CREANOVA PROJECT: Discovering Vision
-
Upload
ainhoa-ezeiza -
Category
Documents
-
view
11 -
download
6
description
Transcript of CREANOVA PROJECT: Discovering Vision
Discovering Vision
Theoretical foundations
and practical solutions
in the field of creative learning
Creative learning and networking for European Innovation
A project funded by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of the European Commission
Project number143725-LLP-1-2008-1-ES-KA1-KA1SCR
The University of the Basque Country (coordinator)
The University of EdinburghEducode
Haaga-Helia University of Applied SciencesTallinn University
Universal Learning Systems
Litekeenaren bila
Kohti uusia näkemyksiä
Sviluppare nuovi orizzonti
Descubriendo horizontes
Visionen entdecken
1
Lead partners.
Management: Jesús Ibáñez
Scientific team: Dr Idoia Fernández; Dr Maite Arandia; Dr Ana Eizagirre; Dr Marta
Barandiaran; Izaskun Etxebarria; Dr Pilar Ruiz de Gauna; Dr Esther Torres; Ainhoa Ezeiza;
Nerea Agirre.
The University of the Basque Country
Involved partners.
Stephen Farrier; Dr John Davis; Dr Pat Gannon-Leary. The University of Edinburgh,
Scotland.
Dr Krista Loogma; Meril Ümarik. Tallin University, Estonia.
Heidi-Maria Listo. Educode, Finland.
Kitte Marttinen. Haaga Helia University of Applied Sciences, Finland.
Dr Alan Bruce. Universal Learning Systems, Ireland.
Identifying Best Practices.
Stephen Farrier; Dr John Davis; Dr Pat Gannon-Leary. The University of Edinburgh,
Scotland.
Dr Krista Loogma; Meril Ümarik. Tallin University, Estonia.
Heidi-Maria Listo. Educode, Finland.
Kitte Marttinen. Haaga Helia University of Applied Sciences, Finland.
Dr Alan Bruce. Universal Learning Systems, Ireland.
Jose Luis Fernández Maure; Iñaki Mujika; Ramón Martínez de Murgia, Tknika, Basque
Country.
Mauro Chiarel, Hannes Haller. Tangram SRL, Italy.
© CREANOVA projectThis project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained there in.
2
INTRODUCTION
The main aim of the LLP Transversal Research Creanova Project is the
production of theoretical and practical knowledge on creativity and
innovation in the learning process - as well as identification of concepts,
methods and best practices that demonstrate and reflect innovative
learning. This report presents the findings of the first part of that process. It
examines the theoretical and research background to innovation and
creativity in learning. It examines the foundations of human creativity in
relation to cognition, articulation and transfer of learning concepts and
methods. It surveys the literature and academic research in regard to
conditions for innovation and creative learning while pacing hem in the
context of the profound systemic changes caused by process of socio-
economic transformation and globalization.
The Report was compiled by transnational academic, research and training
partners under the coordination of the University of the Basque Country
between December 2008 and October 2009.
The two key objectives have been:
• To build a theoretical framework that defines concepts of creativity,
innovation and learning (and their inter-relationship in current global
contexts)
• To identify key teaching-learning practices in selected countries that
underpin the development of creative and innovative skills in the
areas of Vocational Education and Training, Adult Education and
technical and creative industries.
This process has been enriched by the diversity of participating partners -
universities, adult education providers, private research agencies and public
statutory organizations. Working across eight countries, seven languages
3
and varying cultural and economic contexts has been a source of rich
learning for the whole team.
The document has three central elements. The first is to meet the
requirement to write a comprehensive paper that addresses the key aspects
under review. The theoretical approach encompasses contributions from
different disciplines (pedagogy, psychology, sociology and economics), in an
engaged social analysis of the world we inhabit. The hypothesis is that
creativity and innovation as part of learning do not arise in a vacuum, but
find their raison d 'etre and development in social, economic, political and
ideological contexts. The analytical focus moves from broader contexts to
more particular ones (group or individual) and then engages with the
educational world of education and formal learning.
The second part presents the tool designed for identification of best
practices in each of the countries concerned, as well as documented
practices. The tool is a questionnaire aimed to get documented descriptions
of selected practices in VET areas, technical and creative industries and to
facilitate comparative analysis. This aims to collect data and evidence on
successful practices that may be transferred to other contexts. This
preliminary analysis has shown certain trends in best practices and
contrasted them with prevailing ideas.
The study and discussion enabled an interpretative model based on four
key-factors: need, freedom, interaction and environment. These
encapsulate the meanings and elements present in the overall project.
The third part is a creative synthesis of the foregoing, and not its mere
summary. It reflects the key concepts with learning design specialists can
operate when approaching the dynamics and requirements of sustainable
innovation and creativity to meet the learning needs and challenges of our
times.
4
PART 1.
Theoretical Approach.Theoretical interpretation.
Conclusion.
Bibliographic references.
5
6
PART I. THEORETICAL APPROACH
I. LEARNING AS THE CORE OF THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY
1.1. From industrial societies to knowledge societies: key changes.1.2. Understanding learning in the knowledge society1.3. Learning as the Collaborative, Co-construction of knowledge
II. CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: CONCEPTUAL CONVERGENCE
2.1. Creativity as an object of scientific study: genesis and development.2.2. Innovation as an object of scientific study: genesis and development.
III. CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE LEARNING IN THE WORLD OF WORK AND EDUCATION
3.1. Society, learning and work3.2. New learning environments: networking and community based learning.3.3. Towards new forms of professionalism.
IV. DEVELOPING CREATIVE COMPETENCE AND INNOVATION
4.1 Methodology, processes and conditions that promote the development of creative competences that give rise to innovation
7
8
9
I. LEARNING AS THE CORE OF THE
KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY
1.1. From industrial societies to knowledge societies: key changes.
A key issue in the preparation of students for the challenges of life and the
globalized The motivation for the Creanova project is the study of how
learning situations and processes are constructed to achieve sustainable
innovation. The main aim is linking creativity with capabilities to innovate
in the design and preparation of new processes, products or ideas. This is
also directly linked to entrepreneurship and innovative adaptation skills of
learners. Innovation is one of the four pillars of the Lisbon Agenda. Yet
there exists little evidence on what innovation is - and even less on how it
can be identified, fostered and developed in practical ways (particularly in
contexts of profound structural change).
Research on creative learning and innovation is critical for enhanced
European competitiveness in globalized contexts. Innovation includes
learning methodologies, practices, systems and applications. This includes a
focus on how such innovative practice can be rolled out to improve creative
competencies of learners and students in vocational, and adult education
and work-based environments.
The issue is also a priority for many policy makers in Europe. Due to the
recent advances in both the Bologna and Copenhagen processes, we are
facing a profound reform of the curricula on both vocational and higher
education levels. Development of research findings and a network of
competent institutions with experience in applying innovative methodologies
to promote creative competencies in vocational and adult education is a
valuable resource for relevant professionals and training institutions.
Furthermore, the application of these results to adult education should also
be straight forward, at least to specific target groups of training subjects.
10
Often, when starting to analyze society, one of the first concepts is that of
globalization of economic and financial systems. However, a more historical
and socio-cultural approach (such as those found in education and training)
suggests contemporary society is experiencing spectacular changes in the
social organization of knowledge production, use and distribution.
The term ‘social organization of knowledge’ refers to the structures, rules
and values adopted by human groups to create, store and convey those
ideas, In European history, the invention of the printing press (adapted
from Chinese precedents) represented the opening of a period in which
large-scale print dissemination mediated between people and culture,
producing hitherto unknown or unused applications of reading and writing
skills (Eisenstein, 1979). Protestant emphases on popular access to
personal Bible reading (and interpretation of this reading) in vernacular
languages marked not only a shift from Latin as the language of scholarship
but also the beginning of reading practices/uses that accelerated the
development of the printing industry. The linearity and recurrence of the
written word underpinned the emergence of associations, schools,
illustration techniques, scientific method and the very organization of
written, legal registration of capitalist industrial companies (Graff, 1979;
Goody, 1990).
Knowledge thus itself became a message - to be repeated and conveyed to
far greater numbers of people. The process of conveying knowledge and
information depended increasingly on more books being printed and the
assumption that recipients were able to read. People with access to
standard writing systems had the possibility not only to use but also
produce knowledge. They also had competitive advantage. However,
admission to knowledge production levels was restricted. Different
normative and institutional strategies were historically organized to select
those perceived as capable of producing innovative breakthroughs - as
validated by accepted scientific communities. This entailed therefore
hierarchic, controlled and mediated knowledge ownership and transmission
systems.
11
Formal education systems transmitted and propagated accepted scientific
doctrine - knowledge produced by means of curricula that selected the ideas
and skills that learners or required for subsequent application to their trades
or professions. Education placed emphasis on teaching and instruction. The
professor or teacher played a major part in this framework, given that these
were the people who taught those that did not know. This was a banking
conception of education in which the student was an empty container that
had to be filled with content, opposed to a candle to be lit (Freire, 1970).
On the whole, traditional learning systems in the Western World were
modeled around the idea of differential access to learning and knowledge,
thus reflecting existing differences in stratified class systems. Classrooms
were structured in strictly didactic ways in terms of pedagogy. In addition,
classrooms were located in fixed places - the architecture itself reflecting
notions of hierarchy, order and control (Bruce, 2009).
Parallel to school divisions and stratification were similar systems in the
world of work to which schooling structures were linked more and more
explicitly during the age of industrialization (Braverman, 1974). Hierarchies
of knowledge transfer are seen in the division of work. This hierarchy can be
conceptualized as a type of pyramid. At the peak of the pyramid is the
owner-stakeholder (or entrepreneur, engineer or designer) who originates
an idea or technique that can then be implemented by taking advantage of
economies of scale (Miller et al, 2008). The concept of the independent
‘genius’ who creates new ideas or techniques and the technocrat who
ensures they are implemented by ‘front-line’ workers maintains, legitimates
and reproduces an inherently unequal distribution of the capability to
produce, know, learn and derive shared benefit from the ideas/techniques.
The education and training of workers, given their subsidiary function, only
develops to the most basic level required to satisfy production needs.
Veblen powerfully conceptualized the impact of fragmented knowledge and
skill acquisition for craft workmanship resulting from industrialization as
long ago as 1914 (Veblen, 2006).
As in the case of the printing press, the Internet is a contemporary
technological tool that makes possible management of information and
12
knowledge in quantities hitherto incomprehensible - and in real time. In this
respect, it permits access to seemingly limitless amounts of information.
This is subject to access and digital literacy which itself can be mediated by
pre-existing power and access structures. The Internet has a demonstrated
intentionality that continues to guide the action of its creators.
Making a retrospective, summarized interpretation we can observe that, as
Castells (2001) states:
1.The Internet is the combination of an unprecedented linked network of big science, military research and the culture of freedom (in the European liberal sense of defence of individual freedom against any kind of external limitation), born outside specific company parameters and on which scientists and researchers collaborated intensively. 2.Its creators deliberately worked on a precise computer architecture evolving towards an open, decentralised, distributed and multidirectional computer-based communication system capable of encompassing the entire world (and with an inherent sense of possibly changing it). 3. Internet genesis and development is a cultural practice regulated by the cultural values of individuals (and even hackers) who network with open, free software distribution rules. The protocols on the basis of which they work are themselves susceptible to modification. 4. Institutions managing the Internet must constitute themselves according to the principles of transparency and cooperation inherent within their stated philosophy and practice to function effectively.
This suggests cultural guidelines potentially based on cooperation,
reciprocity in knowledge distribution modalities, boundary crossing through
horizontal networking between people from different contexts or practices,
re-imagined notions of copyright and intellectual ownership rights and
community formulations such as the Linux Law: Given enough eyeballs, all
bugs are shallow (Miettinen, 2006: 177).
Perhaps the most significant impact, from the point of view of knowledge
and learning, is that development of advanced new technologies has
resulted in a massive reduction in the amount of time between learning by
using and producing by using. People learn by doing (repeatedly practising
a task with or without prior instruction) as well as by using (repeatedly
using tools/facilities without prior instruction) (Cedefop, 2008). These
13
processes lead to the production and creation of new knowledge, and hence
to its practical and innovating application. It is a sort of virtuous circle
between the diffusion of technological knowledge and its perfection
(Castells, 2001), always remaining within cultural parameters of trust,
openness and freedom.
In a graphic sense the Encyclopedia of Diderot and D’Alembert (the book of
everything that could possibly be known) has mutated to a Wikipedia in
constant growth, a collective endeavour to improve knowledge (Taddei,
2009) in which millions of people learn but also themselves participate.
Knowledge and learning constitute the two faces of one same coin: they represent the process of societal ascent from the ‘primitive’ forms of industry and information - predominantly economic-driven - to the more ‘advanced’ forms of community and freedom determined by cultural achievement. Technology provides the ladder to climb the value chain. (Carneiro, 2007:153).
Technological development is however never static. Recent studies are
already investigating how to project a future Europe in terms of education
and learning.
Society is no longer dominated by the industrial-era logics of mass-production and mass-consumption. Scale is no longer the guiding principle. Instead, the pivotal act, the creation of added value, has changed locations. There are hints of the potential of the present to create a society where the division between the supply side and demand side is marginal. These include tendencies towards self-generated personalization, the unique creation expressed in a widespread do-it-yourself attitude, the breakdown of the professional/amateur distinction and the emergence of web 2.0 technologies that give rise to social networking, collaborative content creation and democratized innovation. (Miller et al, 2008: vii)
Although the future is uncertain, it is open to new constructions. Carneiro
(2007:157) describes three possibilities.
• Paradigm shifts: from industry (past), to globalization (present thrust), and moving towards a New Renaissance period (utopian vision).
• Delivery modes: from uniform, rote systems (past) to segmented distribution (present market-driven trend), and gradually
14
accommodating increasing levels of personalization/customization (utopian vision).
• Driving forces: from bureaucracy-led (past preference for national or State-controlled systems) to market-led arrangements (present move), which, in turn, should give way to empowered communities (utopian vision of a radical devolution to civil society)
In this scenario, knowledge-based societies will have to overcome a number
of barriers, challenges and tensions that may prevent horizontal focus on a
common good being achieved. This shift to less hierarchical notions of
knowledge production has been underpinned by new social model thinking.
This highlights the need to understand local contradictions and promotes
the value of interaction, dialogue and reciprocity. At the centre of this shift
has been the aim to overcome borders, whether disciplinary, geographic,
institutional or cultural.
Such a shift raises questions regarding structures of learning, working and
production and how they might promote innovation and creativity. It is
necessary to consider and compare different types of organizational
structures that contribute to creativity learning and innovation. It should be
possible to identify different forms of organizational/societal structures from
evaluations of practice and to investigate how different methods for
developing innovation and creativity work in different societies, educational
systems or organizations. This also raises questions regarding the nature of
learning in knowledge-based societies. It is important to consider what
learning looks like in societies where hierarchies are modified or shaped in
more fluid ways.
15
1.2. Understanding learning in the knowledge society
Theoretical issues concerning learning include cultural history activity
theory, expansive learning and dialogic learning. This encompasses issues
such as the politics of learning, learning through social interaction, the
social context of learning and transformational learning.
There has been shift in academic writing about learning and society. Some
authors suggest an economy of learning where individual, organizational,
company, sectorial or national success precisely lies with the ability to learn.
[The government of Singapore, planning in the current economic crisis] realises that its future prosperity depends not on educating its people in the knowledge and skills for a particular kind of economy, but in developing its people’s capacity for learning and dealing with change so they can respond quickly and flexibly, adapting and retraining as future economic opportunities or recessions arise... the vision... is to become a society of thinking schools, a learning nation... the future of the nation depends on its people... and on a higher degree of creativity. (Hargreaves, 2003:31)
Learning as a concept can mean flexibility, interaction and collaborative
action. This can involve exchange within or between communities or within
disciplines, organizations, jobs or students (Carneiro, 2007). In this respect,
one of the strongest potential sources available for learning and
improvement in any area or organization lies in other people and social
capital - the forms used to share and develop knowledge with ‘others’.
(OECD, 2001)
Sharing ideas and experience, offering moral backing in the face of new and difficult challenges, discussing ideas... that is the basis of (effective) communities. (Hargreaves, 2003:129)
Socio-cultural definitions of learning can be linked to the notion of dialogic
learning within critical sociology (Beck, 1998; Beck, Giddens & Lash, 1997;
Giddens, 1995, 1998; Habermas, 1987, etc.) and critical pedagogy in
community education (Freire, 1970, 1994, 1997). The theoretical basis of
dialogic learning (Bruner, 1988, 1996, 2000; Habermas, 1987; Freire,
16
1970, 1994, 1997; Rogoff, 1993, 2001; Vygotsky, 1995, 2006; Chomsky,
1977, 2001; Aubert, Flecha et al, 2008; Sen, 1999) stresses an idea of
learning in keeping with:
• Contemporary informational society
• The dialogic about-turn experienced by societies and even
interpersonal relations (in which dialogue acquires centrality and
greater presence in all social spheres from politics to sitting rooms,
passing through work, education and intimate relations)
• Multiculturalism resulting from planetary mobility and the resulting
increased contact and interaction between vastly differing cultures.
This conception of learning is to be found in communicative and socio-
historic perspectives, thus explaining societal dynamism. Dialogue and
interaction are the dimensions sustaining the idea of learning, which are
therefore maintained by this perspective.
