The 5 Habits of Mind that form the foundations of this project come from a detailed piece of research commissioned by Creativity, Culture and Education and carried out by The Centre for Real World Learning at the University of Winchester. We will continue to collaborate with professors Bill Lucas and Guy Claxton and our colleagues in the Expansive Education Network on the future development and implementation of the project.

The innovative nature of the resource

Creative thinking sometimes suffers from getting tangled up in debates about the relative merits of traditional versus progressive education. This books argues that creativity belongs in both camps, that it is as much about developing discipline and persistence as it is about being inquisitive, collaborative and imaginative. Neither is creative thinking anti-knowledge. We need students who can understand the world through expertise in subject disciplines so that they can then change it for the better using creative thinking.

This book seeks to equip teachers and school leaders with a measured, practical and jargon-free guide to building a culture of creative thinking in classrooms and schools. Creative dispositions, the authors persuasively argue, are the tools needed by young people, in school, in the workplace and for living a good life. Once identified, they can be nurtured through deliberate practice. This book shows you how and provides some useful examples of schools, like ours, where it's being done.

The impact on learning and the work of the teacher in the classroom, to what extent and in which areas

Lucas and Spencer identify the steps needed by schools and teachers in order to establish an environment in which creative thinking can flourish. Creative thinking is not an alternative to subjects or disciplinary knowledge.

This is not a zero sum game. We can have classrooms and schools in which young people develop a zest for mathematics and enhance their tolerance of uncertainty.

How the title supports or enhances the everyday life or work of teachers, pupils or schools

Teachers need to know that they are not on their own, that other teachers in other schools are taking the practical steps necessary to build their students' creative capabilities. This book is just such a resource.

In our school, for example, we have built a set of pedagogical approaches designed to identify, value, enhance and reward what we call the Tallis Habits. By developing a shared language with which to describe creativity we can encourage students to strengthen them through deliberate practice. The glossary of strategies at the end of the book, not dissimilar from our own Habits pedagogy, is an invaluable reminder of how easy it is to blend disciplinary understanding and dispositional growth. 

Teachers who have become confused about children's entitlement to creative thinking and opportunities should find a clear explanation as to how they underpin a broad, rigorous, sustainable and lasting education.

Cost-effectiveness in terms of educational aims and results - not just price

Teachers are most effective when they practice their craft, reflect on their work and fine-tune their techniques. This book provides the tools and encouragement for them to strengthen their own creative dispositions with reference to some key research in the field. All teachers will discover simple and cost-effective strategies for tweaking their practice so that students develop stronger creative and critical thinking skills.

While English schools have recently been distracted by accountability measures which undermine these vital dispositions, the approach described in this book will enable teachers to review and adjust their approach.  

School leaders will also find much to inspire them. Building a culture of enquiry can be done by enabling teachers to become researchers of their own practice. The best CPD, argue the authors, can be achieved in house with an action research approach that models creative and critical thinking. Imagine a whole school engaged in scholarly enquiry. This book is just what you need to get started or, if you've already begun your journey, to strengthen your resolve.

Rooty Hill continues working on teaching, learning and assessing creativity using its Creative Inquiry Cycle to program the five core creative habits identified in the Centre for Real-World Learning's five-dimensional model of creativity - imaginative, inquisitive, persistent, disciplined and collaborative. In 2017, the school has developed tools and lesson designs to build the capacity for creativity across all subjects, with all teachers and all students. The impact on student agency over learning was recognised as a major innovation by the Expansive Education Network in the UK, and an upcoming publication on teaching capabilities and dispositions authored by Professors Bill Lucas and Ellen Spencer will include the school's work on self-assessment of capabilities using the school's online platform.

The Educator, Innovative Schools 2017, Australia.

The innovative nature of the resource

In almost every conversation about economy and education in 21^st century, the conversation suggests that the capability of employees, entrepreneurs and students to be creative is critical. The OECD agrees and will be testing the creative problem solving skills of 15 year olds as part of its internal PISA testing in the next few years.

Until this book, many schools and systems argued that students could only be creative in the Arts, defining creativity as a discipline-limited capability. This book with its academic coding of the dispositions and sub-dispositions of creativity, recognises that creativity occurs as a higher order capability in all disciplines, providing a close alignment with the Anderson and Krathwahl version of Bloom's taxonomy which argued that to create new ideas is closely linked to the ways experts work. The book also explains how the explicit skills of each disposition and sub-disposition can be taught across and within subjects, providing a breakthrough in teaching and assessing creative thinking that is genuinely innovative.



