The following is a qualitative portrait of a creative teacher and her teaching process. It has been written as chronological narrative using an evolving systems approach as a methodology for an instrumental case-study design. The creative teacher is a 47-year-old female with over 20 years experience with elementary, secondary, college, and university students. Five interviews were conducted with the teacher before, during, and following the course. Data sets include classroom observations revealed in field notes, documents such as course materials and audiotaped interviews. Two interviews were conducted with six students at the beginning and end of the course. One interview was conducted with the teacher's husband at the end of the course. The research context was an undergraduate university classroom of 146 preservice teachers studying how to plan curriculum and instruction for diverse learners. All interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. The overarching themes represented constructs involving intense and thorough course preparation, teacher-student connections, and reflective teaching. Overlapping subthemes guiding the process of creative teaching emerged including constraints placed on preparation and reflective teaching, an awareness of self and students within the process of preparation and connection, feedback from colleagues and students guiding the connection and reflective teaching, and the values and goals formed from personal history and philosophy of life shaping all three major themes. The teacher's personality acted as a conduit for expressing her creativity in the classroom. Her creative process was directed by her personality to choose the materials and methods of developing curriculum and instruction, and to guide her in her reflective teaching. This revelatory case example of creative teaching possesses characteristics resembling studies of creative giants, however presents a model of the process of creative teaching that can be ins

Twenty-seven swimmers, twenty-three aerobic runners, and twenty-two distance runners were tested on measures of affect and four creative thinking tests before and after an exercise session which approximated their normal work-out. Twenty-two sedentary control subjects watched a National Geographic videotape instead of exercising. Pre-test findings indicated that there were no statistically significant differences between groups. There was no evidence of post-exercise enhancement of demonstrated creative thinking following a 30 minute post-exercise pause, nor did exercisers perform better than controls on the creativity tests. The obtained results conflict with popular notions and previous research. However, exercisers did perceive themselves as significantly more exercise. The results suggest that exercisers believe their workouts enhance creative thinking when in fact they do not. / Department of Psychological Science

The specific aims of this investigation were to establish the nature of the relationship between creativity, art, and art education, to study the characteristics and abilities of students, then to identify and test a teaching method favoured by art teachers for improving creative response. This study traces a chronology of the history of art and art education, from pre-history to the National Curriculum, charting the changes in philosophy and social contexts. It presents a review of current literature on creativity, framed in the psychological paradigm o division into three parts:- the creative process, the creative product, and the creative person. Based on the conclusions of this review, a series of tests and questionnaires was devised to test the hypotheses that art students have creative ability to a higher degree than non-art students, and that aspects of their personality, cognitive abilities, and cognitive style influence the production of their creative graphic artwork. The principal study was carried out on 194 subjects from 35 Institutions. These subjects comprised 73 Sixth Form, and 56 Higher Education art students, with 36 6th Form, and 25 HE non-artists as controls, formed into 22 groups for comparison for age / ability I gender. The data collected comprised eleven variables:- SES, average"O"grade, motivation, creative factors, pattern preference, original image production, spatial ability, creative personality, divergent thinking, self-actualisation, and cultural awareness. The qualitative answers to questions were transposed into scores, and together with the scores from the test items, were subjected to statistical analysis and computed by SPSS-X.The aim was to ascertain whether the obtained factors would discriminate between the groups, and thus support the hypotheses derived from the literature search. The results of these tests showed that art students did score significantly higher on tests o originality, self-actualisation, spatial ability, and aspects of personality related to independence and open-mindedness, but not on tests of divergent thinking and pattern preference. A further 20 HE art students were interviewed to support the data findings with actual case studies. The 3rd section of the investigation concerned the analysis of the effects of teaching on the production of creative graphic artwork. Based on the answers of students and art teachers to questions about their art lessons, a "teaching intervention" was devised and tested on 150 Year 11 pupils, with the aim of testing the influence of subject matter, and the effectiveness o stimulus on the production of original graphic artwork. The results showed that the "fit" between pupils and subject matter was important, but that the amount and type of stimulus was less influential than was expected; and also supported the earlier fmdings that age and gender were not significant factors. general conclusions of this study were:- 1. Creativity is a necessary contemporary social activity. 2. Creativity is a high level cognitive activity, but is not domain specific. 3. The brain is itself primarily a creative instrument; interpreting new information, and generating responses are its main function. 4. As creativity is an essential component of contemporary art, creative thinking should be encouraged in the art curriculum.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 353-358). / Microfiche. / ix, 358 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 1997. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2745. Typescript. Abstract precedes thesis as preliminary leaves iv-v. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-103).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1966. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 204-206).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1986. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves [189]-207.