educauonaltechnolon. Volume LVI Number 6

November- December 2016

About This Issue

A special issue on creativity and educational technology; plus regular features

Contents

Articles

3 Introduction to Special Issue on Creativity and Educational Technology Brad Hokanson

5 Thinking About Educational Technology and Creativity J. Michael Spector

9 Can Style Be Creative? An Exploratory Essay Gregory Clinton

14 Embracing the Danger: Accepting the Implications of Innovation Jason K. McDonald

17 Promoting Creativity Through Assessment: A Formative Computer-Assisted Assessment Tool for Teachers David Cropley & Arlhur Cropley

25 Preparations for the New: Reaching and Teaching Creativity with Adaptive Technologies Garrett J. Jaeger

31 On the Interfaces Among Educational Technology, Creativity, and Chess William Batt

36 Beyond Content to Creativity: A Life-Changing MOOC Course Jody Lawrence & Brad Hokanson

41 The Development of Creative Thinking in Graduate Students Doing Scientific Research Peter Truran

47 Breaking Down Walls to Creativity Through Interdisciplinary Design

52

57

61

64

Richard E. West

A Design Case of the T.E.C.H. Playground: Decisions and Challenges in Creating a Space/Place to Transform Education through Creative Habits Susan Stansberry

Regular Features

Educational Technology Points of Inflection: A Tool for Flipping the Classroom: Ayamel in Action Michael D. Bush

Book Chapter Review: Chapter in "When School Policies Backfire: How Well-Intended Measures Can Harm Our Most Vulnerable Students," Morgan G. Ames, Mark Warschauer, and Shiela R. Cotton

Reviewed by Cathleen Norris and Elliot Soloway

New Issues, New Answers : New Uses of Video in Education "Video Selfies" for Communication; "Video Portfolios" for Evaluation Marc Prensky

Beyond Content to Creativity:

A Life-Changing MOOC Course

jody Lawrence Brad Hokanson

Most educational efforts focus on declarative knowl­edge and information, which are described primarily as content. This concentration is common for online courses. Few go beyond this limited level of learning to seek changes in ski lis and character traits such as curiosity or creativity. Using a project-based curricu­lum, a course on creative problem solving was offered as a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). Triggered by observations of personal growth during the course, learners were surveyed about their experience, and a number of students were individually interviewed. The results indicated a positive impact beyond creative skills, described by participants as visceral: deeply personal and I ife-changing.

Online Learning in Higher Education In the contemporary landscape of higher education, online course materials are developing in many forms. Today, almost every course in higher education integrates elements of digital technology, such as online registration procedures, e-mail notifications to students, course management systems, and blended courses. "Flipped courses," which may be the digital

Jody Lawrence teaches design at the University of Minnesota, with an emphasis in creativity, interior design, and archi­tecture. She is working on a PhD dissertation that examines the contextual elements of the teaching environment that creative teachers relate to professional innovation. Additional research areas include exploring how online technology enhances traditional design education, and investigating the impact MOOCs have on the personal lives of learners (e-mail: lawre393@umn.edu). Brad Hokanson, a Contributing Editor, is a Professor in Graphic Design at the University of Minnesota. He has a diverse academic record, including degrees in art, architecture, urban design, and a PhD in Instructional Technology. He teaches in the area of creative problem solv­ing and has published research in the fields of creativity and educational technology. He is President of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (e-mail: brad®umn.edu).

equivalent of completing homework prior to par­ticipating in discussion, is the latest catch phrase. Fully online courses have proliferated over the last ten years.

Following historical models of course delivery, most online courses present or deliver information to stu­dents as a modestly effective form of learning. Many courses go beyond teaching information in a didactic form, using multiple media forms to show ideas, pro­vide demonstrations, integrate reading, and utilize online assessment. The current online norm often includes discussions guided by questions posed by the course material, often requiring student responses and commentary. Over 45% of campus-based students in United States higher education institutions have taken online courses. Institutions that are exclusively online are numerous and include Capella University and the University of Southern New Hampshire.

