an investigation into vietnamese teachers

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AN INVESTIGATION INTO VIETNAMESE TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVES ON, AND EXPERIENCES IN, CREATIVE TEACHING OF CHEMISTRY IN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN VIETNAM

HUNG THANH NGUYEN PhD

2013

NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY Faculty of Health and Life Sciences

AN INVESTIGATION INTO VIETNAMESE TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVES ON, AND EXPERIENCES IN, CREATIVE TEACHING OF CHEMISTRY IN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN VIETNAM

HUNG THANH NGUYEN A thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Northumbria at Newcastle for the award of Doctor of Philosophy

2013

ABSTRACT This study aimed to understand teachers’ perspectives on creativity in the field of teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam. In particular, it looked into why chemistry teachers need creativity, what chemistry teachers can create, how chemistry teachers create what they create, and which factors influence chemistry teachers’ creativity in that context. There are some clear reasons why this study was conducted. Firstly, enhancing teachers’ creativity in teaching has been a major concern for the minister of education and training in Vietnam to call for improving the quality of teachers’ teaching. However, understandings of teachers’ creativity in teaching in different disciplines and at different levels of education in Vietnam have not been studied. Secondly, reviewing the literature in the field of creativity in education showed that teaching creatively (teachers’ creativity in teaching ) has not been given as much attention, and as a result, needs further study by researchers in comparison with studies on teaching for creativity (teaching with the aim of enhancing students’ creativity). This qualitative study has been constructed to be consistent with the assumptions of social constructivists and ideas from hermeneutic phenomenologists. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with seventeen participants who all have expertise in secondary chemistry teaching in Vietnam. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data and construct the themes for the findings of this study. My original contribution to knowledge is a preliminary understanding of teachers’ perspectives on creativity in teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam. This study revealed their reasons for teachers needing creativity in teaching. These illustrated that teaching creatively was considered part of successful teaching. It unfolded their ideas of different creative activities by teachers and the categories of their creative products that might be classified as little-c creativity. It explored the multiple phases of their creative processes, teachers’ knowledge, personalities that impacted on their potential to be creative, and types of environments for their creative potential to thrive. Contextual inhibitors were revealed as pressures of exams, prescribed curriculum, poor resources and a lack of knowledge about creativity. These findings could be useful for teachers, educational administrators, and mentors of student teachers in this field to improve the quality of teaching in Vietnam. It could also contribute to the understanding of teachers’ creativity in teaching in general. i

CONTENTS ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... i CONTENTS ...................................................................................................................... ii LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................... vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...........................................................................................viii DECLARATION ............................................................................................................. ix Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 1

1.1 What I Studied......................................................................................................... 2 1.2 Why I Studied ......................................................................................................... 4 1.2.1 The National Context ....................................................................................... 5 1.2.2 The International Context ................................................................................ 7 1.3 How I Studied ......................................................................................................... 8 1.1.1

Research Paradigm ...................................................................................... 9

1.1.2

Theoretical Framework ............................................................................. 11

1.4 What I Achieved ................................................................................................... 12 Chapter 2

EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT IN VIETNAM .......................................... 15

2.1

The Structure of the Education System in Vietnam ......................................... 15

2.2

Learning Chemistry .......................................................................................... 18

2.2.1

What Students Learn ................................................................................. 19

2.2.2

Why Students Learn .................................................................................. 23

2.3

Teaching Chemistry ......................................................................................... 25

2.3.1

Setting the Objectives ............................................................................... 26

2.3.2

Planning the Lesson .................................................................................. 29

2.3.3

Teaching the Lesson .................................................................................. 34

2.3.4

Evaluating the Lesson ............................................................................... 34

2.4

Initial and Regular Teacher Training ............................................................... 36 ii

2.5

A Summary of the Chapter ............................................................................... 38

Chapter 3 3.1

A LITERATURE REVIEW ON CREATIVITY ...................................... 39

Definition and Classification ............................................................................ 39

3.1.1

Definitions of Creativity ........................................................................... 39

3.1.2

Categories of Creativity ............................................................................ 43

3.2

The Components of Creativity ......................................................................... 45

3.2.1

Creative Product ........................................................................................ 45

3.2.2

Creative Process ........................................................................................ 47

3.2.3

Creative Person ......................................................................................... 55

3.2.4

Creative Environment ............................................................................... 64

3.3

A Summary of the Chapter ............................................................................... 67

Chapter 4

A LITERATURE REVIEW ON TEACHING CREATIVELY ............... 71

4.1

Creativity in Education ..................................................................................... 72

4.2

Teacher Knowledge and Its Development ....................................................... 74

