Using Creativity to Address Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, and Dyscalculia

Assessments and Techniques

Fredricka Reisman, Lori Severino

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000220940
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica inclusiva

Designed to help educators recognize and nurture students with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia, this book guides readers through best practices for using creativity theory and strategies to address the learning challenges for students who have difficulty in acquiring literacy and mathematics content.

Offering concrete examples of creativity assessment and pedagogical techniques, chapters are supported by rich appendices providing assessment and screening checklists, time telling objectives, learning trouble spots, a creative approach to teaching place value, and a handy cross-referencing table.

Accessible and thorough, this up-to-date guide will help educators develop strategies that acknowledge students' creative strengths to address learning challenges across the literacy and mathematics curricula.

SECTION 1
Background Information

This section provides foundational information that makes the book accessible for novices as well as accomplished educators. Chapter 1 contains key definitions, Chapter 2 presents important creativity theorists and researchers, Chapter 3 discusses Generic Influences on Learning and Chapter 4 offers a unique analysis of literacy and mathematics curricula.

1
DEFINING CREATIVITY, DYSLEXIA, DYSGRAPHIA AND DYSCALCULIA

Teachers are the key to nurturing their students’ creative strengths. Creativity is one of the important skills needed for the 21st century. In addition to reading, writing, and mathematics, the soft skills of critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation are necessary for developing accomplished citizens including our future workforce (Chu, Reynolds, Tavares, Notari, & Lee, 2017).

When creativity is nourished in the classroom, students with dyslexia, dysgraphia and/or dyscalculia, who often have creative strengths, learn from a strengths-based approach rather than a deficit-based approach. It is important to encourage and recognize these creative strengths.

• What does a creative nurturing classroom look like?
• Teachers foster a climate in which creative thinkers are respected, students and teachers tolerate new ideas, conformity is not imposed, and diversity in ideas is encouraged and appreciated (Cropley, 2006).
• How can teachers improve creative thinking in students?
• By providing choices, rewarding different ideas and products, encouraging sensible risks, and emphasizing students’ strengths and interests (de Souza Fleith, 2000; Kaufman & Sternberg, 2007).
• What happens when teachers are aware of and model their own creativity?
• Creative learning is likely to occur (Jeffery, 2006; Rejskind, 2000). Teachers can self-assess their own creativity using the Reisman Diagnostic Creativity Assessment (RDCA) presented in Chapter 5. Knowing your own creative strengths can increase the likelihood that you will model creative strategies in your own classroom.

Defining Creative Thinking

Current definitions of creativity accept two main concepts: i. producing original, novel ideas, and ii. relevance to the problem to be addressed. We also distinguish between creativity and innovation. Creativity refers to generating original ideas; innovation is the implementation of these ideas. Both are needed in creative problem-solving. It is not enough to generate creative ideas if they just float up into cyberspace; there must be an implementation activity to ensure relevant results.

Thus, creativity involves something new and relevant to an identified issue. With over 100 definitions, creativity can manifest as ideas, theories, artwork, inventions and numerous other iterations. (Meusberger, 2009). These definitions of creativity involve the production of novel, useful products (Mumford, 2003) or the production of something original and worthwhile (Sternberg, 2011). Definitions of creativity also include a process of becoming sensitive to problems, deficiencies, gaps in knowledge, missing elements, disharmonies, and so on. Further involved are identifying the difficulty, searching for solutions, making guesses, or formulating hypotheses about the deficiencies; testing and retesting these hypotheses and possibly modifying and retesting them; and finally communicating the results (Torrance, 1998).

The study of creativity as a human quality, rather than a vehicle for the divine, first emerged during the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci epitomized creativity during that time, and excelled in fields as varied as mathematics, engineering, painting, sculpting, astronomy, anatomy, and a litany of other topics. However, serious study of creativity did not occur until the Enlightenment in the 18th century when imagination became a key element of human cognition (Albert & Runco, 1999; Runco & Albert, 2010).

Many believe that creative thinking is synonymous with divergent thinking, which involves generating unique, novel and original ideas (e.g., brainstorming). But this is only one component of creative thinking; convergent thinking also is involved. Convergent thinking is analytical, judgmental and involves evaluating choices before making a decision. Convergent thinking includes narrowing ideas by evaluating the previously generated ideas that emerged in the divergent portion of the sequence (e.g., settling upon an idea from a selection of ideas). Figure 1.1 shows the sequential process of divergent-convergent thinking that comprises creative thinking.

FIGURE 1.1 Creative Thinking Process

However, throughout the world, the term “creative” can conjure up many images and, therefore, it has many meanings (Kaufman & Sternberg, 2006). There doesn’t appear to be a universal agreement (Antonenko & Thompson, 2011; Reid, 2016). Most researchers agree that creativity is the mind’s attempt to find an answer to a problem or the resolution to a given set of circumstances (Amabile, 1996; Runco, 2014; Sternberg, 1999). The point that every creativity expert seems to agree on is that creativity involves originality (Sternberg, Grigorenko, & Singer, 2006). Table 1.1 presents various definitions as provided by leading experts in the field of creativity:

TABLE 1.1 Creativity as Defined by Leading Experts

Expert	Creativity Definition
Carl Rodgers (psychologist)	the essence of creativity is novelty, and hence we have no standard by which to judge it (Rogers, 1961)
John Haefele (CEO and entrepreneur)	the ability to make new combinations of social worth (Haefele, 1962)
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (psychologist, academic, writer)	any act, idea, or product that changes or transforms an existing domain into a new one (Csikszentmihalyi, 2013)
Robert Sternberg (psychologist)	The ability to produce work that is novel (original) and adaptive with respect to task or situational constraints (Sternberg & Lubart, 1995)
Ellis Paul Torrance (psychologist)	a process of becoming sensitive to problems, deficiencies, gaps in knowledge, missing elements, disharmonies, and so on; identifying the difficult, searching for solutions, making guesses, or formulating hypotheses and possibly modifying and retesting them; and finally communicating the results (Torrance, 1966)

Source: Adapted from Reisman, 2016

Creativity is both an outcome and a process (Potocnik & Anderson, 2016; Shalley & Gilson, 2017). It is also a skill that is capable of being developed with deliberate practice (Sale, 2015). The pitfalls in definitions of creativity affect the teachers’ ability to identify often hidden creativity of their students. Teachers often misidentify creativity in students. In fact, students that are complacent, agreeable, subordinate, task-oriented, and smile are identified as creative by their teachers (Whitelaw, 2006; Torrance, 1975). However, creative students can be a challenge. They question and req...