The observations and research on which the concept is based have demonstrated how, through a dialogue (Auber; Flecha et al, 2008: 24-34; CREA, 2003-2005;CREA, 2006-2011)
The ideas behind dialogic learning can be summarized (Aubert, Flecha, et al,
2008:93):
1. Learning comes from the interactions established through dialogue
and is therefore mediated by language. From the perspective of
different authors (Chomsky, 1977, 1988, 2000; Habermas, 1987;
Cummins, 2002), all people (independent of social, educational,
cultural or financial status) have the ability to communicate, express
feelings, arguments or ideas, and to reach agreements with ‘others’.
2. Learning depends on the social interactions between people who are
equal to yet different from one another, and the extent to which they
agree on the direction taken by these interactions (Vygotsky, 1995;
Bruner, 2000; Rogoff, 1993; Wells, 2001).
3. All kinds of learning practice make sense within a specific socio-
cultural context, within the framework of cultural practice and cultural
17
community (Rogoff, 1993) in which one actively participates.
4. All communicative processes convey meaning and intention, explicit
or not, and comprise gestural and verbal language going beyond the
spoken word (Argyle & Trower, 1979). The totality has an effect on
the type of interaction provoked and is of enormous importance to all
human actions and relations (whether work situations, friendship,
education). In this respect, contributions to the act of speaking
(Austin, 1971; Searle, 1980; Searle & Soler, 2004) lead to reflections
on the consequences of verbal and non-verbal communication on
people (looks, gestures and body language).
5. Dialogic learning has the mission of transforming situations and
relations, making it possible to achieve greater levels of social
equality. The idea of the social subject rather than the dependent
object, submissive and adapted, is developed by Paulo Freire (1970,
1994, 1997), who clearly states we are beings of transformation and
not of adaptation (Freire, 1997: 26). This expresses value and trust
in the ability of all people to think, act, rebuild and change
contradictory situations and structures inherent in educational and
social practices - always based on an egalitarian dialogue. Rather
than a conservative, transmission-response pedagogy, Freire
proposes an inquiring, knowledge-producing question pedagogy,
more keeping with contemporary needs.
There are four main aspects of dialogic learning described in the literature.
1. Using dialogue as a vehicle of exchange between people, creating and
modifying meanings according to agreement reached between all
parties involved in a working and learning space.
2. Based on trust in people and in their skill at collective creation,
generating new ideas and projecting them by means of actions in the
transformation of collective realities.
3. Incorporating the voices of all agents in professional, educational and
work contexts - a guarantee of a multidimensional and egalitarian
outlook.
18
4. Developing the idea of solidarity in everyday actions with people, as
the expression of struggle against exclusion and a contribution to
social cohesion.
Theories such as dialogic learning can be linked to more contemporary
approaches to cultural historical activity theory. This is based on the
concept of cultural mediation where the relationship between subject and
environment is mediated by signs and tools (Vygotsky, 1979 in Miettinen,
2006:175). Correspondingly, the central mechanism of learning is
‘remediation’, the finding and creation of new means. At first, this approach
seems to over-emphasise the role of the teacher. However, when allied to
notions of expansive learning, it promotes notions of the co-construction of
knowledge.
Expansive learning involves processes by which work organizations resolve
internal contradictions in order to construct qualitatively new ways of
working. It involves creation of new knowledge and new practices for an
emergent activity, learning embedded in, and constitutive of, qualitative
transformation of the entire activity system (Engeström, 2004: 4). Spinosa,
Flores and Dreyfus (1997) referred to this process as ‘reconfiguration’.
Sepúlveda (2001) clarifies the meaning of expansive learning developed by
Engeström, and its repercussions in social and educational practice. This
concept refers to the process by which people sharing a practice domain
(such as work, community, formal study) build tools. Mere relationships
evolve to ways of understanding relationships. This mode of understanding
takes shape through the effect of the activity developed by domain
inhabitants. The repertoire of their culture to act in a manner other than it
would have done if the ensemble of their cultural orders had not changed is
transformed. Expansive learning makes it possible to go beyond the
limitations people are subjected to by learned cultural understanding and to
visualise other kinds of cultural orientations of a more complex nature which
did not previously exist in their tradition and inherited cultural
understanding. This offers a framework to imagine how to learn in the face
of complex, permanently changing societies. It offers a new manner of
19
learning in situations of accelerated change, when extreme contradictions
may manifest themselves. This emphasis is connected to Bateson (1985) on
third-order learning.
Learners question the validity of tasks and problems set by context and start transforming the context itself. This kind of learning is related to innovation. At school, this kind of expansive learning could mean that pupils and teachers critically analyse the ways they study and work and start to change them. (Sepúlveda, 2001:7)
In general, the dialogic approach stresses that learning based on
relationships and fluid communication translates equally well into widely
differing educational experiences. Some students have gained enormously
from high value education in learning communities that have recently been
developed in the framework of primary, secondary and adult education
(Jaussi, 2002; Aubert, Duque et al, 2004). Other students have benefited
from dialogic approaches in fields such as lifelong training or from
developing educational communities to transform different organisations
(Fernández & Arandia, 2003; Alonso, Arandia & Loza, 2008). This raises the
question as to how and whether such methods could be utilised to promote
creativity and innovation. Similarly, learning based on relationships can be
connected to ideas of collective intelligence to develop processes of learning
that promote social inclusion.
Avis (2002) draws out connections between expansive learning, social
capital and collective intelligence. These concepts are situated within their
socio-economic context, asserting that the development of social capital will
be a vehicle for economic regeneration and competitiveness as well as a
mechanism for the generation of social inclusion and cohesion. However,
Avis sees the progressive potential of expansive learning, social capital and
expansive learning as limited within a context that accepts current capitalist
relations.
20
1.3. Learning as the Collaborative, Co-construction of knowledge.
Collaborative learning aimed at the co-construction of knowledge suggests
that learning and knowledge are linked but different. This consolidates the
idea that there may be many different ways of learning not considered by
currently constructed formal educational structures.
Learning points such as the formation of concepts, the creation of artifacts, the application of disciplinary knowledge to the solving of problems in areas of regular practices are difficult to teach by usual methods, essentially because teaching has been developed with the idea of conveying contents. (Sepúlveda, 2001:4)
Both extensive learning (Engeström, 1987) and third-order learning
(Bateson, 1985) offer the possibility of leaving the received world of cultural
suppositions and questioning problems encountered in different cultural
contextual understandings. This makes it possible both to reveal new forms
of cultural and social action and to transform contexts themselves.
In this respect, we can affirm that this is the nature of innovation and that it consists of the ability to extract ourselves from the available alternatives in order to solve problems and raise problems in systems with different presuppositions. This simply means looking at our own everyday practice from a different angle. Thus, for example, based on awareness of the contradictions of a traditional social or school practice, it is possible to design a different practice in which, by incorporating new tools, we can give rise to new ideas on the subject. (Sepúlveda, 2001: 8)
In this respect, cultural-historical activity theory and its application to
innovative learning and knowledge transfer (Engeström, 1987; Engeström &
Escalante, 1995; Tuomi-Gröhn, 2003; Säljö, 2003) regards the innovation
process as the co-construction of a new service, product or a process that
includes mobilization of additional cultural resources (including different
types of knowledge) and reciprocal learning.
Many authors argue that social inclusion and cohesion can only be advanced
by creating conditions that guarantee opportunities for all to learn, not just
21
the few. Democratic schools (Apple & Beane, 1995) and learning
communities (Jaussi, 2002; Hargreaves, 2003; Torres, 2004) are clear-cut
practical examples of educational and social efforts that attempt to work in
inclusive terms.
This is a pragmatic defiance that can be dealt with by specifically developing forms, experiences and opportunities permitting youngsters and adults from the social risk sector to be able to improve their available cultural information, acquiring knowledge, skills and attitudes not currently present in their cultural repertoire or in their cognitive codes... it is therefore necessary to ensure a viable bridge between local cultures and the most universal aspects of knowledge. (Sepúlveda, 2001:11)
Superficially it would seem that learning and knowledge building are closely
linked to one another. However, Scardamalia and Bereiter (2006)
differentiate between them. They consider that learning and knowledge
building are linked to yet different from one another and that they have
direct implications on the educational and working worlds. They point out
that different educational approaches maintain as essential goals that
students should succeed both in understanding big ideas in learning to think
for themselves. Achieving this requires development of educational
processes where students assume significant responsibility in their work
with ideas and parallel critical capacity. Some of these approaches have
impact on both educational and knowledge building dimensions.
The distinction between learning and knowledge building is easier to see when we move outside an educational context. Out in the world of what Peter Drucker termed ‘knowledge work’, many people are engaged in producing new knowledge. Their products may be scholarly things like theories, histories, and proofs or more practical things like designs, inventions, and plans. The common element is that these products constitute new or improved ideas that the community can use in producing more new or improved ideas. This continuing process of idea creation, development, and improvement is what we call ‘knowledge building’. In the process of knowledge building, the knowledge workers naturally learn, and such learning is essential to their careers as knowledge builders, but learning is not what they are getting paid for. It is not their job. Their job is knowledge building. (Scardamalia & Bereiter 2006: 4)
22
In terms of dialogic, expansive and third-order notions of learning, working
as a community and/or in collaboration is a crucial part of obtaining a more
complete and more complex understanding of learning. Thus, collaborative
learning and the creation of new learning environments based on trust
emerge as real driving forces in both education and work contexts
(Markkula, 2009; Hargreaves, 2003). The goal would seem to lie in the
consolidation of large communities, networks involving universities and
education, companies and governments who promote generation and
fostering of innovating processes and policy.
The evolution in the understanding of learning in today’s world and its
evolving role in work and education points to an important cultural change
around cooperation, collaboration and collective creation in widely different
cultural aspects. In this new culture, community and its relational meaning
take on transcendental value. Along with the idea of community is the goal
of union between sets of different communities shaping communicative
networking processes.
This raises a number of issues in relation to the extent to which good
practice examples develop a community of learners and overcome
traditional barriers to learning. It also raises issues concerning power
relations in the learning process and the extent to which learning
opportunities are collaborative or characterized by continuing hierarchical
boundaries. It finally creates the question of who builds the learning
process and the extent to which processes that promote creativity and
innovation also promote equity.
23
II. CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: CONCEPTUAL CONVERGENCE
The ability to create new solutions with new tools for constantly emerging
new social needs underlines a key conceptual issue: creativity and
innovation as parts of learning. It is not always easy to differentiate
between these two concepts. Scott (1994) indicates that the terms
creativity and innovation are often used interchangeably in research
studies, and that distinction between the two concepts may be more one of
emphasis than of substance (West & Farr, 1990). In the late 1980s and
early 1990s some differentiation occurred:
• Creativity was defined as the production of novel and useful ideas
(Mumford & Gustafson, 1998) or doing something for the first time
anywhere or creating new knowledge (Woodman, Sawyer & Griffin,
1993: 293)
• Innovation was adoption or implementation of novel and useful ideas
(Kanter, 1988; Van de Ven, 1986) and encompassed adaptation of
products or processes from outside an organization.
More recently, West (2002) has synthesised research and theory to advance
the understanding of creativity and innovation implementation in groups at
work. This suggests creativity occurs primarily at early stages of innovation
processes with innovation implementation later. Amabile (1996) and later
West (2002) discuss influences such as task characteristics, group
knowledge diversity and skill, external demands, integrating group
processes and intragroup safety. Diversity of knowledge and skills is a
powerful predictor of innovation. But integration of group processes and
competencies are needed to enable the fruits of this diversity to be
harvested.
24
2.1. Creativity as an object of scientific study: genesis and development.
In earlier times, research focused primarily on the relationship between
intelligence and creativity. Galton (1879) promoted the claim that creative
products come from general ability. James (1880) formulated the idea of
divergent thinking. Terman and Cox (1926) affirmed that creativity is a
comprehensive part of intelligence (Fuentes et Torbay, 2004). Guilford is
generally credited as the forebear of empirical studies on creativity. His
discourse as director of the American Psychological Association (1950)
underlined the need to become aware of the value of creative talent as a
basis for industrial and economic development, as well as the natural
consequence of its development and fostering.
There are several implications in these possibilities that bear upon the importance of creative thinking. In the first place, it would be necessary to develop an economic order in which sufficient employment and wage earning would still be available. This would require creative thinking of an unusual order and speed. In the second place, eventually about the only economic value of brains left would be in the creative thinking of which they are capable. (Guilford, 1950: 448)
Since then, creativity studies have passed through different stages. These
range from views concentrating on the individual aspect to others more
systematic, contextual or socio-cultural. Aspects of creativity being
investigated in the beginning of the twenty-first century are quite distinct
from those emphasized during the last century. Work in the 1950s led to
three major lines of creativity research (Simonton, 2000; Craft, 2003):
• Personality
• Cognition
• Research on how to stimulate creativity
25
Earlier approaches emphasized the psychological determinants of genius
and giftedness. This was based on Guilford’s examination of the limitations
of intelligence tests and his investigation of divergent thinking.
He analyzed several factors (Piirto, 2004; Runco, 2009) of divergent
production:
• Fluency
• Novelty
• Flexibility
• Synthesizing ability
• Analyzing ability
• Reorganization or redefinition of already existing ideas
• Degree of complexity
• Evaluation.
Torrance, inspired by Guilford, developed a test to identify creative
potential. By the 1970s, the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) was
widely used in schools (Piirto, 2004). However, today it is widely agreed
among psychologists that divergent thinking tests do not predict creative
ability, and that divergent thinking is not the same as creativity. It has been
argued that creativity requires a complex combination of both divergent and
convergent thinking, and creative people switch back and forth at different
points in the creative process. Instead of studying creative personality,
cognitive psychologists shifted the focus to creative mental processes. They
tried to explain creativity by showing how it emerged from ordinary,
everyday mental processes (Sawyer, 2006).
Amabile has provided a comprehensive framework for the topic, explaining
that creativity arises through the confluence of knowledge, creative thinking
and motivation (Adams, 2005). Gardner further explored the topic, pointing
out that in-depth experience and long-term focus in one domain (technical
expertise) are the foundations of creativity. Sternberg (1999) however
promotes a triarchic theory concerning the relationship between creativity
26
and intelligence, asserting that the synthetic, analytical and practical
aspects of intelligence are keys for creativity expansion.
But it is Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyiís theoretical formulations that establish a
new landmark in creativity studies. Csikszentmihalyi argues that creativity
operates within a system that encompasses more than the cognitive,
including also milieu and context. Creativity does not happen inside people's
heads, but in the interaction between a person's thought and a socio-
cultural context (Csikszentmihalyi 1996: 23). Thereby, he regards creativity
a systemic rather than an individual phenomenon. Creativity is perceived as
the interrelation of three main components:
• Domain, which consists of a set of symbolic rules and procedures
• Field, which includes individuals acting as gatekeepers to the domain:
they decide whether certain ideas or product should be included in
the domain
• Person, who is responsible of generating novel ideas.
According to Csikszentmihalyiís model of creativity, the development of a
student’s or worker’s creativity depends on three interrelated components:
teachers/trainers (as experts on the field), school/work environment (as
domain) and a student/worker. According to this model, teachers/trainers
or co-students/ co-workers decide on the student’s/worker’s unconventional
thinking or acting based on their own previous experience, personal
preferences, values, educational or cultural backgrounds.
The consolidation and setting down of this complex concept of creativity has
also been enriched with subsequent theorisations made by Csikszentmihalyi
himself in collaboration with Howard Gardner and William Damon (2002).
Going further, they criticize his ‘naive former vision’ and analyse the ethical
and social aspects implicit in all creative, innovating activity. In effect, the
creative and innovatory practices described and interpreted by science and
research do not occur in an abstract vacuum - as if nothing were happening
in the external environment.
27
Educational and training efforts may be rooted in the structure and
dimensions of the labour market, where asking oneself why, what for and
who for is crucial. The analytical approach to professional practices is useful
for observing the metamorphosis of the creativity discourse of creativity.
Professional action (‘work well done’) in which creative and innovative
abilities question themselves about qualitative outcomes, thus addresses
human needs, beyond immediate interests of profit and gain.
According to Craft (2003), during the last thirty years creativity studies
have been led by systemic theories that regard creativity as a co-
functioning of several elements, including cognitive skills, personality traits,
social, cultural and historical factors. The current emphasis has shifted to
focus on ordinary creativity rather than genius, characterizing rather than
measuring, the social system rather than the individual. This can be
explored under four dimensions.
Creative teaching, teaching for creativity and creative learning.
Based on previous research on nurturing creativity in the school
environment (Cropley, 2009), three interrelated aspects are of central
importance.
• The teaching style and learning process supporting creative thinking
• Learning motivation that ensures openness to new ideas and
experiences
• Open learning environments as prerequisites for effective operation
of the previous two components.
Although the overall aim should be to ensure the expression of both
creativity of students and teachers, it has been criticized (Craft, 2003) since
terms with different meanings (e.g. creative teaching, teaching for creativity
and creative learning) are often used in the same sense. Creative teaching
(demonstrating original thinking and actions) may enhance learners’
creativity but also may not. Teaching for creativity, on the other hand,
refers to teaching certain subjects (e.g. creative writing, art, music
28
composition, design) regarded as developing creativity. Creative learning
refers to learning that leads to new original thinking.