4.2.1

Classifications of Teacher Knowledge...................................................... 75

4.2.2

Personal Practical Knowledge................................................................... 77

4.2.3

Subject Matter Knowledge and Pedagogical Content Knowledge ........... 80

4.2.4

Summary ................................................................................................... 86

4.3

Teaching as Performance ................................................................................. 87

4.4

Teacher Expertise ............................................................................................. 90

4.4.1

Teacher Expertise Development ............................................................... 90

4.4.2

Teacher Expertise Development and Teachers’ Creativity....................... 93

4.4.3

A Summary ............................................................................................... 95

4.5

Creative Teaching and Learning ...................................................................... 95

4.5.1

Teaching Creatively .................................................................................. 96

4.5.2

Teaching for Creativity ........................................................................... 104 iii

4.6

A Summary of the Chapter ............................................................................. 111

Chapter 5

RESEARCH DESIGN ............................................................................ 115

5.1

Research Aim ................................................................................................. 115

5.2

Research Paradigm ......................................................................................... 116

5.2.1

Social Constructionism ........................................................................... 118

5.2.2

Hermeneutic Phenomenological Approach............................................. 120

5.2.3

Axiology.................................................................................................. 124

5.3

Research Methods .......................................................................................... 128

5.3.1

The Method of Recruiting the Sample .................................................... 128

5.3.2

The Methods of Collecting Data ............................................................. 131

5.3.3

The Method of Analysing Data ............................................................... 134

Chapter 6

FINDINGS .............................................................................................. 143

6.1

Creativity as an Essential Part of Teaching .................................................... 143

6.2

Being Creative in All Stages of Teaching ...................................................... 148

6.2.1

Resetting the Lesson Objectives ............................................................. 149

6.2.2

Restructuring and Transforming the Lesson Content ............................. 152

6.2.3

Determining Appropriate Teaching Methods ......................................... 162

6.2.4

Improving and Creating Teaching Tools ................................................ 166

6.2.5

Teaching Flexibly, Improvisationally and Intuitively............................. 169

6.3

Multiple Phases of the Creative Process ........................................................ 174

6.4

Teachers’ knowledge and personalities and the impact on their potential to be

creative. ..................................................................................................................... 179 6.4.1

Teachers’ Knowledge and Teachers’ Potential to be Creative ............... 179

6.4.2

Teachers’ Personalities and Teachers’ Potential to be Creative ............. 186

6.5

Good Environments for Teachers’ Potential Creativity to Thrive ................. 190

Chapter 7

DISCUSSION ......................................................................................... 195 iv

7.1

Teachers’ Creative Activities ......................................................................... 195

7.2

The Aims and Reasons for Teaching Creatively ............................................ 204

7.3

Teachers’ Creative Process ............................................................................ 207

7.4

The Characteristics of Creative Teachers ....................................................... 209

7.4.1

The influence of teachers’ knowledge on teachers’ creativity ................ 210

7.4.2

The influence of teachers’ personalities on teachers’ creativity ............. 211

7.5

Environment for Teaching Creatively ............................................................ 213

Chapter 8 8.1

CONCLUSION ....................................................................................... 215

The Findings Relating to the Research Questions .......................................... 217

8.1.1

Why Teachers Need Creativity ............................................................... 217

8.1.2

What Teachers Can Create ...................................................................... 220

8.1.3

How Teachers Create What They Create ................................................ 223

8.1.4

Which Factors Influence Teachers’ Creativity ....................................... 224

8.2

The Limitations and Future Suggestions for Research .................................. 227

8.3

Recommendations and Implications Arising from the Research ................... 228

8.4

Personal Lessons Learned .............................................................................. 231

LIST OF REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 233 APPENDICES .............................................................................................................. 246 Appendix 1 ................................................................................................................ 246 Appendix 2 ................................................................................................................ 247 Appendix 3 ................................................................................................................ 250 Appendix 4 ................................................................................................................ 251 Appendix 5 ................................................................................................................ 252 Appendix 6 ................................................................................................................ 269 Appendix 7 ................................................................................................................ 270

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LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Vietnam’s Education System Structure ........................................................... 16 Figure 2: The Classifications of Matter .......................................................................... 20 Figure 3: The Structure of a Lesson of a Compound ...................................................... 21 Figure 4: Content of Chemistry Textbooks for Students from Grade 8 to Grade 12 ...... 22 Figure 5: The Pattern of Teaching Activity .................................................................... 25 Figure 6: The Taxonomy Table ...................................................................................... 27 Figure 7: A Model of the Creative Process ..................................................................... 54 Figure 8: The Influence of Social-Environment on the Creative Process ....................... 63 Figure 9: An Example of Initial Coding ....................................................................... 137 Figure 10: An Example of the Categorising ................................................................. 138 Figure 11: Searching Themes Based on the Research Questions ................................. 140 Figure 12: An Organised Structure of the Components of Teacher Creativity............. 140 Figure 13: Different Forms of Content Knowledge ...................................................... 184 Figure 14: A Model of Teachers’ Creative Process ...................................................... 208