The impact on learning and the work of the teacher in the classroom, to what extent and in which areas

All lessons at Rooty Hill HS are designed using the work of John Hattie focused on establishing the learning intention (higher order thinking and learning focus) and the success criteria (how students demonstrate and show their understanding of the learning intention, content and capabilities of each lesson). Critical to this work in 2015-2017 has been embedding the Australian ACARA capabilities which include critical and creative thinking. All lessons scaffold the content through capabilities (eg summarising a text for literacy, understanding a graph for numeracy and creating a website for ICT). Underpinning all of these is a focus on creative and critical thinking - which is critical in secondary education - students cannot understand or comprehend if they cannot think and make their own meaning.

The value of the book is that it helps inexperienced teachers to understand the five dispositions and 15 sub-dispositions and assists more expert teachers to consider the subject based applications of the @RHHS Creativity Wheel.







As a result of working with Professor Lucas in the development of our school's ideas, the school was featured in the prestigious Australian Learning Lecture series in 2017 and the teacher featured in the video was named as one of the 30 Rising Stars of Australian education by Educator Magazine. In addition, the principal will be presenting at ICSEI 2018 in Singapore in January on assessing the Creativity dispositions and sub-dispositions to measure student, staff and school progress on the Creativity capabilities over time. http://www.all-learning.org.au/resources/building-critical-skills-rooty-hill-high-school



How the title supports or enhances the everyday life or work of teachers, pupils or schools

The place of teaching capabilities and dispositions, with the exception of literacy and numeracy, has been highly contested, especially in secondary schools where content-heavy curriculum dominates. This book shows how a capability driven curriculum can scaffold the teaching of concepts and content. Across the everyday work done at Rooty Hill HS, there has been a thoughtful redesign of learning tools and activities to develop the skills of students in accessing the content of each course.

The result has been a significant improvement for the majority of students in their progress as learners as evidenced by the better performance in assessment tasks which, unlike content-focused teaching, require students to use their skills and capabilities to make meaning of the tasks they are to complete. Whether they are asked to discuss, design or determine, their understanding of the dimensions of capabilities, including creative thinking, has been critical to their improvement.



Cost-effectiveness in terms of educational aims and results - not just price

The decision the school took in 2015 to spend three years developing a capability driven curriculum, with a very strong focus on creativity, creative thinking and critical thinking, in addition to more traditional capabilities has required deep professional learning, the redesign of all teaching and learning programs in every course in Years 7 - 12 and the development of My Learning Hub, an individualised online learning portfolio onto which students upload evidence of their achievement of each capability against the ACARA benchmarks and then s end them to be validated, usually by a teacher. It has also required a deep professional conversation about the assessment of capabilities, including creativity.

This work was done as one of the three strategic directions of our school plan and our strategic purpose was to deliver our overall purpose through the development and implementation of high quality creative, digital, capability driven curriculum, teaching and learning, and assessment designed to increase the learning trajectory of each student. 60-80% of our students start secondary education below grade average so doing more of the same would not work.

There was a cost to this work in terms of providing opportunities for professional learning, individual support through in-house consultancy and teacher mentors - all of which we would have done to achieve any of the performance measures we set for the school plan.

The effectiveness of our investment in this work is clear with student learning trajectories, especially for “middle students”, showing growth above the “Hattie” 9 month growth per year average. The effectiveness of the strategy for staff is that the focus on creativity and capabilities is now owned by teachers and the use of the “higher order verbs” in lesson design and delivery has created observable shifts, as noted by UNSW research underway in the school. The effectiveness of the strategy for the school was recognised in both 2016 and 2017 when the school was named in the 40 Most innovative schools in Australia by Educator Magazine.



The school will continue to use this book and its underpinning research in the new 2018-2020 plan as we explore signature pedagogies more closely and move to measure our creativity as one of the key performance measures of the new school plan.

This is one of a series of planned books on the theme -˜The Pedagogy for a Changing World'. The authors aim to provide primary and secondary teachers and school leaders with practical suggestions on how to develop learners' -˜key capabilities'. This book focuses on creative thinking with future subjects including developing tenacity and curiosity.

This is a very welcome and timely book. Creative thinking is likely to feature in the 2021 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests, run by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The authors, based in the Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester, are well placed to discuss the subject. Bill Lucas co-chairs the OECD's advisory group charged with drawing up a model to define creativity and to explore the feasibility of a creativity assessment. If this goes ahead and current trends continue, the book should hold relevance in Wales given the poor performance of its students in PISA over recent years. A few schools in Wales feature among those from eleven other countries currently undertaking research for the OECD to find out more about the thorny question of assessing creativity. 

