Creativity in Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Education of Malaysia Public Universities

8/7/2019 Creativity in Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Education of Malaysia Public Universities

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CREATIVITY IN TEACHING AND LEARNINGIN THE FACULTY OF EDUCATION OFMALAYSIA PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES

Zainudin bin Abu BakarMeor Ibrahim bin Kamaruddin

Nor Fadilla bt Md AminMohd Alibin Ibrahim

Megat Aman Zahiri bin Megat ZakariaM. Al-Muz-Zammil bin YasinFaculty of EducationUniversity Teknologi Malaysia[ohor Bahru

[email protected],[email protected]

Abstract:;A

Every organization including schools and higher institution is emphasizing on theimportance of creativity and innovation. They are becoming the main focus of highereducation teaching and learning. The ability to produce creative and innovative studentshas become one of the criteria for success in learning. In other words, students areexpected to acquire those skills to compete in the challenging workplace. As such, astudy needs to be conducted to explore how creativity is incorporated in highereducation teaching and learning. Therefore this study was conducted to investigatecreativity possession and implementation among lecturers in the Facility ofEducation ofMalaysian public universities. Questionnaire was posted online to all lecturers in thefacu1tyof educations. About 123 lecturers responded to the questionnaire. The findingshows that the lecturer's creativity skills and implementation are at high level. Althoughthey claimed that they have applied creativity in their teaching, findings showed thatthey were not really aware of the creativity elements in their teaching. Severalsuggestions and recommendation are also provided.


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1.0 Introduction

Creativity is a mental process involving the generation ofnew ideas or concepts, or newassociations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts. It is also typicallyused to refer to the act of producing new ideas, approaches or actions for the variety ofpurposes. Plucker, Beghetto & Dow (2004)highlighted four myths about creativitywhich are essential in understanding creativity, people are born creative, creativity isintertwined with negative qualities, fuzzy and soft construct, and enhanced withingroup. In a practical sense they suggest creativityas:

Involves more than one person, Happens when people apply their abilitiesas part ofa helpful process, and Results in an identifiable product.

The same notion proposed by Berk (2005)where creativity is defined as the ability toproduce work that is original, but appropriate and useful. However, most psychologistsagree that there is no evidence that people are creative in every aspects but in aparticular area.. The main point should be noted here that creativity involves theoriginality and the willingness to invent something in order to 'Offer suggestions orsolutions.

When students are being creative they seems likely to question and challenge,make connections and see relationships, envision what might be, explore ideas andoptions, and reflect critically on ideas, actions, and outcomes. To encourage the above,we as educators and lecturers require changing the way we conduct the teachingespecially in the lecture rooms. Creativity is becoming a crucial part for students todevelop. All universities in Malaysia have emphasized on the acquisition of the softskills along with hard skills.This is to ensure the students master the required skills inpreparing them for their career.

2.0 Research Background

Ithas been said that humans have yet to achieve full creative potential primarily becausethey have not been properly nurtured. Without intention to challenge the effectivenessofour educational system, it is suggested that actionsneed tobe take toproduce creativestudents. Lecturers in this sense play an important role in nurturing creativity amongtheir students. Creative teachingmay be defined in two ways: firstly, teaching creativelyand secondly, teaching for creativity. Teaching creatively might be defined as usingimaginative approaches to make leaning more interesting, engaging, exciting andeffecting.Teaching for creativity might be best defined as using forms of teaching thatare intended to develop students own creativethinking and behaviour. Lecturers cannotdevelop the creative abilities of their students if their own creative abilities are notdiscovered and enhanced.

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Teaching with creativity and teaching for creativity include all characteristics ofgood teaching - including high motivation, high expectations, the ability tocommunicate and listen and the ability to interest, engage and inspire. Creative lecturersneed expertise in their particular fields and echniques that stimulate curiosity and raiseself-esteem and confidence in their students. They must recognise when encouragementis needed and confidence threatened. They must balance structured learning withopportunities for self-direction, and the management of groups while giving attention toindividuals. These are elements that we as a lecturer to possess in order for us to deliverour teaching effectively and at the same time encouraging the development ofindependencies among out students.

