At the end of the day, we want schools where learners can explore complex learning in a variety of ways, with a strong focus on creative pursuits and inquiry. We need students to dig deeper and deeper into areas about which they are passionate—the kinds of learning we want from students will emerge out of this kind of exploration and wonder. To accomplish this, we simply have to trust the power of creativity and the students who engage in it, and we have to trust ourselves to craft classroom assessments that support this kind of learning.
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The Integrated Nature of Assessment and the Creative Process
Imagine a physical education teacher invites his students into a creative process during a physical education class. He has spent a few weeks exploring a number of net games (for example, tennis, volleyball, table tennis), and the class is ready to use a creative process to determine degrees of understanding and skill. He decides he wants students to apply what they learn about net games to a new game of their own creation. The teacher invites them to choose equipment and design rules. He then offers them the chance to try the game with classmates, in order to identify strategies and tactics that advance their game. He asks students to create a scoring system and parameters for wins and losses.
During this creative process, the teacher engages in assessment with the students. During exploration, he might preassess students to determine the degree to which they understand what makes net games unique. He checks their understanding of rules during tennis, badminton, volleyball, and pickle ball. He ensures they have a grasp of the critical features of a net game. For those students who are struggling with this content, he offers additional instructional support and practice, so learners can successfully engage in the creative process in relation to this topic (building foundational domain knowledge).
Students may begin to brainstorm ideas for their own game, exploring the equipment in the storage room and talking with each other about their ideas. The teacher interacts with students at this stage, asking probing questions and handing out a list of the criteria that they need to attend to in their design (equipment, rules, scoring, and so on). At the end of exploration, students write their two best ideas on a goal sheet. They will narrow down their choices the next day.
When they arrive the next day, the students examine their goal sheets and talk with a partner about their two best ideas. Their partner offers them advice and asks further questions. (The teacher might introduce question starters to help students frame their questions, if this is new.) He observes the pairings and looks for signs of indecision or stalled conversation. He then joins groups, as needed, to support their efforts during the elaboration stage of their work. During this class, students choose their final idea and create a graphic organizer that allows them to articulate their decisions in relation to these criteria. In the middle of this class period, the teacher stops the students and invites them to reflect on what they accomplished so far and what they need to do next. He adds to the criteria (perhaps team positions or performance cues important to their game). Learners then re-engage in their work, enhancing their ideas and refining their thinking. They may watch videos or partner to explore equipment. At this stage, they are welcome to make changes on any decision. In fact, the teacher invites students to reflect on their own efforts in relation to criteria often, to ensure they are satisfied with their efforts. At the end of this class, students add their most recent decisions to their documentation. The teacher then prepares learners to commit to their games by the following day, so they can begin to determine how best to share ideas with the class. Students are encouraged to think about their designs in their spare time and make any changes they feel they need to, to enhance their games.
On the third day, students work together to determine the best ways to share their designs. Together, they post a number of options (in a video, on a game card poster, through paired presentations, for example) and students decide which method works best for them. The teacher works with those students who are struggling to decide and leaves others to create the method that is most meaningful for them. The teacher draws students’ attention to the criteria throughout and invites a five-minute journal reflection, when students identify a strength and a challenge. In this way, the teacher can assess which students need additional supports, instruction, or both, and which are working independently with success. The teacher may notice that as students engage in expression, they want to continue to refine their games and add additional details. The teacher encourages this because he knows that the creative process is not neat and tidy; students see gaps and errors as they construct their method of expression and see their products through their peers’ eyes.
The final step is sharing, combined with reflection and response. Students practice listening well and asking reflective questions, inviting learners to consider aspects of their design they hadn’t considered previously. The teacher also builds in a celebration component, when students acknowledge their own strengths and those of their classmates. Meanwhile, the class uses the predetermined criteria to assess the products, allowing for one last effort at refinement if the feedback dictates. The products strongly reflect subject-area goals, and the class has invited additional kinds of learning through the creative process. The teacher has nurtured collaboration, reflection, communication, and critical thinking. As the class ends this creative endeavor, the teacher invites students to reflect one last time on their approaches during the creative cycle. The teacher may ask them to consider which of their strategies were most useful and which led to unsatisfactory results. He may invite them to consider what conditions support their creativity and how they might create these kinds of conditions next time. He places these reflections in their portfolios and refers to them the next time they work in creative ways.
When I want to spot creativity working hand-in-hand with assessment, I watch closely for confidence and uncertainty in students when they engage in solving a problem or creating a product. I celebrate both emotions because when students are feeling something in relation to their complex work, it means they are assessing their efforts and the results of those efforts in relation to a goal they have. Assessment experts Cassie Erkens, Tom Schimmer, and Nicole Dimich Vagle (2017) explain that “assessment cultivates student investment, a dual kind of reflection—on learning and engagement—where students persist through tasks and pursue higher levels of learning because they now believe that with effort, they can do it” (p. 135). Emotion signals investment, and investment means the seeds for creativity and problem solving are ready to grow.
In order to further explore how assessment connects to the creative impulse, we can examine some words we use in conjunction with creativity—innovation, imagination, artistry, design—all words that reflect the kinds of rich thinking we want to develop in our learners. We might also use the phrase problem solving in relation to creativity because it helps us see creative endeavors as an attempt to solve a problem that holds meaning for the creator. Psychologist R. Keith Sawyer (2006) confirms this, noting, “Many creativity researchers now believe that creativity involves both problem solving and problem finding” (p. 116). Creating a work of art is often solving a visual problem in order to reach a desired goal (achieving balance, emotion, or message, for example). Writing a narrative or descriptive text is solving the problem of communicating meaning through written language. Designing a prototype for a scientific question means solving the problems of function and design. In these examples, problems are not bad; in fact, they are catalysts for creative action. They are the reason people heavily create and invest in the process. In this way, understanding the relationship between creativity and assessment is understanding how creativity (or innovation, imagination, artistry, or design) connects to problems and how problems connect to investment in goals.
Indeed, creativity is lived out moment to moment and decision by decision. A final product may or may not reflect a desired