Instructional Design for Learner Creativity

Because creativity is so crucial to both individuals and societies, helping people become more creative is a task that educators, policy makers, and other stakeholders cannot ignore. Yet factors within the educational system challenge our ability to foster learner creativity. What can instructional designers and educational technologists do in helping to design educational environments that nurture learner creativity? That is the issue we address in this chapter. First, we briefly review the literature of creativity, both to describe some attributes that are important to nurture when fostering learner creativity and to identify common conditions for promoting creativity in learners. Next, we examine some examples of learning environments that foster learner creativity, particularly as related to helping people develop an integrated creative identity and not just the acquisition of intellectual or skill-based components of creative action. Third, we discuss implications from the research and examples, and offer recommendations for the practice of instructional design and technology, to help designers better address learner creativity through the instructional environments they create.