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LIST OF TABLES Table 1: The Criteria for Evaluating Teachers’ Teaching .............................................. 35 Table 2: The Examples of Geneplore Model .................................................................. 52 Table 3: The Problem Solving Processes ........................................................................ 53 Table 4: Social-Environmental Influences on Creativity ................................................ 66 Table 5: Domains of Teacher Knowledge ...................................................................... 76 Table 6: The Influences of Subject Matter Knowledge on Teachers’ Teaching............. 82 Table 7: Components of PCK for Science Teaching ...................................................... 84 Table 8: The Four Stages of Teachers’ Teaching Abilities............................................. 89 Table 9: Provisions Made by Qualitative Researchers ................................................. 126 Table 10: The Questions Used to Summarise Participants’ Significant Statements ..... 137 Table 11: Teachers’ Creative Activities at Different Stages of Teaching .................... 148

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work is firstly dedicated to the memory of my father who was my greatest teacher and also my greatest role model of a creative person. Secondly, my work is for my mother who always encourages me to contribute to the communities where I live and work. My work, of course, is also for my wife and my son; they are always beside me and have shared the highs and lows with me during this long journey. To achieve this work, foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my principal supervisor, Professor Jim Clark. His thoughtful guidance has directed me through every single step I have taken to become a researcher in the field. I also would like to express my sincere thanks to my second supervisor, Dr Helen Roberts, for her patience in helping me to finish my thesis. Besides my supervisors, I would also like to thank all the staff members of Northumbria University, especially those who are within the Faculty of Health and Life Science, the Graduate School, the University Library, and the Student Support and Wellbeing, for their excellent support. I would like to express my sincere thanks to all the participants in this study who gave so generously of their time and thoughts about their experiences and perspectives. My study was funded by the Danang Government. I would like to send my thanks to them. I would also like to thank the Centre for the Promotion of Human Resources Development for their support. Last but not least, I would like to thank my friends, my colleagues, and my students who, one way or another, encouraged me to conduct this study.

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DECLARATION

I declare that the work contained in this thesis has not been submitted for any other award and that it is all my own work. I also confirm that this work fully acknowledges opinions, ideas and contributions from the work of others. Any ethical clearance for the research presented in this thesis has been approved. Approval has been sought and granted by Northumbria University Ethics Committee on 21 April 2010.

Name: Hung Thanh Nguyen

Signature: Date: 17/08/2013

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x

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

When I was a student at an Education University, I did not give much attention to several subjects, such as education, pedagogy, and psychology. I thought that to become a successful upper secondary chemistry teacher, all I needed was a sound understanding of chemistry knowledge. That was a big mistake. I had to pay the penalty for my mistake. It took me many years to find out how to provide more opportunities for my students to learn effectively and efficiently. Fortunately, at this stage in my career I have become a successful upper secondary school chemistry teacher trusted by my students, my colleagues and educational administrators. My success gave me the opportunities to firstly play an important role in my school; a well-known upper secondary school for gifted students, where I was a subject leader for chemistry. Secondly in Danang education and training department I played the role of a subject specialist and a professional inspector and thirdly in the ministry of education and training where I was a member of the national committee for evaluating upper secondary school chemistry textbooks. A part of my tasks, corresponding to those roles, was to help upper secondary school chemistry teachers in my country to improve the quality of their teaching. Together with my colleagues, I helped teachers to get used to the changes to the standard curriculum content, introduced them to teaching methods that they had not been taught at education universities, shared our own experiences of successful teaching with them, and supported other development activities. However, besides my experiences of being a successful teacher, I did not have a research based understanding of how teachers teach effectively. I feel this led me to be less effective in developing teachers’ expertise in teaching. To be more helpful to them, I decided to return to university to study how teachers teach effectively. My decision to return to studies made me critically analyse whether teaching is a science or an art or possibly a mixture of both. Teaching as a science means that the findings from research studies can be better teaching resources that teachers need to teach effectively; while teaching as an art means that teachers need to create something new with the purpose of making learning effective (Marzano, 2007) or making learning more interesting, exciting and effective (Eisner, 2002, Sawyer, 2011). Based on the 1

