Browsing by Subject "luovuus"

The aim of the study was to investigate ideas and idea generation of designers in free improvisation tasks at conceptual level in the experiment, planned primarily for the physiological and neurological measurements. My study was a part of the multidisciplinary research project Handling Mind: Embodiment, Creativity and Design which concentrated on studying relations between mind, body and materials combining the fields of psychology, neuroscience and creativity. The neurological study did not reveal what and how participants felt, thought and experienced during the experiment which was the main interest in my study. Previous research has focused on investigating various fields of the design process, as well as the ideation phase, but investigating idea generation in the context of neuroscientific research is a new and interesting chance for the research. The ideation phase represents an iterative and vibrant nature of the design process. Previous studies have brought out the meaning of available sources of inspiration, and designers' competence to adapt the essential parts of the original sources and transform them into design outputs regarding the aspects of novelty and functionality. Therefore, I developed my research questions concerning ideas and idea development in freely improvising tasks in a new design situation. The 30 participants participated in the study as volunteers from the School of Art, Design and Architecture in Aalto University from November 2014 to March 2015. They performed copying, designing or free improvising tasks by drawing or forming clay. I organized the Stimulated Recall (SR) interviews with my colleague to collect data. We selected the 15 out of 30 interviews to represent the data in our studies. I analyzed the transcript data by qualitative content analysis: the classification scheme was both data and theory driven. The analysis revealed that designers had different ideas emerging from internal stimuli, for example, from their mental library or they were impressed by external stimuli, for instance, material, tools and cup images from the experiment. The experiment represented an external design constraint: it confined the problem space and narrowed down the alternative solutions. Designers had concrete and abstract ideas, but also the abstractions of ideas were developed. They relied on familiar topic choices but also were capable of creating analogies. Even this minimalistic design experiment revealed that designers are able to use their mental sources of inspiration and capable of picking profitable stimuli from their surroundings in new and uncertain situations for adapting and developing ideas further. Designers sought meaning for their sketching and experimenting as well.

It has been found usually to talk in the early childhood education in connection with the creativity about arts and skills and about play. In this treatise, the creativity is approached besides play but also from the point of view of the creativity of the everyday. The starting point for the study is the view according to which the creativity is complex interaction between a creative person and an environment. The theoretical body of the study is the Componential theory of creativity of Amabile (1996). The process which is open and product which is new and suitable or acceptable were defined creative. In the opinion of many researchers, the creativity is a phenomenon that has determined in a certain time and place so the creativity is examined from the point of view of the social constructionism. As creative processes in the day nursery it has been defined pretend play, child's involvement and children's agentive perception which is based on the Children's agentive perception theory of Reunamo (2007). The purpose of the study is to clarify how the child's personal factors and the social environment affect the creative processes of children in the day nursery. This Master's thesis is based on the Children's agentive perception uncovered study led by Jyrki Reunamo (2010) which was carried out in the spring of 2010 in Keski-Uusimaa and in Hämeenlinna and Taiwan. From the study, a name has also been used "on the sources of Orientation", a research project and development project. The study includes the children's evaluation sector, the observation sector, the children's interview sector and the evaluation sector of the pedagogic environment. 891 Children 1-7 year-old by age participated in the study. All the sectors which belong to the study of Reunamo were utilized in this treatise and the Finnish day nurseries or preschool groups which had participated in the study were marked off as the target group. The main component analysis, sum variables, the correlation coefficients, Mann-Whitney's U-test and Kruskall-Wallas test were used for the statistical examination of the quantitative material. In this treatise it was noticed, both the personal properties of the child and a social environment, that they affected all the examined creative processes which also had a significant connection with each other statistically. The definition of creativity was filled best by the participative answers. However, the number of the participative answers was only 8% in the questions concerning adults. That raised the question whether an attempt should be made to have effect so that the children's better participation also in the interaction with the adults would be possible in the educational culture of the day nursery. In the further study, the conscious building of the social environment which supports the creativity from a social constructionism point of view could indeed be an interesting task. The treatise is suitable for an examination of the interaction between the child's person and a social environment especially from the point of view of the creativity.

Craft education serves as a potential platform for students' creativity. The focus of craftwork studies has lately been changing form technique learning and product making to more creative direction. This is also evident in the new, 2016 launched, curriculum of craft education. The curriculum emphasizes craftwork as a more experimental and exploratory subject where different techniques and materials are combined. The purpose of this Master's Thesis was to develop new and more creative ways to teach craftwork. The project consists of three parts. In the first phase, different ideas were mapped by brainstorming and utilizing existing theories. Subsequently, based on the ideas from the first phase a teaching module was built. The execution of the scheme was documented by filming a video. In the last phase the video material was analyzed and creative activities were highlighted. Eventually, by combining the existing theories and observations from the video an outline for online material for creative craftwork teaching was develop. This teaching material aims to approach craft education from a more creative and expressive point of view. This project indicated that several factors affect the creative craft process. Giving enough time and encouragement to all students' individual craftsmanship proved to be important for increasing creativity among students. Possibility to explore different materials and techniques had also a positive effect on creativity. Team work, encouraging and casual atmosphere contributed also to the creative process. Teacher's role as a supporter and inspirer was also important. The produced web material is based on the observations from this study and also supports the new craft curriculum. The material is online and thus easily available for everybody. In addition, a Facebook page was created to encourage people for more interactive conversation. www.luovalanka.wordpress.com

