE courses at
primary school level in a UK institution in the autumn term 2002. Three different sessions
were observed—a team-taught seminar, a workshop and a large lecture. The sessions,
which were selected on the basis of convenience or ‘opportunity’ sampling, involved
around 240 students.

Geography: This session was taught by two tutors working as a team and was part of a
longer unit on environmental issues and international development. Seventy-seven third-
year Bachelor of Arts with Qualified Teacher Status (BA QTS) students were introduced
to a variety of world map projections. They were invited to make visual comparisons
between the shape and area of the continents and to discuss hidden messages and subtexts
in the different maps This led to practical activities comparing global living standards
using both gross national product and the more sophisticated ‘human development index’
pioneered by the United Nations over the past decade.
 246 T. Grainger et al.

Music: In this workshop, 24 non-specialist students studying for the Postgraduate

Certificate in Education (PGCE) course were introduced to composition. Simple clapping
rhythms led to an African song that the students sang first as a group and then as a round.
The session was developed through the use of xylophones and other instruments, and
paintings were used as a source of ideas for group interpretation using the scales and
notation introduced earlier. The emotive power of music was illustrated by discussing the
different associations evoked by accompanying a short video sequence with three contrast-
ing musical backgrounds: silence, Gregorian chant and modern rock music.

English: This session consisted of a lecture, which considered the power of narrative and
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the role of imagined experience in literacy learning, with 140 final year BA QTS
undergraduates. The tutor began by reading a picture-book using colour transparencies to
magnify the illustrations and then inviting students to consider their response. The
significance of oral stories and the tradition of storytelling were also explored and
examples of classroom drama were described to illuminate the argument. The lecture
concluded with an improvised story about conflict resolution, presented orally with full
audience involvement.

Evidence about the teaching in all these sessions was collected through:

• peer observation and field notes made by the other tutors in the study;
• peer discussion to ascertain the aims, content and value of the session as seen through
the eyes of the tutor;
• student questionnaires about creative teaching in the sessions;
• follow-up interviews with a group of students from each of the sessions.

In adopting this method of triangulation, the tutors sought to gain a more objective
understanding of their teaching and to identify common issues in creative teaching. The
themes that emerged from these multiple perspectives were categorised into three main
areas which were connected to the cocktail metaphor as follows:

(a) the session content represents the cocktail ingredients;

(b) the teaching style parallels the act of mixing the ingredients in a cocktail shaker;
(c) the learning experience stands for the party itself.

Within these categories, which overlap and interface, key themes were identified through
careful analysis of the data. In all cases, these themes were noted by at least 65% of the
respondents, both students and tutors, and were connected to the research literature. The
session content included placing current trends in a wider context and the extensive use of
metaphor and analogy to make connections. In the category of teaching style, multimodal
pedagogic practices, pace, tutor’s confidence and the ability to inspire and value students
were identified as core themes. In relation to the learning experience, the emerging themes
included involving the students affectively and physically and challenging them to engage
and reflect. Taken together, it is argued that these represent some of the critical features
of creative teaching which combine to support new thinking.
 Creative Teaching in Initial Teacher Education 247

SESSION CONTENT: THE COCKTAIL INGREDIENTS

(a) Placing Current Trends and Practice in a Wider Context
Creativity only exists in a social or cultural background, where both teachers and students
view their activities in terms of their setting and consider their impact on the community
at large. In all the sessions observed, the tutors emphasised the importance of contextual-
ising new knowledge and learning. However, the context for each session varied. In the
geography seminar, for example, case-study techniques were used to take students from
the particular to the general, and one approach illustrated how different areas and spaces
in a classroom are replicated by land use patterns on a national and international scale.
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Similarly, the human demand for food and water was used to establish the notion of man’s
‘environmental footprint’, which raised far-reaching ethical and political questions about
access to resources. This session also used a variety of world map projections to portray
concepts of sustainability, relativism and differences in world welfare. It was clear to the
students that the examples, illustrations and cited research were all held in a wider and
value-laden context. The two tutors argued, for example, that teachers of geography should
work towards the goal of ‘a just, sustainable and pleasant world for us all’, as advocated
by the International Geographical Union.

In the English session, students were made aware of the need to develop a critically
informed attitude towards literacy, literature and learning. As one student remarked, ‘the
tutor reminded us that requirements will change, therefore our “professional knowledge
and understanding” is central’. Others spoke of realising they needed to reconsider their
principles, philosophy and values and profile critical literacy in the classroom, enabling
children to read both the word and the world (Freire, 1985). Students in all sessions noted
a number of other framing issues, including: the child’s developing sense of self, the
lifelong learner, the global citizen, and the problematic nature of knowledge in geography,
literacy and music.