standard definition of creativity, “creativity requires both originality and effectiveness” (Runco and Jaeger, 2012, p.92), I would argue that because teaching as an art includes the criteria of creativity, originality (teachers make something new) and effectiveness (with the purpose of making learning effective or more interesting, exciting and effective), it should be considered as a creative aspect of teaching. Because my study is an investigation of my participants’ perspectives on creative aspects of teaching, it relates to the studies of other scholars in the field of creativity in education. Therefore before continuing to explain what led me to come to this study, I discuss the meaning of several terms widely used in the literature to clarify for the reader how I define and use the various terms in my study. From the NACCCE report (1999), I use the term creative teaching as an umbrella term that includes both teaching creatively and teaching for creativity in which teaching creatively involves teachers’ creativity in teaching while teaching for creativity involves teaching with an aim of enhancing students’ creativity. Because studying creative aspects of teaching, I feel, is ‘studying teachers’ creativity in teaching’ or ‘teaching creatively’, I will use these phrases instead of the phrase ‘studying creative aspects of teaching’. Let us return to what led me to this specific study. As an experienced teacher, I believe that teaching is both a science and an art. I also believe that understanding the art and science of teaching is necessary to have a fuller understanding of how teachers teach effectively. As a researcher for this study, I have decided to go into a complex aspect of teaching, the art of teaching. In particular, I have gone into one of the characteristics of the art of teaching, teaching creatively within the context of upper secondary chemistry teaching in Vietnam. In the remaining chapters of this thesis, I will fully discuss what the aim and the objectives of this study were, why it was important to study this, how I studied it, what I achieved from this study as a result, and the limitations of this study. In the remaining sections of this chapter, these issues will be briefly introduced and discussed. 1.1 What I Studied I have decided to study one particular aspect of upper secondary chemistry teaching in Vietnam, “teaching creatively”. For me, this aspect involves two different disciplines, creativity and pedagogy. A general understanding of creativity will be discussed in chapter 3, a literature review on creativity. Here, I will discuss two issues, what 2

creativity is and in what way creativity relates to pedagogy within chemistry teaching. Then, I will locate my study within the relationship between creativity and pedagogy. There has not been a universal consensus about a definition of creativity (Hennessey and Amabile, 2010, Kampylis and Valtanen, 2010, Runco and Jaeger, 2012) because of the debates relating to the criteria and the components of creativity. Based on the agreements among creativity researchers (Kampylis and Valtanen, 2010) and my personal views from my reading and experience as a teacher on the debates relating to the criteria and the components of creativity (discussed later in chapter 3), I have modified the creativity definition of Plucker et al. (2004) to define creativity as the interaction between aptitude, process, and environment by which an individual or group produces a perceptible product that is novel, useful, and ethical as defined within a social context. The particular context for this study is upper secondary chemistry teaching in Vietnam. I consider that creativity can be developed and enhanced to some extent (Amabile, 1996, Runco, 2004, Craft, 2005, Beghetto, 2010, Kaufman and Beghetto, 2010, Sternberg, 2010, Nickerson, 2010, Craft, 2011) because creativity is influenced by certain factors such as the knowledge and personalities of individuals. These factors can be modified through training and support to critically reflect upon their own practices (discussed in chapter 3 and 4). Studying creativity with the purpose of enhancing people’s creativity has been conducted in various disciplines, such as art, science, economics, and education. Studying creativity in education has been given much attention since the end of the twentieth century (Sawyer, 2011) in two main fields, teaching for creativity (teaching with the aim of enhancing students’ creativity) and teaching creatively (teachers’ own creativity in the way they teach) (NACCCE, 1999). Understanding teaching for creativity is very important because of the vital need of helping students to deal with the recent economic, social and technological challenges (NACCCE, 1999, Craft, 2011). However, I consider that understanding ‘teaching creatively’ is also very important because I agree with some scholars that it is a part of teaching, even effective teaching (Marzano, 2007, Bramwell et al., 2011) or good teaching (NACCCE, 1999). Therefore understanding teaching creatively is necessary to have a fuller understanding of teaching; additionally, I agree with other scholars that teaching for creativity cannot be separated from teaching creatively (NACCCE, 1999, Jeffrey and Craft, 2004, Snyder et 3

