Recent Work from the Creative Lab

BOOKS

Collaborative Creativity: Educating for Creative Development, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

(2020)

Collaborative creativity is a contemporary educational imperative. The complex social, economic and cultural challenges that lie before us require that creativity be a collaborative pursuit leveraging diversity and interconnectedness to maximize positive outcomes. They require more than creative individuals acting on their own. It requires a view forward to bring interconnected, varied and frequently distributed potential collaborators together to innovate for the benefit of others.

Although there is a desire to bring collaboration and creativity for innovation into mainstream educational practice or into the fabric of corporate culture there is a dire need to provide educators, teacher education programs and facilitators in diverse corporate and government cultures with contemporary research as well as concrete methods and ideas on how to operationalize this at the institutional level on the shop floor. This book is designed to address that need. This book is designed to be both a foundational teacher education textbook at graduate and undergraduate levels as well as an important reference book for corporate and governmental educator/facilitators.

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(Available in hard copy or ebook versions):

July 2020

Collaborative Creativity Idea Book for Educators: Activities, Tactics and Strategies for Building a Collaborative Culture of Creativity

by Robert Kelly, Stephanie Bartlett, Keith Christensen, Erin Quinn & Carla-Jayne Samuelson

This book is designed to accompany the Collaborative Creativity: Educating for Creative Development, Innovation and Entrepreneurship textbook by providing the educator and facilitator with innumerable progressive, accessible activities, tactics and strategies to create a collaborative culture of creativity in the educational or professional setting.

https://www.amazon.ca/Collaborative-Creativity-Idea-Book-Educators/dp/1550598457

Coming Soon

2023 – Creativity Development in Education: Enhancing Capacities for Innovation and Entrepreneurship – A comprehensive textbook on the multi-dimensional ecosystem of implementing creativity development its ongoing assessment in educational practice from early childhood to higher education.

2024 – Creativity in Higher Education – An examination of the design of educational practice across the discipline spectrum in higher education where creativity and innovation is a central rationale for educational practice.

2024 – Altruistic Innovation: Creativity for the Benefit of Others

Altruistic Innovation explores case studies of global initiatives where creativity and innovation are used for the benefit of others. Experience the altruistic passion of those applying creative practice to benefit others across diverse contexts with no expected monetary return.

Previously Published Books on Creativity in Educational Practice

Creative Development: Transforming Education through Design Thinking, Innovation and Invention (2016)

Spark continual creative growth for both learners and educators.

Creativity is a key ingredient for success in the knowledge economy of the 21st century, where skills such as collaboration, communication, and critical thinking are central. Most educators agree that encouraging creativity must become a central goal in the classroom, but they face an ongoing struggle to build and maintain an environment that promotes their students’ creative development.

In Creative Development: Transforming Education through Design Thinking, Innovation, and Invention, Robert Kelly equips educators with the theory, strategies, and tactics that allow creativity to flourish. Creative Development features voices from the field to showcase practical, real-life examples of successfully fostering creative development in education.

Topics include:

How to create an educational culture conducive to creative development.
Effective instructional design and assessment as creativity.
Bridging the gap between design thinking and design doing.
Teacher education and training for creative classrooms.
Key vocabulary and theory in the field of creativity

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Educating for Creativity: A Global Conversation (2012)

Bringing creativity into mainstream educational practice has become a mantra among educators. But what does creative practice in education really look like? Take a journey around the globe with educator and artist Robert Kelly to witness innovative creative practice in action, with examples from early childhood to post-secondary levels.

Through stories and real-life examples, discover the techniques of global leaders in creativity and design thinking, including India’s Riverside School, Denmark’s Kaospilots, and San Francisco’s Brightworks. Educating for Creativity provides a theoretical framework for creative practice and creative development alongside a practical exploration of how to make creativity in education work from pioneers in the field.

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Creative Expression, Creative Education: Creativity as a Primary Rationale for Education (2008)

The world is moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, with ideas replacing facts as the currency of the times. The old educational culture of standardization and convention must adapt to become a more balanced educational landscape that embraces a culture of creativity. The challenge is to equip learners with the ability to creatively and critically apply the vast stores of information now at their fingertips, thanks to the Internet and other technological advances.

Creative Expression, Creative Education is based on the premise that creativity should be a primary rationale for education. This collection of essays highlights the experiences of a wide community of creative producers who represent the energy of creative expression and creative education. Educators need to nurture an ongoing experience of creative engagement with diverse kinds of learning in students, and this book provides plenty of ideas for where to start.

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From the Artist’s Studio

Ongoing Recent Work – “Waiting for Jupiter” Series

“Waiting for Jupiter” is a series of eight painted works (in progress) based on the phenomenon of the emergence of Jupiter as the first light in the western sky as the long June days transition into night. Waiting for Jupiter is a metaphor for the expectation and anticipation of time and what is next against a backdrop of constant change. This series is a mystical and sometimes whimsical exploration of our day to day physical experience and our perception of what is and what is to be. These works share the common design elements of the artist’s handwriting, whale and/or boat motifs, water/sky/ horizon motifs and red edging, outlining and under painting. The following are the first 2 completed works in the series:

Waiting for Jupiter – Acrylic on canvas, 40″ x 60″ (101 cm x 152 cm).

Somewhere Beyond the Sea – Acrylic on canvas, 36″ x 48″ (91 cm x 122 cm).

Previous Works:

Minutia: The First Time I Heard the Sound of A Page Turning

An Installation comprised of 11 books of concrete poetry each titled after a word from the sentence fragment “The first time I heard the sound of a page turning.” The Book of The; The Book of First; The Book of Time; The book of I; The Book of Heard; Another Book of The; The Book of Sound; The Book of Of; The Book of A; The Book of Pages; and The Book of Turning. Canadian Exhibition venues for Minutia: The Maltwood Gallery – University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C.; The Nickle Galleries – University of Calgary, Calgary, AB; Gallery 1C03 – University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Manitoba; McIntosh Gallery – Western University, London, Ontario; and Dalhousie Art Gallery; Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Gallery 1C03 at the University of Winnipeg

Concept of Raven Series