Developing and sustaining creativity: Creative processes in Canadian junior college teachers

Current educational policy often aims to develop creativity in students but fails to address creativity in teachers. Similarly, research on teacher creativity has focused more on values and resources rather than on identifying the specific skills and processes that will provide teachers with the tools they need to develop their creative capacities. Consequently, using a dynamic componential model of creativity (Amabile & Pratt, 2016) this study sought to identify the processes and skills in which six junior college teachers engaged in order to sustain long-term, localized creativity. The results of a complementary qualitative analysis indicated that the participants engage in four interconnected processes: introspection to align values and practices; reification to select tasks, maximize collaboration and sell ideas; resistance to overcome obstacles; and confidence-building to slowly increase the scope and impact of projects over time. This study also presents specific implications for colleges wishing to foster creativity in teachers, namely the development of salesmanship, as well as institutional recognition and support for creative teaching.