CES@

2024.3 Sydney

Welcome to the Leading Creative Schools conference

The world of education stands at a pivotal juncture, where the integration of creativity and artfulness in teaching and learning has never been more critical. It is through forums like these that we come together to share insights, challenge existing paradigms, and forge new pathways that willshape the minds of future generations.

This year’s conference boasted a dazzling array of presenters — renowned educators, visionary leaders, artists and pioneering researchers — who brought with them a wealth of knowledge, experiences, imagination and innovative practices from across the globe. Each session, workshop, and keynote was curated to inspire, challenge, and empower to lead creativity in schools and communities around the world.

Co-Organiser

CREATE Centre

Global Institute of Creative Thinking

The CREATE Centre acknowledges and celebrates that Story and the Arts are central to the knowing, doing, being and becoming of First Nations Australians. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and future and note that the land was never ceded.Always was, always will beAboriginal land.
We engage in three main areas: creativity research; the role of the arts in creative education, health and wellbeing; and how the arts transform all levels of education from early childhood through to higher education. Our researchers come from education, performance studies, medicine and health, literature, architecture, music, business, and the visual arts.
We acknowledge the central, intrinsic role creative pedagogy and the arts can and should play in the lives, learning and formal education of all people.

Agenda

Sessions

Jeff M. Poulin

Educationalist, Cultural Administrator, and Social Entrepreneur

Abstract:

How we describe our work, impacts how we do our work” is a statement offered by a veteran arts educator during a 2019 global study about the impacts of artistic, cultural, and creative learning. The findings proposed a new vernacular for describing the outcomes of arts education (Poulin 2019a) and the interconnectedness between public policies, educational pedagogies, and organizational practices(Poulin 2019b). It has long been understood that constructivist learning theories are far divorced from students’ conceptions of learning (Cakir 2008) and the expectations of educational systems (Khalaf and Zinn 2018). This presentation will share a new body of work, suggesting the use of “creative capabilities” such as creative thinking, cultural consciousness, connectivity, and citizenship to inform the pedagogical design, organizational practices, and public policies which are aimed at cultivating creativity in youth(Poulin 2023). The speaker will provide educators and school leaders with access to a new framework and tool to engage learners in critical self- reflection (Brookfield 1995) about their creativity – the outcomes of which have shown impacts in expanding an educator’s teaching practice, a school’s learning assessments, and student’s creative outcomes.

Eddie Woo

Mathematics Teacher & YouTube Educator

Abstract:

Creativity is just connecting things. [Creative people] connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things,” said the late Steve Jobs. In this session, we will explore and experience creativity by connecting ideas and concepts that you might not expect to be related. This will prime us as school leaders to synthesize new things that fit each of our school contexts. Put on your thinking cap and get ready to descend into the learning pit!

Bio:

Eddie Woo teaches mathematics at Cherrybrook Technology High School. His YouTube channel, Wootube, has more than 1.8 million subscribers and 160 million views of his everyday classroom lessons. Within the NSW Department of Education, he leads the Mathematics Growth Team, a statewide program of instructional leaders focused on engaging and evidence-based teaching practices. He is a Professor of Practice at the University of Sydney, working with preservice teachers in the Sydney School of Education & Social Work. In 2018, he was named Australia’s Local Hero in the Australian of the Year Awards and listed as one of the Top 10 teachers in the world by the Global Teacher Prize. He is an internationally published author, TED speaker, and TV host of ABC’s Teenage Boss and Channel 10’s Ultimate Classroom.

Pat Thomson

Professor of Education- The University of Nottingham and The University of South Australia

Zoe Tidemann

Drama Educator, Researcher, and Teaching Artist

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