INTEGRATING CREATIVE PLAY IN PRESCHOOL PRESERVICE TEACHER EDUCATION: ORCHESTRATING AESTHETIC INQUIRY FOR YOUNG CHILDREN

• Published in: International journal of organizational innovation 2017-04, Vol.9 (4), p.185-204
• Main Authors: Chou, Mei-Ju, Wang, Chuan-Hsing
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aesthetics; Children & youth; Cooperative learning; Creativity; Curricula; Early childhood education; Pedagogy; Preschool children; Preschool education; Preservice teachers; Student teachers; Teacher education; Teachers; Teaching methods
• ISSN: 1943-1813

There has been a growing awareness of the contribution of aesthetics to the pedagogical experience of young children. Aesthetics along with children's play design generated implicit and explicit messages that impact children's creativity. While discrete elements of creative thinking curriculum can be taught by educators, this study discusses ways we might begin to help pre-service teachers apply creative thinking lens to early learning play curriculum using an aesthetic-informed framework to critique creative play purposed for preservice teachers' progress for realizing designing children's play and their viewpoints for teaching. Given the nature of action research method, this study exerts observation, document analysis, and in-depth interview to collect and analyze data, and obtains the following conclusions: (1). Creative thinking model for designing children's play within aesthetic area benefits pre-service teachers in the following aspects: 1. Pre-service teachers can thereby realize the benefit of creative play on teaching in aesthetic area; 2. Pre-service teachers can learn how to employ creative thinking strategies within aesthetic area play and realize self-concept in teaching; 3. Pre-service teachers learn to relate children's living experiences as well as physical and mental development with curriculum design. (2). The difficulty for pre-service teachers before class lies in the unity and integrity of play curriculum; the one in class lies in how to provide children clear rules and classroom order management. (3). The creative thinking that pre-service teachers exert more often are excitation, association method, 6W Review, checklist technique, defect enumeration, and wish point listing method; 4. The creative thinking skills that pre-service teachers need teachers' guidance are habit change method, attribute enumeration method,