Massive, International Learning Platform A recent innovation in the field of educational

technology is the massive open online course, or MOOC. Seeking to serve thousands of students and offering education at little to no cost, a number of different models, providers, and institutions have entered this online learning marketplace. Major players include Coursera and EdX. Though MOOCs have subsequently been questioned for their educa­tional effectiveness and value, these online platforms have attracted many users. For example, Coursera is presently approaching 20 million registered users.

All online courses face a challenge with scale. This is of particular concern with MOOCs, where enroll­ment for a single course can reach six figures. To accommodate large courses, tasks are often limited to text-based, objective submittals that can be machine graded.

However, one of the most effective models for learn­ing is problem-based instruction. This approach is adaptable to serve a broad range of disciplines, emerging as design projects or other project formats. Project-based instruction is task oriented, multidisci­plinary by nature, and presents complex challenges for learners to solve. It is regarded as effective for helping students develop complex skills and deeper understanding. Without many graduate assistants to grade and evaluate the work, however, learners do not receive detailed evaluations and critiques.

A leading innovation in online and massive courses is the use of peer evaluations to review work developed by other students. This makes problem-based learning more scalable, and integrated into the learning experi­ence. This allows students to receive personalized feedback, and well as to participate in reviewing the work of other students. As a means of both formative and summative assessment, this method can include

36 EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY/November-December 2016

subjective judgments and feedback loops necessary for learner growth and project development. The review of others becomes an effective and engaging part of the larger learning process. This is reinforced by the open course forum, where peer feedback is publicized, supporting a dynamic exchange of ideas.

MOOCs differ from traditional courses, in that they seek thousands of students, are globally diverse, and maximize the use of online resources. In return, mas­sive courses have expanded our knowledge about e-learning from the perspective of both students and instructors.

This aricle presents the use of a MOOC to teach a course that's different in its own right: creative prob­lem solving. The course sought to develop the creativ­ity of learners through a project-based curriculum, and by exposing students to alternative (cultural and social) perspectives on the topic as presented by the diverse, international community of learners.

Creative Problem Solving: Course Methods and History

The massive course on Creative Problem Solving evolved from an on-campus, in-person course at the University of Minnesota. Since inception, Creative Problem Solving has been offered as an in-person, hybrid, and purely online course. The first online version of the course was offered in early 2014. The course had begun as a small seminar and was trans­formed into a large face-to-face multi-section course.

The ability to think creatively is globally regarded as one of the most needed ski lis in the 21st century. Different from most classes on the topic, Creative Problem Solving was not designed to be about crea­tivity, but rather to develop creativity. The primary objective of Creative Problem Solving is for learners to developtheir creativity, ancrto acqu irethe l<nowledge -necessary to continue developing these skills. The curriculum centers around a series of challenging projects. Each week, students are assigned to "do something different," or DSD; e.g., DSD Eat, DSD Wear, DSD Travel. When the course was small and conducted as an in-person seminar, student DSDs were presented to the class and the work was evaluat­ed by the instructor. When the course expanded to accommodate a growing interest in topic and enroll­ment, online technology was used to manage the course projects, share materials, and for digital submit­tal and grading procedures. Grading of the projects shifted to an online rubric to guide teaching assistants, which still allowed for a subjective evaluation of the work.

The massive version of the course has been par­ticularly successful at attracting a large international learning community, with over 52,000 enrolled in the first two offerings. The course is presently configured

as a rolling monthly model. The current iteration has over 35,000 enrolled learners, from 185 countries.

The completion rates of the Creative Problem Solving MOOC are low; however, the reach and impact has been substantial, with over 700,000 videos clips viewed from the first two course sessions. Even after the course has finished, previously registered students continue to visit the course to download videos and even to post new comments on the forum. This continued dialogue has been observed on the course social media accounts as well. In a recent week at the time of this writing, 185 videos were viewed­two years after the course was completed.