Starting from the assumptions of socio-cultural approaches of creativity
studies, environmental factors of school, institution or workplace that
support and hinder learners’ creativity and motivation can be considered.
However it is important in attempting to carry out this task to consider
different definitions of creativity.
‘Big C’ creativity versus ‘everyday creativity’
Csikszentmihalyi makes a distinction between Big C and little c creativity.
The ‘Big C’ creative person is eminent, a person whose work is well known
by people within the field and domain. ‘Big C’ creativity is that which leads
to a domain being changed. ‘Little c’ creativity is what people use in their
everyday lives. Csikszentmihaly has defined creativity as any act, idea, or
product that changes an existing domain, or that transforms an existing
domain into a new one (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996: 28). Therefore, he is
concerned with ‘Big C’ Creativity in his works.
Similarly Singer, summarizing the opinions of several authors, argues that
creativity is domain-specific. One person may demonstrate strong creative
potential in more than one area, but social contexts, the 10 year-rule and
the stochastic elements of risk and chance may contain comparably
outstanding accomplishments across domains (Sternberg et al, 2004).
During the last few decades much has been written about the creativity of
great scientists and artists, what motivates them, or about childhood
factors. Current discourse about creativity, on the other hand, focuses often
on the ordinary, rather than extraordinary. The assumption is that the
ordinary person can be creative. Everyday creativity means coping with
changing environments, improvising and adapting flexibly with continuous
change. Thereby, everyday creativity is first of all survival capability
(Richards, 2007). In addition to coping with constantly changing
environments, everyday creativity means a powerful way of living. It is
29
suggested that creativity can even affect our health and wellbeing, personal
growth and development and the evolution of cultures (Richards, 2007).
Many writers argue that each person is capable of creative achievement
provided relevant skills have been acquired. This raises a number of
questions:
• To what extent do projects/processes recognize the potential for
creative achievement of every person and to what extent do they
attempt to develop creativity by means of a creative education (a
form of education capable of developing people’s capacities for
original ideas and action).
• Do projects/processes for promoting creativity have to involve
creative approaches to education?
• How do extraordinary and ordinary creativity connect? Are they part
of a continuum?
Some writers argue that, by stimulating the creativity of all, more creative
behaviour at all points in the continuum, is produced, including
extraordinary creativity. According to Sternberg, processes of ‘little c’
creativity and ‘big C’ creativity are similar or the same and it is simply the
impact that can differ on oneself or on the field (Sternberg, 2004). Although
some recent theories maintain that in the case of the genius a qualitative
and quantitative change takes place, Amabile (1996: 36) believes [...] that
without compelling evidence to the contrary it is most parsimonious to
assume a continuum of creativity in both products and processes.
Creativity as a unitary concept versus different types of creativity
Unsworth (2001) questions one of the premises of creativity research,
namely that creativity is a unitary construct. Creativity has been defined as
the production of novel ideas that are useful and appropriate to the
situation (Amabile, 1996). Creativity is based upon novel and useful ideas,
regardless of the type of idea, reasons behind its production, or the process
30
starting point. Unsworth argues that this belief in homogeneity of creativity
hinders a fine-tuned analysis of processes and factors involved in creativity.
Unsworth argues that theories (as in Amabile) on factors affecting creativity
at work fail to differentiate between types of creativity. Those types include:
• Responsive creativity (responding to presented problems because of
external driver)
• Expected creativity (discovering problems as response to external
drivers
• Contributory creativity (responding to presented problems because of
internal drivers
• Proactive creativity (discovering problems because of internal
drivers).
Creativity as a decision
Sternberg (2003) regards creativity as a decision. According to his
investment theory, creativity requires a confluence of six distinct but
interrelated resources:
• Intellectual abilities
• Knowledge
• Styles of thinking
• Personality
• Motivation
• Environment.
According to Sternberg, the skill of creativity itself is not enough - one
needs to make a decision to use the skill. This suggests that creativity can
be developed and is not simply located in the individual.
These descriptions of creativity connect creativity to the ability of a person
in the work place to meet individual and social human needs. This develops
in close interaction with social and cultural contexts and is associated with
31
the ability or opportunity to learn in constantly changing environments
(creative learning). Good practice examples help define what creativity
becomes:
• A quality attributable to all people that gives rise to small innovations
in immediate environments
• A process that leads to enormously important inventions for humanity
• A continuum.
32
2.2. Innovation as an object of scientific study: genesis and development.
Like creativity, innovation is associated with the tendency to think about
new and better ways of doing things and try them out in practice. According
to Jan Fagerberg (2003) interest in innovation began in the 1960s with the
landmark creation of the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the
University of Sussex. Innovation was not then a topic of interest to
economists because they associated economic change with issues such as
capital accumulation or market operation. Today, in contrast, many writers
are concerned with multidisciplinary research (in disciplines such as
economics, sociology, psychology, management) that considers how
innovation is stimulated by individuals, businesses, organizations and
networks.
The past focus was primarily on innovation in the market economy. For
example, the Oslo Manual stipulates that its object of study is confined to
innovations in the business sector (manufacturing industry, primary sector
and services) implying that less is known about innovation processes in
non-market-oriented sectors (p. 25). Regarding market innovation,
theorists like Schumpeter popularized the concept of creative destruction.
This suggested that that the economy is a dynamic system in which old
ways of doing things are destroyed and constantly displaced by new ones.
This dynamic view crystallizes in four different forms of innovation which
centre around attempts (led by entrepreneurs) to find new ways to exploit,
organize, source and supply new products, methods of production, markets
and businesses.
Today innovation concepts apply to a context where use of the Internet and
ICTs have reshaped the market economy (globalization) and have led to
unprecedented change in observed rhythms of growth and their intensity.
Knowledge has become the cornerstone on which to rest the development
and survival of companies and global regions. Creativity and innovation
have turned into new tools to lead processes effectively towards new aims.
33
Jan Fagerbert (2003) summarized the dominant discourse about the future
of the European and global economies.
• Innovation introduces novelty (variety) into the economic sphere - if
innovation stops, the economy does not increase
• Innovation tends to cluster in certain industries/sectors, which
consequently grow more rapidly leading to structural changes in
production and demand and, eventually, organizational and
institutional change
• Innovation is a powerful explanatory factor behind differences in
performance between firms, regions and countries. Those that
succeed in innovation prosper at the expense of less able
competitors.
This ideological ‘habitat’ has been particularly true at European level, where
innovation has been one of the central planks of policy statements and, in
particular, the Lisbon Declaration (now superseded by the September 2008
financial crisis and subsequent economic recession). At the level of policy
for the national Member States of the European Union, innovation has been
advanced as a common mantra indicating the way forward.
The influence of these conceptions in a context of intense competitiveness
on the world market has brought about a number of behavioural changes in
companies. Literature on the subject indicates four main trends reflecting
the effect of globalization on innovation processes (Bruce, 2009):
• Acceleration. Technological change has speeded up substantially over
the last few decades. This is mainly illustrated by the fact that the
time required to launch a new high-tech product has been
significantly reduced. The process from knowledge production to
commercialization is much shorter. The rapid development and wide
dissemination of ICT has played a key role in bringing about this
change.
• Inter-firm collaboration and industrial networks. New products are
increasingly integrating different technologies - technologies
34
increasingly based on different scientific disciplines. To master such a
variety of domains is impossible even for big organizations. This is
also reflected in the costs of developing new products and systems,
which have grown. Most firms do not have the capability or the
resources to undertake such initiatives - this is the main reason for
the expansion of collaborative schemes for research and the growing
importance of industrial networks.
• Functional integration and networking inside firms. Speedy
adaptation and innovation gives the functionally integrated firm an
advantage. Flexibility, interdisciplinarity and cross-fertilization of
ideas at managerial and laboratory levels within the firm are now
important keys for success.
• Collaboration with knowledge production centres. Increasing reliance
on advances in scientific knowledge for major new technological
opportunities has been an important stimulus for firms to collaborate
with scientific centres like public and private laboratories, universities
and other basic and applied research centres.
These trends, more visible in some countries than in others, reveal a new
and more collaborative interconnected and relational conception in company
culture. They evoke a socio-economic model where the key to success is
using much greater degrees of diversity, interdependency and complexity to
manage risk and achieve goals. This way of doing things is diametrically
opposed to techniques of hierarchy, simplification, uniformity and control
used during the industrial era (Miller, 2003). The emergence of new cultures
in company practices raise questions on the concept of competitiveness.
The Blue Ocean Strategy (Chan Kim & Mauborge, 2005) or Von Hippels
(2005) contributions on user-centered innovation (in the sense of
democratizing innovation), for example, open up debates concerning the
relationship between competitiveness, innovation, involvement,
participation and democratic practice.
In parallel with the universalization of the creativity concept in recent years,
there has been further diversification of the concept of innovation, from one
that is linked with the economic sphere of private companies to one that is
35
linked with more public and social areas (social innovation). Social
innovation is defined as innovative activities and services that are motivated
by the goal of meeting a social need and that are predominantly developed
and diffused through organizations whose primary purposes are social
(Young Foundation, 2007). The accent is undoubtedly placed on the idea of
social and human need.
Figuerdo (2009) distinguishes importantly between the concepts of
incremental innovation and disruptive innovation. Incremental innovation
builds on existing thinking, products, processes organizations or social
systems. They can be routine improvements or they can be dramatic
breakthroughs but they address the very core of what already exits.
Disruptive innovation is addressed to people who do not have any solutions.
It takes place in simple, undemanding applications that are not
breakthrough. People are happy to use them in spite of their limitations
because no other solutions exist.
It is important to note that social and economic innovations are not black
and white concepts. A widening of the concepts of economic and social
innovation suggests that both can enrich traditional views of competition
and innovation by promoting the idea that both society and the economy
benefit from each other. For example, recent organizational innovation has
led to new forms of business organization that incorporate ‘the social’
(development of learning environments or communities in business that
involve sharing, openness, interdependence) without undermining the
classic concept of competitiveness (a typical example of this is the Basque
cooperative movement: Mondragon, CAF).
Innovation is a process that can stimulate research in other sectors of
economic, social and cultural life with objectives going beyond simply
making a profit. The knowledge gained from exploration, experimentation
and exchange of the practices stimulating learning can be utilised to
overcome the narrow limits of pragmatic and instrumental views of
creativity (Villalba, 2008) or to encourage innovation that connects new
36
conceptions of human development and competitiveness with the search for
new forms of social life (Carr, 1990).
Despite the apparent value of the concept and processes of social
innovation, little research has been conducted on the subject. The
investment budgets of governments and businesses are primarily spent on
business innovation, rather than solutions for common human needs. The
ways in which social innovation is produced and how experiences, ideas and
methods may be shared to accelerate solutions to the social problems
requires attention.
Several authors have tried to conceptualize social innovation and have
proposed prerequisites to the creativity and innovation process:
• Social innovation involves implementation of new ideas. The ideas
and the creative thinking behind them are not enough if the ideas are
not adopted. (Mulgan et al, 2007; Mumford, 2002)
• Social innovation satisfies emerging societal needs and is related to
socially desirable goals (Mouleart et al, 2005; Mulgan, 2006) -
socially important questions are answered
• Social innovation requires changes in social relations (Mouleart et al,
2005) and in everyday practices (Hamalainen, 2005;Hamalainen &
Heiskala 2007; Mumford & Moertl, 2003) - wider impact is anticipated
• Social innovation is a collective phenomenon and characterized by the
development of networks (Mumford, 2002).
Maintaining a holistic and systematic view of the creative process underlines
the importance of interaction between people, mediated by socio-cultural
contexts. This has led to understanding that innovation is not just a
technological-economic process but rather a complex interactive social
process in which many actors with different knowledge bases take part
(Tuomi, 2002). A wider and more systematic understanding of the
innovation processes involved has complemented the traditional linear
model of innovation. This has led to the creation of network models when
conceptualizing innovation (Schienstock, Hamalainen, 2001; SITRA, 2005;
37
Hamalainen, 2005; Tuomi, 2002). When the linear model looks at
innovation as an exceptional phenomenon based on a preliminary study, the
contemporary views refer to innovation as a fairly ordinary economic
practice related to work-based learning, changing market demands or new
possibilities of recombining existing knowledge in new ways or applying it in
different contexts (Schienstock, Hamalainen, 2001). Therefore innovation is
understood as new products and services as well as changes in the
application of technologies or adaptation of new ones. Organizational
innovations and new activities imply new knowledge.
The current financial crisis and subsequent impact on other economic
sectors have challenged neo-liberal belief in free competition and market
deregulation. The effects of this crisis on the global economy and people's
lives are still to be seen. There have been long-standing theoretical and
empirical challenges to neo-liberal perspectives. Such criticisms are found in
sociology (Habermas, 1984), pedagogy (Freire, 1997; Morin, 2003; Gadotti,
2003; etc.), psychology (Gardner, 2007) and economics (Sen, 1999; Davis,
2006). These see development as a process of expanding real freedoms and
criticize narrower versions of development (related to GDP growth, rising
personal incomes, industrialization, technological advances or social
modernity). Development requires removal of sources of deprivation:
poverty, tyranny, lack of economic opportunities, neglect of public services,
intolerance or violation of human rights (Sen, 1999).
This poses key questions around development of methodologies to
understand how projects and processes confront socio-political policy
analysis of creativity and innovation. More restrictive conceptualizations see
creativity and innovation as an agenda based on econometric concerns. At
the centre of this discussion is the question on how to develop methods that
investigate construction of learning and knowledge to transform power
relations, as in the concept of development at a human scale (Max-Neef,
2000).
Human needs, self-reliance and organic articulations are the pillars which support Human Scale Development. However, these pillars must be sustained on a solid foundation which is the creation of the conditions where people are the protagonists of their future. If people
38
are to be the main actors in Human Scale Development both the diversity as well as the autonomy of the spaces in which they act must be respected. Attaining the transformation of an object-person into a subject-person in the process of development is, among other things, a problem of scale. There is no possibility for the active participation of people in gigantic systems which are hierarchically organized and where decisions flow from the top down to the bottom. Human Scale Development assumes a direct and participatory democracy.(Max-Neef, 2000:7)
Beyond conceptual nuances, reality shows that innovation processes are of
great social value. The proliferation of blogs, websites, networks, projects
highlight their value. One report (Young Foundation, 2007) on economic
growth suggests that 50-80% of economic value comes from innovation.
There is sufficient evidence that social innovation is an important value not
only for development but also economic growth. Overcoming obstacles to
sustained growth would seem to be achievable through the development of
processes of social innovation.
Innovation is a concept originally related to practical application and
development of new ideas in the industrial world with a key focus on
boosting competitiveness. However, the development of new technologies
affecting production, use and distribution of knowledge - combined with the
grave global structural problems - raises a parallel debate on the ultimate
aims of innovation. The twin aims of understanding processes and practice
in teaching/learning that promote innovation and creativity is intrinsically
linked to producing social value and contributing to both economic and
human needs.
39
III. CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE LEARNING IN THE WORLD OF WORK AND EDUCATION
Any kind of innovation is related to both individual and collective learning.
Innovation does not consist of only new technologies, products, services
and processes. It also operates through different ways of learning as part of
the innovation process in which individual and organizational skills are
developed. A large part of this learning is work-based - learning that
happens in a work context and is related to the need to solve different
problems (Loogma, 2004). Cultural-historical activity theory and its
applications in studies on learning and knowledge transfer relate to
innovation (Engeström, 1987; Engeström & Escalante, 1995; Tuomi-Gröhn,
2003; Säljö, 2003). Many authors regard the innovation process as a co-
construction of a new service, product or a process that includes
mobilization of additional cultural resources (including different types of
knowledge) and reciprocal learning.
One of the main contemporary sources of innovation are inter-
organizational relations and learning networks. Researchers of social
innovation argue that social innovation often rises in the interaction of
individuals with different backgrounds (Mumford, 2002; Mumford & Moertl,
2003). This argument is supported by writers who argue that innovation
often arises in the border-zones of different but adjacent activity systems
(Tuomi-Gröhn & Engeström, 2003). Interaction between different
networked activity systems leads not only to transfer of knowledge and
skills, but also to active interpretation and re-construction of culture-specific
knowledge. Some of the most favourable conditions for knowledge transfer
and expansive learning are border-zones of different activity systems -
schools, companies, public institutions (Tuomi-Gröhn, 2003). One of the
examples of how boundary objects have been developed and innovative
learning facilitated is Lambert’s model of learning studio (Lambert, 2003),
an intervention aimed at promoting innovative learning and knowledge
transfer in vocational teacher education. The learning studio is an example
40
of boundary encounter between a teacher education institution, VET schools
and workplaces.
Some authors of network perspective studying mechanisms of how social
context influences creative performance suggest that weak network ties are
preferable to strong ties when it comes to stimulating creativity at work.
Weaker ties are more likely to connect people with diverse perspectives,
different outlooks, varying interests and diverse approaches to problems.
Moreover, it has been suggested that individuals occupying a peripheral
position in a network with a large number of connections outside the
network will have the highest creativity at work, compared both to more
central actors and other peripheral actors with fewer outside connections
(Perry-Smith et al, 2003). Creative and innovative learning requires the
genesis of new educational spaces and time combined with a redefinition of
existing educational models in order to be able to ensure effective open
interaction between actors (people, organizations, activity systems) with
different backgrounds and knowledge.
