Accessing the Curricular Play of Critical and Creative Thinking

Authors

  • Margaret Macintyre Latta UBC Okanagan
  • Kelly Hanson Faculty of Education, UBCO
  • Karen Ragoonaden UBCO
  • Wendy Briggs School District 23
  • Tamalee Middleton School District 23

Abstract

A three-year collaborative research project in a K–6 elementary school is underway. The collaboration entails participating educators and their students exploring curricular enactment that embraces critical and creative thinking within its conduct. This article reveals whole-school efforts over Year One to build educators’ and students’ confidence to do so, sustaining such curricular practices. Chronicled as a case study, narrative inquiry fittingly unfolds the particularities encountered within the specifics of the case during Year One. Educators’ belief in the worthiness of curricular play, as well as concretely negotiating critical and creative thinking with their students, arises as a necessary issue to address in order to invest in the research intents over three years. The integral role of participants’ commitments to professional growth through curricular play and experimentation, actively seeking resources, entering wholly into curricular-making efforts, conversing sincerely with colleagues through inquiry conversations, and seeking organizational structures that support and strengthen curricular-making efforts, are found to be key to fostering the pedagogically oriented context needed to grow and sustain project intents.

Author Biographies

Margaret Macintyre Latta, UBC Okanagan

Professor & Director of Graduate Programs, Faculty of Education

Kelly Hanson, Faculty of Education, UBCO

Doctoral Student

Karen Ragoonaden, UBCO

Professional Development Programs & Summer Institute in Education

Wendy Briggs, School District 23

Educator

Tamalee Middleton, School District 23

Educator

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Published

2017-10-01

How to Cite

Macintyre Latta, M., Hanson, K., Ragoonaden, K., Briggs, W., & Middleton, T. (2017). Accessing the Curricular Play of Critical and Creative Thinking. Canadian Journal of Education/Revue Canadienne De l’éducation, 40(3), 191–218. Retrieved from https://journals.sfu.ca/cje/index.php/cje-rce/article/view/2509

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Articles