Proposal Title
Cultivating a belonging in the science community through “Little-C” creativity
Session Type
Plenary
Room
Somerville House, room 3345
Start Date
14-7-2023 9:00 AM
End Date
14-7-2023 9:50 AM
Keywords
creativity, little-c, laboratories, expertise
Primary Threads
Teaching and Learning Science
Abstract
To feel that they belong in the science community, undergraduate students can start making small contributions to science. This involves creativity, which in turn requires extensive knowledge (Baer, 2015). Upper-year students are at a difficult stage for this; they know enough to understand the complexities of science, but not enough for most creative discoveries. Some might join a research group and contribute through their team. How can those without a research position exercise their scientific creativity?
One opportunity that can benefit all students is through undergraduate lab sessions. The creativity literature distinguishes between “Big-C” and “Little-C” creativity (Sawyer, 2012). Big-C is for knowledge that is new for everybody (globally), usually obtained through research, while Little-C creativity is new only for the person making the discovery and matches more closely the work in undergraduate courses and labs.
Possibilities for Little-C creativity in labs, based on the creativity literature, include: working with ill-defined questions to do “problem-finding” in addition to “problem-solving”; emphasising the slow and methodical search for “mini-insights” instead of seeking a big revelation; helping students build their knowledge in labs, instead of only confirming knowledge.
There is very little published literature on science creativity for undergraduates, so this plenary presentation and discussion with the audience can serve as a starting point for research. Hopefully, more student creativity will result in students feeling that they are an integral part of the world of science.
Bear, J. The Importance of Domain-Specific Expertise in Creativity. Roeper Review. Vol. 37(3), p. 165. 2015.
Sawyer, R.K. Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation. Oxford University Press. 2012.
Elements of Engagement
Audience members will work in small groups to determine potential Little-C creativity tasks that can be embedded in lab activities for their own field of science, along with more general methods to stimulate the creativity of undergraduate science students.
Audience members will also be invited to help identify gaps in our knowledge and understanding of science creativity at the undergraduate student level.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Cultivating a belonging in the science community through “Little-C” creativity
Somerville House, room 3345
To feel that they belong in the science community, undergraduate students can start making small contributions to science. This involves creativity, which in turn requires extensive knowledge (Baer, 2015). Upper-year students are at a difficult stage for this; they know enough to understand the complexities of science, but not enough for most creative discoveries. Some might join a research group and contribute through their team. How can those without a research position exercise their scientific creativity?
One opportunity that can benefit all students is through undergraduate lab sessions. The creativity literature distinguishes between “Big-C” and “Little-C” creativity (Sawyer, 2012). Big-C is for knowledge that is new for everybody (globally), usually obtained through research, while Little-C creativity is new only for the person making the discovery and matches more closely the work in undergraduate courses and labs.
Possibilities for Little-C creativity in labs, based on the creativity literature, include: working with ill-defined questions to do “problem-finding” in addition to “problem-solving”; emphasising the slow and methodical search for “mini-insights” instead of seeking a big revelation; helping students build their knowledge in labs, instead of only confirming knowledge.
There is very little published literature on science creativity for undergraduates, so this plenary presentation and discussion with the audience can serve as a starting point for research. Hopefully, more student creativity will result in students feeling that they are an integral part of the world of science.
Bear, J. The Importance of Domain-Specific Expertise in Creativity. Roeper Review. Vol. 37(3), p. 165. 2015.
Sawyer, R.K. Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation. Oxford University Press. 2012.