The book is organised into seven chapters. The first three chapters introduce the concept of creative thinking and teaching for capability. The authors see creativity as a matter of nurturing five capabilities or habits of mind: being inquisitive, persistent, collaborative, disciplined and imaginative. Each of these is broken down further into sub-habits. Persistence, for example, includes tolerating uncertainty, sticking with difficulty and daring to be different. In a field characterised by complex terminology, the refreshing simplicity of language makes the book very readable.

This is not to suggest that the book is superficial. Appropriate academic references are provided and the contributions of various researchers noted. The authors particularly draw on the work of Lee Shulman in setting out teaching and learning methods (-˜signature pedagogies') which they regard as the unique DNA of creative thinking. These include problem-based learning, where teachers use real-world problems and rigorous enquiry to enable learners to conduct research and apply their knowledge and skills to develop potential solutions. Chapters 4 to 7 provide extended examples of how schools have embedded creative thinking across and beyond the curriculum, including engaging parents, arranging work placements, school trips and the professional development of staff. The case studies will appeal to teachers and school leaders eager to read about examples of how the teaching of creative thinking works in practice. The A-Z of teaching and learning methods for developing creative thinkers, which features in the appendix, is also likely to prove popular. An index would also have been beneficial.

Chapter 7 is particularly helpful in addressing some of the common doubts and criticisms associated with the teaching of creative thinking. Curriculum constraints, tight budgets, examination pressures and initiative fatigue are familiar cries. The authors respond well to these and present a convincing argument for schools to take creative thinking more seriously. They gently challenge widely held preconceptions e.g. -˜school inspectors won't be interested' and -˜It's another one of those fads that will be forgotten when the pressure mounts', leaving the reader reassured and in a reflective, upbeat mood. The authors are essentially challenging readers to think about the purpose and values of education. This is topical given the recent UK parliamentary inquiry on the subject and, in Wales, Graham Donaldson's vision for creativity to be central to young people's experience at school. Teachers in Wales who now face the challenge of implementing the renaissance of creativity in the new curriculum would be well advised to dip into this book as a starting point.

I really like this book, especially the way the authors have set out their working models. Including: -˜The Creativity Wheel' and 'Tallis Habits Pedagogy Wheel' and the four step process of cultivating capabilities. This book is a great contribution to modern education. Creative Thinking is the way forward. I can't wait for the second edition.

Teaching Creative Thinking offers a beacon of light over a hitherto misty landscape as Bill Lucas and Ellen Spencer, of the Centre for Real-World Learning, share their expertise on a pedagogical niche that teachers have sought for years yet no one has ever so finely articulated.

The book opens with a review of related literature and a summary of key research findings, and this is followed up with an in-depth exploration of pedagogies for developing critical and creative thinking. The authors view the teaching of creative thinking as a means of ensuring that the learner will become imaginative, inquisitive, persistent, collaborative and disciplined. The core of Teaching Creative Thinking considers these five key capabilities and how they can be nurtured by an effective teaching framework. The authors offer useful suggestions for teaching approaches, learning strategies, practical activities and stimulating assignment material that can help learners acquire the capabilities of creative thinking and form the foundation of meaningful life skills.



Teaching Creative Thinking concludes appropriately with an offering of invaluable case study examples as well as an examination of creative thinking as applied to leadership skills, professional development, effective assessment methodology and wider community involvement.

'Teaching Creative Thinking: Developing Learners Who Generate Ideas And Can Think Critically' by Bill Lucas (Director of the Centre for Real-World Learning) and Ellen Spencer (Senior Researcher at the Centre for Real-World Learning) is an action-oriented and research-led instructional study that is packed from cover to cover with examples and case studies of successful practice, and pitfalls to avoid. 'Teaching Creative Thinking' deftly explores the ways in which teachers can help learners to cultivate the dispositions which evidence suggests are going to be valuable to them both at school and in later life. Creative thinking is original, purposeful and valuable. In many ways, creative thinking is a social activity and it usually takes place in response to an issue or problem facing an individual or group. Successful students value knowledge and skills at the same time as understanding the importance of developing their capabilities as learners in every lesson they experience. Exceptionally well written and thoroughly 'user friendly' in organization and presentation, 'Teaching Creative Thinking' is unreservedly recommended for professional, school district, college and university library Teacher Education reference collections and supplemental studies reading lists. It should be noted for education students, classroom teachers, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that "Teaching Creative Thinking" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $15.99). 

