Literature Review: The Explicit Teaching of Creative Skills in Education

Guy Stimson, BCS, MCS, Teach

guycalaf@mac.com

www.stimsoned.com

1. Introduction: A Problem of Practice and Perception

Creativity is frequently named as a vital 21st-century skill, necessary for navigating complex, dynamic futures (Robinson, 2009; OECD, 2019). Yet in secondary education, particularly in high-performing academic contexts, creativity often remains peripheral, inconsistently taught, and insufficiently assessed. This disconnect stems in part from a persistent myth: that creativity is innate, domain-specific, and unteachable (Craft, 2005; Sawyer, 2012). Recent research across psychology, education, and cognitive science challenges this assumption, showing that creativity is a multidimensional capability that can be explicitly taught, practised, and assessed through structured pedagogies. This review explores the theoretical, empirical, and pedagogical literature on the explicit teaching of creative skills, with particular emphasis on secondary settings, iterative design education, and classroom-based research documenting how creativity manifests and develops over time in students.

2. Theoretical Foundations: What Is Creativity?

At its core, creativity involves producing something that is both novel and appropriate within a given context (Runco & Jaeger, 2012). This definition provides a foundation for understanding creativity not as chaotic or random, but as constrained and purposeful, allowing it to be observed, scaffolded, and improved.

2.1 Cognitive and Process Models

Teresa Amabile’s (1996) Componential Theory of Creativity posits that creativity arises from three interacting components: domain-relevant skills (e.g., knowledge and technical proficiency), creativity-relevant processes (e.g., tolerance for ambiguity, divergent thinking), and intrinsic task motivation. Her work implies that teachers can foster creativity by targeting each of these components—especially through carefully designed learning environments. Similarly, disciplined improvisation (Sawyer, 2012) positions creativity as a process that balances spontaneity with structure. Drawing on jazz and theatre, Sawyer suggests that constraints enhance creativity and that classroom environments should allow for flexible exploration within defined parameters—principles echoed in project-based and design-thinking pedagogies.

2.2 Developmental Models

Beghetto and Kaufman’s (2009) Four-C Model expands the definition of creativity across levels:
• Mini-C: personal insight or internal creativity

• Little-C: everyday problem solving and expression

• Pro-C: expert-level professional creativity

• Big-C: historically significant creative contributions

This continuum has implications for teaching: students are not expected to achieve genius-level creativity, but instead to develop their everyday creative capacity. This domain is highly accessible to explicit teaching and practice.

3. Teaching Creativity Explicitly: Approaches and

Frameworks

Numerous educational models have emerged to support the explicit development of creative thinking skills.

3.1 Habits and Dispositions Frameworks

Lucas, Claxton, and Spencer (2013) propose the Five Creative Habits of Mind: inquisitive, Imaginative, persistent, disciplined, and collaborative. These habits have been embedded into curriculum design in the UK and Australia, offering teachers clear behaviours to observe and foster. Perkins, Tishman, and Ritchhart (2000) developed the Studio Thinking Framework—particularly relevant to art and design education—outlining eight studio habits such as “develop craft,” “engage and persist,” and “envision.” These dispositions make creativity visible and support assessment in both process and product.

3.2 Possibility Thinking

Anna Craft (2005) introduced the concept of possibility thinking—the “what if?” and “as if?” questioning that underpins imaginative thinking. Her studies with early childhood and primary teachers demonstrated that when teachers actively frame creative questioning as legitimate classroom behaviour, students expand the range of their ideas and feel more ownership over learning.

4. Empirical Research on Analysing and Teaching Students

Creativity

While much of the creativity literature is theoretical, several important studies provide empirical insight into how creativity can be taught and measured in real classrooms.

4.1 The CREATE Framework (Makel et al., 2016)

Makel and colleagues conducted a multi-year study testing the CREATE model (Creative Expression) across K–12 settings. Students were given open-ended prompts and assessed using Torrance-inspired rubrics evaluating fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. Teachers who received PD on teaching creativity showed a measurable increase in student creative output over time.

4.2 Designing for Empathy and Perspective-Taking (Carroll et al., 2010)

Stanford’s d.school research lab studied how design thinking processes affected middle and high school students’ creativity and empathy. Students participated in rapid ideation, prototyping, and iteration cycles. Findings suggested that students developed higher levels of user-centred thinking and problem identification—a hallmark of creative empathy. The iterative nature of the task, combined with explicit framing by educators, was key to success.