Aims. Technology education in the first grades of primary school should be taught to the world of children’s experience because experiential learning has been shown to promote learning and the uptake of broad-based future skills. Creativity is utilized a lot in teaching that supports the experiential world of young children. Only little research has been done on the utilization of creativity in first-grade technology education in primary school. The aim of this study is to raise awareness of creative technology, education in the first grades of primary school and open up creative activities in technology dimensions. The aim of the study was to get an overview of creative technology education process and the occurrence of technology dimensions during that process. Methods. The research material was collected in the spring of 2021 during a project aimed at all first-graders in Finland. The project called Tämä Toimii! is developed by the Technology industry (2020). One class of 19 students and a teacher participated in this study. The class was from a medium-sized school in a medium-sized city of Kymenlaakso. The research material was collected using the teacher's notes, the researcher's direct observation and video recordings. The material was analyzed using the electronic Atlas.ti qualitative material content analysis program. Results and conclusions. The research results were presented using a Process-Rug analysis. A technology education project aimed at the first grades of primary school promoted the technological knowledge and skills of young pupils. As a result students developed a wide range of future skills. The technology dimensions were strongly present throughout the entity. Based on the research results, creative technology education that supports the world of experience and includes technological dimensions promotes the development of wide-ranging skills of young students.

Objectives. The aim of this case study is to find out whether negative climate appears in primary school drama lessons. Previous research has shown that climate has a huge impact on schooling. A positive climate in school gives pupils a better opportunity to learn and provides pupils with more opportunities to be creative. Drama and creativity are strongly linked together because in drama, pupils work in creative way. A negative climate in turn reduces pupils' chances to learn and to be creative. Therefore, studying negative climate in drama lessons is of importance. In this study, I compared negative climate in drama lessons given by graduated classroom teachers' with those given by student teachers. I measured negative climate with The Classroom Assessment Scoring System™ (CLASS). During the study I also evaluated how the CLASS-scoring system worked in measuring the negative climate of the drama lessons. Methods. My study was a qualitative case study and the method was video analysis. I analyzed eight drama lessons with another student, Pauliina Kivi. The lessons were videotaped during the autumn of 2013 and the spring of 2014. Kivi used the same videotapes as material for her study. The level of the pupils in the videos varied from pre-school to third-grade. Four of the teachers in the videos were graduated classroom teachers who all had some kind of qualification for teaching drama. Other four were student teachers who had studied drama education as their minor subject. The videos were analyzed by using the CLASS-scoring system. A negative climate score was given to every exercise of every lesson. Results and conclusions. The results showed that negative climate took place in the observed lessons but the scores were low. One exception aside, the lessons of the teacher students received higher scores in negative climate than the lessons of the graduated teachers. However, none of the scores reached even the middle of the CLASS scale of negative climate. Therefore, according to this study, drama lessons do not have a negative climate in general. CLASS-scoring system turned out to be suitable for observing the negative climate in drama lessons. CLASS-scoring system can also be applied to evaluate how teacher or students create negative climate.

Inventining and innovation pedagogy renew the content and pedagogy of education. New pedagogy changes teaching and challenges both students and teachers with open assignments. Schools have experimented with the invention pedagogy, which challenges students to develop thinking skills and encourages creativity and inventing New tools (Maker-case) and pedagogy have been experimented in 16 schools and preschools in the Helsinki metropolitan area. Teachers from various grades have participated in training provided by Growing Mind and Innoplay research projects. The present study examines with electronic questionnaire teachers’ (n=12) experiences of invention pedagogy, the use of materials in the Maker-case and changes in the ways of teaching. The analysis of the questionnaire directed the interview phase. The theme interviews (n=5) focused on the pedagogy and tools, their developmental needs, and suitability for teaching. The interview specified observations about the new pedagogy and understanding of the impacts, opportunities and weaknesses of teaching. The questionnaire revealed that the materials of the Maker-case and the pedagogy benefited those teachers for whom technology-based materials were new and who were eager to experiment with them in practice. Teachers' motivation to develop pedagogy and school practices clearly increased their willingness to experiment, and the development work was seen beneficial for the school, for students, and for teachers’ own competence. The materials in the Maker-case inspired all respondents, and most of them felt that the materials allowed them to practice technology-based invention pedagogy and encouraged them to use the pedagogy in their classrooms. The content analysis of the interview data showed that the new pedagogy is used to change one's own teaching to meet the objectives of the curriculum and to modernize teaching. The challenges were related to the lack of own skills and pedagogical support, and to the ability to apply the pedagogy to suit one's own group. According to the teachers, the tools in the Maker -case can be used to change teaching and to practice 21stcentury skills. Maker tools and invention pedagogy had a positive effect on the quality of learning. Open-ended challenges of invention pedagogy develop creativity and thinking skills and make learning more individual and effective.