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Elias Stouraitis
Fostering creativity in the sixth grade at history education through a story-telling
digital game: An empirical study
HEIRNET, London, 7-9 September 2015
Global impact encompasses local or regionalsocieties creating rapid and unpredictable changes.These changes affect societies’ understandingabout the past, their lives and the upcoming future.How creativity could empower individual’sthoughts? Transforming the idea of what is to whatmight be could be a first step to think differently.
Introduction
•Do students believe that history is a creative subject?
•Does this implementation give students a historical sense?
•Does this digital gaming develop students’ imagination and afterwards their creativity?
•Do students acquire historical knowledge through this procedure?
Research questions
Creativity as a definition has manyinterpretations which are prominent andmany times idealistic. In this research, Ihighlight the term of possibility thinking as acore concept which emerge from randomparticipation, pluralities, playfulness andpossibilities. (Craft, 2012:539)
Possibility thinking as a core concept of creativity in education
• The role of imagination (Craft et al., 2012: 543) is connected tothis notion of creativity. Imagination contributes to possibilitythinking as a manifestation which provokes new ideas andpossibilities and these are recognized by the others.
• The role of 4Ps is extremely important to imagination’sdevelopment which is emerged by the plurality of differentidentities (activities, places, and people), the notion ofpossibility awareness (what might be), the engagementthrough playfulness and participation (through the dialogueand the different perceptions).
Imagination
CER is an umbrella term and refers to a principled, unifying theory of non-linear thinking techniques that foster co-creativity
•Non-linear thinking is a rather broad genus,encompassing different types of thinkingprocesses, connected more through familyresemblances, rather than a single over-arching feature shared by all.
Creative emotional reasoning
• Wise, humanizing creativity is defined as an active process ofchange guided by compassion and reference to shared value(Chappell et al, 2012:3). People develop new ideas when theyengage in collaborative thinking and share their actions. Actually,individual ideas in comparison with communal interaction areleading to creativity.
• The term “wise” is used in order to emphasize people’sresponsibility in terms of the consequences of their thoughtsand new ideas. Humanist writings encompass the idea thathumans can have a rational worldview, and that throughprogress and science they are in control of and can make abetter world (Gray, 2002).
Wise, Humanizing Creativity
• The empathy was confused by many teachers who just askedstudents to imagine how they would be in another historicalera. In addition to this, some students develop a sentimentaldimension through empathy (Lee, Dickinson and Ashby, 1998and Shemilt, 2001).
• This misunderstanding created detestation to this movementas they argued that students did not learn much history (theymeant the historical events and persons) but the mainproblem was the unawareness of developing historicalimagination through a historical context and based onhistorical sources.
Permeating creativity in History subject
• A qualitative methodology was adopted as an inquiry in thissmall scale research.
• Sixty eight students 12 years old derived from a rural privateschool in Greece voluntary took part in this research
• Data derived from: Students’ opinion in terms of history andcreativity, Group discussion (‘Socratic Dialogue’) in the class,Custom-made self-reporting tools for students to evaluate theirexperience, Interview with the teachers, Students’ gameoutcomes (their stories), Video and audio of classroom activity,Classroom observation by researcher
Methodology
C2Space:
• a digital space integrating all technological constituents into a unified user experience
• A gameful social networking environment designed to foster co-creativity as theorized in the C2Learn project.
Playful learning experiencesfor students to engage with:
• Structured in C2Space as:• Quests• Missions• Challenges
Gameful learning design
A story-making game
The objective:
• to collaboratively create a story, while each player tries to steerthe narrative towards their secret ending
• At the end, players vote which ending was the best
• The premise of the story is given by the teacher (but could also be decided by the students-players)
4Scribes
Creative seeds in story-makingIdeas/ archetypes to spark players’ imagination; not to be interpreted literallyThe Creative Elements deck consists of four suits: • Fire (emotions and relationships)• Water (thoughts, ideas and imagination)• Wind (society, systems and communication)• Earth (the physical world)• … and three different types:• Character• Myth • Scene
Creative Elements (cards) as disruptors
• Teachers taught as usual their historical era of ottoman empireand researcher observed their teaching.
• They were asked in terms of kind of teaching and their opinionabout creativity: All teachers (3) said that they tend to creativityon their lessons all these years and discuss with their studentsabout these issues that are connected to their present lives.Researcher highlighted only teacher’s narrations and howstudents had to underline the most important thinks of the book
• Teachers completed a small scale training programme in order tounderstand the meaning of possibility thinking and afterwardsthey created educational scenarios and particularly challenges.
Procedure
• Based on the co-creativity conceptual framework
• Choosing a history era: Greece under Ottoman Rule
• Devising a role-play situation with students taking roles while facing Greek population’s challenges under Ottoman rule.
Creating the scenario
• QUEST:
• Live in Tripolitsa under Ottoman Rule!
• A MISSION:
• Face the economic and social constraints!
• The problem: How will you live under the economic and social constraints imposed to your region by the Ottomans?
Quest, Missions, Challenges
• CHALLENGES: Play 4Scribes! Some of the premises:
• You are a farmer who has just paid the 10% tax on your crop. You feel wronged because the wheat that the tax collector withheld was more than your proper dues. You decide to seek audience with the Pasha and present your problem. The Pasha listens to you and...