It is often easy to forget that one of the most important jobs in a society is the role of a teacher. They are the ones who impart knowledge, understanding and thinking into young minds, bringing learning to life, creating passions and interests into individuals who will thrive to undertake other important roles as doctors, carers, scientists, or roles that are yet to be imagined and created. For such a future, being able to creatively think about challenges and situations goes beyond learning the narrow curriculum and the knowledge gained from within. Although being able to successfully navigate through exam papers and receive good grades is vital for the individual student, being able to navigate through the further challenges that life will throw at them is even more crucial. Having the capability to develop creative thinking is becoming more necessary, helping the individual to synthesise, analyse and contextualise life experiences.

In their book, “Teaching Creative Thinking - Developing learners who generate ideas and can think critically”, Bill Lucas and Ellen Spencer have brought together creativity and creative thinking into five habits of mind (inquisitive, persistent, collaborative, disciplined and imaginative) which should be learned at school. Accompanied by activities within the book, the culture of a school and its community can be taught through the co-curriculum, alongside the more traditional curriculum areas.

Exploring pedagogies and teaching and learning methods that are most likely to cultivate students to become creative thinkers, Lucas and Spencer guide the reader through five inter-connected pedagogies to help plan lessons to build in critical thinking. Offering suggestions for starting out, the book guides teachers with some fantastic starter ideas - many new and familiar activities - encouraging students to play with imagination, explore possibilities and use intuition (to name just a few of the many sub-habits advocated throughout). Beyond the initial explorations, the authors then encourage schools to go deeper, offering extended ideas including mind-mapping, Socratic seminars, and also encouraging co-curricular experiences to extend creative thinking. Crucially, case studies are offered, showcasing how other schools have adopted some of the ideas and pedagogies articulated through the book, proving key pointers for schools wishing to develop their creative thinking opportunities further.

Fundamentally, Lucas and Spencer grapple with accountability (assessment) monster, that often holds a school back in developing such the crucial creative thinking philosophy, as some hold that assessing creative thinking is a bit too close to assessing personality. Yet the process of assessing requires schools to think fundamentally about the habits advocated throughout the book. It is equally vital that any form of assessment does not consume time or bureaucracy beyond the demands already expected on teachers, but the real-time and manageable collection of activities suggested can easily be planned within the lesson structure, offering feedback, guidance for next steps, and placing the student at the heart of the process.



Finally, the book draws together barriers which can often be faced when such a culture shift is suggested within a school community. The authors offer considered responses to typical resistance, highlighting the importance of creative thinking and integrating capabilities into the curriculum.

Click here to read the review on UKEdChat.

The global scope of this clear, practical guide makes it suitable for all teachers.

It shouldn't be controversial to assert that our children should learn both subject knowledge and skills at school, but, sadly, these are contentious times.

Bill Lucas and Ellen Spencer have delivered an incredibly clear and practical handbook for all those in education, but most importantly for teachers. This book is a veritable pedagogical treasure trove for those who want children to think creatively and who appreciate that this is a skill that can be taught.

Creative thinking is set to be the focus of the 2021 Pisa test, which is not, in itself, any reason for us to develop a(nother) new curriculum. However, Lucas and Spencer's research is influencing international curriculum and assessment. Even though we can feel our world shrinking post-Brexit, now is as seminal a moment as any to ensure our children can compete across any borders. The research cited is unapologetically international. This is about world-class teaching and learning, not a curriculum cemented into any one nation.

The division between subject knowledge and skills is a false one. Lucas and Spencer make this clear throughout, which tells you something about the climate in education.

Structurally, Teaching Creative Thinking is methodical. It opens with a polemical assessment of where education has found itself, how the role of schools is changing and why cultivating capabilities within young people is so important.

This is reinforced in the following section, where a research-flavoured potted history of creative thinking is presented, as is exposition as to why teaching this capability matters.

To be fair, the first act of the book did feel a little like Lucas and Spencer preaching to the converted. However, it should also shore up those more sceptical of anything other than ramming facts into compliant children.

Their second act is a patient and thorough guide to how these capabilities can be coached and grown in all learners. Chunking more complex ideas into small chapters and sections will enable the busiest or tired teacher to absorb immense ideas in one bite. They blend effective historical research with its more contemporaneous counterpart, to provide a starting point for teachers. The examples provided throughout this middle section of the book are taken from different countries, different phases and different subjects, but they use the hook and lure of the lesson starter, because they grab learners' attention. 

Examples and activities

Suggested activities, along with an explanation of how these activities develop children's creative thinking, are plentiful. Many of the activities outlined are have become well-used tools of the trade, trusted because I know they elicit brilliant reactions from learners. However, for some of these, I had long forgotten their pedagogical purpose and have perhaps used them only superficially in the classroom. This book enabled me to reflect more deeply on the why.