4.3 Longitudinal Studies in Art and Design Education (Winner et al., 2006)

Winner and Hetland’s Studio Thinking Project documented how high school visual arts students across multiple U.S. schools developed creativity over time. Through observation and interviews, they identified consistent patterns in how students were taught to reflect, revise, and envision. The study supported the idea that creative habits are cultivated through routine, structured practice—not inspiration alone.

5. Teaching Creativity in Secondary Classrooms: Challenges and Shifts

Despite this body of evidence, several barriers remain to creativity's explicit instruction in secondary settings:

• High-stakes assessment environments often prioritise accuracy, speed, and content mastery over exploration (Henriksen & Mishra, 2015).

• Teachers often lack shared language and practical tools for talking about and assessing creativity (Kleiman, 2008).

• Students—especially high-achieving ones—can become risk-averse, fearing failure in creative expression. However, these challenges are increasingly being met by framework-based approaches such as:

• Teaching for Understanding (Harvard Project Zero)

• Creative and Critical Thinking Capabilities within the Australian Curriculum

• Maker-centred learning and inquiry-based design units

6. A Practice-Based Approach: Toward a Model of Creative Fitness

Emerging frameworks like Creative Fitness build on this research by integrating key principles into micro-practice:• Creativity is broken down into discrete, observable domains (e.g., fluency, risk-taking, reflection, speed).

• Each domain is practised through short, playful, structured tasks embedded in lessons.

• Reflection and peer feedback are used to build metacognition and ownership.

• Over time, these skills transfer into more complex and autonomous creative outputs.

These principles align with Teaching for Impact (AITSL, 2022), which promotes clarity, feedback, and evidence-informed teaching strategies to maximise student outcomes.

7. Conclusion

The evidence is clear: creativity is not mysterious, nor exclusive—it is multifaceted, teachable, and observable. When educators use precise language, isolate creative behaviours, and create opportunities for deliberate practice, creativity becomes accessible to all students, not just the self-identified “creative types.” The challenge now lies in integrating these practices systemically and building teacher confidence to adopt them. Innovations like Creative Fitness represent a promising step toward this future: a model where creativity is trained, like strength or endurance, through intention, feedback, and daily reps.

References

Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context: Update to the social psychology of creativity. Westview Press.

Beghetto, R. A., & Kaufman, J. C. (2009). Teaching for creativity with disciplined improvisation. In R. A. Beghetto & J. C. Kaufman (Eds.), Nurturing creativity in the classroom (pp. 73–93). Cambridge University Press.

Carroll, M., Goldman, S., Britos, L., Koh, J., Royalty, A., & Hornstein, M. (2010). Destination, imagination and the fires within: Design thinking in a middle school classroom. International Journal of Art & Design Education, 29(1), 37–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1476-8070.2010.01632.x

Craft, A. (2005). Creativity in schools: Tensions and dilemmas. Routledge. Henriksen, D., & Mishra, P. (2015). We teach who we are: Creativity in the lives and practices of accomplished teachers. Teachers College Record, 117(7), 1–46.

Kaufman, J. C., & Beghetto, R. A. (2009). Beyond big and little: The four C model of creativity. Review of General Psychology, 13(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013688

Kleiman, P. (2008). Towards transformation: Conceptualising creativity in higher education. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 7(3), 209–224. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474022208094415

Lucas, B., Claxton, G., & Spencer, E. (2013). Progression in creativity: Developing new forms of assessment. OECD.Makel, M. C., Plucker, J. A., & Beghetto, R. A. (2016). Creativity research: Historical considerations and current trends. In J. C. Kaufman & J. Baer (Eds.), Creativity and reason in cognitive development (pp. 15–38). Cambridge University Press.

OECD. (2019). OECD learning compass 2030: A series of concept notes. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. https://www.oecd.org/education/2030-project/

Perkins, D., Tishman, S., Ritchhart, R., Donis, K., & Andrade, A. (2000). Intelligence in the wild: A dispositional view of intellectual traits. Educational Psychology Review, 12(3), 269–293. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009091413294

Robinson, K. (2009). The element: How finding your passion changes everything. Penguin Books.

Runco, M. A., & Jaeger, G. J. (2012). The standard definition of creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 24(1), 92–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2012.650092

Sawyer, R. K. (2012). Explaining creativity: The science of human innovation (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.

Winner, E., Hetland, L., Veenema, S., & Sheridan, K. (2006). Studio thinking: How visual arts teaching can promote disciplined habits of mind. Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School ofEducation.