(b) Using Metaphor and Analogy to Make Connections

The ability to use metaphor, analogy and mental models is claimed to be one of the
distinguishing features of homo sapiens (Mithin, 1996), and all languages and cultures use
both metaphor and metonym. Brain scans suggest that the metaphorical use of language
uses similar parts of the brain as imagination, emotion, the artistic, the musical and spatial
activities, all of which are significant ingredients of creativity. Students recognised such
metaphors and commented upon them; for example, in the music session they remarked
on the new meanings which were created from setting music alongside art. Music itself
was also used as a metaphor, standing as it did for certain emotions provoked in the
film/music sequences. Metaphors were seen to illuminate less familiar topics in more
familiar terms; for example, the English tutor used a metaphor of a dog’s body to illustrate
structure in story writing. In this, the dog’s head represents the seeing start of a story, its
torso the strong middle and its wagging tail the powerful last sentence, proffering
coherence and connections.
 248 T. Grainger et al.

Creativity has commonly been seen as making connections between two previously
unconnected frames of reference, and several instances of this were noted in the sessions
observed, when tutors illustrated a concept from one domain with an example from
another. The tutors also voiced creative insights and made use of metaphor in their asides
and in the spontaneous exemplification of their arguments. Students frequently drew
attention to these and commented in particular on the value of tutor anecdotes, which were
often used to illustrate analogous issues. The work of others has also shown that mental
models and analogies aid our understanding (e.g. Jensen, 1995; Adey, 2001). In this study
students went further and linked these aids to understanding with creativity itself. Many
specifically commented that their tutor’s personal touch and use of metaphoric connections
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made a real difference to their ability to grasp ideas and concepts.

TEACHING STYLES: MIXING THE COCKTAIL

(a) Switching between Styles and Varying Pace
All three tutors employed multimodal teaching approaches and frequently switched
between pedagogic styles, which was recognised by the students, who noted that this felt
play-like and spontaneous. The diversity of styles encompassed: exposition, including
classroom examples and theoretical perspectives; discussion; questioning; practical activi-
ties(even in the lecture); and student enquiry. In the team-taught geography session,
cognitive conflict was evident when tutors deliberately contradicted one another, prompt-
ing group discussion about whose values were being used to make judgements. Such
provocations may help promote creative responses in students (Adey & Shayer, 1994). In
interview many again highlighted this issue and commented on the importance of teachers
giving both sides of an argument, regardless of their own opinions and beliefs.

The diversity of pattern, rhythm and pace used in the sessions was particularly marked and
consciously noted by both tutors and students. This was seen to be linked to the
multimodal engagement of the students as they cut and pasted versions of world maps in
geography, improvised music to evoke the sense of a painting in music and joined in with
the paralinguistic gestures and repetitive actions of a story in English. The tutors were, it
appears, consciously seeking to offer different entry points, in line with Gardner’s (1999)
view that aesthetic, practical and hands-on experiences are just as valid as those which are
narratorial, quantitative or logical.

The use of open questions was also identified as a particular feature of the tutors’ teaching
styles. Such framing questions were used extensively in music; for example, after a
group’s brief improvisation, the tutor asked, ‘What was distinctive about the sound they
made?’ On another occasion, groups were asked, ‘Can you think of different ways of
accompanying this tune?’ Such questions demonstrate that the formulation of a problem
may be just as important as solving it. In the context of creative teaching, it is argued that
both tutors and students need to be involved in the process of imaginative thinking,
encompassing the generation of questions and possible responses (Cremin, 2003).
 Creative Teaching in Initial Teacher Education 249

The breadth of audiovisual and other resources that were employed to develop and
illustrate arguments were also mentioned as important aides to the tutors’ teaching styles.
These included video clips, maps, picture-books, diagrams, children’s work and oral
stories. Students perceived that the variety of learning styles made a noticeable difference
to their engagement, even in the conventionally one-sided forum of the lecture theatre, and
as a result they felt the sessions were more inclusive. All three tutors actively re-created
and transformed ideas spontaneously, both in front of students and in collaboration with
them. ‘Poetry is dead on the page and alive on the tongue, so it’s our responsibility to
bring it life’, one tutor declared. The same could perhaps be said about creative teaching
itself, in so far as it is a collaborative enterprise which variously involves engagement,
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reflection and transformation, patterned at such a rate as to invite and encourage learning
and the transfer of understanding from one context to another.