al., 2013), therefore understanding teaching creatively is necessary to have a fuller understanding of teaching for creativity, an important element of studying creativity in education. Between these two main elements of studying creativity in education, teaching for creativity and teaching creatively, my study focuses on the latter because of the importance of this element as discussed above. I also believe that an understanding of teaching creatively, that closely connects to that context, is more useful to achieve my purpose of helping upper secondary chemistry school teachers in Vietnam to improve the quality of their teaching. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of having an understanding of teaching creatively in the field of teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam. To achieve this research aim, I investigated four research questions related to these teachers, why chemistry teachers need creativity? What do chemistry teachers create? How do chemistry teachers create what they create? And which factors influence chemistry teachers’ creativity? through the gathering and critical analysis of the experiences and perspectives of upper secondary school chemistry teachers as well as individuals who have had an important influence upon teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam, such as subject specialists of the ministry of education and training, and scientists and educators who have set the curriculum content and standards. In addition to the reasons discussed above, this study is also essential because of the urgent requirement to foster teachers’ creativity issued by the ministry of education and training for Vietnam and the gaps in the literature in the field of “teaching creatively”. In the following section, I will briefly introduce and discuss why it is important for me in my roles within chemistry education in Vietnam to conduct this study. Additionally, I will explain why I believe that investigating those particular research questions can help me to achieve the research aim. 1.2 Why I Studied In addition to my personal belief in the importance of teaching creatively, the aim of this research was formed due to the requirement of the ministry of education and training for Vietnam to enhance teachers’ creativity. I will discuss this in the next section; the national context. The aim of this research was also formed because of the gaps in the previous studies on ‘teaching creatively’ conducted by researchers in other countries and the lack of any governmental understanding and definition around 4

teachers’ creativity in Vietnam. I will discuss this issue in the second section; the international context. In that section, I will also point out how the research questions were posed. 1.2.1 The National Context On 20 November 2007, the National Education Union of Vietnam launched a new movement, called “Each Teacher is a Great Model of Morality, Lifelong Learning, and Creativity”. This was one among other movements launched by the ministry of education and training, with the aim of improving moral virtue and the professional quality of teachers and administrators in general (NEUV, 2007). In particular, this movement aims to make good the shortcomings of a small number of teachers (e.g., an inappropriate morality and lifestyle, limited in lifelong learning, slow in reforming teaching methods). This movement also has an aim of encouraging teachers to become role models for students to achieve the most important skills for life (NEUV, 2007, NEUV, 2010, Tran, 2010). More recently, this movement has become one of the core tasks for teachers and administrators in the secondary schools, as issued by the Minister of Education and Training for Vietnam (MOET, 2008, MOET, 2009, MOET, 2010, MOET, 2011a, MOET, 2012). However while the government and most teachers understood the concept of being a model of morality and lifelong learning, the concept of creativity was not commonly defined or discussed. My colleagues and I are not focusing on the first two because we are familiar with “being exemplary in the fulfilment of civic duties, regulations of law and school charters and maintaining moral quality, prestige and the honour of the teacher” (Article 72 of Education Law of Vietnam, NAOV, 2005). We are also familiar with lifelong learning because our work climate, upper secondary schools for gifted students, encourages us to undertake our own learning. Conversely, we needed to pay much greater attention to the term which is easy to say but hard to understand, “creativity”. In terms of teachers’ creativity, a set of activities considered as teachers’ creativity, were suggested by the National Education Union of Vietnam (NEUV, 2007, NEUV, 2010). Creating new things in educational activities and educational management that contribute to the quality of education and training; Being creative in applying new knowledge and new technologies into teaching, scientific research, and technological transfers; Finding and solving the problems emerging during educational activities; Creating new teaching tools or improving the existing

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teaching tools so that they are appropriate to particular lessons, particular classrooms and particular learners; Improving the ways of doing; Reforming teaching methods, applying information technologies into lectures, and dealing well with pedagogical situations; Spotting and fostering gifted students, and tutoring poor students; Improving the methods of managing schools and students in order to improve the quality of education and training (NEUV, 2010, p.3).

This appears to be a detailed guide; however, it has not been useful enough for my colleagues and me, the upper secondary school chemistry teachers in Vietnam, because it mainly focuses on what teachers can create while other key elements of teachers’ creativity are not mentioned, such as how teachers can create and which factors can help teachers to be more creative. Additionally, teachers’ creative activities presented in this document are not constructed based on carefully constructed research studies. Instead, they come from the opinions of the specialists of the National Education Union of Vietnam and the Department of Teachers and Educational Administrators (Tran, 2010). Unfortunately, the documents of the National Education Union of Vietnam (NEUV, 2007, NEUV, 2010) are the only official documents I have found relating to teachers’ creativity in Vietnam. In my view, these documents are not based upon evidence from research and therefore have limitations. The ministry of education and training has launched various initiatives which are constructed based on educational administrators’ opinions and common understandings rather than based on the findings of research studies. I would like to borrow the words of a well-known Vietnamese scientist and educator, Professor Tuy Hoang, to support my discussion. Professor Tuy Hoang is a prominent Vietnamese applied mathematician. He was a Director of The Institute of Mathematics of Vietnam. He was also a Chairman of the Institute of Development Research (IDS) - an independent, open and non-profit organization studying issues related to policy, strategy, development plans for state agencies and socio-economic organizations. In terms of “renovation”, a term which has been widely used in my country, within a letter entitled “Education: Let me speak frankly” sent to the ministry of education and training, he wrote that … It is clear that the term “renovation” is numerous in almost all educational movements, such as renovating content knowledge, renovating teaching methods and curriculum, renovating management mechanism, renovating financial mechanism, renovating activities of science and technology, etc. However, nobody understands what renovation is and nobody knows how to renovate. Therefore, “renovation” has been conducted by snatches, unsystematically, and freely (Hoang, 2009).

