ABSTRACT
There is an assumption that we are all creative. However, as Sir Ken Robinson (2006) points out: ‘We have been educated out of our creativity!’ If schools kill children’s creativity, then how will they reach their full potential? This research outlines the benefits and challenges experienced by Australian primary pre-service teachers while employing a sustainable innovative STEAM model approach that has the potential to enrich their understanding of 21st-century critical and creative skills and the reflective process. STEAM education is an interdisciplinary global approach to learning that incorporates Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics through inquiry-based learning, dialogue and critical understanding. STEAM education works best when art and design are at the heart of learning. Through the arts, learners find new ways to interpret and communicate ideas in traditional, current and emerging forms using digital technologies to help them make better sense of their world. This research demonstrates how these primary pre-service teachers develop their own creative capacities and investigates strategies for collaborative learning through lived experiences so that they can reclaim their own sense of creativity. The findings of the study indicate that pre-service teachers feel more effective practitioners when they are allowed time and space to develop their own creativity and expressive practices. The author argues a need for critical and creative thinking methods to be explicitly taught during teacher education programs in Australia and suggests a variety of multimodal literacies could be applied equally to all assessment practices during their programs.