(b) Confidence and Ability to Inspire

Despite the varied nature of the sessions, the students were almost unanimous in
commenting upon their tutors’ self-confidence and ability to inspire. Many described their
passion for their subject, the extent of their knowledge and their deep sense of conviction.
Several students perceived that such passion and commitment was conveyed not only
through the evidence of a secure knowledge base, but also through their tutors’ ability to
reflect upon this base critically and publicly. In doing so, tutors demonstrated that they
were still learners and therefore genuinely interested to understand more fully. Other
students felt that the tutors’ enthusiasm was communicated through paralinguistic features,
tone of voice and their often experimental approach to their material, echoing Craft’s
notion (2000) that creativity can be viewed as ‘possibility thinking’. In the geography
session, the tutor openly expressed doubts and recognised the ambiguity of factual
knowledge. The ability to tolerate ambiguity is perhaps an example of the ‘confident
uncertainty’ to which Claxton (1998) refers when discussing creative teachers who
combine subject and pedagogical knowledge; but also leave space for uncertainty and the
unknown. Tutors also demonstrated the flexibility that arises from confidence; this was
particularly evident in the music workshop, since the plan was constantly adapted in
response to the students’ emerging needs.

Perhaps the most telling responses in this sub-theme were the remarks about professional-
ism and interpersonal relationships. A representative sample of such comments include:
‘He is himself’, ‘Her personality shines through’. ‘He doesn’t put up professional barriers’,
‘We were allowed to see his mistakes’, ‘She lives it for real and is honest and personal,
modelling a kind of human professionalism’. Such qualities depend on individual experi-
ence and reflection, extensive professional understanding and a deep academic knowledge.
Teachers who are insecure are not likely to want to reveal their mistakes, will not have
sufficient confidence to take risks or be willing to tolerate ambiguity in action. By contrast,
teachers who have a strong knowledge base will adopt a more flexible and creative stance
that is open to children’s ideas, questions and responses.
 250 T. Grainger et al.

(c) Making Students Feel Valued

It was clear through tutor field notes, student response sheets and the follow-up interviews
that students felt valued and were motivated during the sessions. Opportunities were
provided for them to participate and they were given both explicit praise and evaluative
feedback. The significance of regular feedback in quality teaching is highlighted by Stones
(1992), who demonstrates its power to involve and motivate learners. In the music
workshop, for example, when students made tentative forays forward they were encour-
aged by comments such as ‘Some of you have got beautiful voices’, ‘I can hear some
really playful pieces’, or ‘You are taking risks with the sounds—good’. These remarks
were typical of the focused and supportive responses offered. Such encouragement may
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help protect students from the pressure to avoid risks and the possible ridicule of their
peers when they are nurturing new and unusual ideas and may feel vulnerable. Clear
feedback was also noted in English when the tutor reflected upon the students’ lively
engagement in voice, action and ideas, having earlier critiqued their initial forays into
physical involvement with the story. Being able and willing to have a go at expressing
oneself and take a risk is an integral element of creativity. But such risks need to be
modelled and fostered in a safe and affirmative environment, in which individuals feel
supported and do not expect to be judged.

Even when the students proffered ideas and answers which were factually inaccurate, the
tutors showed patience and openness and frequently reinforced their creative behaviour,
celebrating difference and diversity. The learner-centred orientation which all three
lecturers adopted may have shaped the students’ sense of self as learners in these subjects
and enhanced their intrinsic motivation, since, as the interviews indicated, many felt
surprised at their own geographical competence and musical or linguistic potential and
were encouraged to take further steps forward in these domains.

THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE: THE COCKTAIL PARTY

(a) Engaging Students on an Affective and Emotional Level
A key theme in this category, which relates to the learning experience itself, was the extent
to which the sessions engaged the students on an affective and emotional level. Being
creative is not purely an intellectual activity; feelings, intuitions and a playful imagination
are an equally important part of the process: ‘The sources of creativity are not always
conscious or rational. The intuitive, spiritual and emotional also feed creativity—fed
themselves by the bedrock of impulse’ (Craft, 2000, p. 31).

Through humorous asides, personal anecdotes, the use of potent narratives, and provoca-
tive music and video footage, all three lecturers involved the students aesthetically,
emotionally and physically in their sessions. Recent findings in neurology confirm that
effective brain activity involves a combination of thought and feeling and that intellectual
learning and emotional involvement are linked together in the fabric of the brain
(Scoffham, 2003). The affective involvement of the learner is central to creative learning,
encouraging openness and fostering the ability to make personal connections and insights.
 Creative Teaching in Initial Teacher Education 251

This was evident in the geography and music sessions, for example, where tutors
established a sense of what Csikszentmihalyi (2000) has called ‘flow’, by ensuring
students felt relaxed through considerable humour, informality, differentiated questioning,
collaboration and supportive feedback.

