Making Creativity Visible | Columbus Museum of Art Creativity: The process of using imagination and critical thinking to generate new ideas that have value (Columbus Museum of Art definition) What does creativity look like, feel like, and sound like in PreK-12 learning? What are the habits of creativity, and what are the conditions in which creativity thrives? How can we model, foster, and assess creativity in learning? These are the questions that guide the Making Creativity Visible project, a multi-year teacher collaboration with the Columbus Museum of Art (Columbus, Ohio), and generously funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Making Creativity Visible is Motivated by the fact that experts in a wide range of fields have called creativity the most important skill-set needed for life and work in the 21st century, Guided by CMA’s definition of creativity as “the process of using imagination and critical thinking to generate new ideas that have value,” Based in the practice of documentation – the process of observing and recording moments of the creative process, then studying those moments in learning groups in order to better understand creativity and learning, Grounded in the knowledge that highly intentional and imaginative educators, exploring together as students of their practice, is one of the most powerful approaches to creating cultures of teaching for creativity. The results of this research-practice initiative contributed to the development and testing of tools for educators and administrators to cultivate and assess creativity in their classrooms and districts. Some of these tools are housed on this site; many more have served to transform the Columbus Museum of Art’s teacher professional development. Explore the site, test and tailor the tools. Send the Making Creativity Visible team questions, feedback, and documentation of how you have adapted these tools and ideas to foster creativity and make it visible in your learning environment. The Making Creativity Visible project is grounded in the Making Learning Visible work of the Project Zero research group of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Notably, Making Creativity Visible benefited from direct consultation with researchers Mara Krechevsky and Melissa Rivard. The tools and ideas represented here emerged from applying the approaches of Project Zero documentation to the classrooms and insights of our Core Teacher Team advisors, including: Jason Blair, Emily Reiser, Britanie Risner, Marcella Cua, Patrick Callicote, Matt Szozda, Becky Coyne, with additional consultation from Molly Hinkle, Jennifer Argo & Katrina Kudart, Sabrina Walters, and Amanda Waluzak. For more information on our key collaborators, please visit Acknowledgements. To contact the Making Creativity Visible team, email mcv@cmaohio.org