There is a centrifugal force that tries to remove training from the traditional
paradigm taking shelter in formal, public, state-subsidized teaching directed
at all citizens as subjects with educational rights in school spaces and times
and endeavours to reroute it towards a new training paradigm with plural
learning options, subsidized by the purchasing power of citizens seen as the
consumers of a service circulating in the market network. A model meaning
increasingly greater amounts of investment in training, which have a direct
repercussion on the workers’ pockets and/or company budgets (Sanz,
2006: 404).
The fact that a series of institutions exist which increasingly depend on the
open commercial market rather than the public education system, may
increase situations of injustice or social inequality. It is important to
highlight this at public policy level so that society can take responsibility for
ensuring the rewarding (Illich, 1971) and democratic (Reimer, 1986) nature
of new forms of access to innovative learning.
41
3.1. Society, learning and work
The increased importance of innovation reflects the fact that it represents a
major response to intensifying competition by enhancing the learning
abilities of firms and workers. Neither firms, regions nor communities can
establish sustainable growth without innovation and learning. The scope of
the challenges posed by the globalizing learning economy requires that
innovation policies should be reformulated to include a learning component.
In the EU context there are two dimensions that should be carefully taken
into account when discussing the contents of any new policy approach.
First is the horizontal dimension, whereby different policy areas should be
effectively coordinated to produce synergies to enhance the learning ability
of the system. Second is the vertical dimension of this coordination, where
European, national and regional instruments and strategies are brought into
line with this new approach, complementing and supporting each other in
order to foster innovation throughout the EU.
These policy areas need to be adjusted and coordinated in such a way that
they promote innovation and growth without undermining social cohesion.
This points to the need for coordination of sectorial policies that have
traditionally been regarded as more or less independent. Competition policy
might be regarded as an instrument for effectively speeding up change, but
it must be tuned and adjusted to the potential for innovation, for human
resource development and for potentially re-distributive goals.
These issues are related to profound changes in society in general and to
the structured world of work in particular. There is a general acceptance
that traditional schooling, the ‘front-end loading’ approach for preparation
for the world of work, is no longer appropriate. This is so for a number of
reasons which include:
• Rapid changes in the world of work
• The changing nature of goals for education and training
42
• The realization that most people will have a number of occupations
and job changes during the period of their working life.
Emphasis has evolved from a concentration on instrumental concepts of
vocational education as a preparation for work during the years of formal
schooling, towards a concept of lifelong learning that is work related. There
is a growing realization that - as well as highly specific job-related technical
skills - the demands of the workplace make it imperative that social and
interpersonal knowledge, skills and competencies be incorporated into any
programme of learning both for and in the world of work.
Traditional companies often saw basic training as being all that was required
- enough to learn to do the job. This stratified and minimalist approach fits
badly with the realities of rapidly changing external environments where all
employees have to work together in anticipating both change and challenge.
In this context employees are no longer seen as merely selling their labour.
They are also seen as producers who have the capacity and, some would
say, an obligation to learn. Many companies increasingly see on-the-job
learning as essential to growth and to enhanced competitiveness. This is
because new skills are continually being acquired by staff. New ways of
using old skills are also being learned.
The learning organization produces employees who are:
• Adaptable
• Flexible
• Innovative
• Pro-active
• Responsible
• Highly motivated.
A range of literature suggests that workplaces must be turned into
sophisticated professional learning organizations in order to ensure that
43
learning becomes consolidated as an essential part of the organizational
culture.
This is a kind of learning which, in constantly demanding interaction with those equal to and different from us, requires large doses of intelligence and of emotional understanding that enables workers and managers to motivate and improve their relationships with colleagues, to bounce back from adversity, to work through the difficulties and disappointing moments of change, to build high-performing teams, to solve problems effectively, to value the diverse learning styles and cultural backgrounds of team-mates, and to solve conflicts when they arise.(Hargreaves, 2003: 39).
In a globalized environment work is no longer a uniform progression of
production and consumption but is also an unfolding of a profound
restructuring of all social, cultural, personal and ethnic relationships and
understandings. The fact remains however, that modern society is
displaying worrying levels of uneven development and disturbing levels of
documented inequality, poverty and discrimination. Environmental
degradation, homelessness, two-tier social service provision, absence of
planning, asset stripping of public services and blind reliance on ever-
increasing consumption patterns are but some of the indicators of current
social malaise.
In such a context the ability to cut costs, maintain increased production
rates and maintain competitiveness may tend to dominate all commercial
thinking and forward planning. When the imperative is to survive from day
to day, most companies can find issues around learning, planning, staff
qualifications and innovation either esoteric or irrelevant. It is suggested
that the role of the employer is to marshal economic and productive activity
to meaningful social ends. In this sense, employment can become
participation in profitable activities - profitable to all social stakeholders and
not just shareholders. Work itself, in this sense, goes beyond the mere
provision of jobs to the creation of value - in both economic and social
senses.
Learning, in the employment context, is most effectively understood when
positively linked with:
44
• Creativity
• Problem resolution
• Change management
• Diversity and inclusion
• Improved communications.
Employers who have seen learning as more than skill-specific training have
been able to benefit from the extraordinary potential of new and diverse
elements in their workforces. This has meant that the voyage of discovery
around learning has become centrally linked to the strategic learning needs
of the employers concerned. The learning of the organization is tied directly
to the learning needs of each and every employee. Employers and
organizations who see only cost implications in the provision of work-based
learning are, at the least, missing out on the extraordinary potential of
thinking and acting in different ways.
Innovation is literally doing what has not been done before. It calls for
considerable creativity for employers to develop innovative practices. It is
often a veritable leap into the unknown. Yet all the evidence is that the
companies who achieve success do so because they are doing something
new - or something old in a new way. Innovation is not about market
gimmicks. It is about products and skills that emerge from new ways of
organization and human creativity. Innovation is based upon learning from
the past as much as about anticipating the needs of the future.
One certainty is that traditional ways of designing, producing and selling can
and will not work in the longer term. Traditional recruitment, training and
promotion practices will fail to maintain jobs if the only perspective is
competition with low wage economies or an undignified scramble to attract
inward job creation at any price.
Enterprises are becoming more aware that they need to become both more
flexible and more responsive to their external environments. The dynamic of
work-based learning offers not just the opportunity to meet minimum
obligations to staff. It offers an opportunity to maximize and sustain
45
profitable enterprise that benefits the entire community. The business
learning organization is by its nature innovative. It also values best practice
and the quality that focuses not merely on product characteristics but also
on the process that produces both consistently excellent goods and a
motivated workforce.
It is possible to observe that the meaning of work is experiencing a
redefinition in contemporary society. As a result, new concerns are arising
in working environments related to the connection between learning,
creativity and innovation. A number of these concerns are related to:
1. Promoting learning in companies and among workers
2. Recognition, evaluation and accreditation of learning in environments
other than formal, given that the traditional academic mode has lost
its monopoly over learning
3. Processes permitting development and consolidation of human capital
4. Optimizing the creativity arising from the effect of the wealth of social
diversity, more evident now than in earlier epochs
5. Systems to guarantee equal learning opportunities in a world affected
by inequality, within a context of fair social distribution of knowledge.
This suggests investigation of processes through which knowledge and
learning are recognized and how organizations cater for diverse learners in
diverse work places. It also raises questions for the development of
methodologies to understand of teaching and learning that promotes
flexible and equitable creativity and innovation while also enabling formal
recognition systems for learning.
46
3.2. New learning environments: networking and community based learning
As in the world of work, social change and the evolution of learning requires
change in other sectors, including education. The strength of today’s
educational relationship is based on learning - above all on the specification
of contextual conditions to guarantee meaning and relevance. Environments
in the framework of lifelong learning where students assume responsibility
for creating and developing their learning is a balance between individual
and collective effort. The link between innovation and learning communities
and articulation of best practice is critical. Lifelong learning is at its most
effective when applied in community contexts. It also requires an attitudinal
and cultural change on the part of governments, policy makers, education
providers, learners and community actors. Community based learning,
particularly in its lifelong learning and adult education initiatives, requires
more than government intervention or formal policy statements.
Local communities must be actively involved and committed. First, society
as a whole must:
• Value learning
• Support those who continue to learn
• Make learning part of their country’s culture.
Second is the issue of resources - this is a perennial problem. This can be
addressed at community level by affirming and promoting the notion that
education serves the community in many ways. These extend far beyond
the purely economic concerns of society. Social change is mediated and can
be directed at community levels if learning is pro-active and centred on
community needs.
The community is based around the need for learning in a variety of ways
and levels. These encompass:
47
• Community development
• Social solidarity
• The role of volunteering
• Environmental management and conservation
• Social inclusion measures
• Religious bodies and groups
• Arts and culture
• Sports and leisure
• Health and well-being.
At times of significant social change, communities need to be re-defined in
such a way as to be meaningful to the individuals who live there.
Community appropriation of lifelong learning and meaningful vocational
education applications entails a greater responsibility for growth and
advancement lying with the individual. With respect to community
development, individuals need to start seeing themselves differently They
need to see the importance of managing their own careers and to accept
responsibility for learning across a lifespan - not just while in school or
within formal learning structures.
If in society as a whole working with others, dialogue and collaboration
between different people is the obvious foundation of the construction of
any cultural, economic and political environment, education is equally
important. This is where the idea of community, shared and communicated,
takes on particular importance.
Community is not limited to the field of education. The past few decades
have witnessed increased interest in the concept of community in general.
Much of this interest stems from American perspectives and is based on the
perception that sense of community in the United States is weak and there
is a need to get American citizens to think about working together toward
the common good (Etzioni, 1993). John Goodlad of the University of
Washington, Head of the Institute for Educational Renewal, echoed these
sentiments in the 1990 editorial of the Holistic Education Review.
48
Our culture does not nourish that which is best or noblest in the human spirit. It does not cultivate vision, imagination, or aesthetic or spiritual sensitivity. It does not encourage gentleness, generosity, caring, or compassion. Increasingly in the late twentieth century, the economic-technocratic-static worldview has become a monstrous destroyer of what is loving and life-affirming in the human soul. (Goodlad:1997:p. 125).
In the past few decades, there has been a growing movement to reinvent
the way citizens learn and a fundamental re-appraisal of the methods
through which young people are introduced into society. This offers a
challenge to traditional schooling and education systems based on formal
teaching and instructional methods. Learning communities put an
innovative focus on:
• Methodologies: distance, open learning, asynchronous and student
centered
• Lifelong learning
• Freedom and opportunity in subject choice and pedagogy
• Flexibility: resources, location and modularization
• Choice and autonomy
• Civic culture: responsibility, communitarism and trust.
The learning community does not have simply one way of defining and
understanding it. In the first place, a community is a series of people or
social entities with a shared vision. Hence, a learning community has the
goal of readiness to learn. It is a community open to the environment,
where the aim is to interact constructively. Second, different uses of this
concept are occurring in social and educational practice to take into
consideration (Torres, 2004).
Although they have many basic forms, learning communities in the
traditional school environment share two common academic elements:
shared or collaborative learning and connected learning. In general,
collaborative learning activities group students together to explore or apply
the course material; these approaches have been linked to significantly
enhanced learning. Collaborative learning in the curricular learning
49
community model emerges as communities enroll the same students in
several common courses, thereby increasing the likelihood of an integrated
social and academic experience. Connected learning, in turn, encourages
students to connect ideas from different disciplines. This emerges in the
learning community model from the fact that the shared courses are
organized or linked around a single theme (Pascarella and Terenzini; Zhao
and Kuh, 2004). As a result of these two common academic elements,
learning communities represent a constructivist approach to knowledge,
encouraging students to socially construct their own knowledge rather than
simply accepting the information transmitted by the instructor. As a result,
learning is deeper, more personally relevant, and becomes a part of who
the student is, not just something the student has (Zhao and Kuh, 2004, p.
117).
The cooperative and connected learning environments established as part of
a learning community promote both academic and social engagement
(Tinto, 1997). Decades of research on academic engagement,
operationalized as effort or involvement, suggests that, other things being
equal, the more the student is psychologically engaged in academic and
academic-related activities and tasks that reinforce and support the formal
academic experience the more he or she will learn (Pascarella and
Terenzini, 2005). In terms of social engagement, the collaborative nature of
learning communities promotes student-to-student interaction and student-
to-faculty interaction (Ewell, 1994); both types of interaction are correlated
with improved outcomes for students (Pascarella and Terenzini, 2005;
Tinto, 1997).
A learning community is lodged in a human and territorial community,
based on a common project towards which all agents involved work,
generating and developing ideas. This concept is related to different
contexts.
• School and after-school (formal, non-formal and informal
organization, and the classroom itself as a community).
• The virtual classroom, mediated by ICT, generating networks
50
between people, education centres, professional communities,
companies.
The Cedefop (2008) definition recognizes the different contexts, defining a
learning community as promoting a culture of learning by developing
effective local partnerships between all sectors of the community,
supporting and motivating individuals and organizations to learn. Virtual
communities foster new relational atmospheres through:
• Network socializing processes, the exchange of experiences and the
construction of processes and ideas.
• Geographic areas (city, district, groups of areas).
• Economic and human development processes or the development of
social capital.
• Citizen participation and development processes.
• Professional development processes in which professionals work and
learn in the framework of powerful learning communities. The
European Distance and E-learning Network (EDEN) exemplifies a
virtual learning community, its purpose being to involve actors in a
European community of expertise to share experiences on how e-
learning can be used to strengthen individual, organizational, local
and regional development, digital learning literacy, best practice and
extended access.
Academic educational literature contains clear examples of centres working
based on the community idea (Apple & Beane, 1995; Jaussi, 2002). These
centres are deeply involved in discovering practical ways of increasing the
significant participation of all people playing a part in the educational
experience (families, volunteers, students, neighbourhood residents). The
goal is a more participative model, where teachers work jointly with one
another in the collective interests of students, school and the social setting.
It is envisaged that students are committed, active participants in their
learning and their community and teachers learn continually, while
equipped with resources to reflect and act. It is intended that families and
51
community play a real part in programmes and educational decision-
making.
The learning community framework contains a different concept of the
educational relationship, the education agent, inter-institutional relationship
and the general contexts. This is because:
• All are considered as learning objects: adults, youngsters, families
• Intergenerational, mutual learning and learning between equals is
encouraged
• The whole community is a potential agent to assume educational
functions
• It maintains a holistic view of education and society
• It fosters creation of innovation networks
• It is a social project that promotes educational work
• Lifelong learning lies at the root of all activity.
In Spain, the idea of learning community has been detailed in a socio-
educational project engaging a wide network of centres spread over several
autonomous communities. Main features include pluralism and openness,
endowing it with a diversity mirroring the wider society. These Spanish
examples highlight how organizations can:
• Overcome inequalities
• Provide people with comprehensive education as a response to unmet
needs
• Equip people with dialogue and critical analysis to contribute to the
construction of a more egalitarian, intercultural and inclusive society.
Questions arising centre on to what extent change in educational practices
can be achieved and on the development of methods to allow VET, work-
based and adult education to meet the challenges of contemporary
education and society. The transformation from industrial organizations to
informational organizations is a critical strategic imperative. Competence is
not limited to the cognitive use of theory or concepts but encompasses
52
technical skills, interpersonal attributes and ethical values (Cedefop 2008;
European Commission, 2006).
53
3.3. Towards new forms of professionalism
The redefinition of all social and educational areas, and of the elements that
foster them, requires analysis as well as change in ways of understanding
professions. Both the working and educational worlds urgently require the
insertion of new ways of understanding the role of professionals within a
series of very widely differing socio-historical coordinates. Today it is out of
the question that anyone can work alone. The Freirian assertion that nobody
knows everything or nothing, but that we learn ‘with’ others, has taken on
real presence and value. Nobody knows enough or could hope to achieve
enough knowledge to go it alone. Knowledge creation involves
reconstructing understanding to permit actors to imagine more creative and
innovative situations. Involvement in actions and problem-solving within
wider groups around a common purpose is imperative for innovation.
Whether called teams, communities, networks, the underlying fact is the
need to think with others, from different angles, to produce new ideas.
Professional culture thus needs reconstruction at several levels. In
education, both adult learners and vocational learners need engagement
action of committed professionals who are aware of needs and contexts.
Professionals need to promote projects based on community values,
collective participation and multiculturalism. Finally learners need to
become involved in the educational processes to think and act above and
beyond the seductions and demands of the knowledge economy
(Hargreaves 2003: 76).
54
IV. DEVELOPING COMPETENCES IN CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION
Creative competencies that lead to innovation need to be underpinned by
tolerance, openness, flexibility, autonomy, support and collaboration. These
issues require complex approaches to innovation and creativity that take
account of individual capabilities, group values and formal/informal
organization rules.