(b) Challenging Students to Engage and Reflect

In all sessions, the students were aware that they were being challenged to engage and
reflect on their experience, to take part and then to reassess their ideas and attitudes. They
were frequently invited to participate physically in making meaning and make use of their
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bodies in the process of learning. Examples include the use of body percussion and
corporate movements to accompany chanting in music, and their gestural and bodily
involvement in retelling personal tales in English. By inhabiting imaginatively a world of
literary and musical texts the students were also able to take part and were given frequent
opportunities to consider their learning through reflective pair discussions, written resumés
of key learning points and small group presentations. All tutors invited students to share
their thinking at regular intervals and to engage in discussion. It was clear from the student
responses that they appreciated the chances to consolidate their ideas through reflection. In
geography, they commented that the practical activities helped to deepen their understand-
ing and that the opportunities to explore their own opinions had contributed to the
development of their ideas. In English, students remarked on how their involvement in the
session and the reflective discussions had challenged their thinking and pushed their
boundaries and expectations. Several also commented that they now had the confidence to
‘be themselves’ and give greater scope to their individuality.

The constant oscillation between engagement and reflection that was so noticeable in the
sessions is also a central feature of drama teaching, which tends towards the creative end
of the teaching spectrum. This oscillation may have been partly responsible for the
transformation of understanding to which many of the students referred. Other comments
included, ‘the session gave me a much wider perception of the teaching of music and the
possibilities available’ and ‘my perspective about issues/countries and peoples in geogra-
phy has changed’. Such learning may have been achieved in part by the dialogue between
the ‘here and now’ of the session in which the students were fully involved, and their own
lived experience of life in and out of the classroom. In exploring and developing various
possibilities with the students, for example, when finding out how to use their feet as
musical notation or innovate in story creation, the tutors were both playful and artistically
involved themselves. Working alongside their students, they were both participants and
spectators in the process of meaning construction, demonstrating their independence from
more traditional patterns of classroom discourse.

CONCLUSIONS
On the basis of this small-scale study, it is argued that if teachers are to be creative
practitioners they need much more than a working knowledge of prescribed curriculum
requirements. They need a secure pedagogical understanding and strong subject knowl-
 252 T. Grainger et al.

edge, supported by a passionate belief in the potential of creative teaching to engage and
inspire hearts and minds. Such teaching depends upon the human interaction between
teacher and student and cannot, therefore, be easily replicated in a distance-learning
package. While the playful, the multimodal, the metaphorical and the reflective would
appear to be important markers of the creative ITE teacher, the fundamental importance
of the values dimension also needs to be recognised. The affective and emotional element
in creativity is just as vital for adults as it is for children. Fair-mindedness, openness to
evidence, a desire for clarity, respect for others and their opinions are among the attitudinal
qualities embedded in creative teaching. So too are a commitment to inclusion, a belief in
human rights and equality. Such attitudes and values have a critical role in creative
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teaching and are perhaps best taught by example.

Greater creative assurance will enable teachers to offer their students stronger scaffolds
and spaces for emotional and intellectual growth. This work suggests that creative teachers
make use of their own creativity, not just to interest and engage the learners, but also to
promote new thinking and learning. Such a teacher, however, is not necessarily a
flamboyant performer, but a professional who uses a range of approaches to create the
conditions in which the creativity of others can flourish. In interaction with their students
and each other, the three tutors in this study were empowered to reflect in depth on
different aspects of creative teaching. This work has proved highly rewarding and has
helped to affirm the value of personal anecdote, humour and cognitive conflict in teaching
creatively. As well as influencing their own practice, the process has reminded those
involved—both students and tutors—that teaching is a complex art form, a veritable
‘cocktail party’. The host harnesses the ingredients (the session content), and mixes them
playfully and skilfully (the teaching style), in order to run a creative party that is enjoyable
and worthwhile (the learning experience). Whilst no formula was, or could be established
for creative teaching, some of the ingredients for personally mixing a creative cocktail
have been identified, albeit tentatively, from cross-curricular contexts. It is clear, however,
that the elements identified are not in themselves necessarily creative, but that the action
of creatively shaking and stirring the ingredients is critical if the cocktail party is to be a
success. The challenge now is to explore the extent to which these dynamics can be
usefully applied to teaching in other subject areas and sociocultural contexts, to document
‘creative moments’ in the process of teaching, and to examine how ITE courses can enable
students to plan and host their own affective and creative cocktail parties.

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