It is important to reduce or eliminate the factors which inhibit the creative activityin our teaching. The current educational system is assumed to affect the teaching andlearning approaches practiced by the lecturers. For many years we know that there areextraordinary high levels of prescription in relation to content and teaching method.Traditionally, the teaching is an activity of disseminating knowledge to the students.Lecturers in this sense are considered as primary source of knowledge where thestudents are give loads of information. As a result there are huge risks of de-skillinglecturers and encouraging conformity and passivity in some.

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The review of literature on creativity and achievement has revealed manyconflictingand inconclusive findings. This has been attributed to the different measuresused to assess creative and academic abilities and the environment being studied.Positive academic and creative ability relationships however were reported by severalstudies. Most of the findings agreed upon the relationship between the teachers(lecturers) teaching strategies on the performance of the students. Extensive studies canalsobe seen in literature where the lecturer practices are being the focus.Three elementsare at least identified as major factors to the performance of the lecturer's teachingability: the knowledge that the lecturer possesses, the skills that they have acquired, andthe ability to implement the knowledge and the skills that they are possessing in a realclassroom teaching.

Suryani (2006) argued that there are relatively strong relationship between theteachers' knowledge and the ability to perform in teaching. The same finding is alsoreported by other studies such as Tan 500 Yin (2002),Mohd Faizul (2003),and ThianShiewChu (2007).

Taking teaching creativity in a reciprocal manner, this study was thereforeintended to address the levels of lecturer's knowledge and skills related not just to theirrespective fields but also the ability to respond to the requirement of transmittingvarious kinds of skills to the students. The measurement of lecturer's knowledge andskillslevel are crucial to the understanding of their actual practices in teaching.

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3.0 Research Questions ;;

Based on the objectives, three research questions were developed to address and toguide the research activity:a. What are the levels ofknowledge on creativity ofthe lecturers?b. What are the levels ofcreativity skills of the lecturers?c. How far the creativity strategies being used in the lecturers teaching?

4.0 MethodologyThe discussion of this part is related to the methodology that was used in this study andhow the research is been conducted. It is followed by explaining the respondents of thestudy and how they were selected. Research instrument was also discussed in order toexplain what types of data collectionwas used. The process of data collectionwas alsodiscussed. Later in this section the data analysis procedure was elaborated.

When undertaking any investigation, a key issue is the choice of, appropriateparadigms and methods of inquiry to yield the highest quality data obtainable withinthe research context. When the topic is as sensitive as that of the personal teachingpractices in the classroom by the lecturers, the research styles and methods adoptedshould be those most likely to provide insight into their actual practices, whilst beingunobtrusive.

This study was an exploratory one and descriptive in nature. It was set out toexamine and analyse the actual practices of the lecturer's daily teaching at the faculty.The aims and the nature of the research questions, to large extent, influenced thedecision to use two types of data: the quantitative and the qualitative. These two typesof data could compliment and supplement one another (Crossley and Vulliamy, 1997),and provide more information relevant to the study. Blease and Bryman (1986)arguedfor the combinationofboth as:Not only m ay the two be m utua lly enhancing, but sensitive m erger m ay provide a m orec om plete p ictu re, w hich m ig ht b e m ore s atis fyin g a nd a ttr activ e to a ca demic s a nd p olic yma ke rs a lik e ( p . 167).By combining different types of data, it can also overcome the weaknesses of

having a single data. The current study was therefore predicted upon the belief that it isrelevant and appropriate to draw upon both data in the exploration of the personalpractices,which involves both' quantity' and' quality' issues.

Due to time constraints however, this research used a single ways of datacollection procedure using questionnaire as the instrument. Online questionnaire wasused to collectthe data. The questionnaire collectedboth the quantitative and qualitativedata. There were three sections in the questionnaire asking three different information

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such as biographical information (SectionI), views on creativity (Section2), and generalinformation related to teaching and learning (Section 3). As Van Maanen (1988)indicates, quantitative measures are more concerned with frequency than meaning, thequalitative data is likely to extend the scope of the study and yield more robust data.