In terms of enhancing teachers’ creativity, I would argue that to avoid “nobody understands what teaching creatively is”, “nobody knows how to teach creatively”, etc. 6

in the Vietnamese context, studies on “teaching creatively” across academic subjects and educational levels should be conducted in the Vietnamese context. This study was conducted based on that premise focusing on the subject of chemistry. 1.2.2 The International Context The definition of creativity introduced in the section on “what I studied” shows that to understand creativity, it is necessary to understand the components of creativity (person, process, product, and environment) as well as the criteria for creativity (originality, effectiveness, and ethicality). I believe that to understand teachers’ creativity, it is necessary to understand the similar components of teachers’ creativity (creative teacher, teacher’s creative process, teacher’s creative product, and environments for teacher’s creativity) as well as the meaning of originality, effectiveness, and ethicality of teachers’ creative products. This belief is reflected in my research questions; what do chemistry teachers create? (creative product), how do chemistry teachers create what they create? (creative process), and which factors influence chemistry teachers’ creativity? (creative person and creative environment). I have also asked why chemistry teachers need creativity because, similar to other authors (Petty, 2009, NACCCE, 1999), I believe that human activities are intentional or purposive activities and, therefore, to have a fuller understanding of teaching creatively, it is necessary to understand the purposes and reasons that these teachers have for teaching creatively. As mentioned, teaching creatively (teachers’ creativity in teaching) is one of two main elements within the field of studying creativity in education. However, teaching creatively has not been paid as much attention by researchers in comparison with teaching for creativity (Hong et al., 2005, Schacter et al., 2006, Bramwell et al., 2011). Therefore, there has not been a consensus around an understanding of teachers’ creative purposes, teachers’ creativity for effective teaching (Bramwell et al., 2011, Marzano, 2007) or good teaching (NACCCE, 1999, Sawyer, 2011, Ward, 2007). In addition, there has not been a complete understanding of the components of teachers’ creativity as discussed in the section on creative teaching and learning in chapter 4, a literature review on teaching creatively. I have also discovered that the findings of the studies in different fields, such as teacher knowledge and its development, teaching as performance, teacher expertise, the theories of learning and teaching (all discussed in chapter 4) can support the studies of teachers’ creativity in teaching to have a fuller understanding of that. However, the relationship 7

between these fields has not been fully examined by researchers in the field of studying teacher creativity in teaching. For example, I have thought that the narrative form and the paradigmatic form (Carter, 1990, Grossman, 1995, Munby et al., 2001, Tsui, 2003, Cohen, 2008) of teachers’ knowledge may influence teachers’ creativity differently. I have also thought that the narrative form of teachers’ knowledge, such as pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986b, Shulman, 1987), may be an important type of teachers’ creative products. Moreover, the findings of the studies on teaching as performance partly reveal teachers’ creativity during teaching, and the findings of the studies on teacher expertise partly reveal teachers’ creativity during the process of the development of teacher expertise. In summary, the previous discussions show that the general understanding of teaching creatively is still limited and the understanding of teaching creatively in the field of teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam has not been constructed yet. Therefore, it was important to conduct this study to provide the starting point for defining teaching creatively and what this could mean in order to support chemistry teachers and the government in Vietnam to progress the development of teachers’ creativity. The research questions for this study were posed based on the belief that to understand teaching creatively, it is necessary to understand the criteria, the components, the purposes and the reasons that the participants have for teaching creatively. In this study I needed to understand teaching creatively from the perspectives of the participants so that this study could act as a starting point for the development of upper secondary Vietnamese chemistry teachers’ understanding of how to become creative teachers who can teach creatively. This will provide a situated perspective which will be important to support understandings for future developments within Vietnamese secondary science education. 1.3 How I Studied In this section I will in turn discuss the meanings of two terms closely related to how researchers conduct their study, “research paradigms” and “theoretical (or conceptual) frameworks”. I will then briefly introduce and discuss the research paradigm and the theoretical framework that I constructed for this study.

