Promoting creativity in the Chinese early childhood context: An investigation of teachers' creativity-fostering pedagogy

Promoting creativity in the Chinese early childhood context: An investigation of teachers' creativity-fostering pedagogy

• Cheung, Hun Ping Rebecca The Education University of Hong Kong

The Asian Conference on Education (ACE2018): Surviving and Thriving: Education in Times of Change (2018: Toshi Center, Tokyo, Japan)

• D Curriculum
  • DC Pre-Primary Education Programmes
• F Learning & Teaching
  • FA General Teaching Strategies, Different Instructional Methods

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Pre-Primary Education

Many studies have found that the preschool curriculum in Hong Kong still reflects the influences of its social and cultural context that emphasises teacher-directed learning. Developing creativity in preschools requires teachers to change their familiar practices. A good understanding of teachers’ actual practices for facilitating creativity in the classroom is an important first step for educators dedicated to pedagogical change. This study aims to investigate the creativity-fostering pedagogy that teachers actually use in their classrooms to draw attention to the crucial aspects of effective creativity-fostering pedagogy in Hong Kong preschool settings. This study employed a qualitative research approach to explore and analyse the characteristic features of creativity-fostering practice in Hong Kong preschools with results presented in the form of case studies. Semi-structured interviews and classroom observations were used as data sources and content analysis was performed to examine the features and the effectiveness of teachers’ creativity-fostering pedagogical practices. Findings revealed that the three Chinese teachers held similar perspectives about creativity-fostering pedagogies and their perspectives were mainly rooted in Western pedagogies. However, the three cases demonstrated the different interpretation of these pedagogical perspectives, ranging from being strongly teacher-directed to strongly child-centred. A balance between teacher-directed and child-centred was found to be more effective pedagogic practice in the Chinese classroom. Results suggested that different creativity-fostering pedagogies might work for certain contexts and certain children and an awareness of both cultural and contextual appropriateness is important for creativity reform. Copyright © 2018 The Asian Conference on Education.

Paper presented at The Asian Conference on Education (ACE2018): Surviving and Thriving: Education in Times of Change, Toshi Center, Tokyo, Japan.

• English

Conference Papers

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/cd038c41

2019-11-01