Most of the teachers agreed that developing creativity in students is important, and they mentioned creativity from different aspects, although many avoided any negative side. Data from the questionnaire and interviews revealed that almost all Vietnamese teachers highlighted creative products rather than creativity inputs and processes: e.g. 82% of them considered creativity as the production of new ideas; creativity as production of new solutions, a means of invention; and 57% thought creativity was a process of making things better or newer. When teachers were more highly appreciative of creative products than creative processes, they would prevent students from taking the right steps towards creating a creative product: they may undermine exploration or imagination processes, and focus their students towards thinking of a new idea or a solution without allowing the students to try out different ideas or solutions before choosing the most creative way to solve a problem or the most creative idea to complete and implement it. Some international teachers appeared to have a better understanding of creativity. They saw it as processes of imagining, exploring and creative thinking:
Creativity is about building on the ideas of others or conceptually visualizing something new (an Australian teacher);
Thinking differently to generate new solution, ideas and things without having limitation of thinking (A Malaysian teacher)
It is important to teach students creativity not because we expect them to develop innovative products. Rather it helps to develop thinking processes and creates opportunities for students to draw connections and linkages between disparate subjects and disciplines. (A Singaporean teacher)
Teachers also had a tendency to misunderstand creativity. In the survey 5.6% of Vietnamese teachers and 5.6% (4 out of 71) of the international teachers considered “news” as creativity. Misunderstanding of creativity might lead to erroneous assumptions (Beghetto, 2005 quoted in Ferrari et al., 2009 ).
Data analysis has showed that teachers’ understanding about conditions for creativity was not comprehensive. They did not value subject and creativity knowledge as highly as creative competencies and they lacked knowledge about creative tools.
In particular, most Vietnamese teachers highlighted curiosity (82%), imagination (71%) and subject knowledge (70%), followed by facilities (66%) and encouraging environments (60%) for creativity development. While aesthetic concern is considered a necessary motivation for creativity (Fasko, 2001) , very few Vietnamese teachers (1.8%) valued it. They added “love of beauty” as a necessary condition for creativity. Three teachers explained that love of beauty encourages people to create artistic and valuable things that benefit other people and society. “Love of beauty” stimulates the aesthetic sense, the understanding of the harmony of the physical elements, such as lines, shapes, sounds, colors and space that makes people feel joy and pleasure when exploring things and nature. Consequently, it stimulates people to create beautiful, harmonious and valuable things (Haynes, 1999) . “Love of beauty”, as the Vietnamese teachers understood, is opposed to the “dark side of creativity” as mentioned by researchers (Cropley, 2010; Gino & Ariely, 2012; James & Taylor, 2010) and this understanding would guide teachers in nurturing positive creativity for their students.
Vietnamese teachers’ responses about conditions that facilitate creativity development appear in
A majority of international teachers appreciated freedom and an encouraging environment supported creativity development, followed by subject knowledge. For example, one US teacher stated: “A respectful environment for unproven ideas to be shared and discussed among peers with instructional coach support”. Similarly, an African teacher claimed that “children need to be given opportunities to tap into the creativity and explore it freely”.
| Conditions | Percent of teachers |
|---|---|
| Having curiosity about surroundings | 82.2% |
| Having imaginative competence | 70.8% |
| Having knowledge about subjects | 70.2% |
| Having facilities for creative activities | 65.8% |
| Having encouraging environment for creativity | 60.2% |
| Understanding about creativity and its process | 51.6% |
| Having lateral thinking | 48.4% |
| Having freedom in teaching and learning | 16.1% |
Other essential factors such as understanding about creativity and its processes and lateral thinking were not so well accepted by both Vietnamese and international teachers: only 52% of Vietnamese teachers and 38% of international teachers considered understanding about creativity and its processes to be important; 49% of Vietnamese teachers and 39% of international teachers respectively thought lateral thinking facilitated creativity development. Fewer Vietnamese teachers considered the importance of freedom in teaching for creativity development (only 16% valued this condition). This coincides with teachers’ perceptions about creativity that highlighted creative products.
Vietnamese teachers considered facilities an important condition for teaching for creativity while international teachers emphasized them less. This is understandable as most Vietnamese schools lacked facilities. Observations of eight of the nine schools revealed that classrooms were narrow, and most schools had only one multimedia room and one or two computer rooms, despite large student numbers. Teachers said their schools could not afford facilities for students to practice with ICT and laboratory facilities. Starko (2013) indicates facilities help students to carry out creative activities. A lack of facilities in Vietnamese schools might impede students’ participation in such activities.
However, some Vietnamese teachers considered sub-standard facilities not a key hindrance for their teaching for creativity. When interviewed, teachers of chemistry and physics explained that without laboratory facilities they could use online chemistry/physics experiments. This finding corresponds with a finding in Madan’s research (2011) , that Indian teachers successfully developed creativity for Indian children in poor conditions (they were seated on rugs and low stools to practice creative activities).
