Creative Teaching: Mathematics in the Primary Classroom

Mary Briggs, Sue Davis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415713856
• eBook ISBN: 9781317618584
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This stimulating text shows how primary mathematics can be creative, exciting and enjoyable. Offering teachers a dynamic and different perspective, it enables them to see and teach in creative ways that will develop their pupil's mathematical thinking potential.

Creative Teaching: Mathematics in the Primary Classroom encourages students, trainees and practicing teachers to envision and develop a classroom where children can take risks, enjoy and experiment with mathematical thinking, and discover and pursue their interests and talents in an imaginative yet purposeful way. This second edition contains key updates to reflect the changes to the primary curriculum and includes:

• new sections on: specialist teaching, parental engagement and approaches to homework;
• creative classroom environments;
• working walls, displays and outdoor settings;
• links to assessment, speaking, listening and learning theory;
• use of media, film, news and stories for creative learning;
• cross-curricula work.

Featuring reflective tasks in every chapter, this book will prove essential and inspiring reading for all trainee and practising teachers looking to develop their creative practice.

Aimed at primary and early years trainee teachers, NQTs and experienced teachers, this is a timely publication for teachers and schools seeking to broaden their maths curriculum, making it more creative and appealing to young minds.

Part I

Context

1 What’s my starting point?

In this chapter we begin to explore some of the preconceptions you may have about creativity and then how this links with ideas about creative mathematics. It has become a key topic in education with concerns being raised about the lack of creativity of young people, and the resultant impact on the future of the country and the world. Our starting point is with your own ideas about creativity.

Before you start to read this book we would like you to consider the following questions and jot down your responses: What do you associate with creativity? How might you describe creativity? What behaviours would you associate with being a creative person?

We asked these questions to two different groups. The first was a group of undergraduate students and here are a few of their answers:

‘Creativity is about the arts; art, music, the performing arts.’ ‘Creative people are artistic or they can play musical instruments well.’ ‘Creativity is all about the way you think about things.’ ‘Creative people think about things in different ways.’ ‘Creativity is about problem solving, thinking creatively.’

What is interesting is that the performing arts feature in every single response from adults, with a focus on a creative product. A few of the responses mentioned thinking skills and the ability to think differently about ideas or events, though these came after the initial comments about performing arts.

The second group who were asked about creativity were children. Their answers also focused on being good at art, music or other performing arts:

‘I can’t draw you know. Anyone who can draw is creative.’ ‘My friend is creative, she can dance, I can sing well.’

The responses from the children and students above indicate that there are some very specific views of creativity and they link to the myths outlined by the Scottish Executive in their work encouraging creativity in Scottish Education:

Myth 1: Creativity is only important in some areas of human activity.

Myth 2: The creative process just happens it is always inspirational effortless and comes like a bolt out of the blue.

Myth 3: Creative people are somehow special, different from the rest of us and actually a bit strange in someway.

(Scottish Executive 2000)

Other research studies focusing on creativity have concentrated on a variety of different foci as can be seen in the following examples:

• creative people, their qualities and traits as being creative (Stein 1984, Cropley 2001);

• the creativity of how people interact with the environment (Meyer 1999);

• exploring the detail of the creative work undertaken (Policastro and Gardner 1999);

• exploring how society impacts upon creativity (Gardner 1993).

For the most part these studies also focus on the original and unique creative people and the outcomes. People like Einstein for example – who Gardner (1993) writes about – indicate the evidence of their creative thinking came outside the formal education system. Einstein was not recognised as even good at mathematics whilst at school, which for teachers is an interesting fact to consider, about the identification of creativity within the individual.

The general view of creativity is that it is important in the arts areas, but few people mention the creative process in relation to mathematics and science subjects. Problem solving is sometimes linked to creativity and yet this is a separate area of exploration. A learner can be creative in relation to problem solving but this is not to be viewed as the same as creative mathematics. We will explore this aspect later in the book to indicate the differences between problem solving and mathematics.

A more helpful categorisation of the different aspects of creativity comes from Tina Bruce in her description of layers of creativity.

First – Original and world-shaking creativity

Second – Recreating an idea in a different time and place

Third – Specialists who create ideas which are important in their field, who may not be famous, but who contribute in important ways

Fourth – Everyday creativity that makes life worth living.