The population of the study was the academic staff of the Faculty ofEducation inthe Malaysian public universities. They were selected based on the availability of emailaddress which was obtained from the respective staff email directory. Electronic mailwas used to utilize the time limitation that the researchers have. Around one thousandemailaddresses were identified and emailswere sent out based on the registered email.

Questionnaire was used as a soleinstrument to gather the data. There were threesections in the questionnaire asking three different information such as biographicalinformation (Section I), views on creativity (Section2), and general information relatedto teaching and learning (Section3). Section 2 and 3 were about information related tothe respondent's personal teaching practices which was asked quantitatively andqualitatively.

Online procedure was used in order to gather the responses from therespondents swiftly. The questionnaire was sent out based on the registered email fromthe staff email directory of the respective university.

Responses from questionnaire were analysed by using Statistical Packages forSocialSciences (SPSS).The data was the edited, coded and analysed. On the other hand,the qualitative data was used to justify the quantitative responses from the respondents.Although the data was analysed separately, but in explaining the level of the staffcreativity the triangulation of the data becomes crucial. The comments from therespondents were used to verify the data provided in the questionnaire. This had beendone in order to answer the research questions. The analyses used were mean andpercentage.

5.0 Data Analysis and Research Findings

The data shows that a number of 123 respondents responded to the questionnaire. Thelow rate responding was probably due to the fact that the study was conducted duringsemester break. The two weeks given may be insufficient to get a high responds. Fromverbal discussion however it was found that majority of the lecturers were eitheroutstation or on leave. Table 1 below shows that male lecturer responded more thanfemale lecturer (57.7%male lecturer and 32.5%female lecturer). Whereas around 9.8%.decided not to provides their gender status.

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Table 1: Gender DistributionValid Cumulative

Frequency Percent Percent PercentValid Male 71 57.7 64.0 64.0

Female 40 32.5 36.0 100.0Total 111 90.2 100.0

Missing 99 12 9.8Total 123 100.0

5.1Creativity Skills

The results show that the creativity skills among lecturers were high (mean score 4.11).This implies that lecturers possessed sufficient creativity skills which enable them toperform creatively in their teaching. Out of the 16skillsmeasured, it was found that skill2 recorded the highest mean of 4.63. In specific, most of the lecturers were "eager toknow or learn something" to improve their teaching. The lowest mean score was forSkill 16 (mean 3.63). Quite interesting, the results also showed that majority of thelecturers were" flexible" in terms of decisionmaking process. Although th

Table 2:Mean score for all the Creativity Skills

Skills N MeanStd.

DeviationSkill 1 116

~~115114115114115114114115115114115115116'1 \B i J ' f 3 :

4.27-.044.i14.044.193.974.214.134.024.034.404.213.844.16~tlifl~

.651! l \ I . e :~.730.675.842.786.760.746.698.816.843.661.743.823.741E

Skill 3Skill 4Skill 5Skill 6Skill 7Skill 8Skill 9Skill 10Skill 11Skill 12Skill 13Skill 14Skill 15

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Table 3:Mean score for overall skills ofcreativityN Valid 116

Missing 7Mean 4.1182Std. Deviation .52073

5.2Creativity ImplementationThe level of creativity implementation among lecturers were recorded high with

a mean score of 4.22.This shows that the lecturers had used creativity in their teaching.Type 6 skill was the highest strategy implemented by the lecturers in the classroom.Getting the students involved in the teaching and learning process was the commonpractice among lecturers. However, it is interesting to report that although theinvolvement of the students in teaching and learning process was reportedly high, butthe flexibility of using various strategies was scored low (mean score 3.97).This findingseems to be contradicted to what was claimed by the lecturers regarding theimplementation of the student's involvement, which was not reflected in their flexibilityin selecting their teaching strategies. Table 4 and Table 5 reported the mean scores forevery implementation activity as well as the overall mean score for the creativityimplementation.

