'Can you show me?': Children demonstrating creativity through focus during STEM online learning

Kim Maslin, Karen Murcia and Susan Blackley
Curtin University, Australia

Understanding how children demonstrate creativity assists educators in designing learning experiences that foster this key competency. Frameworks such as the A-E of Children's Creativity assist in the analysis of children's creativity, presenting their creative thinking characteristics as five connected processes: agency, being curious, connection, daring, and experimenting. This study included observations of Year 1 children engaging in STEM activities delivered synchronously online by a leading Science Discovery Centre in Western Australia. The children, along with their parents, classroom teacher and the SDC facilitators also participated in a series of semi-structured interviews. Data analysis through the A-E of Children's Creativity framework illustrated how along with the five creativity processes, the children demonstrated a sixth process, focus. The children were seen expressing creativity through sustained periods of quiet concentration, along with conversations and collaboration often seen during STEM tasks. This article details the ways the children's focus manifested during the STEM online activities, and the strategies adopted by the facilitators to support them. By advancing our understanding of how children demonstrate their creativity online, these findings are valuable for researchers and educators seeking to provide meaningful learning opportunities for fostering creative thinking.
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Authors: Kimberly Maslin (corresponding author) is an experienced digital technologies educator, children's cyber safety author and sessional academic at Curtin University. Her research focuses on the topics of children's creativity, STEM education and online learning. Kim is a member of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9644-6274 Email: kimberly.maslin@curtin.edu.au Karen Murcia is a Professor in the School of Education at Curtin University. She has an established track record of research related to STEM education that has a particular focus on scientific literacy, digital technologies in education and children's creativity. Karen has worked extensively in school-based research, with strong industry links and partnerships. She works primarily with qualitative methods and specialises in video ethnography and multimodal data analysis. Karen is a Chief Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1900-2781 Email: karen.murcia@curtin.edu.au Associate Professor Susan Blackley researches and publishes in STEM education, digital pedagogies, teacher identity and digital portfolios. She is an active member of Australia's STEM community, with leadership roles that include inaugural Convenor of the AARE STEM Education Special Interest Group, and inaugural Chair of the HERDSA STEM Education Special Interest Group. Susan is a Curtin Fellow, a Senior HEA Fellow, HERDSA Fellow and Associate Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7399-207X Email: susan.blackley@curtin.edu.au Please cite as: Maslin, K., Murcia, K. & Blackley, S. (2024). 'Can you show me?': Children demonstrating creativity through focus during STEM online learning. Issues in Educational Research, 34(4), 1429-1450. http://www.iier.org.au/iier34/maslin.pdf