Established approaches such as philosophy for children and mantle of the expert are given as examples, as well as ways of phrasing better-quality questions, scaffolding group activities, developing resilience in learners and getting them to reflect on their own learning.

The range is expansive - everything from early years to further education - and there are plenty of new ideas that are presented so that one can dip in for inspiration or delve deep for greater inventiveness.

The final act provides short yet focused case studies from schools across the globe. Our Lady of Victories Primary in Keighley has only two pages for its “skills-led curriculum, sense of adventure and themed -˜wonder weeks'”. A chapter on Australia's Victoria Curriculum and Assessment Authority studies its “support for schools to develop signature pedagogies and innovative approaches to assessment of capabilities” in three pages. It left me wishing for a brave English local authority or multi-academy trust to do the same. Within each chapter is a summary of the key learning points.



Dry research does wonders for my insomnia. This is not that book. Lucas and Spencer have provided well-evidenced solutions for an important element of modern education. It is an immensely practical guide and is suitable for all teachers - except those for whom creativity is pedagogical indulgence and superfluous debauchery.

Being able to think creatively opens the door to opportunity and this book brings a welcome global breadth to this vital topic.

Teaching Creative Thinking is a timely book, both expert and readable, which makes an authoritative case for the relevance of creative thinking to schools today.

This book can teach us all how to think more effectively.

This commendable new book charts a course for developing employees who are both inquisitive and collaborative in the classroom and beyond.

A hugely welcome book, full of practical examples of pedagogy to cultivate knowledge, skills and capabilities, all the while recognising the power of professional learning communities within and between schools.

The work Bill Lucas and his team are doing in examining the place of capabilities in the curriculum - and, perhaps more importantly, how to assess capabilities - is of critical importance.

An intelligent, strongly evidenced and globally connected approach to developing creative thinkers in schools today.

There is a risk in today's data-driven educational environment that knowledge and skill are emphasised at the expense of creative thinking. Teaching Creative Thinking shows us that this need not be the case; creativity can be embedded in all schools.

This book resonates strongly with the profession because it puts forward a powerful argument for scaffolding curriculum content through capabilities.

If you still need convincing why your school or school system should prioritise critical thinking, look no further than Teaching Creative Thinking.

This powerful book gives a clear explanation of how and why creativity breathes life into the curriculum. Step away from the spreadsheets and read it!

A must-read for educators and other professionals who are passionate about encouraging children and young people's critical and creative thinking.

Bill Lucas and Ellen Spencer's Teaching Creative Thinking is a must-read for anyone teaching in Scotland.

Here is a book that creates the thrust for better learning in schools. It should be read by parents, teachers, learners, employers and policy-makers.

At last, an approach to developing creativity in schools which eschews the false dualism of knowledge and skills in favour of a holistic approach to cultivating young people's capabilities.

Lucas and Spencer provide the right mix of pedagogical and school practices, and real-life examples. Their framework will inspire a variety of readers, including teachers, school leaders and policy-makers.

This is a practical handbook, a resource to support far-reaching and high-impact developments, whose purpose is to raise standards and prepare young people for further learning and for life as high-functioning contributors to the workforce and to wider society.

Hats off to Bill Lucas and Ellen Spencer for Teaching Creative Thinking - a compelling case for capability-based education.

Creativity in the classroom will not happen by accident, and this book gives valuable insights into how schools can promote it.

Wholehearted thanks to Bill Lucas and Ellen Spencer for this hugely important book on the future of teaching.

Today's employers tell us they need character, resilience, problem-solving and creativity in potential employees. Let's just get on with cultivating and valuing creative thinking as this book seeks to do.

The thinking classroom is most likely to develop the thinking student - Bill Lucas and Ellen Spencer show how this is possible, now! Developing creative thinking requires deliberate planning and expertise. This book, richly embedded in the science of learning, shows the how.

This innovative book applies the idea of growth mindset to the cultivation of a vital contemporary capability - creative thinking - drawing on both evidence and promising practices.

A text for our time - taking us beyond current parochial notions of schooling, and demonstrating powerfully, with evidence, the centrality of creative thinking to the achievement of all students.

Lucas and Spencer do a masterful job of encompassing the entire field of creativity. They also nail policy and practice as most countries are questioning how to situate creativity in the world of learning. You will find the answers and much more in Teaching Creative Thinking.

This book is an important contribution to the conceptualisation, cultivation and assessment of a core capability - creative thinking.

The thinking here is shaping international curriculum and assessment, while offering practical tips and guidance to teachers. It's a powerful contribution to policy and practice. If you're interested in the future of education you'll find inspiration on every page.