Implicit theories of teacher creativity of pre-service student teachers and teacher trainers of Hong Kong

Implicit theories of teacher creativity of pre-service student teachers and teacher trainers of Hong Kong

• Cheng, Mo Yin Vivian The Hong Kong Institute of Education

1998

Hong Kong Educational Research Association (HKERA) 15th Annual Conference: Quality Education Across Disciplines, Systems and Regions (1998: Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China)

• M Teachers & Education for Teachers
  • MA Professional Education for Teachers

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Post-Secondary Education

Personal definitions of creativity are described as the implicit theories of creativity, while the conceptions offered by scholars or researchers are referred to as explicit theories of creativity. The implicit theories of creativity may vary from one person to another, from one field to another, and from one culture to another. In this study, twenty pre-service student teachers and ten teacher trainers of Hong Kong Institute of Education are interviewed or asked to complete a questionnaire. They are invited to give their own opinions on: (1) What is teacher creativity? (2) How can you describe a creative teacher? and (3) How do you decide whether a teaching idea is creative or not? The results of this study reveal that, not only imaginative and novel teaching ideas are considered to be creative, however, flexibility in teaching, modifications and improvements of existing teaching ideas and abilities to solve daily problems are also regarded as forms of teacher creativity. As another difference to creativity defined in other (artistic) fields, respondents refer creativity of teaching ideas not only to their newness, but put strong emphasis on their effectiveness in teaching and how interesting they are to students. Unlike findings in western societies, being humorous is not considered necessarily to be a personality trait of a creative teacher. Study on these implicit theories of teacher creativity are important because they usually act as standards for judging and assessing creative behaviors in teaching, and also serve as the basis for training and self-development in the area of teacher creativity.

Poster session presented at the Hong Kong Educational Research Association (HKERA) 15th Annual Conference: Quality Education Across Disciplines, Systems and Regions

• English

Conference Papers

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/6915346f

2015-10-08