While the number of students completing the course tends to be a small percentage of the total enrolled, the impact among the learners is evident. We initially observed this in comments from the students enrolled in the first global offering, and had heard it repeatedly since. This observation was also made by Coursera administration. Here's what one recent learner said in April 2016:

Hello, I'm from Bangladesh. I am an enthusiastic learner. I find pleasure in learning. I believe in growth of human potential. I want to be more creative. So, I took the course as soon as I found it. The course was superb. it is well constructed. This course has focused on the aspect of getting things done rather than theory and literature of creativity. I think it was awesome. It taught me to shat­ter the safety cover that I put myself in. I think it will change my life in ways that I never could have imagined. Thank you so much for such a beautiful course. Please keep spreading knowledge.

These observations and testimonials launched our investigation, in which we sought to better understand the influence of the course and the experience of the lear n-ers. It ls- lmporrant to- on-derstand the en·tliusiasn,­students express after taking the course, and to know more about the greater effects of the course beyond the simple content and learning objectives.

Methods Students who completed the MOOC in fall 2014

were asked to complete a voluntary survey aimed to learn about their learning experience. The survey presented students with a variety of questions, including multiple-choice, Likert-scale, and short answer inquiries. The inquiries were designed to cap­ture a broad snapshot of the student experience, including engagement levels, use of the forum, favorite projects, opinions about the peer review process, and perceived value of the course. The sur­vey concluded with an invitation to speak directly to the instructors about their experience as an online interview. Those interested provided their e-mail addresses and permission to be contacted for the

EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY /November-December 2016 37

PROBLEM APPROACH iNCUBATION INSIGHT CHANGE

: ... ~--··: .. \/ ·· ..

----... Relationship and directionality of trends.

·" ··.... ···· ... .. ~ Some students reflected on the problem but did not complete the DSD. This did not necessarily remove those students from the model, as some learners reported gaining alternative perspectives.

Figure 1. Thematic Model.

purpose of knowing more about learner experiences. These permissions were used to gain ethical approval to proceed with interviews.

A total of 2 70 students completed the course com­pletion survey, and 14% provided permission to be contacted further. Thirteen learners were interviewed synchronously by Skype or Google Hangout. A four­teenth participant was interviewed asynchronously using VoiceThread. The interviews were conducted, recorded, and transcribed over the course of a month during summer 2015, about seven months after the completion of the course.

The survey provided a large amount of information about the course. Descriptive data produced from the survey was analyzed to inform a phenomenological study, which was designed to understand more about the learner experience.

The data was transcribed and then analyzed by the research team to identify general trends. This process included working with the initially observed trends and hunches and field notes. The data was interpreted, coded, and then clustered into categories. This result­ed in combining emergent trends to form more remarkable themes. Voyant-tools.org was also used to quickly extract text frequencies and their contexts. Exploring the data in these ways revealed distinctive themes that were consistent among the research team, and could be investigated more closely through interview.

Two survey questions about the challenging aspects and perceived value of the course produced detailed responses from the learners. The rich textual respons­es generated encouraged deeper investigation in the interviews.

The interviews were designed to include an inves­tigation of the emerging theme of course impact on learners beyond course objectives. Responsive interviewing supported a semi-structured approach, allowing students to elaborate on details that might contribute to the overall theme. The questions includ­ed the following:

> Talk to me about your engagement with the course. [Additional prompts included: motiva­tion to complete the course, engaging aspects of the course]

> Talk about how your experience taking this course could have been better. [Additional prompts included: student engagement, con­venience, effectiveness, feedback on course assignments]

> Talk about how your learning experience would have differed had you taken this course in-person.

> Share your thoughts about the social aspects of the course. [Additional prompts included: course forum, discussions with other students taking the course, choices regarding participa­tion]

We uti I ized the same techniques to analyze the interviews as used to analyze the survey. This revealed a striking theme among learners: the course signifi­cantly changed individual lives beyond instructional expectations. This was consistent with themes that emerged from the survey analysis. The results were combined to generate Figure 1, a thematic model detailing how the clustering of trends support the findings.

