One of the sessions I was most looking forward to at #alamw16 was Curiosity Creates: Research and Best Practices in Creativity Programming for Children. At my school, there is a lot of focus on designe thinking and makerspaces, and so, as always, I was looking for ideas to steal to enhance those aspects of my own library program.
I really enjoyed learning more about the research that has been done on creativity and hearing about specific programs and initiatives happening at libraries who have received grants to implement programming that fosters creativity. Here are a few things that jumped out at me during the presentation:
- Supporting creativity and curiosity isn’t just good, but necessary; we need disruptive thinkers and innovators who are going to be able to take on the challenges that arise as society continues to evolve.
- When looking at the heritability of different traits, researchers found that creativity is much less tied to genetics and more affected by environment; therefore, ANYONE can be a creative thinker.
- There is something called curiosity satisfaction-being curious about something and then finding out the answer makes you feel good AND increases the likelihood that you’ll retain that information.
- Researchers came up with 7 critical components, or skills, of creativity: imagination and originality, flexibility, decision making, communication and self-expression, collaboration, motivation, and action and movement.
While it was certainly interesting and informative to hear about this research into creativity, I also really enjoyed learning about the actual ways some libraries have chosen to implement creativity programming. Grant recipients have used funds for such things as designing a new children’s room with creative activities that is accessible to and inclusive of all children, creating toolkits that have different materials related to robotics, engineering, fiber arts, and paper crafts that encourage preteens to think creatively to solve certain problems, and funding open art time in the children’s room.
I’m definitely excited to take some of these ideas back to my own library! If you’re looking for more information about the research done on this topic or resources for implementing more creative programming, be sure to check out the Center for Childhood Creativity’s website.