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1.1.1 Research Paradigm A definition of “research paradigm” widely used by researchers is the one proposed by Guba (1990). Guba defined research paradigm as “a basic set of beliefs that guide action” (1990, p.17). “A basic set of beliefs” includes beliefs of ontology, epistemology, methodology, and axiology; and the actions guided by a basic set of beliefs include recruiting the sample, collecting data, and analysing data (Bryman, 2008, Creswell, 2007, Denzin and Lincoln, 2011a). Research paradigms are constructed from an understanding of what is studied (Crotty, 1998). An understanding of what I studied allowed me to construct the research paradigm for this study, briefly discussed below. It is clear that creative products are generated in the interaction between people and environment as mentioned in the definition of creativity presented previously. Similarly, I believe that teaching creatively is generated in the interaction between teachers and educational contexts. In other words, teachers’ creativity is not something out there, independent of teachers’ consciousness; instead, it is constituted by teachers’ perceptions of the challenges of particular educational contexts and their attempts to deal with those challenges. Different contexts may produce different challenges and different teachers with different perceptions of challenges and personal aptitudes may produce different responses to those challenges. Therefore, in my view, teachers’ creativity in teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam may consist of several characteristics that are different from teachers’ creativity in teaching in different domains, different levels of education, and different countries. Therefore, I believe that the best way to understand teaching creatively in that context is by investigating the perspectives and experiences concerning this issue from upper secondary school chemistry teachers, subject specialists, scientists and educators who have had important influences upon teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam. Ontologically and epistemologically, my view is consistent with the assumptions of social constructivists (Burr, 2003, Gergen, 2009, Lock and Strong, 2010), as summarised by Crotty (1998, p.42), All knowledge, and therefore all meaningful reality as such, is contingent upon human practices, being constructed in and out of interaction between human beings and their world, and developed and transmitted within an essentially social context.

Methodologically, my view is consistent with the ideas from hermeneutic phenomenologists (Smith et al., 2009, Van Manen, 1990) that to be conscious is to be 9

aware, in some sense, of some aspect of the world, therefore, understanding whatever intentionally appears in consciousness is one way to understand realities. Understanding whatever intentionally appears in consciousness is not only describing lived experience, but also interpreting lived experience based on researchers’ pre-understanding and understanding of other people. Van Manen (1990, p.38) summarised hermeneutic phenomenological approach as follows, Phenomenology because it is the descriptive study of lived experience (phenomena) in the attempt to enrich lived experience by mining its meaning; hermeneutics because it is the interpretive study of the expression and objectifications (texts) of lived experience in the attempt to determine the meaning embodied in them.

In turn, the assumptions of social constructivists and the ideas from hermeneutic phenomenologists have guided me to select research methods and to construct an understanding of teachers’ creativity in the field of teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam. In terms of axiology, I believe that my understanding as an experienced teacher and my knowledge as a researcher (in other words, my pre-understanding) partly influence how I interpret data and construct the understanding of teachers’ creativity in chemistry teaching in Vietnam. To ensure my study is trustworthy, I have followed the experiences of other researchers (Lincoln and Guba, 1985, Shenton, 2004, Whitehead, 2004, de Witt and Ploeg, 2006) to achieve the criteria (credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability) of trustworthiness of qualitative studies suggested by Lincoln and Guba (1985). In detail, seventeen participants were recruited purposively. The majority of my participants were upper secondary school chemistry teachers who were perceived to have had experience of teaching creatively. I believe that one of the purposes of teaching creatively is to produce successful teaching; therefore, upper secondary school chemistry teachers recruited from four different cities in Vietnam for this study were rated as successful teachers trusted by their students, their colleagues and educational administrators. Some of my participants are also subject specialists, scientists, and educators. These participants were recruited because they used to be successful teachers (in other words, they have been considered to have had experiences of teaching creatively); additionally, in the field of teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students, they play important roles in making statutory documents as well as executing and administrating these documents so that their experiences and perspectives strongly influenced my construction of an understanding of teaching creatively in this field in Vietnam. 10