Table 4:Mean score for the implementation ofcreativity in teachingImnlemerrtatfon Mean

Type 1Type 2Type 3Type 4Type 5

4.174.144.174.254.26

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r

Table 5:The overall mean scorefor the implementation ofcreativity in teachingN Valid

MissingMean

Std. Deviation

1176

4.2159.56333

6.0 Discussion and RecommendationThe results shows that majority of the lecturer were .capable of teaching their

students creatively. The high score on both the skills and the implementations ofcreativity in teaching implies that they always applied creativity strategies in deliveringtheir lectures or other activities. Sincethe field ofexpertise were ranging from educationtomedicine, varieties ofteaching and learning are involved. The findings are in linewithprevious studies such as Suryani (2006),Tan 500Yin (2002),Mohd Faizal Firdaus (2003)and Thian Shiew Chu (2001)where the levels of knowledge and skills influence to thelecturer's teaching strategies in the classroom. Suryani (2006)for example argued thatthere are relatively strong relationship between the teacher's knowledge and the abilityto perform in teaching.

New EconomicModel for instance, emphasises the acquisition of not just the hardskillsbut soft skills by the student requires more constructive and active teaching andlearning process. Lecturers in this sense are requires to embark their teaching andlearning more creatively. Utilisation of Internet, Communication and Technology (ICT)in teaching and learning process is viewed to have a positive impact to the student'slearning.

This research however admitted of several set backs which in general affects thefindings. The used of online questionnaire for instance may need to be reviewed sincethere were possible manipulations occurred to the given information. This study isnevertheless has a potential to become a national scale project if the issues of teachingand learning processes is need to be reviewed. Thus it is recommended for future projectto focus on the s type of data collection to minimise the issues of subjectivities andmanipulation.

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~ ReferencesBerk,L.E. (2005).Infants, c hild re n a nd a do lescents. Boston:Allyn &Bacon.Blease, D. & Bryman, A. (1986). Research in schools and the case for methodological

integration. Quality & Quantity 20:157-168.Crossley, M.&Vulliamy, G. (1997).Qu alita tiv e R es ea rc h: Q u alita tiv e e du ca tio na l r esea rc h in

d eve lop ing coun tr ie s . NewYork:Garland.Mohd Faizul Firdaus. (2003). Persepsi Guru Terhadap Penguasaan Pengetahuan Isi

Kandungan Kemahiran BerfikirSecara KritisDan Kreatif Dalam Konteks PengajaranDan Pembelajaran. Projek Sarjana Muda (tidak diterbitkan). Universiti TeknologiMalaysia: Fakulti Pendidikan.

Plucker, J.A.,Beghetto, R.A.& Dow, G.T. (2004).Why isn't creativity more important toeducational psychologists? Potential pitfalls and future directions in creativityresearch. Edu ca tio na l Psychology, 39 (2),83 - 96.

Suryani Adam. (2006). Hubungan Antara Tahap Pengetahuan Tentang Teorikonstruktivisme Dengan Tahap Pengaplikasiannya Semasa latihan Mengajar. ProjekSarjana Muda (tidak diterbitkan). Universiti Teknologi Malaysia: Fakufti Pendidikan.

Tan 500 Yin. (2002).Pemahaman Guru Sains Kbsm Terhadap PengetahuanKemahiranBerfikir Secara Kritis Dan Kreatif (kbkk). Projek Sarjana (tidak diterbitkan).Universiti TeknologiMalaysia:Fakulti Pendidikan.

Thian Shiew Chu. (2007). Hubungan Pengetahuan Amali Sains Dengan Sikap Danpencapaian Sains Pelajar Tingkatan Dua. Projek Sarjana Muda (tidak diterbitkan).Universiti Teknologi Malaysia:Fakulti Pendidikan.

Van Maanen (1988). Tales of the field on w riting ethnography. Chicago: The University ofChicago Press.

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Creativity in Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Education of Malaysia Public Universities

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