4.1. Creative competences that should be developed to get innovation
Creativity is possible in all areas of human activity. As all people have
creative abilities, these have to be developed to get innovation. Knowing
the characteristics of the creative individual is very useful to define learning
experiences that enhance creativity. Some research has been conducted to
understand better the personal characteristics of creative individuals,
especially in cognitive psychology. Not only personal characteristics of an
individual or possession of certain competence inevitably lead to innovative
solutions - environmental factors are of equal importance. Jane Piirto
(2004: 135-146) offers a conceptual framework - the Pyramid of Talent
Development - that considers person, process, and product, as well as
environmental factors. It includes 5 aspects of creativity:
1. The genetic aspect: Talent in domains, inborn or innate.
2. The emotional aspect: personality attributes present some way in
highly creative persons. These may be innate to a certain extent, but
can also be developed, encouraged, and directly taught. These
attributes include androgyny, creativity, imagination, insight,
introversion, intuition, naiveté, openness to experience, over-
excitability, passion for work in a domain, perceptiveness,
perfectionism, persistence, preference for complexity, resilience, risk-
taking, self-discipline, self-efficacy, tolerance for ambiguity, and
55
volition or will.
3. The cognitive aspect: Piirto claims that the cognitive dimension in the
form of an IQ score has been over-emphasized with regard to
creativity. A reasonable level of intelligence may be necessary and
helpful for creative production, but for creativity, formal intelligence
is a minor ingredient. Things like motivation- wanting to create - are
more important
4. Environmental ‘suns’ that could be linked to certain factors in the
environment, including positive and nurturing home environment;
community and culture conveying values compatible with the
educational institution and supporting home and school; school;
gender.
5. Chance.
Cropley (Cropley, 2009: 147-150), however, divides properties of the
individual into cognitive, personal and motivational properties. Among
cognitive aspects fostering creativity would include:
• Rich and varied experiences in many settings
• Fund of general knowledge
• Specialized knowledge
• Skill at seeing connections, overlaps, similarities and logical
implications (convergent thinking)
• Skill at making remote associations, linking apparently separate fields
and forming new gestalts (divergent thinking)
• Preference for accommodating rather than assimilating
• Ability to recognize and define problems
• Ability to plan personal learning and evaluate progress (executive or
metacognitive abilities)
In the case of personality, creativity requires:
• Openness to new ideas and experiences
• Adventurousness
• Autonomy
56
• Ego strength
• Positive self-evaluation and high self-esteem
• Acceptance of all (even contradictory) aspects of oneís own self
• Preference for complexity
• Tolerance for ambiguity.
In order to foster motivational aspects, teachers should seek to foster in
students:
• A concept of creativity and a positive attitude to it
• Curiosity
• Willingness to risk being wrong
• Drive to experiment
• Task commitment, persistence and determination
• Willingness to try difficult tasks
• Desire for novelty
• Freedom from domination by external rewards (intrinsic motivation)
• Readiness to accept a challenge
• Readiness for risk taking.
Clark (2008), following her holistic vision of the concept of creativity, has
gathered the characteristics and abilities of creative people described in
various research papers (Amabile,1990; Sternberg & Lubart, 1993; Runco
& Nemiro , 1994) and classified them in four groups of creative individuals:
Cognitive Rational; Affective/ Social; Physical/ Sensing; Intuitive. Thus,
creativity, like all human abilities, is something all human beings have to a
greater or lesser extent. It can be improved over the years, while its
expression, according to Sternberg and Lubart (1997), requires knowledge,
intrinsic motivation and knowing how to display the new product. This
implies developing both inter- and intra-personal skills (such as the trust,
independent thought and communication described by Clark and Cropley).
Formal education should therefore work on the different human abilities and
intelligences (Gardner, 1993) and include them in the curriculum.
57
This raises questions on the methodologies required to understand how
learning processes and practices stimulate motivation and build on the
capacities of the social actors in defined learning spaces. It also raises
questions for how examples of best practice can inform learners who have
different capacities, strengths and weaknesses.
58
4.2. Methodology, processes and conditions that develop creative competences to create innovation.
According to Cropley (2009), personal attributes mentioned earlier are
highly dependent on various environmental systems in which creative
individuals become active. Cropley (2009) highlights the ways in which
systems can be discouraging or inhibiting, or on the other hand nurturing,
stimulating or inspiring. It is suggested that organizations and systems
should be interested in the provision of a creativogenic climate that
embraces the concept of open teaching and learning as well as providing
the essential conditions for fostering creativity (Cropley, 2009: 147-150).
Creativity requires social environments to stretch individuals, balancing the
opportunity to act autonomously with the potential to collaborate with
stimulating groups and networks. It is also suggested that systems have to
involve tolerance, flexibility, openness and diversity (Cropley, 2009,
Sternberg 2003/2007). Several processes that promote tolerance are
detailed:
• Acceptance of difference
• Openness and tolerance of variability
• Absence of rigid sanctions against mistakes
• Encouraging and accepting constructive non-conformist behaviour
• Encouraging and accepting original ideas
• Creating an atmosphere free from anxiety and time pressure without
abandoning responsibility
• Establishing psychological security, openness and freedom
• Encouraging sensible risk-taking
• Encouraging tolerance of ambiguity
• Allowing mistakes.
A parallel set of processes that promote autonomy, reflection and self-
efficacy is described:
59
• Enabling self-directed work, allowing a high degree of initiative,
spontaneity and experimentation without fear of sanction against
incorrect solutions, errors, or mistakes
• Creating organizational and structural conditions that allow open and
reversible distribution of roles, themes and problems, as well as
sharing of activities
• Fostering identification of the person with learning activities by
allowing self-determination and joint responsibility
• Supporting the development of positive self-assessment and a
favourable self-concept
• Increasing autonomy in/of learning by recognition and self-evaluation
of progress
• Fostering intense concentration and task commitment through high
motivation and interest in self-selected topics
• Redefinition of problems
• Questioning and analysis of assumptions
• Helping persons build self-efficacy.
Processes that stretch and support creativity are also listed:
• Offering meaningful enrichment of learners’ perceptual horizons
• Providing challenging and stimulating learning materials
• Providing support and positive feedback for questioning and exploring
behavior and problem-finding, not just problem solving
• Making it possible for persons to experience social creativity during
group interactions and through joint projects with self-selected
partners
• Reducing stress on achievement and avoiding negative stress by
introducing playful activities
• Nurturing sensibility, flexibility and divergent thinking
• Learning to sell creative ideas and persuade others
• Encouraging idea generation
• Encouragement to identify and surmount obstacles
• Helping persons to find their interests
• Role modeling creativity
60
• Cross - fertilizing ideas across subjects and disciplines
• Allowing time for creative thinking
• Rewarding creativity
• Encouraging collaboration.
The concept of open learning and instruction indicates a changed and
enriched role for the teacher, who is no longer merely instructor, evaluator
and authority, but rather stimulator, moderator, helper, counsellor,
facilitator, participating observer, initiator, partner, instructor, mentor and
model (Cropley, 2009).
The above list of processes are extremely important as they may provide
the type of criteria by which everyday efficacy of best practice examples can
be evaluated in terms of the generation of innovation and creativity.
Specific and practical case examples provide substantive, qualitative and in-
depth models of what conceptual categories actually mean in different
socio-cultural contexts.
61
CONCLUSIONS
The way learning is understood in today’s world has evolved dramatically. It
seems clear that the social spaces, organizations and policies that promote
forms of learning based on cooperation, collaboration and collective creation
from different cultural viewpoints, (based on the community idea) have
enormous possibilities for anticipating economic and social changes. They
also consolidate human potential, itself capable of both creating and
innovating.
Nevertheless, it is not always easy to differentiate between the concepts of
creativity and innovation. Creativity is a human ability developed in close
interaction with context, associated with the ability to learn in constantly
changing environments. It is attributable to all people and capable of
development. It is interesting to define the learning experiences which can
improve the creativity residing inside everyone, taking account genetic
factors, emotional aspects, domain-specific talent, cognitive and
environmental factors. At the end of the day, creativity is an increasingly
important value, both with respect to individual development and to
achieving professional and cultural development in a constantly changing
society which demands innovative responses.
On the other hand, innovation cannot be reduced to a simple matrix of
definitions, norms and procedures. To do so would be to reduce a complex
process of cognition, design and intentionality to a mere set of procedures
which, given the right environment and circumstances, could be reproduced
in any number of settings. Innovation involves a radical re-evaluation of
existing circumstances and conditions. It involves asking a rigorous set of
questions that interrogate what the current situation is and then sets results
against what could (or more intriguingly, should) be. Innovation exists in
real environments with strongly established structures and modes of
ownership which may, by their nature, be antipathetic to any form of
questioning or new thought.
62
We locate innovation in the key framework of contemporary life - the
process of globalization. Globalization powerfully affects all human
relationships and structures. It shapes our very understanding of
knowledge, information, values and power. It is not an abstract. It is not
divorced from actually existing systems in the process of unprecedented
global change. The impact of sustained urbanization, demographic
movement, intercultural communities and increased stratification is
profound and will condition the forms and nature of innovation produced in
globalized contexts.
Globalization and the altered relationships that emerge from the
globalization process therefore influence innovation in immediate and direct
ways. It also shapes the nature of the learning response to innovation. It is
one thing to create learning systems and methods that are innovative. It is
another thing to shape, sustain, own and develop them in innovative ways
over a period of time. In that context we have given consideration to forms
of learning and the development of learning communities which, in the right
circumstances, can help to ensure that the fruits of innovation are
meaningful to individuals and to communities and is structured in such a
way that equity, justice, participation and rights are served most efficiently.
The creation of a participative and democratic learning environment has not
been to the forefront in traditional discourse surrounding innovation. In fact,
the discussion on innovation and creativity has been increasingly
conditioned by images derived from free market liberalism and from the
sense of competitive pressures. The recent global economic crisis may
provide a welcome opportunity to re-locate innovation in the context of
community and shared ownership where values have equal importance with
rates of profitable extraction.
It is in that sense that innovation is re-imagined. An innovation that is more
than the sum of its parts. An innovation that responds as well as forges new
learning and new products. An innovation that takes risks and is not
circumscribed by narrow policy barriers. An innovation that is not a panacea
for current ills, but rather a mode of thinking, acting and doing that has at
63
its heart the transformation of relationships and conditions in our globalized
world.
64
BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES
Adams, K. (2005). Sources of Innovation and Creativity: A Summary of the
Research, National Center on Education and the Economy.
http://skillscommission.org/commissioned.htm.
Alonso, MJ., Arandia, M. y Loza, M. (2008). “La tertulia como estrategia
metodológica en la formación continua: avanzando en las dinámicas
dialógicas” (“The chatting gathering as a methodological strategy in in-
service learning: moving along dialogical dynamics”). Revista
electrónica interuniversitaria de formación del profesorado, ISSN 1575-
0965, Vol. 11, Nº. 1.
Amabile, Teresa (1996). Creativity In Context: Update to the Social
Psychology of Creativity. Westview Press.
Amabile, T. M.; Conti, R.; Coon, H.; Lazenby, J.; Herron, M. (1996).
“Assessing the Work Environment for Creativity”. The Academy of
Management Journal, 39 (5), 1154-1184.
Apple, M.W. y Beane, J.A. (1995). Escuelas democráticas. Madrid: Morata.
Argyle, M. and P. Trower (1979). Person to person: ways of communicating.
London: Harper and Row.
Aubert, A.; Flecha, A.; García, C.; Flecha, R.; Racionero, S. (2008).
Aprendizaje dialógico en la sociedad de la información. Barcelona:
Hipatia.
Aubert, A.; Duque, E.; Fisas, M.; Valls, R. (2004). Dialogar y transformar.
Pedagogía crítica del siglo XXI. Barcelona: Graó.
Austin, J.L. (1971). Como hacer cosas con palabras : palabras y acciones.
Buenos Aires: Paidós.
65
Avis, J. (2002). “Social Capital, Collective Intelligence and Expansive
Learning: Thinking through the Connections. Education and the
Economy”. British Journal of Educational Studies, Volume 50, Number
3, September 2002 , pp. 308-326(19).
Bateson, G. (1985). Pasos hacia una ecología de la mente. Buenos Aires:
Carlos Lohlé.
Beck, U.; Giddens, A.; Lash, S. (1997). Modernización reflexiva. Política,
transición y estética en el orden social moderno. Barcelona: Península.
Beck, U. (1998). La sociedad del riesgo: hacia una nueva modernidad.
Barcelona: Paidós.
Bell, D. (1976). El advenimiento de la sociedad post-industrial: un intento
de prógnosis social. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
Boland, R. (Ed.), Managing as designing. Stanford: Stanford University
Press.
Braverman, H. (1974). Labor and Monopoly Capital. New York: Monthly
Review Press.
Bruner, J.S. (1988). Desarrollo cognitivo y educación. Madrid: Morata.
Bruner, J.S. (1996). Realidad mental y mundos posibles. Los actos de la
imaginación que dan sentido a la experiencia. Madrid: Morata.
Bruner, J.S. (2000). La educación puerta de la cultura. Madrid: Visor.
Bruce, Alan. (2009). Beyond Barriers: Intercultural Learning and Inclusion
in Globalized Paradigms. EDEN: Lisbon.
Bruce, A. and Hartnett, T., (2005). Community Based Learning via Learning
Communities: a joint U.S. - Irish Perspective, Dipoli DKK: Helsinki.
Carneiro, R. (2007). “The Big picture: understanding learning and meta-
learning challenges”. European Journal of Education, Vol.42, No. 2.
Carr, W (1990). Hacia una ciencia crítica de la educación. Barcelona:
Laertes.
66
Castells, M. (1997). La era de la información: economía, sociedad y cultura.
Madrid: Alianza.
Castells, M. (2001). La galaxia internet. Reflexiones sobre Internet,
empresa y sociedad. Madrid: Areté.
CEDEFOP (2008). Terminology of European education and training policy: A
selection of 100 key terms. Luxembourg, Office for Official Publications
of the European Communities.
Chan Kim; W & and Mauborge, Renée: (2005). Blue Ocean Strategy: How
to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant.
Clark, Barbara (2008). Growing Up Gifted: Developing the Potential of
Children at Home and at School. Prentice Hall. 7th edition.
Craft, A. 2003. “The Limits to Creativity in Education: Dilemmas for the
Educator”. British Journal of Educational Studies, Vol.51, nº 2, pp 113-
127.
CREA (2003-2005). Teorías y sociedades dialógicas. Nuevas transferencias
ciencia-sociedad en la era del conocimiento. Plan nacional de
Investigación Científica, Desarrollo e Innovación Tecnológica, 200-
2003. Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología
CREA (2006-2011). INCLUD-ED. Strategies for Inclusion and Social
Cohesion from Education in Europe, FP6 028603-2. Sixth Framework
Programme. Priority 7 Citizens and Governance in a Knowledge-based
Society.. European Commission.
Cummins, J. (2002). Lenguaje, poder y pedagogía. Madrid: Morata.
Csikszentmihaly, Mihaly (2003). Fluir en los negocios: liderazgo y creación
en el mundo de la empresa. Edit. Kairós.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of
Discovery and Invention, New York: HarperPerennial. Harvard Business
School Press.
Chomsky, N. (1977). El lenguaje y el entendimiento. Barcelona: Seix Barral.
Chomsky, N. (1988). La quinta libertad. Barcelona:Crítica..
67
Chomsky, N. (2001). La (des)educación. Barcelona: Crítica.
Cropley, A. J. and Cropley D. H. (2009). Fostering Creativity: A Diagnostic
Approach for Higher Education and Organisations, Hampton Press,
Cresskill, NJ. Electronic Foundation for Quality in E-learning.
http://www.qualityfoundation.org/ [Accessed 2nd July 2009].
Davis, M. (2006). Planet of Slums. New York: Verso.
Engeström, Y. & Escalamnte, V. (1995). “Mundane tool or object of
affection? The rise and fall of postal buddy”. In: B. Nardi (Ed.). Activity
Theory and Human-computer Interaction, pp. 325 -373, Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by Expanding. An Activity Theoretical
Approach to Developmental Research. Orienta Konsultit: Helsinki.
Engeström, Y. (2004). Managing as argumentative history-making. In R.
Boland (Ed.), Managing as designing. Stanford: Stanford University
Press.
Eisentein, E. (1979): The printing press as an agent of change.
Communications and cultural transformation in early modern Europe.
Cambridge University press.
Etzioni, A. (1993). The Spirit of Community: Rights, Responsibility, and the
Communitarian Agenda. New York: Crown.
European Commission. (2006). Implementing the Community Lisbon
Programme. Proposal for a Recommendation of the European
Parliament and of the Councilon the establishment of the European
qualifications framework for lifelong learning (presented by the
Commission). Luxembourg: Publications Office,
http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/educ/eqf/com_2006_0479_en.p
df
Ewell, P. (Summer, 1994). Restoring Our Links with Society: The Neglected
Art of Collective Responsibility. Metropolitan Universities, 5(1), 79-87.
68
Fagerberg, Jan (2003). Innovation: A Guide to the Literature. Centre for
Technology, Innovation and Culture. University of Oslo
http://folk.uio.no/janf/downloadable_papers/03fagerberg_innovation_
ottawa.pdf
Fernández, I. y Arandia, M (2003). Hezkuntzako ikerkuntza partaidetzaren
ikuspegitik: errealitatea pentsatuz eta eraikiz. Bilbo: Udako Euskal
Unibertsitatea.
Figuerdo, A. (2009). Innovating in Education: Educating for Innovation,
EDEN Research Workshop, Porto.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogía del oprimido. Madrid: Siglo XXI.
Freire, P. (1990). La naturaleza política de la educación. Barcelona. Paidós.
Freire, P. (1994). Cartas a quien pretende enseñar. Madrid: Siglo XXI.