38 EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY /November-December 2016

Limitations Investigating the experience of learners enrolled in a

course with a large number of active students involves a large participant pool. By implementing a learner experience survey at the completion of the course, the research team was able to access a diverse range of participants. The course was not limited to participants from affluent regions. While students who participated in the survey did not always provide this information, course analytics reveal a large number of students were from less affluent counties. The experience of this course varied depending on the cultural lens of each student. These geographical differences present oppor­tunities to expand this research and learn more about the experience of international MOOCs.

However, though MOOC participants represented a variety of cultures from around the globe, observa­tions from this study are limited by the small number of learners who were interviewed. The interviews were conducted with students from eleven countries, who could be best described as "first world."

The time lapse between taking the course and interviewing presents another aspect of this study to consider. The lapse may endorse more novel memo­ries and interpretations of the course. As a benefit, the delay allowed for the researchers to more fully under­stand the longitudinal impact of the course, well after it ended.

three themes that emerged from the analysis are clear: students shared how the course changed their life, changed their relationship with another, or changed someone else's life. The students described these moments as emerging from the course activities that prompted critical self-reflection, personal accomplish­ment, empathy for others, improved relationships, encouraging selfless acts, and exploring the boundaries of cultural and social norms. The impact was not limit­ed to the individuals in the course. In several instances the course was described as a change agent, affecting others in their immediate family and community.

The perceived impact is illuminated through the shared experiences of the learners. When asked to talk about challenging aspects and the overall value of the course, students described how the course changed their life, a relationship, or the life of another. Students whose life changed by taking this course said:

It changed my life, I am a better person than before. The course helped me to evaluate my beliefs and paradigms so I could break down them. The course let me take out myself from my comfort zone and I loved it. I feel my baggage is lighter in my trip across the life. I'm happier than before.

The course challenged me to try acting and thinking differently. I was feeling stuck in rut. The course encour­aged me to shake up my daily routine and I am surprised to find that I am feeling happier, more enthusiastic and energetic as a result. This study provides a suitable precedent to launch

additional research about the global, online offering of the Creative Problem Solving MOOC. The massive The most valuable thing was doing the 050s in public. course has been offered through a number of delivery I dreaded that because of looking foolish etc. I discov-models. A replication of this study might include the ered two main things: one, I could choose something 1

myself had never done before but which was not all that experience of students taking the recent on-demand r t r th d t 1 t. dd"t" r . . . 1ar ou 10r o ers; an wo, peop e no 1ce o 1 1es ,ar offe~1ng, as well as the current offenng as a roll1ng ___ _!__e!!.!._ tha12._we ima_si_n~, and ~tead_!!_ bein_g_ anno ed or_ month ly course. judgmental, they smile and enjoy the break in routine.

Discussion of Findings Our findings are multifaceted. When asked to reflect

on the course, students described learning experiences that permeated habits and routines, provided encour­agement to overcome personal challenges and fears, and presented opportunities to examine relationships. The survey and interview responses were populated by expressions of how the course "opened my mind," "got me out of my comfort zone," "got me doing things I never thought I could do," and "gave me courage." The descriptive data documented life-changing stories in which students developed a new sense of the world writ large, all through the experience of this course.

Students who participate in the Creative Problem Solving MOOC embark on a learning experience that goes "beyond content." The findings suggest that this online course does more by impacting the learners in unexpected ways that culminate as life-changing. The

The benefit for me was in realizing I could overcome my fears and become less self-conscious and with each 050 I felt elated about that-just getting up the courage and doing it. Overall the class has given me confidence in my ability to be creative.

Overall, the course was a wake up call of sorts re: the extent to which I had routinized my life over the years.

