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MINDFULNESS, CREATIVE ability, CREATIVE thinking, LITERATURE reviews, MIND-wandering, and DIVERGENT thinking

• This thematic literature review investigates the relationship between mindfulness and creativity • Mindfulness practices improve skills or habits of mind that can support creativity • The mindfulness-creativity relationship is complex, but generally positive • Deliberate/mindful mind-wandering can support creativity • Purposeful inclusion of mindfulness in learning settings can benefit student learning, creativity and wellbeing Mindfulness and creativity have both come to the forefront of educational interest—but a better understanding of their relationship and the implications for education is needed. This article reviews the literature on the intersection of these topics in order to understand where and how these two related but distinctive areas of research connect, and how this pertains to the complexity of education settings. Our goal is to understand findings from the literature and consider the implications for educational practice and research, with an eye to how mindfulness can be supportive to learners' creativity. This thematic review and qualitative analysis of extant literature identifies four themes that speak to the connection between mindfulness and creativity. There is solid evidence to show a generally beneficial and supportive relationship, in that practicing mindfulness can support creativity—but many factors affect this and there are a range of considerations for practice. This article reflects on the key findings of scholarly work on the mindfulness-creativity relationship with interpretative discussion and implications for educational research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DESIGN thinking, CREATIVE ability, CURRICULUM planning, ACADEMIC motivation, and SCHOOL environment

The problems educators face in professional practice are complex, varied, and difficult to address. These issues range across teaching and learning topics, to social or community issues, classroom climate issues and countless others. Such problems are multifaceted, cross-disciplinary, human-centered, and rarely solved through simple or linear solutions. Grappling with them requires educators to think creatively about educational problems of practice. But given the challenges and expectations facing teachers, creativity is often seen as leisure in teaching practice. While creativity is considered a core 21st century thinking skill, many people are hesitant to self-identify as “creative,” or are uncomfortable with intellectual risk-taking and open-endedness. We suggest that design thinking may provide an accessible structure for teachers and teacher educators to think creatively in dealing with educational problems of practice. We examine a qualitative study of a graduate teaching course framed around using design thinking to creatively approach educational problems of practice. We discuss thematic takeaways that teachers experienced in learning about and using design thinking skills to approach educational problems of practice. Implications suggest that design thinking skills may provide habits of mind that benefit teachers in creative problem navigating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CREATIVE teaching, PSYCHOLOGY of teachers, THOUGHT & thinking, BELIEF & doubt, and DIVERGENT thinking

Although discussions of thinking skills often revolve around students and learners, it is equally important to consider habits of mind and thinking skills for successful and creative teachers. Teachers are primary mediators of thinking and learning for their students, and understanding how excellent teachers function and use thinking skills is an important, albeit often underserved, area of research. Amid the expansion of research and discussion around thinking skills in general, one approach that has garnered interest in recent years is the idea of “transdisciplinary” thinking—which entails effective approaches to thinking and working, that cut across disciplinary boundaries. Existing research has shown that the most successful creative thinkers in the sciences tend to use a set of meta-level cognitive “transdisciplinary” skills. While others have suggested this transdisciplinary skill set as a framework for teaching, it has not yet been formally studied with regard to teachers, particularly those deemed as “effective” or “creative”. This article discusses a qualitative study that investigated the use of seven transdisciplinary thinking skills among highly accomplished and nationally award winning teachers. National teacher of the year award winners and finalists were interviewed with regard to their use of transdisciplinary thinking skills in their teaching beliefs and practices. Results exemplify how such skills are used by such effective, creative teachers in a diverse range of ways, with broader implications for future study and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]