Freire, P. (1997). A la Sombra de este Árbol. Barcelona. El Roure.
Fuentes, C. & Torbay, A. (2004). “Desarrollar la creatividad desde los
contextos educativos: un marco de reflexión sobre la mejora socio-
personal”, REICE, Revista Electrónica Iberoamericana sobre Calidad,
Eficacia y Cambio en Educación, vol. 2, nº1.
Gadotti M. et al. (2003). Perspectivas actuales de la educación. Siglo XXI.
Buenos Aires.
Gardner, Howard (2007). Las cinco mentes del futuro. Edit. Barcelona:
Paidós.
Gardner, Howard (1993). Inteligencias múltiples. La teoría en la práctica.
Barcelona: Paidós.
Gardner, Howard (1984). Art, Mind & Brain: A Cognitive Approach to
Creativity. Basic Books.
Gardner, Howard; Csikszentmilahy; Mihlay; Damon, William (2002). Buen
trabajo. Cuando ética y excelencia convergen. Barcelona: Edit. Paidós.
Giddens, A. (1995). Modernidad e identidad del yo. Barcelona: Península.
69
Giddens, A. (1998). La tercera vía: la renovación de la socialdemocracia.
Madrid: Taurus.
Goodlad, J.L. (1997). In Praise of Education. New York: Teachers College
Press.
Goody, J. (1990): The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society.
Cambridge University Press.
Graff, H.J. (1979): The Literacy Myth. Literacy and Social Structure in the
Nineteenth Century City. New York: Academic Press.
Guilford, J. P. (1950). “Creativity Research: Past, present, and future”.
American Psychologist, 5: 444-454.
Habermas, J. (1987). Teoría de la acción comunicativa .Vo l . I y II. Madrid:
Taurus ( v. o. en 1981).
Hämäläinen, (2005). Structural Adjustment and Social Innovations: The
New Challange for Innovation Policies. (www.sitra.fi).
Hamalainen, T. J. and R. Heiskala (2007). Social Innovations, Institutional
Change and Economic Performance: Making Sense of Structural
Adjustment Processes in Industrial Sectors, Regions and Societies,
Cheltenham, Edward Elgar.
Hargreaves, A. (2003). Enseñar en la sociedad del conocimiento. Barcelona:
Octaedro.
Illich, I. (1974). La sociedad desescolarizada. Barcelona: Barral.
[Deschooling society, 1971]
Jaussi, M.L. (2002): Comunidades de aprendizaje en Euskadi. Vitoria:
Publicaciones del Gobierno Vasco.
Jeffrey, B. & Craft, A. (2001). “The Universalization of Creativity” in
Creativity in education. Continuum International Publishing Group.
Kanter, R.M. (1988). "When a thousand flowers bloom: structural,
collective, and social conditions for innovation in organizations", in
Staw, B.M., Cummings, L.L. (Eds),Research in Organizational Behavior,
JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, Vol. Vol. 10 pp.97-102.
70
Lambert, P. (2003). Promoting Developmental Transfer in Vocational
Teacher Education. In Terttu Tuomi-Gröhn and Yrjö Engeström (Eds.),
Between School and Work. New Perspectives on Transfer and
Boundary-crossing (pp. 233-253).Amsterdam-Boston-London-New
York-Oxford-Paris-san Diego-San Francisco-Singapore-Sydney-Tokio:
Elsevier Science.
Loogma, Krista (2004). Töökeskkonnas õppimise tähendus töötajate
kohanemisel töömuutustega (Doktoritöö, Tallinna Pedagoogikaülikool)
Tallinn: TPÜ Kirjastus
Lundvall, B.A. & Johnson B. (1994): “The Learning Economy”, Journal of
Industry Studies I (2), 23-42.
Max-Neef, M. (2000). Economía Transdisciplinaria para la sustentabilidad.
(http://www.volpa.org/documentos/max-neef.pdf).
Markkula, M & Sinko, Matti (2009) Knowledge Economies and Innovation
Society Evolve around Learning. Elearningpapers.
http://www.elearningeuropa.info/files/media/media19201.pdf
Miettinen, R. (2006). The Sources of Novelty: a Cultural and Systemic View
of Distributed Creativity. Creativity and Innovation Management 15
(2), 173-181.
Miller, Riel (2003). Future of Tertiary Education. OECD-CERI,
http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/kokusai/forum/04022701/004/001.pd
f
Miller, Riel; Shapiro, Hanne and Hilding-Haman, Knud Erik (2008). School´s
Over: Learning Spaces in Europe in 2020: an Imagining Exercise on
the Future of Learning. Joint Research Centre. Scientific and Technical
Report. European Commission. http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/JRC47412.pdf
Morin, Edgard (2003). Educar en al era planetaria. Barcelona: Gedisa.
Mouleart, F.; Martinelli, F.; Swyngedow, E.; Gonzales, S. (2005 -1976-).
“Towards Alternative Model(s) of Local Innovation”. Urban Studies, Vol
42, No 11, 1969-1990.
71
Mulgan, G. (2006). The Process of Social Innovation.
http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/policy_library/data/TheProcess
ofSocialInnovation/_res/id=sa_File1/INNOV0102_p145162_mulgan.pdf
Mulgan, G. with Tucker, S., Ali. R., Sanders, B. (2007). Social innovation.
What It Is, Why It Matters and How It Can Be Accelerated. Skoll
Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. Working paper,
http://www.youngfoundation.org/files/images/03_07_What_it_is__SAI
D_.pdf
Mumford, M.D. & Gustafson, S. (1998). “Creativity syndrome: Integration,
application and innovation”. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 27-43.
Mumford, M.D. (2002). “Social Innovation: Ten Cases From Benjamin
Franklin”, Creativity Research Journal, 14 (2), 253-266.
Mumford, M.D.; Moertl, P. (2003). “Cases of Social Innovation: Lessons
From Two Innovations in the 20th Century”. Creativity Research
Journal, Vol 15, No. 2 & 3, 261-166.
Nardi, B. (Ed.). Activity Theory and Human-computer Interaction, pp. 325 -
373, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
OECD (2005). Manual de Oslo: Guía para la recogida e interpretación de
datos sobre innovación. http://www.conacyt.gob.sv/Indicadores
%20Sector%20Academcio/Manual_de_Oslo%2005.pdf)
OECD (2001) The well-being of nations: the role of human and social
capital. Paris: OECD
Pascarella, E.T., & Terenzini, P.T. (2005). How college affects students: A
third decade of research, Volume 2. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Perry-Smith, Jill E.; Shalley, Christina E. (2003). “The Social Side of
Creativity: A Static and Dynamic Social Network Perspective”. The
Academy of Management Review, 28 (1), 89-106.
Piirto, J. (2004). Understanding Creativity, Scottsdale, Arizona: Great
Potential Press.
72
Posner, P. (2009) The Pracademic: An agenda for re-engaging practitioners
and academics. George Washington University. www.maxwell.syr.edu/
pa/minnowbrook3/PDF%20Files/Phase%20II%20Papers/Posner%20-
%20The%20Pracademic.pdf
Reimer, E. (1976). La escuela ha muerto. Barcelona: Barral. [School is
dead, 1970].
Richards, R. (2007). Introduction. In: R. Richards (ed.) Everyday Creativity
and New Views of Human Nature: Psychological, Social and Spiritual
Perspectives, Washington: American Psychological Association.
Rogoff, B. (1993). Aprendices del pensamiento. El desarrollo cognitivo en el
contexto social. Barcelona: Paidós.
Rogoff et al (2001). Learning together: Children and Adults in a School
Community. New York: Oxford University Press.
Runco, M. & Nemiro, J. (1994). “Problem finding, creativity, and
giftedness”. Roeper Reviwe, 16(4), 235-242.
Runco, M. (2009). The Dialectical Evolution of Divergent Thinking Tests
Brussels. http://ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-learning-
policy/doc/creativity/runco.pdf [Accessed 2nd July 2009]
Salinas, J. (2003). Comunidades Virtuales y Aprendizaje Digital.
http://gte.uib.es/publicacions/comunica/edutec03/salinas_cv.pdf
Säljö, R. (2003). Epilogue: From Transfer to Boundary-crossing. Teoses:
Terttu Tuomi_Gröhn and Yrjö Engeström (Toim.). Between School and
Work. New Perspectives on Transfer and Boundary-crossing.
Amsterdam-Boston-London-NY-Oxford-Paris-San Diego-San Francisco-
Singapore-Sidney-Tokio: Elsevier.
Sanz, F. (2006). El aprendizaje fuera de la escuela. Tradición del pasado y
desafío para el futuro. Madrid: Ediciones Académicas.
Sawyer, R. K.(2006). Explaining Creativity. The Science of Human
Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press.
73
Scardamalia, M. and Bereiter, C. (2006). FCL and Knowledge Building: A
Continuing Dialogue
http://www.ikit.org/fulltext/AnnBrownOct10.06.pdf
Schienstock, G.; Hämäläinen, T. (2001) “Transformation of the Finnish
innovation system: A network approach”. Sitra Reports series 7.
Helsinki: Hakapaino OY.
Scott, S.G., Bruce, R.A. (1994). "Determinants of innovative behavior: a
path model of individual innovation in the workplace", Academy of
Management Journal, Vol. 37 No.3, pp.580-607.
Searle, J. & Soler, M. (2004). Lenguaje y ciencias sociales. Diálogo entre
John Searle y CREA. Barcelona: El Roure.
Searle, J. R. (1980) Minds, brains, and programs. Behavioral and Brain
Sciences 3 (3): 417-457.
Sen, Amartya (1999): Desarrollo y libertad. Planeta. Barcelona.
Sepúlveda, G. (2001). ¿Qué es aprendizaje expansivo?
http://www.innovemosdoc.cl/publicaciones/Diversidad.pdf
Simonton, D. (2000). "Creativity: cognitive, personal, developmental and
social aspects." American Psychologist 55(1): 151-158.
SITRA (2005). Making Finland a leading country in innovation. Innovation
Programme. 2005. Helsinki: SITRA
Spinosa, C. et al (1997): Disclosing new worlds –Entrepeneurship,
democratic action and cultivation of solidarity. The Mit Press,
Cambridge Mass.
Sternberg, R.J. (ed) (1999). Handbook of Creativity, Cambridge, New York,
Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paolo: Cambridge
University Press, 10th edition 2007.
Sternberg, R.J. (2003/2007). Wisdom, Intelligence, and Creativity
Synthesized, Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town,
Singapore, São Paolo, Delhi: Cambridge University Press.
74
Sternberg, R.J. & Lubart, T.I. (1993). Investing in creativity. Psychological
Inquiry, 4(3), 229-232.
Sternberg, R.J. & Lubart, T.I. (1997). La creatividad en una cultura
conformista. Barcelona: Paidos.
Sternberg et al (ed) (2004). Creativity. From Potential to Realization.
Washington. American Psychological Association.
Taddei, Fracois (2009) Training Creative and Collaborative Knowledge-
builders: a Major Challenge for 21st century Education. Centre de
Reserches Interdisciplinaires. Faculté de Medecine Paris Descartes.
http://q.liberation.fr/pdf/20090414/10901_telechargez-le-rapport.pdf
Tinto, V. (1995). Learning communities, collaborative learning, and the
pedagogy of educational citizenship. AAHE Bulletin. 47, 11-13.
Torres, R.M. (2004). Comunidad de aprendizaje. La educación en función
del desarrollo local y del aprendizaje. http://www.udlap.mx/rsu/pdf/1/
RepensandoloEducativodesdeelDesarrolloLocal.pdf
Tuomi, I. (2002). Networks of Innovation. Change and Meaning in the Age
of the Internet, Oxford University Press.
Tuomi-Gröhn, T. (2003). Developmental Transfer as Goal of Internship in
Practical Nursing. Teoses: Terttu Tuomi-Gröhn and Yrjö Engeström
(Toim.) Between School and Work. New Perspectives on Transfer and
Boundary-crossing. Amsterdam-Boston-London-NY-Oxford-Paris-San
Diego- San Francisco- Singapore- Sidney-Tokio, Elsevier.
Unsworth, K. (2001) “Unpacking Creativity”. The Academy of Management
Review, 26 (2), 289-297.
Van de Ven, A.H. (1986). Central Problems in the Management of
Innovation. Management Science, Vol. 32, No. 5. pp. 590-607.
Veblen, T. (2006). The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of the
Industrial Arts. New York: Cosimo.
Von Hippel (2005). Democratizing innovation. http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/
www/democ1.htm.
75
Vigotsky, L. (1995). Pensamiento y lenguaje. Barcelona: Paidós.
Vigotsky, L. (2006). Teoría de las emociones. Madrid: Akal.
Villalba, Ernesto (2008): On Creativity. Towards an Understanding of
Creativity and its Measurements. JRC
(http://crell.jrc.ec.europa.eu/Publications/CRELL%20Research
%20Papers/EUR_EVillalba_oncreativity_web.pdf)
Wells, G. (2001). Action, Talk, and Text: Learning and Teaching through
Inquiry. Practitioner Inquiry Series. Teachers College Press, Williston.
West, M.A. & and Farr, J.L. (1990). Innovation and Creativity at Work:
Psychological and Organizational Strategies. Chichester: Wiley.
West, M.A. (2002). "Sparkling fountains or stagnant ponds? An integrative
model of creativity and innovation implementation within groups",
Applied Psychology: An International Review, Vol. 51 No.3, pp.355-86.
Woodman, R.W., Sawyer, J.E., Griffin, R.W. (1993). "Toward a theory of
organizational creativity", Academy of Management Review, Vol. 18
pp.293-321.
Young Foundation. (2007). http://www.youngfoundation.org.uk.
Zhao, C.-M. and Kuh, G.D. (2004). Adding value: Learning communities and
student engagement. Research in Higher Education, 45(2), 115-138.
76
PART 2.
Identification of the
Best Practices.BPRecord Tool
Summary Table of Best Practices
77
BPRecordIn this questionnaire best practice refers to a method or process which promotes
creativity and/or produces innovations.
Background information:
Country:
Information collected by:
Name:
Organisation:
Role/Title:
Address:
E-mail:
Telephone:
Fax:
Web:
Source of information:
Interview
Informant:
Name:
Organisation:
Role:
E-mail:
Telephone:
Questionnaire
Informant:
Name:
Organisation:
Role:
E-mail:
Telephone:
Bibliographic References (Report /Journal/Book). According to international convention:
Other:
Target group:
VET Adult VET Working life
Field:
Creative, (which)_____________ Technical (which)__________________
78
1. Training programme/course/project in which creative methods have been applied:
1.1. Name:
1.2. Organisation:
Public sector / Private Sector / Other
1.3. Contact information:
Address:
E-mail:
Telephone:
Fax:
Web:
1.4. Number of participants:
Learners:
Trainers:
Others, who?
1.5. Approximate age division of participants (specifying age related to social situation, e.g.: schooling, employment/unemployment, social exclusion situation, etc.)
1.6. Duration of the experience:
Project start-up:
Current situation (underway, finished, others):
1.7. Source of financing (Institution’s budget, specific funding for the project, others).
1.8. Objectives of the practice:
1.9. Main contents:
2. Main reason to consider this example as a best practice?
3. Are skills of creativity (creative competences) defined in the programme/ course / project?
If yes:
Which?
4. What kinds of creative methods were applied in the programme/course/project?
5. How have methods supporting creativity been developed?
6. Why was it developed?
7. What was new and different in this training/course/project compared to previous implementations of the same/similar trainings/courses/projects?
8. Were there new innovations generated as a result of the used creative methods?
If yes:
What kinds of innovations?
How was the innovation recognized? (how can it be called/defined as an innovation?)
How can it be said that it was the creative method that generated the innovation?
Were creative methods used particularly to promote innovation or
79
could the innovations be generated without the method?
9. In addition to the methods used, were there particular elements identified in the circumstances where the training /course/ project was held?
If yes:
What kinds?
Which eventual supports or equipments were used?
10. Were specific competences defined for trainers in order to carry out this training/course/project?
If yes:
Which?
Was any additional training required to develop these competences?
11. What was the impact of the used method on:
1. Participant’s motivation?
2. Learning results?
3. Other?
12. How was the training assessed?
1. By whom?
2. When?
3. What were the assessment instruments?
13. Which aspects of the used method were most valued by the participants?
14. Has the method been disseminated?
If yes:
How?
Where?
15. Has the method been implemented in other contexts?
If yes:
Where?
Were the results positive?
80
2. Summary Table of BPsThis table of BPs incorporates the central elements identified during the first phase of the CREANOVA project. The aims of the table are: 1) to help navigating in the large amount of data provided in BPRecords and BP reports and 2) serve as a tool when selecting a best practice for experiments
No Ctry. Title of BP Target group Field Nature of BP Duration Methods General impact Innovative impact Aspect valued by learners
Special circumstances
1 ITA“Sharing is the method” Adult VET T/C
Training course (on documentary film-making)
3 years
SHARING is the method and basis of the learning process, incl. discussions, involvement, participatory projects, testing, bringing out ideas, autonomy, responsibility, telling with fear, community training, exchange of ideas etc.
