Creativity in Early Childhood Classrooms
Description:... Ways by which teachers can enhance creativity skills of children in the classroom are addressed in this monograph. An overview of creativity first sets the stage for discussions on the child, curriculum, teacher, and environment. The goal is to show the many faces of the development of creativity in children and to recognize ways to enhance the child's potential to meet challenges. Following the introduction, chapter 2 (The Child) covers early creativity, developmental creativity, and how to recognize creative potential. Chapter 3 (The Curriculum) discusses the relationship of creativity to curriculum, the role of exploration and play, ways to organize classroom activities for creativity, feeling trapped by textbooks and curricula, research on creativity and schools, and curricula to encourage creative thinking. In chapter 4 (The Teacher) focus is on attitudes and styles that foster creative potential, including learning objectives versus performance objectives, the teacher's role as observer, and teacher characteristics that facilitate creative development. Fifteen key points are summarized in chapter 5. Supplementary materials, including a Preschool Creativity Rating Scale, are appended. Contains approximately 175 references. (LB)
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