Students who described how a relationship was improved as a result of this course said:

By the time I reached 050 Other, I had some idea of what to do. It was my best as it took place over 3 days including the office, trying to live the life of my geeky son. I did some research on geeks and found him an almost perfect fit! It was tough trying to be him - don't talk so much, communicate via smart phones, emails etc and trying out a simple !ego was a major challenge for me but probably a breeze for him. I realised at the end

EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY I November- December 2016 39

of the 050 that we are indeed unique and I should not try and change him to what I think he should be - more like me! That taught me to accept him as he and to value him even more!

Brought my whole family into my activity. They gained a new admiration of me in my golden years. I surprised myself, not only in my participation but in accomplish­ments as well.

I spent a lot of time divergent thinking ... A lot of time crying when I realized that I wanted to go talk to unknown old people when my grandmother needs it too. And the whole family needed it too. Definitely the most personal, the most intimate, the most life changing ...

Students who described how the course impacted someone else's I ife said:

Talking to someone different opened my mind to how lonely some people can get and how much people want to be heard. I spent time talking to a man who was home­less and he said at the end that it was the first time he'd had a normal conversation with someone in a long time.

It was really comforting how the course actually inspired many people to do something for other people or for their community in general.

This 050 helped me see that doing something slightly zany and socially awkward can pique the interests of others and cause them to say things to you that will uncover new paths of creativity.

The main cause is that it was involved with one of my country's social issues. Then I made an effort to describe this problem to my other peers while their culture and society is too much far from mine. It was a great attempt.

Some students described experiences that involved more than just one of these life-changing dimensions. Students who described and impact to their own life as well as a relationship or another said:

... because I selected something very personal (see how my autistic grandson experiences using techniques to calm him down) opened my eyes to what he is actually experiencing. This was not my best score because it seemed easy to others and was not done in public per to rubric. It was however, the most rewarding. I understand and learned more and can now relate more to my autis­tic grandson and will continue to figure out techniques to help him live in our world.

This one got me going out in search of a neighbor I didn't know and getting to know them, and it was definitely a stretch for me (a homebody). It wasn't easy finding a neighbor at home, and it took many unan­swered doors before finding someone out mowing his lawn. It was exciting, though, because I met a long-time

neighbor for the first time, and a potential bike riding buddy for my husband ... and playmates for our kids and the neighbor's boy. I'm still determined to meet my next door neighbor as well, as I think it's a crying shame we've lived next door to each other for 9 years and I have yet to actually meet him!

... gave me a chance to get to know someone in my day-to-day life a little better. It was a challenge for me to open up to a relative stranger and have them open up to me.

I help to develop as a human being, more empathy, being on other side.

Most instructors anticipate student growth in terms of content understanding and expect changes in their students. These changes are typically envisioned within the content of their courses. Any course will broaden your thinking through exposure to new ideas and infor­mation; however, this course had a deeper, personal, life-changing effect on the learners. Additionally, the impact of the MOOC was not limited to the individuals taking the course. In several instances the course was described as a change agent, affecting others in their immediate family and community.

Implications The results from the interviews provide some proof of

the impact of learning that exists beyond content, and which leads to the implication that education as a whole has other impacts. These dimensions are not typically reflected in standard educational understanding. The findings imply that specific traits such as grit, curiosity, and creativity may impact the lives of learners beyond the specific content of the course, developing deeper learning and thinking.

The findings support that this course resulted in life­changing learning experiences for some learners. Would these results have happened with another topic? With a different learning community? With a different deliv­ery method? Other instructors? Our experience teaching this course through a variety of configurations has had comparable results. The course topic may contribute to this; the personal and reflective nature of Creative Problem Solving encourages individual interpretation, reflection, and development. Comparable topics may have a similar impact. However, it's difficult to imagine life-changing results in other courses without changes in instructional methodology and direction.

We contend that the goal, the benchmark of any teacher or instructional designer, is to change the life of the learner. Their responsibility is to encourage change in learners' lives, in terms of deeper meaning, not just to deliver information. This study provides insight into how any course might promote positive changes in students, both intellectual and visceral. D

40 EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY/November-December 2016