Improvement in students’ learning results
Creation of new industries and companies on the field by graduates
* Freedom
* Sharing ideas with international professionals and students
* Responsibility
* Support for film projects
* Tri-lingual training
* Flexible structures and curricula
* Melding of theoretical principles and hands-on experience
2 ITA“Course for managers of Innovation”
Adult VET / Working life (handicraft businesses)
C
Training course for managers of handicraft businesses (aimed to help in realizing innovative ideas)
5 months, (incl. 40 h classes + 8 h personal coaching)
* Creative methods (incl. holistic method, subconscious process, lateral thinking)
* interactive approach, involvement of students, simulations and guided discussions, learning by doing, ...
Impact on students’ motivation (became aware of their potential)
No new innovative ideas were generated, participants already had an innovative idea
* lateral thinking method
* encouraging people with different background to work together
* no assessment
3 ITA “Learn to learn” VET T
Project (aimed to apply competences to identify innovative solutions for specific needs)
3 years (5 h a week + leisure time)
* Creative methods, incl. lateral thinking and „6 thinking hats”, the TRIZ method and the holistic method;
* Team work: strong personal relationships, all students are at the same level, collaboration, respect, acceptance of other opinions, no competition
*Improvement of oral and written expression
* impact on motivation and learning results
Innovative. products generated
* freedom
* transparency in methods
* relation-ships among various actors
* Constant connection between theory and practice.
4 EST
Web-based training course „Introduction to advertising: creativity with borders and game with rules”
Adult VET / VET
C
100% web-based training course (aimed to develop creativity of a learner in the context of advertising training)
1 semester for VET students and 10 weeks for adult learners (staff of NGOs)
* Web-based course lectures + creative exercises
* exercises ask for individual thinking, not reproduction of theoretical knowledge acquired
* individual feedback, no traditional assessment by using marks, but written commentaries
* Impact on students’motivation and learning results
Idea of innovative product (reading game) was generated in online discussions
* freedom to choose your study time and select from exercises
* individual thinking promoted
* teacher’s aim to create positive and creative mood
* free communication btw learner and teacher
81
No Ctry. Title of BP Target group Field Nature of BP Duration Methods General impact Innovative impact Aspect valued by learners
Special circumstances
5 EST
The course “product development” in Kuressaare Ametikool
VET C
Training course on product development, includes generation of product ideas, product realization and presentation
3 weeks
* brainstorming, lateral thinking, both analytical and associative approaches are used
* free atmosphere, no right and wrong ideas, discussion, reflection
Impact on learners motivation and learning results
Many innov. products have been generated (ancient handicraft work in new forms)
* Students are not producing working samples, but original and innovative products
* By now the course has been incorporated into national curriculum
* Students are not producing working samples, but original and innovative products
* Ecological approach and recycling
* Feed-back from proff artist
6 EST
Creative learning environment in Olustvere Teenindus- ja Maamajanduskool
Adult VET / VET C
Example of creative school environment
* Increasingly many things taught in the context of practical training;
* general subjects integrated into vocational subjects;
* independence and responsibility asked from students, freedom provided in implementing learning tasks
Impact on learners motivation and learning results (very low dropout rate)
No innov. generatedAtmosphere inside of the buildings and outside in the school campus area
* Interwoven training and real work opportunities
7 EST
Practical training of computer networks in VET Centre of Haapsalu
VET T Training course 6 weeks
* Students imitating work of a real company;
* continuous need for solving problems simulated by teachers
* team-work, independence, responsibility is promoted, freedom in problem finding and solving
Impact on learning motivation and learning results
No innov. generated
* freedom,
* authentic learning context
* Authentic learning context
* Teacher’s role as an observer and mentor
* creativity promoted in the context of different school subjects and activities (project weeks)
8 FIN Demola Working life C/T
Project (open innovation environment in order to facilitate innovation project teams)
2 years
* brain-storming, double teams etc.
* social interaction, informal place, communication in an open innovation environment visible to all actors, anyone can contribute
* Raised motivation (possibility to do real things):
* Impact on learning results and skills (learning skills, initiative and inf search)
* ability to act with different people
Many kinds of digital and social innovations has been generated; small enterprises has been set up
Students:
* practical learning envir.
* closer connection to work
* co-operation
Work life:
* ex-perience of open innovation process
* con-nection to talented persons
* right to the designed products
* BP promotes school-company cooperation
* brings together actors from different fields;
* Takes place in informal place away from school in an old building;
82
No Ctry. Title of BP Target group Field Nature of BP Duration Methods General impact Innovative impact Aspect valued by learners
Special circumstances
9 FINHOPE project & Fire Souls
Adult VET / Working life C/T
Project (aimed to bring revolutionary change in learning methods and learning environments)
1,5 years
*Learner is in the center
* Learning in untraditional places
* Making a learning agreement with oneself;
* Dialogue, sharing, reflection, reading and meeting with experts
* learner’s responsibility of one’s learning and freedom, mistakes regarded as source of learning
* Positive impact on learners’ motivation and learning results, impact on learners’ creativity
Still under way ?
* Learning in untraditional places
* Social media tools used, incl Youtube, Facebook
10 FIN Varikko- project VET T
Project (individual study plan as a mean for preventing students drop-out)
3,5 years
* Integrating general subjects to voc subjects > learning e.g. Swedish in authentic environment > action learning – learning language while doing practice; The method TPR (Total Physical Response)
* Senior students as mentors to younger ones
* Impact on students’ motivation and learning results
* Drop-oup rate decreased*
Students built an interactive visual tool (board) used in teaching
* Learning from senior students
* Learning outside of class
* Integr. general subjects to voc training
* Learning outside of classroom (real work environment)
11 FIN
The enchantment of an older wooden house- fixing, experiments, creativity
Working life CTraining program 6 c.u.?
* Out-of-school learning
* Experiential learning: living in a village of old houses
* Inventory learning; identifying diff historical issues in the buildings
* Experimenting and workshops
Impact on learners’ motivation and learning results
Some new tools for teaching (puzzle works, miniature models, a CD)
* Concrete-ness
* Designing new models for teaching
* Out-of-school learning envir.
* Promoting integration of subjects
* Experts of the field involved to the training
12 FIN
Training program at Pirkanmaa Educational Consortium
VET TTraining program 4 years
No specific method, but combination of elements which bring creative solutions:
* Individualizing tasks
* Students tutor each-other (senior students tutoring)
* Moodle-based studying and guidance
* Using professional networks as a support in guidance
Impact on learners’ motivation and learning results
Final products made by students at the end of the studies include innov aspects
* Plurality of methods available
* Practice- orientedness
13 FINTraining in Rautaruukki OY Working life T
Workplace learning environment
* Mixing people with different backgrounds and from diff divisions
* Idea contests
? ?
* Atmosphere (safe, enough time, interaction, trust)
* Encouragement by leaders
83
No Ctry. Title of BP Target group Field Nature of BP Duration Methods General impact Innovative impact Aspect valued by learners
Special circumstances
14 FIN Entrepreneurship
Adult VET C
Training program on entrepreneurship
1,5 years
* Team-learning
* Learning in non-formal contexts ( country-side resorts, by the lake)
Impact on learners’ motivation and learning results
Taidosto-cooperative society was established
* exceptional learning environ.
* exceptional learning environment
* safe and secure to express oneself
15 FIN
Training system in Satakunta College of Arts and Crafts
Adult VET C
System applied to carrying out different courses (programs of audio- visual, animator, tv-assistant, movie-assistant)
The process started in 2000
Method/system/philosophy includes following aspects:
* emphasis on constant doing
* offering continuous positive feed-back
* students encouraged to take risks
* No hierarchical relations to students
* Doing things in different ways is encouraged
Impact on learners’
motivation, learning results and professional development
Innovations (new kind of videos) produced
* Free atmosphere
* Possibility to influence one’s own studies
* Learning environment open as possible
* Pulling down the hierarchies
* Raising students’ point of view in the center
16 FIN Entrepreneur-course
VET C Training course 2-3 months
* goal mind-map
* internet-based learning envir.
* discussions
* networking
* success-story analysis
* Impact on learners’ motivation and learning results.
* Developed initiative and learners’ independence
Innovative products generated (e.g. felted woolen yoga-mat, a felted light etc.)
* Freedom
* possibility to influence what one wants to study * presence of Taidosto cooperative society
* the presence of Taidosto-cooperative society
* Open atmosphere
17 FINTIP TOP- Toolbox student mobility project
VET C
Mobility project where several Finnish schools are partners (integrating creative thinking and entrepreneurship into voc studies)
2 years project; second project on-going
* Being in international atmosphere and real organizations
* mixed teams (diff org and fields)
* virtual social cooperative
* holistic approach to well-being
* entrepreneurial approach
* lot of support and guidance
* Impact on students motivation and learning results
*Growth of students individuality, networks and self-esteem
* Innovative business ideas The whole project
* international period used for creating business ideas
18 FIN
Labor-intensive training experiment/ Construction
VET T
Training project: practice-oriented training experiment
3 years (on-going)
* Learning by doing emphasized
* lots of guidance
* immediate feedback
* Practice diaries filled in on a daily basis
* Impact on learners motivation and learning results (hand-based skills, ability to plan one’s work
* Minimal absent rates
* Some innovative solutions
* learning in authentic context
* social network
* possibility of doing
* Work-practice in different workplaces as a dominant element
84
No Ctry. Title of BP Target group Field Nature of BP Duration Methods General impact Innovative impact Aspect valued by learners
Special circumstances
19 BAS Publicity campaign
Working life C
Publicity campaign (in order to change the image of VET in society)
3 months
* strategic analysis
* lateral thinking
* experimentation with new technologies (e.g. mobile marketing)
No innovations generated
20 BAS Bizkaiacreativa Working life C
Training course led by David Parrish (aimed to foster entrepreneurial spirit)
3 days* Impact on learners motivation and learning results
* Clarity
* organization
Aspects emphasized:
* need to anticipate changed, not just react them
* threats can be turned into opportunities
21 BAS
“Guidance for the search and improvement of employment of people over 45 years in the district of Debabarrena: the value of the age”
Adult VET Educ.
Project (aimed to provide training for unemployed people over 45 years )
6 months
* music therapy techniques (Bonny Method of Guided Image and Music)
* coaching (participants discussing their lives as they deserved to be lived)
? ? ? -
22.
BAS
Development of personal resources and purchasing personal and social habits for employment
Adult VET Educ.
Project aimed to provide training for unemployed people (among immigrants, people with disabilities, people in rehabilitation process)
7 months
Coaching techniques:
* creative communication: verbal and non-verbal
* initiative, autonomy and pro-activity
* decision making and problem solving attitude
* motivation
* self-reflection
* using role-plays, visualization, lists of strengths and weaknesses etc
Improvement of participant motivation, social skills and higher work values
No direct innovations generated, but the approach itself is innovative
* atmosphere created to work
* Being considered as active agents, as individual
-
23 BAS
Program for Prevention and Social Integration
Adult VET Educ.
Training program for people with risk of social exclusion and difficulties in integration (low-skilled, unemployed and people with mental disorders and addictions
5 months
* Theatrical techniques based on “the game”
* Role-playing, simulation games and viewing movies
* Visits to book fairs, libraries and adult schools
* paperwork and questionnaires filled in for making entries in different entities
Impact on participants’ motivation and improvement of social and personal skills
No direct innovations generated, but the approach was innovative
* Possibility of creative and interpretative work
* Freedom
In order participants could reconcile family life and attending the program the Social service gave a grant in order to provide childcare facilities, school meals and day center
85
No Ctry. Title of BP Target group Field Nature of BP Duration Methods General impact Innovative impact Aspect valued by learners
Special circumstances
24 BASEmpresa Joven Educativa VET T
A project (activities concentrating on AGOPE module (management and Administration of Small Establishments) aiming to develop initiative, creativity and entrepreneurial capabilities
A school year (incl 90 hours of training)
* Methodology includes all steps of creative process: the conception of an idea, creation of the catalogue, sales techniques
* imposing active attitude of the students towards knowledge
* Impact on learners’ motivation * theoretical skills and application of skills into real-life situations
* Stronger capacity to carry out initiatives
Innovative products developed (e.g. assembling computers of recycled materials)
* Forming part of the teaching process
* Methodological approach
A project currently underway in 40 centres
25 BAS Interciclos VET? C
Production of audiovisual materials using various multimedia techniques
An academic year
* brainstorming
* team-work in teams comprised of specific professional profiles
* Impact on teachers and learners motivation
* Increase in participants self-esteem
No direct innovations were produced, but the approach itself is innovative
* opportunity to work under conditions similar to real job market
* Favorable atmosphere where initiatives may emerge and develop
26 BAS KREA EiTB Adult VETEduc.
Ent.
Project aimed to develop a process and a method for creating practical creativity spaces
4 years (underway)
* 6 hats technique
* creating an internal network of facilitators of creativity (management team, a talent manager, a drive (15 professionals from EiTB)
Useful for internal clients and have became a reference for other companies
?An online creativity course has been developer -
27 BASGIGA (Gaitasun Industrialak Garatzen)
Working life T
Project aimed to promote innovation in SMEs (implementation of services, Job Training catalogue, seminars, development of proff profile of Technical Process Trainer
4 years (underway)
* Problem solving
* Trial and error experiments etc
* Impact on motivation
* Impact in new companies attracted to the project
Yes, two companies opened up new lines of businesses
* The relationship with the technical staff of the companies
* Ability to present proposals
-
28 BAS
Modelo avanzado de gestion en la formacion profesional
Centers of Vocational Training
T
Project aimed to establish and apply a model of transformation for the Centers of Vocational Training (Guneka model)
4 years
* creation of self-managing teams
* generation of ideas to face challenges
* outlining ideas by teams
* imagination by means of creative groups
* using what-how matrix in the implementation of objectives
* cooperative learning
* diversification of learning methods used in VET Centres
Organizational and cultural change
* permanent framework established
* investment in capacity and time
* organization of the Centre into independent units
* association btw objectives, training needs and development
Collaboration with businesses in the design and elaboration of didactic and technological projects
86
No Ctry. Title of BP Target group Field Nature of BP Duration Methods General impact Innovative impact Aspect valued by learners
Special circumstances
29 BASBelkoian Project (Problem Based Learning)
VET Meth.
Project aimed to implement a work method in the classroom where the learner plays an active role in his/her learning process
7 years (underway)
* The creative SORMEN-CREA method which develops creativity through a problem solving process known by IDEAL
* Use of problem-solving tool that encourage disperse thought
* teamwork
* teacher’s role as tutor or expert
Impact on participants’ motivation
New learning-teaching methodology as innovation
* teamwork
* opportunity to organize one’s time
* support of teachers
* learning aspects not directly related to the material
30 BASPROYECTO MLS (Problem Based Learning)1
VET Meth.
Project aimed to implement a work method in the classroom where the learner plays an active role in his/her learning process
7 years (underway)
* The SORMEN-CREA method which develops creativity through a problem solving process known by IDEAL
* Use of problem-solving tool that encourage disperse thought
* teamwork
* teacher’s role as tutor or expert
Impact on participants’ motivation
?
* teamwork
* opportunity to organize one’s time
* support of teachers
* learning aspects not directly related to the material
31 BASDiffusion of entrepreneurial culture
VET Educ.
Project aimed to promote entrepreneur culture by: a) initial training; b)additional training; c) implementation of mobility projects; c)implementation of Innovative Business Center in Audiovisual field
2-3 years (throughout the last year of VET training (repeated every year)
* development and realization of business plans, encouraging introspection, inner world , curious mind and lateral thinking
? ? ?
32 GBRFind Your Talent programme
VET C
A programme piloting 5 hours (in and out of school) of culture per week building on the national curriculum and work of the Government’s creative education project “Creative Partnerships”
?
* gives children and young people the chance to try out different cultural and creative activities
? ? ?
Emphasis on the role culture can play in improving social, economic and environmental well-being of communities
1 Same information presented in the BPRecord as for the Belkoian Project
87
No Ctry. Title of BP Target group Field Nature of BP Duration Methods General impact Innovative impact Aspect valued by learners
Special circumstances
33 GBR14-25 Academic Hub
VET / Adult VET C
The 14-25 Academic Hub supports collaboration between University of the Art London, several secondary schools and further education collages.
?
* sharing curriculum and facilities by schools, collages and universities, sharing e-learning materials
* students interchange through mentoring
* sharing industry and community contacts
Example of many events – “Enslaved” fashion-show in co-operation with fashion professionals
? ? ? -
34 GBRTyneside Cinema Adult VET C
Learning Engagement and Development opportunities for children, young people, schools, colleges, individuals and businesses (courses, projects, events)
Since 1937, variety of courses, from 1 week long to 1 year long projects
* screening and film-making projects
* industry events, introducing pupils to the professional film world
* Inset sessions on using film and the moving image in the classroom
? ? ?
35 GBRCultural Leadership Programme
VET / Adult VET / Working life
C
Programme seeks to benefit the wider creative and cultural sector (advertising, design, historic environment etc) by providing support and development for leaders in the sector
?* e.g. Practitioner Leadership Development Placements
? ? ?
36 GBR
Sorrell Foundation Young Design Programme
VET C
Programme aimed to develop pupils’ and students’ life skills
6- year programme (underway)
* Pupils work in teams to create a brief for a design project that will improve the quality of life in their school
* Pupils as clients are assisted by university students and professional designers or architects
* Essential skills as teamwork, problem-solving and communication are learned
* Impact on skills development (communication, teamwork, negotiation and problem-solving)
* awareness of what FE and HE can offer
* raise of self-esteem
* unique design conceptsEncouraging real life experience of the cycle of design project
88
No Ctry. Title of BP Target group Field Nature of BP Duration Methods General impact Innovative impact Aspect valued by learners
Special circumstances
37 GBRTrain to Gain Service
VET / Adult VET / Working life
C
Programme helps to plan the workforce development of organizations, collages, universities, training providers etc.
