The nature of creative mathematical thinking undertaken by students in classroom settings was studied through analysis of the autonomy and spontaneity associated with these processes. The theoretical lens developed enabled simultaneous analysis of cognitive, social, and affective elements of the creative process, and student responses to successes and failures during their exploratory activity (resilience or optimism). Collective case study was employed, with each case progressively informing the analysis of subsequent cases. The classrooms of teachers who were seen by their school communities to display 'good teaching practice' were selected for study. It was anticipated that such classrooms would provide more opportunity to study creative thinking than classrooms chosen at random. During the research period, each student participated individually in post-lesson interviews that were stimulated by lesson video material. To generate data to study student thinking, and the social and personal influences upon it, students were asked to identify parts of the lesson that were important to them, and discuss what was happening, and what they were thinking and feeling. Through this process, students who explored mathematical complexities to generate new mathematical knowledge were identified. (For complete abstract open document)

[Truncated abstract] The overall aim of this study was to examine Bruneian preschool teachers’ conceptions about creativity (including factors related to creativity), their beliefs on how to promote children’s creativity in the classroom, how their beliefs may influence their actual practice and whether their practices are consistent with the requirements of the Brunei National Curriculum. It will also try to identify any factors that constrain or influence teachers’ practice. The research employed a grounded theory approach involving semi-structured interviews and classroom observations of preschool teachers. The findings of this study indicate that the teachers primarily conceptualise creativity as something mainly but not exclusively to do with art work . . . Teachers’ actual practice mainly consists of teacher control, enforcement of obedience, rote learning, teacher directed and teacher chosen activities and heavy emphasis on whole-class teaching. Other mediating constraints on their promotion of creativity included: pressure from Primary 1 teachers, parents and the officials in Ministry of Educations to complete and adhere to the National Curriculum; teachers’ own pedagogical limitations; large class size; lack of adult help and the presence of special children in the classroom; lack of resources and pressure from other non-teaching commitments. The implication of the findings are that further research needs to be conducted into Brunei’s preschool teacher training programmes, to identify contradictory messages about the value of creativity and to find a more culturally appropriate way of promoting children’s creativity through the curriculum.

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