Presenter: Gulden Karakok, PhD, Associate Professor, School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Northern Colorado

Title:  “The Reason Why I Didn’t Like (Math) Before Is Because I Never Felt Creative” Fostering Creativity In STEM Courses

Abstract:  Educational efforts to prepare students for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) related jobs that include inquiry-oriented teaching and project-based curricula aim to enhance skills such as complex problem solving, critical thinking, and collaboration. One important skill, however, has not been receiving as much attention as others. The World Economic Forum noted that creativity at work is one of the top-three demanded skills, and that it “has jumped from 10th place to third place in just five years” (Schöning & Witcomb, 2017, para. 12). Even though numerous reports, policy and standards documents, and K-12 research studies emphasize the importance of creativity, ways in which we can explicitly enhance creativity of postsecondary students in STEM courses need further exploration. This talk will provide a brief summary of existing research on mathematical creativity at the K-16 level and introduce the work of the Creativity Research Group (creativityresearchgroup.com) at the tertiary level ranging from Calculus to upper division mathematics courses. As there are more than 100 definitions of mathematical creativity, I will discuss our research group’s theoretical perspective and methodological approaches to explore this research construct. The talk will include some empirical results from our studies developing and studying the usage of the Creativity-in-Progress Reflections (CPR) on Proving and Problem-Solving instruments in mathematics courses. Throughout the talk, the audience will actively engage in discussing the role of creativity in STEM courses and potential ways to design STEM-based educational research to explore it.

About the Series: The discipline-based education research (DBER) speaker series highlights significant research findings from our community and hosts prominent guest speakers engaged in STEM education research.  Talks generally take place on the third Friday of the month from 11:00 AM -12:00 PM.  

Note: A Zoom link will be sent out for virtual access after registration.