Abstract
This chapter outlines creativity in the world language classroom through the results of a mixed-methods study during the COVID-19 pandemic. While there has been a growing interest in creativity within education, little has been researched related to creative and uncreative factors in the language classroom, specifically in an online teaching context. For this reason, this research study explores creativity in the online world language K-12 classroom by examining teaching artifacts self-selected by K-12 language teachers, as well as interviews with interested participants. Findings suggest that creativity is multidimensional with creative factors overlapping within artifacts. Additionally, teachers have persisted throughout the pandemic to integrate creativity in order to engage students with the content in various ways, harness student attention, and give students choice. In addition, teachers have used various technologies to provide opportunities for students to work asynchronously and synchronously.
TopIntroduction
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and its effect on education is one of those challenges and problems that is beyond our control. In these types of situations, there is thought to be a connection between creativity and adaptability, the ability to adjust and cope. The value of creative adaptations is thought to resonate at the societal and individual levels. At a societal level, Boorstin (1992) reported that throughout history one of the constant influences on creativity has been conflict and turbulent situations. Through the turbulence, opportunities are generated that prompt creative production (Runco, 2014). Similarly, at the individual level, people often respond to challenges and conflict by being creative (Flach, 1990; Runco, 1998, 2014). In a sense, teaching during this unique time offers both challenge and potential for creativity in the classroom.
During the COVID-19 crisis, rapid changes to instructional delivery due to the pandemic forced teachers to shift to online teaching contexts (The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, 2020a), disrupting education but also creating opportunities. MacIntyre, Gregersen, and Mercer (2020) note that “for many language teachers, this has required switching to teaching under unfamiliar and difficult circumstances with little warning and preparation, and barely, if any, training” (p. 2). With this in mind, this study seeks to analyze creativity in the world language online classroom and the novel ideas, approaches, and solutions teachers used to adapt to a new teaching context. Referring to the beginning of the pandemic, Moser, Wei, and Brenner (2021) note that “it is unknown how language educators enacted emergency remote language teaching as required in spring 2020” (p. 2). Over a year later, there is understandably little research to date on how teachers enacted instruction since the beginning of the pandemic, and much less on creativity within online language teaching. For these reasons, the following research questions guide this study: How do K-12 world language teachers describe creative and uncreative artifacts in the online classroom? How do these creative and uncreative artifacts compare?
Key Terms in this Chapter
Uncreative: Using routine or ready-made solutions.
Creativity: Having original ideas that are also task appropriate.
Novelty: Unique or unusual ideas that have never been seen before by an individual.
Choice: Providing students the option to made decisions related to their learning.
Student Engagement: Using specific teaching actions to support active student participation.
Rote Learning: Routine learning based on repetition, memorization, and recall.