1) Teachers’ perceptions of teaching for creativity
Teaching for creativity, as discussed above, requires teachers to understand and use creative methods and tools to develop students’ creative competencies and skills, but teachers’ understanding of teaching for creativity was insufficient. Only 35% of Vietnamese teachers and 56% of international teachers mentioned objectives for developing student creativity in teaching. In interviews, Vietnamese teachers appeared to have a weak belief in students’ creativity, although they shared common explanations on the characteristics of students’ creativity. They valued students’ abilities to explore, imagine, think and solve problems in new ways. For example, chemistry teachers considered creative students as those who were able to predict what would happen in chemical reactions. Three literature teachers suggested students’ creativity in their subject meant they understood new words, used new ways to understand a poem or novel, or wrote creatively. According to history teachers, creative students were those who could analyze and evaluate historical events from different perspectives and were able to imagine the past. However, all interviewed teachers concluded that creative students were rare. While teaching for creativity requires teachers to understand and encourage students to believe in their own creative ability, teachers’ lack of belief in students’ creativity would lead to neglect in teaching for creativity. Moreover, the teachers understood creativity only by its positive traits, as no teacher listed any negative traits of a creative student. Gorny (2007) considers many positive as well as different negative traits of a creative person, especially egotistical, impulsive, disordered, argumentative, and absentminded. When teachers could not understand the negative traits of creative students, they had a biased attitude toward these students, and in consequence, they would kill students’ creativity. Therefore, to develop student creativity, teachers should know their students’ both positive and negative creative traits.
Most Vietnamese and international teachers understood teaching for creativity as the use of creative methods, but use of creative tools was mentioned by only one Australian teacher. For example:
-Using creative projects to meet learning goals. For example, using Art in History class; including the best examples of creative work, providing freedom to create and assessing for creativity (two US teachers)
-The use of project based learning, teamwork, problem solving (Vietnamese teachers)
-Providing the tools and helping the students to think and work creatively (An Australian teacher)
Madan (2011) found that Indian teachers were successful in developing creativity for Indian students as they were taught the philosophy of creativity development, and they held a strong belief in students’ creativity, they used experiential, hands-on learning and created contextually relevant, creative environments to develop their students’ creativity. This suggests that more investigation of beliefs and understanding about creativity would be useful.
2) Teachers’ use of creative tools
Most tools listed in this study were less well known and less used except for four tools: “five Wh” questions, “what if” questions, mind maps and Internet information by both Vietnamese and international teachers. In the sample schools, Mind maps were most widely used (81% where a combined percentage for both “often” and “sometimes” was used). The five “Wh” questions were the second most widely used (75%), followed by ‘what if’ questions (54%). Internet information was used by 44%. However, the percentage of participants who indicated that they “often use” Internet information was higher than other tools. This is shown in
| Tools | Well known | Frequency level | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Often | Sometimes | Rarely | Never | ||
| Mind map | 76.1 | 38.8 | 42.3 | 6.1 | 12.8 |
| Five WH questions | 62.5 | 38.0 | 37.4 | 8.0 | 5.5 |
| What if… question | 49.5 | 29.2 | 24.5 | 3.7 | 37.9 |
| Internet information | 65.8 | 44.4 | 3.1 | 6.1 | 46.3 |
Interviewed teachers explained that, questions were convenient because to use them teachers did not need to prepare or use specific teaching facilities. Teachers used questions with varying purposes. Some teachers stated that they used questions to provoke students’ thinking and get their attention. “Questions help students to explore problems easily” (A chemistry teacher). Others revealed that they typically asked questions about facts more often than “why” questions. All interviewed teachers claimed they used questions combined with PowerPoint presentations or video clips, usually after watching videos. The use of questions was different across subjects. The five “Wh” and “What if…” questions were used more in mathematics, chemistry, physics and biology to help students guess results when changing variables in these fields. They featured less in literature as noted by a literature teacher:
I don’t often use questions because they are not appropriate in all literature lessons. I don’t want to break students’ thoughts or emotions by asking many questions when they learn a poem or a story. Teaching and learning literature is a process in which teachers analyze, transform (the) emotion (or) ideas of a poem, novel or story to students through his/her words.
The statement shows that even though questions were considered a convenient creative tool, they were not frequently used by the teacher because of her conception of her teaching subject. Further, it reveals that the philosophy of knowledge transmission from teacher to students was still common in her mind.
Regarding mind map, most interviewed teachers stated that they usually used this tool to summarize students’ knowledge. One mathematics teacher sometimes used mind maps to develop new knowledge for students, stating: “Sometimes I use (a) mind map in developing new knowledge. I put a new word in the center and ask questions to help students add relevant words to my word to learn new knowledge.” It can be seen that the teachers used mind maps, but not always for creativity development. In terms of the Internet, the teachers used it mostly to search for resources which helped to make learning more interesting. Only 22% of teachers knew of Vi.wiki (Vietnamese wiki), and some of those teachers used Vi.wiki to look for new concepts and definitions. Blog was largely used for personal purposes rather than teaching.
A small number of teachers knew about tools for brainstorming, random picture, random word and the six thinking hats. From this group, an even smaller number actually used them, and they had mostly been self- taught. The percentage of teachers who “often use” SCAMPER was low (only 6.2%,
Similar to Vietnamese teachers, analysis of international teachers’ responses and their lesson plans illustrate that they were well aware of the “five Wh” questions, “what if” questions, mind maps and Internet information and more often used them in teaching for creativity development. Blog and wiki also better known and used in teaching. International teachers were less familiar with random word, random picture and six thinking hats but they used them to a greater extent in their teaching. The least well known and less used was SCAMPER (4.2% and 5.6%), as with Vietnamese teachers.
Vietnamese teachers had limited use of creative tools and used them mainly for knowledge transmission, for many reasons. It is probable that the first reason is their limited understanding and skills in using such tools.