(Bruce, 2004)

Think about these different layers of creativity. What would you give as examples for each layer in relation to education? What would you give as examples of each layer in relation to mathematics?

Bruce’s first layer of creativity is clearly not the focus of this book. In relation to mathematics the activities in this realm are the proving of Fermat’s last theorem by Andrew Wiles (Singh 1997) for example. These are rare events in mathematics and have effects on the whole world of mathematics. We may find however that as a teacher we are teaching a child who goes on to become the next Andrew Wiles and proves another new theorem in mathematics.

The second layer of creativity relates to the rediscovery of ideas like helicopters which Leonardo da Vinci originally designed in the fifteenth century and was developed in the twentieth century. Again this is not the main focus of this book.

The third and fourth layers of creativity are definitely the focus of this book. The specialists here are both the teachers and children, teaching and learning mathematics. Although you may not consider either of these two groups as specialists we would argue that as learning is an important process for life, a child’s learning of mathematics gives them ideas about their world and they therefore contribute to society in important ways. And the teachers are either specialists in teaching a specific age group or in the subject of mathematics and are therefore contributing to others’ (the children’s) understanding of that subject, and that is equally important. The fourth layer of creativity is the focus of creativity in classrooms on an everyday basis and may be seen in relation to the preparation for teaching, the actual teaching, the learning and/or the responses of the children.

Before we explore each of these in detail throughout this book it is important to say that we are exploring teaching creativity. We would agree with the Scottish Executive approach that:

Creativity is nurtured, not taught. One of the ambitions of this cultural strategy is to develop the conditions in which creativity and innovation can flourish in all sectors of Scottish life.

(Scottish Executive, 2000)

They go on to say that this approach can:

… equip pupils with the foundation skills, attitudes and expectations necessary to prosper in a changing society and … encourage creativity & ambition.

(Scottish Executive, 2000)

These are key aspects of the approach the whole of this book takes to exploring the possibilities within mathematics teaching and learning, but without prescribing a specific way to do things. We hope the book will encourage the reader to rethink the teaching and learning of mathematics and to see the potential creativity within the subject.

Before we move on, take a few minutes to consider: What do you think it means to be creative in mathematics? Is this possible, to be creative in mathematics? Do you see yourself as mathematically creative?

Now let’s look at the development of creativity in relation to mathematics, starting with very young children through to the oldest children in the primary phase. The rationale for this is to understand where the experiences and understandings start and how as primary teachers you might develop these ideas further or be able to identify gaps in children’s earlier experiences.

The development of young children’s creativity outside the arts

Creativity in mathematics starts even before children arrive in a learning environment to engage in activities with others, naturally occurring as they explore the world around them. The following is a small example in relation to the development of language – mathematics is after all a language – in pre-school children.

If you listen to children playing they will invent words for quantities as part of playing with language; language for specific purpose. Mathematics can be seen as language that we learn how to speak. We also learn that precise language can be used to describe situations, events or classify. Two-year-old Alex was overheard trying some of [these] things out as he was talking to his toys. “Tigger has a tail … Alex has no tail”. This small boy was playing with his classification of objects including self, all part of beginning to think mathematically.

Briggs (2005)

Many of the ideas and skills young children learn in play can be early signs of the links between mathematics and creativity. The links may not always appear immediately obvious. This does also not automatically stop once the children reach primary school age, as children are still exploring their environment through different forms of play throughout this period.

Read the lists of activities below that babies and young children engage in and think about how you see the links with mathematics. You may need to think beyond the activity itself and consider where this leads in relation to children’s learning. As an adult working with primary age children it is important to understand where some of the children’s ideas and attitudes to creativity have come from and how you can build on these in the primary school years.

Creativity, play and mathematics

Play is a creative activity for children that allows them to explore their environment and make sense of the world around them. They experiment, as the following brief outline of activities linking to early mathematics skills and knowledge at different ages illustrates.

Babies

Actions like banging objects on surfaces

Playing common games like ‘round and round the garden’ – anticipation, prediction

Joy in responding to interactions

Movement patterns (schemas) – experimenting and receiving feedback

Cause and effect – I did that!

Toddlers and young children

Maki...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I Context
• Part II Classrooms
• Part III Practical applications
• Part IV Developments
• Part V Conclusions
• References and further reading
• Index