HundrED in partnership with The LEGO Foundation has just released a new Spotlight Report on Creativity. This research project aimed to discover and celebrate leading innovations doing exceptional work in fostering creativity in education.
In an age of rapid innovation, technological advances, ongoing change, and unprecedented educational disruption, it is well established that we need to develop our creative capacity for solving problems in the future both large and small.
However, creativity is also important for students’ holistic development and love of learning. Creativity not only helps us to navigate through the complexities of our modern world as individuals but also supports our ability to understand and collaborate with others by developing our social-emotional skills. Thus allowing us to live more fulfilling and connected lives. Almost every educator now agrees that we need to consider creativity as a fundamental skill to be cultivated in schools. The question this report aims to answer is how to effectively nurture creativity in education.
“The LEGO Foundation is delighted to partner with HundrED to help answer that question, and shine a spotlight on leading education initiatives from around the globe that are fostering creativity. The LEGO Foundation and HundrED share the belief that every child has the ability to be creative, and that ability can be improved as they grow”, explained John Goodwin, Chief Executive Officer at The LEGO Foundation.
Sir Ken Robinson, who passed away this past August, dedicated his career to promoting creativity, innovation, and a personalized approach to learning. In 2011 he was recognized with the LEGO Prize award for his significant contributions. Chris Petrie, Head of Research at HundrED, said that by dedicating this report to the memory of Sir Ken Robinson is meant, “ as a contribution to furthering his vision. To this end, our commitment is to turn the ideas revealed here into action in order to improve the quality of education through fostering creativity globally.”
This comprehensive report was released during a special showcase at the HundrED 2020 Innovation Summit on Creativity in Education. The 100-minute showcase opened with a keynote from Sarah Bouchie, the Vice-President of Global Programmes at the LEGO Foundation, who shared her insights and reflections from the Spotlight findings and process.
The results of the report shows there is no shortage of practices and solutions currently being implemented in many parts of the world that are both impactful and scalable. Over 247 innovations founded in 55 different countries were submitted and collected for this Spotlight. It is their hope to inspire more education systems to adopt creativity as a critical component of students’ learning and development process.
The innovations selected for the HundrED Spotlight on Creativity are:
Arkki International (Helsinki, Finland) - A leading institution in creative education via architecture and design for children in the world.
BRAC Remote Play Labs (Bangladesh, Tanzania, and Uganda) - Facilitating learning development, and healing through play in the wake of COVID-19.
Brazilian Creative Learning Network (Brazil) - Promoting and enabling playful, creative, and relevant hands-on education opportunities for children and young people throughout Brazil.
Design for Change (India) - A global movement that cultivates the ‘I CAN’ mindset in every child.
Designathon: Teaching for creative changemaking (Amsterdam, Netherlands, Worldwide) - Professional development to cultivate creative change-making in children.
Educate! (Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya) - Preparing youth in Africa with the skills to succeed in today’s economy.
El INGENIO: Center for Learning and Creative Development (San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico) - A proven model for creative development among children and youth through arts, music, literature, science, technology & creative industries.
Kids Can! Innovation Camp (Manila, Philippines) -Empowering global kids to help solve global problems, one idea at a time.
Learning Creative Learning (Lifelong Kindergarten Group, MIT Media Lab, USA) - An online course and community of educators, designers, and tinkerers exploring creative learning through projects, passion, peers, and play.
MyMachine (Belgium) - A unique collaboration of all educational levels to create dream machines invented by kids.
Playground Ideas (Melbourne, Australia) - Unique, child designed playgrounds built using local materials to provide abundant opportunities for daily play.
Out Of Syllabus Project (India) - Cultivating healthy creative identities in students by fostering positive relationships.
Reap Benefit (India) - Activating young citizens to solve local civic and environmental problems.
Remake Learning Days Across America (Pittsburgh, USA) - RLDAA is a festival of creative, hands-on experiences for youth and families to learn together about how education is being remade.
Scholas Occurrentes (Vatican City) - Bringing together students from over 400 000 education centers in 190 countries to listen to each other’s stories.
Scratch (USA) - Scratch engages millions of children around the world in coding and sharing projects to express their ideas and develop their creativity.
Segni Mossi (Rome, Italy) - A rule-bending method of creative education that brings together movement and art in workshops for learners and teachers alike.
Slam Out Loud (New Delhi, India) - Leveraging the power of visual and performing arts to build Creative Confidence (SEL, 21st-century skills) in disadvantaged children.
The Teachers Guild (San Francisco, USA) - A learner-centered approach to problem-solving that builds teachers’ skills and confidence to design for the evolving needs of their students and schools.
The Walking Curriculum (Canada) - The Walking Curriculum is an innovative interdisciplinary resource for educators K-12 who want to take student learning outside school walls.
You can download the full report here.
