Promoting Creativity in the Kitchen: Digital Lessons from the Learning Environment

Creativity and learning are heightened when individuals are exposed to problem-solving activity (Y. Cho, Chung, Choi, Sea, & Baek, 2013); however, while creativity has historically been promoted in schools, educationalists experience difficulty in integrating it meaningfully to the curriculum (Y. Cho etal., 2013). This is relevant in terms of how students learn culinary food skills in the classroom, where it is necessary for students to generate solutions to difficulties during food preparation and in transferring this learning to the home environment. The challenge for educators is tailoring student creativity to a learning environment which is resource led, directed by a defined curriculum and influenced by the need to meet learning styles of today's digital natives (M. Prensky, 2001). Therefore, this research investigates students' perceived impact of podcasting on food skills development in the context of Home Economics at secondary level. The findings reported within this paper represent a component part of a larger research study exploring the impact of podcasting on practical cooking skills development. The study comprised of a quasi-experiment using six test and control schools in Northern Ireland. In contrast to full cookery demonstrations, podcasting demonstration focuses on individual basic skills and encourages individuals to transfer learning by grouping individual skills to create nutritious meals. Eighteen student focus groups within the six test schools, ages 11-14 were identified to provide their perceptions of podcasting as a learning resource. Qualitative results suggest that students maximized food skills development using this technology, and developed skills through interpretive and integrative creativity.