4 years (underway)
* “Train to Gain” broker assessing the training needs of organizations
* better skills of workforce
* improved long-term competitiveness of organizations
?* 78% of employers happy with skills brokerage services
Advice on the best training + training subsidies and wage compensation
38 GBR Whitehall Innovation Hub
VET C
Whitehall Innovation Hub aims supporting innovative thinking and practice across Whitehall
Started in 2008
* Research and consultancy work
* network formation
* active learning events for departmental leaders
* corporate mechanisms that help incentivise innovation
* impact on skills development
*creation of innovations (virtual school) ? -
39 GBRFlanders District of Creativity
VET C
FlandersDC is an initiative consisting of several projects aimed to support entrepreneurial creativity
* Flanders DC fellows – entrepreneurs telling their inspiring stories in schools or events
* GPS ( brainstorming method) for Entreprises
* SAP Lounge – entrepreneurial creativity day
* Annual conference on entrepreneurial creativity etc
* impact on entrepreneurial creativity ? ? -
40 GBREdinburgh International Festival
Working life C
EIF aimed to promote cultural, educational and economic well-being of the people of Edinburg and Scotland.( a year round programme of education and outreach work
Founded in 1947
* Art Practitioner Summer School
* Young Critics programme
* several workshops and seminars
? ? ? -
41 GBR
The Stephen Lawrence Centre/ Stephen Lawrence Trust
VET C
Centre/Trust aimed researching ways to identify gifted or talented individuals in voc learning
Trust established in 1998
* Inspirational lectures presented in schools
* under- and postgraduate bursaries and student scholarships awarded
* advisement of government departments and businesses working in the built environment sector
? ? ?
Mission: Advancement of social justice and relief of poverty by removal of barriers to ed achievements and employability
89
No Ctry. Title of BP Target group Field Nature of BP Duration Methods General impact Innovative impact Aspect valued by learners
Special circumstances
42 GBR
The Prince’s Trust (The Business Programme)
VET C
Programme aimed to help people to explore and test their business ideas, write business plans and start their own businesses or achieve alternative goals in training or work
Since 1976
* Development of guides covering all aspects of starting a business
* cash awards to help develop employability
* funding to set up community projects
? ? ?
* Working with 14-30 year olds who have struggled at school, have been in care, are long-term unemployed or have been in trouble with the law
43 GBR Urban Learning Space
VET / Adult VET / Working life
C/T
ULS is an innovative learning lab that supports project design, implementation and evaluation on public learning spaces, creativity and multimedia
Since 2005
* Establishment of a network of partners based on education providers and influential public bodies
* Use of creative engagement methods and a range of research tools and methods to gather information needed to design new models for learning
* learning led projects, innovation led projects and event series
? * Innovative tools developed
? -
44 GBR JISC VET
JISC programmes aimed to fund infrastructure, services, innovative projects and studies.
9 years
* innovative use of ICT to support education and research
* managing and funding of more than 200 projects within 15 programmes, 49 services that provide expertise, advice, guidance and resources to address needs of all users in HE and FE
90
No Ctry. Title of BP Target group Field Nature of BP Duration Methods General impact Innovative impact Aspect valued by learners
Special circumstances
45 IRLConflicts of Interest Adult VET T
To meet post-conflict, reconciliation and conflict transformation needs of communities affected by State and communal violence in Northern Ireland.
8 weeks
* Use of guest speakers and contributors with direct experience of conflict and/or peace and reconciliation strategies.
* Use of strategic partnerships with government, public and community organizations to compete learning dynamic and facilitate learner driver strategies.
* Use of advanced technologies to incorporate media critical studies in analysis of filmic portrayal of conflict in Northern Ireland.
* Use of structured international comparative analysis and incorporation of peace building interventions.
* Use of innovative learner accreditation systems.
* Cross-referencing of academic and practical examples. Participant contribution is encouraged through use of story-telling and creative outputs – especially photographic and filmic representations of conflict
* Innovative engagement with antagonistic communities with lengthy histories of inter-communal violence and State repression.
* Modular structure is tailored to individual learning needs.
* Delivery method flexible and tailored to adult learning style.
Community linkage, use of film, use of individual testimony, use of international comparative modules
*Strong experiential component.
*Strong focus on self-expression and development of identity
*Additional focus on reconciliation and conflict transformation methodologies used guided creative expression.
*post-war, civil conflict environment.
*Also the course is designed to be used in both jurisdictions on the island of Ireland (Republic and NI).
*It is also designed to incorporate representatives of Roman Catholic and Protestant communities.
*There is a strong emphasis on neutrality and cultural respect for both traditions in the materials, venues, methodologies and modes of delivery.
91
No Ctry. Title of BP Target group Field Nature of BP Duration Methods General impact Innovative impact Aspect valued by learners
Special circumstances
46 IRL Mediastacks VETC
Mult.
The aim of the training is to give a variety of media production, facilitation and project management skills to practitioners working face-to-face with young people and to increase their capacity to undertake youth-in-action projects involving digital media. By using the ‘stack’ of media exercises in various arrangements youth workers can ‘tailor’ the media experience based on their knowledge of the young person’s needs, capacity and interests.
2 weeks
The methodology is based on non-formal learning and involves group work, team based tasks and participant led activities. The training focuses in particular on
(1) media techniques developed by Bradog in partnership with the Empower Media Network
(2) process-based group facilitation skills
(3) skills needed to develop projects under Action 1 of the YIA programme.
Strong development into media training and expressive arts for young people that builds on youth-work methods and strategies of community empowerment.
Use of pioneer techniques within a non-formal community-based educational settings.
Digital creative expression, development of products, learning arising from increased competence and technical expertise
* Youth at risk
*It works primarily in a community-based environment, with most activities taking place after school or on the weekend. It practices non-formal learning methodologies throughout all our activities.
*It uses the mediums of sport, arts, digital media, training and cultural exchanges to engage young people. It operates a variety of clubs and drop-in centers which allow young people the opportunity to relax and socialize in a safe and friendly environment
92
No Ctry. Title of BP Target group Field Nature of BP Duration Methods General impact Innovative impact Aspect valued by learners
Special circumstances
47 IRLCultúr – celebrating diversity
Adult VET C
The impact of inward to migration in recent years has been profound.At local level few initiatives were promoted to develop language competence or intercultural contact.Cultúr provide a drop in centre facility for ethnic minorities living in Co. Meath who need advice and information on a range of issues with translation in a number of languages facilitated by both staff and volunteers.
Ongoing
Language training; cultural events; story-telling; capacity building; focus on rights seminars
*Strongly recognized and supported initiative that contributed significantly to the development of integration strategies and techniques for immigrants and their families in Meath.
*Excellent results in terms of Language skills acquisition.
*Spin-off results in terms of cultural and social integration and the creation of an annual inter-cultural family day for immigrants and local communities
Interactive, cross-community engagement, use of cultural devices (music, food, story-telling, language and creative expression skills). Strong backing from statutory agencies.
Language training; information retrieval; intercultural awareness. One-to-one advice and mentoring on integration modalities.
*Cultúr has been strongly supported by local government, the Citizens Information Board, trade unions and migrant and community groups.
*The training requires significant coordination of resources, communities and agencies.
48 IRL
Quality and Learning: project initiatives
Working Life
T
Qual. Syst.
The emphasis has been to create a valuable on-line educational resource centre (for parents, carers, school boards of management, teachers /educators)
ongoing
*Music, story-telling and pottery have all been employed. *Assistive technology
Innovative use of methodologies, techniques and tools within a framework of quality management and knowledge transfer in highly specialized sector (significant physical disability).
*Strong emphasis on total-organization engagement. The strategy was to engage trainers, educational staff, management and families in meeting the needs of diverse learners with significant challenges in terms of disability.
*Innovation was directly dependent on innovative management systems, quality based and referenced to independently assessed needs and outcomes.
* NGO sector
*Assistive technology is critical (context is significant physical disability)
93
PART 3.
Final conclusions
94
FINAL CONCLUSIONS
In this report we have reviewed the meanings surrounding concepts of
creativity and innovation – as shaped by the versatility, dynamism and
change of globalized environments. Those meanings mutate in the sense of
the central place of learning in developed societies. Flexibility, interaction,
interchange, collaboration, inclusion and open communication between
communities are key identified spaces in which creativity and innovation can
be understood. A creative and innovative society is a society ready to learn.
These theoretical key concepts, at the same time, are the root of the
practices that promote creativity and innovation. The analytical
development has led to some conclusions:
1. It is not always easy to differentiate between concepts of creativity and
innovation. Parallel to the universalization of the term creativity, there is
the intermingled (sometimes synonymous) use of innovation,
particularly when applied in the learning context.
2. Creativity is a human ability (with ontological, cognitive and social
bases) to produce new ideas, to solve problems in different ways.
Innovation is the successful response to social needs (including
economic responses to market logic and competitiveness) in terms of
greater equity, sustainability and equal opportunities.
3. During the last 30 years creativity studies have been informed by
systemic theories that regard creativity as a co-function of several
elements, including cognitive skills, personality traits, social, cultural and
historical factors. The current emphasis has shifted to include: ordinary
creativity rather than genius; characterizing rather than measuring; the
social system rather than the individual.
4. Creativity can be related to the ability of a person in the workplace to
meet individual and social human needs, whether basic or related to
higher levels of development, production or learning.
95
5. Creativity is a human ability developed in close interaction with context
and associated with the ability to learn in constantly changing
environments (creative learning). It is a quality attributable to all people
and one that is susceptible to development.
6. This raises questions concerning the extent to which the good practice
examples perceive creativity as:
A quality attributable to all people that can give rise to small
innovations in the immediate environments.
As a process that leads to enormously important inventions for
humanity as a whole.
A continuum.
7. At the end of the day, creativity has become an increasingly important
value, both with respect to individual development and to achieving
professional training and cultural development in a constantly changing
society which demands innovative responses.
8. Factors and conditions that foster the development of creativity are:
pulling down structures / teaching-learning in non-formal, out-of-school
environments / interaction / networking / connections to real-life /
doing, hard work / freedom, allowing experiments and mistakes /
freedom of expression/ open innovation environment / technical &
technological solutions and equipment used in a supporting and versatile
ways / challenge / need / mixing people and expertise / trust / team,
collective / informal interaction/ time/ openness to other persons,
things, environments, realities, experiences.
9. Innovation cannot be reduced to a simple matrix of definitions, norms
and procedures. To do so would be to reduce a complex process of
cognition, design and intentionality to a mere set of procedures which,
given the right environment and circumstances, could be reproduced in
any number of settings. Innovation, at a minimum, involves a radical re-
evaluation of existing circumstances and conditions. It involves asking a
rigorous set of questions that interrogate what the current situation is
and then sets the results against what could (or more intriguingly,
should) be.
96
10. Innovation exists in real environments with strongly established
structures and modes of ownership which may by their nature be
antipathetic to any form of questioning or new thought.
11. Innovation can be conceptualized and generalized as occurring in
four circumstances:
a. Crisis -reaction to severe challenge or urgent needs.
b. Values - a planned approach to enhance socio-economic goals.
c. Profit - the commercialization or added values of a product or
service.
d. System eminence - creative energy deployed to maintain
hierarchical or established systems.
12. Innovation is a concept originally related to the practical application
and development of new ideas in the industrial world with the focus on
boosting competitiveness. However, the development of new
technologies affecting the production, use and distribution of knowledge
combined with the grave socio-economic challenges, raises a parallel
debate on the ultimate aims of innovation.
13. There is a need to de-couple innovation/creativity from the
traditional linear notion of “progress”. We live in multifaceted and
complex times of great contradiction. Innovation may be developed –and
located- in very non traditional places. Innovation itself may be
incremental or disruptive.
14. Innovation that produces social value and that contributes to
economic and human needs is a challenge - if we are to achieve the
development of methodologies to understand how teachers, learners and
workers can collaborate to promote inclusion and common welfare.
15. There is a further diversification of the innovation concept, changing
from one inked to merely private companies’ economic sphere to more
public and social areas (social innovation).
16. Innovation is located in the key framework of contemporary life –
the process of globalization. Globalization powerfully affects all human
relationships and structures. It shapes our very understanding of
knowledge, information, values and power. It is not an abstract. It is not
divorced from actually existing systems in the process of unprecedented
global change. The impact of sustained urbanization, demographic
97
movement, intercultural communities and increased stratification is
profound and will condition the forms and nature of innovation produced
in globalized contexts.
17. Globalization and the altered relationships that emerge from the
globalization process influence innovation in immediate and direct ways.
18. Globalization also shapes the nature of the learning response to
innovation. It is one thing to create learning systems and methods that
are innovative. It is another thing to shape, sustain, own and develop
them in innovative ways over a period of time.
19. The learning experiences which can improve the degree of creativity
residing inside each and every one of us must be defined (taking account
of individual genetic factors, emotional aspects, talent in specific
domains and cognitive and environmental factors).
20. The learning environment, however positive, is profoundly shaped by
the context (national, economic, political and cultural) in which it is
shaped and developed. Innovation is often forged in contexts of common
purpose or threat (such as war or conflict) and not always as a result of
policy initiatives. The current context is shaped by crisis and a
fundamental re-shaping of the socio-economic paradigm not seen since
the 1930s. Unprecedented challenges traditional assumptions of linear
notions of “progress”. Creativity and innovation are now critical to re-
orientate socio-economic priorities.
21. Educational and learning processes must be focused on the training
of the learner as subject (autonomy, awareness, criticism, decision), not
as an object.
22. Creative and innovative learning processes exist within wider
educational conceptions: entrepreneurial formation, education for
sustainable development and global responsibility and intercultural
education.
23. The way learning is understood in today’s world has evolved.
Educational and learning processes must collaborate in the development
of equity and social justice. Educational and learning processes have to
aim to overcome inequalities resulting from the fragmented access to
knowledge. Social spaces, organizations and policies that promote forms
of learning based on cooperation, collaboration and collective creation
98
from different cultural viewpoints have enormous possibilities for
anticipating economic and social change and consolidating human
potential.
24. Learning communities, in the right circumstances, can help to ensure
that innovation outcomes are meaningful to individuals and
communities, structured in such a way that equity, justice, participation
and rights are served most efficiently.
25. The creation of a participative and democratic learning environment
has not been to the forefront in traditional discourse surrounding
innovation. In fact, the discussion on innovation and creativity has been
increasingly conditioned by images derived from free market liberalism
and from the sense of competitive pressures. The recent global economic
crisis may provide a welcome opportunity to re-locate innovation in the
context of community and shared ownership where values have equal
importance with rates of profitable extraction.
26. It is in that sense that innovation is re-imagined. An innovation that
is more than the sum of its parts. An innovation that responds as well as
forges new learning and new products. An innovation that takes risks
and is not circumscribed by narrow policy barriers. An innovation that is
not a panacea for current ills, but rather a mode of thinking, acting and
doing that has at its heart the transformation of relationships and
conditions in our globalized world.
We want to end this report emphasizing that nowadays any orientation
towards change is currently associated with the three major concepts
previously mentioned: Learning, Creativity and Innovation. One of the
challenges we shall face in the next phase of the CREANOVA project is
precisely to detect the best creative and innovative practices that we can
transfer either between countries within the same field of work or between
various areas of intervention.
As a result we have attempted to find broad interpretative categories from
which to integrate the different methods proposed from different theoretical
contributions and practical achievements - and to do so from a transcultural
perspective. To search for these macrocategories allows us to pass from one
99
culture to another. This does not aim to establish cultural hierarchies in
practical analysis but to integrate perspectives. Interpreting and assessing
the creative processes outside specific socio-cultural contexts risks
interpreting creativity hierarchically.
From the literature review carried out four main pedagogical concepts
emerged that help us to understand those educational contexts that
enhance creative and innovative learning. These are:
• Need
• Freedom
• Interaction
• Environment
These concepts embrace most of the key factors emphasized both by the
theoretical work and different best practices. We can see them as
macrocategories to help analysis, selection and transfer of good practices of
creative learning while keeping intact criteria of difference and diversity.
Need is a root from which creative and innovative processes emerge. It can
be understood as: survival, troubleshooting, genesis of problems,
motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic), personal need and a collective need to
create a connection with society.
Freedom is associated with ideas as: transgression, readjustment of rules,
openness, trust, dialogue, elimination of hierarchies, inclusion, challenges,
risk-taking, decision taking, participation, self-management, altruism.
Interaction refers to: communication between teachers and students,
peers, others, and interaction between systems, actors and institutions,
virtual interaction, teamwork, networks.
Environment includes: nature, closed environments, open, virtual
environment, and so on.
100
We propose this model of interpretation as an open and flexible model.
Flexible because its aim is not so much focus on discussing the concepts
with which to associate a given factor or element, but to provide a
framework for interpreting and constructing concrete methodological
proposals. It is open because, although at first we have identified these four
factors, is a scheme open to the incorporation of new categories in the light
of the results of the next phases of our investigation.
101