• You are a 10-year-old boy and you have just head that the Pasha decided to close down the school in your own village. The only school you can now attend is rather far away. How do you deal with this situation?
• The head of your village makes a public announcement in the square: “Mustafa’s goat is missing. There is suspicion that Kemal, his brother-in-low from the next village has stolen it. But Mustafa claims that he saw George, the teacher’s son, loitering near his yard”. Now the matter rests with the Pasha to decide...
Quest, Missions, Challenges
Students’ answer whether history is significant for them now
In relation to their perception on creativity
Students’ perception on creativity towards their orientation of the past
Students’ answers were analysed by Jörn Rüsen’s theory
• traditional type in which the events of the past have animmediate meaning of the present;
• the exemplary type, in which past events are distilled into laws;
• critical type opposite to the previous two types
• genetic type in which people understand the historical changeand they understand that this change is not a threat but mayalso bring possibilities with it (Kolbl, Konrad, 2015: 18-19). Thelast type of historical consciousness is approaching pedagogicallywith the rational of empathy
Students’ perception on creativity towards their orientation of the past
The vast majority of students ( 49/68) tend to traditional and exemplary type which has formed. Examples:
• ‘I respect those who made Greece better’ a boy writes
• ‘We learn about our ancient Greece’ a boy writes
• ‘Greeks have so significant history and this is significant to me today’ a boy writes
Students’ perception on creativity towards their orientation of the past
It is also impressive that these students do not believe that historyis a creative subject, creativity can not be emerged from thissubject or they believe that creativity concerns their country only.Examples:
• ‘History is a creative subject because you learn your country’scivilization’ a girl writes
• ‘It is a creative subject because it contains battles, conflicts andplans of great men!’ a boy writes
Students’ perception on creativity towards their orientation of the past
Students who tend to critical or genetic type (12/68) mentioned to the past not in linear way but there many changes ..
‘History inspire my life now and on the future’ girl writes
These students point out that history can also be creative under circumstances
‘History makes you think, imagine’ a girl writes
Students’ perception on creativity towards their orientation of the past
Finally, there were students who were indifferent to the past and they underline it or they just say it and they do not argue.
• ‘No, because everything has passed’ a girl writes
• ‘No, I like to talk to contemporary issues’ a boy writes
Students’ perception on creativity towards their orientation of the past
It is extremely interesting that the vast majority of studentsanswered they did not collaborate each other in history subject.These students derived from different narrative types.
• ‘It is forbidden to talk in history’ 12 years girl writes
• ‘Our teacher only narrates history’ 12 years old boy writes
• ‘It is forbidden by the subject’ 12 years old girl writes
• ‘Our teacher forbid us to collaborate in history’ 12 years old boy writes
Students’ attitude on collaboration and participation
Students also answered to an unknown/possible question: What if the Greek revolution did not happen?
• Students believe that is a given answer and Greeks would be under the Ottoman rule
• A few (10/68) answered it was a difficult question and they have to think more seriously. These students derived from the critical/ genetic type
Students’ reaction on the unknown
• Students created stories which were fiction- rather than History-oriented: ‘farmer’s wife gave birth a son and pashas was affected and gave him permission to do whatever he wanted’
• Many students led their stories out of the historical context which the teacher had embedded in the scenario.
• The disruptors (random words on the cards) worked as stimuli to students, who used them to advance the story (and steer it towards their secret ending), but not always within the context that the teacher had defined.
Students’ outcomes from 4scribe game
• The teacher acted as facilitator and moderator, structuring the activity for students to start playing 4Scribes, avoiding intervention in the play.
• Students are generally engaged in the action. They appear to foreground pure play rather than playful learning.
• Interaction and dialogue among students was rich, sometimes relating to conflict and managing conflict, but generally not overtly/directly related to possibility thinking.
Video and audio analysis
• Most students reported that they used the stimuli so as to create a creative story.
• They found it tricky to have to create their stories within the limitations posed by the random cards while simultaneously having to lead the story to their secret ending.
• ‘We listened each other and first time we collaborate in history’ a girl writes
• ‘We collaborated each other and we constructed a story about a historical era. It was extremely different from any other history lesson before’ a boy writes’.
Students’ self-evaluation
• Students answered again the same questions after game playand they had one hour discussion about their outcomes(Socratic Dialogue) in which teacher triggered them in terms oftheir outcomes
• During SD students developed conflicts about their results. Theythemselves criticized their teams about their outcomes instories but also the other’s one in terms of theiranachronisms, the misunderstanding of random cards, thestories which were fiction and not history oriented and finallywhich team seemed to be the winner. Emerged debates amongteams and they inspired to find which story is the best.
After the implementation
• Students clearly engaged in playful collaboration, but not closely following the History context defined by the teacher.
• As everyone reported, it was creative for them to make their own stories during the History lesson, in comparison to what typically happens in a History class.
• Considerable added value to the activity is generated through post-play class reflection on students’ creations (stories).
Overall
• This short pilot implementation was a first step towardsunderstanding whether and how a History class could becomea more creative and playful pedagogical space using theC2Learn approach.
• Further research will give us better insights into how creativity works in this subject area and the kind of educational scenarios and teaching practices needed to foster this creativity.
Discussion