The data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews and lived experiential writing (supplementary reading materials composed by the participants). Thematic analysis has been used to construct the structures (the themes) of the participants’ lived experiences of creativity in teaching chemistry with upper secondary school students in Vietnam. A more detailed discussion of the research paradigm and research methods will be fully discussed in chapter 5, research design. 1.1.2 Theoretical Framework A definition of theoretical framework widely used in the literature is the one proposed by Miles and Huberman (Maxwell, 2012). They stated that a theoretical framework “explains, either graphically or in narrative form, the main things to be studied - the key factors, concepts, or variables – and the presumed relationships among them” (Miles and Huberman, 1994, p.18). Reviewing the literature relating scholars’ writings on theoretical frameworks, some researchers (Maxwell, 2012, Roulston, 2008b) found that there has been a disagreement about the relationship between theoretical framework and qualitative studies as well as the resources for constructing theoretical frameworks. In my view, a theoretical framework plays various roles within the research process. It is the foundation that guides researchers to identify research aims and objectives; to generate criteria to recruit a sample and collect data; to interpret data; and to verify the research outcomes. I agree with Roulston (2008b) that a theoretical framework can influence all aspects of the research process. Consequently, I agree with Maxwell (2012) that the resources that researchers use to construct theoretical frameworks include researchers’ own experiential knowledge, existing theory and research, pilot and exploratory research, and thought experiments. In particular, my theoretical framework was constructed from two basic resources. Firstly, it was constructed from my own experiences of teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam and my own understanding of the educational Vietnam context. These will be presented in detail in chapter 2 entitled ‘the educational context in Vietnam’. Secondly, it was constructed from my understanding of existing theory and research relating to creativity and creativity in teaching developed through the process of reviewing the literature. These resources will be presented in two chapters, chapter 3 (a literature review on creativity) and chapter 4 (a literature review on teaching creatively). The influence of my theoretical framework on the way that I identified the research aim and objectives was briefly introduced and 11

discussed in the section on ‘what I studied’ in this chapter. Its influence on the ways that I recruited the sample, collected data, and analysed data was partly introduced and discussed in the previous section, ‘research paradigm’ and will be briefly mentioned in the next section, ‘what I achieved’. 1.4 What I Achieved The findings of this study include five themes that emerged directly from the data. The first theme, creativity as an essential part of teaching, pointed out the purpose of teaching creatively and the reasons why teachers need to be creative from the participants’ perspectives. The second theme, being creative in all stages of teaching, revealed what these teachers can create in both phases of teaching, the pre-active phase and the interactive phase. The third theme, multiple phases of the creative process, showed different stages of mental processes that happen within the participants’ minds when they tried to think and act creatively. The fourth theme, teachers’ knowledge and personalities and the impact on their potential to be creative, showed different categories and different forms of knowledge that teachers need to have in order to be more creative; as well as the personality traits that can be seen in highly creative teachers. The last theme, good environments for teachers’ potential to thrive, revealed several characteristics of educational environments good for teachers to be more creative. It also revealed challenges and tensions of the context that inhibited these teachers from being creative such as the prescribed curriculum and textbooks, exam regime with student and parental expectations and poor resources and environments that do not encourage creativity. Chapter 7 is a discussion of the findings. In this chapter, the findings of this study will refer to the research questions, the findings of previous studies reviewed, and the educational context of Vietnam. The first aim of this discussion is to make clear the meanings of the findings in relationship to the research questions, the previous studies, and the context in which this study was conducted. The discussion also aims to predict possible implications from this study, points out limitation of the study, and proposes future suggestions for research. Through this study, I have constructed a picture of participants’ perspectives on teachers’ creativity in teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam. Generally, the findings of this study could support teachers, administrators and mentors of student teachers to consider the important role that creativity plays in teaching. The 12

findings are also a general guidance for teachers, administrators and mentors of student teachers in terms of enhancing teachers’ creativity in teaching. In Vietnam there is not yet a full understanding of how teachers create what they create, such as how teachers reset the lesson objectives, how teachers transfer and transform content knowledge, and so on, therefore the purpose of this study is to support the government and teachers in gaining a deeper understanding of these issues. These issues need further research. A summary of the findings of this study, the limitations, and the possible implications will be fully discussed in the last chapter.

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Chapter 2

EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT IN VIETNAM

In the introduction chapter, I discussed a part of the educational context of Vietnam that influenced the reason why I conducted a study relating to teaching creatively. In this chapter, I will discuss other parts of education in Vietnam that identify the specific context in which the study took place as well as making clear meanings from the data discussed in the discussion chapter. This chapter includes four sections and in the first, the structure of the education system in Vietnam, I describe the structure of general education in Vietnam. I would like to introduce who my participants work with and the aims of their work. This also reveals the range of educational contexts that can influence teachers’ creativity differently as will be seen in the findings chapter. In the second section, learning chemistry, I make a sketch of the standard curriculum content and the educational aims of teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students. In the third section, teaching chemistry, the teaching activities of an upper secondary school chemistry teacher in Vietnam will be described through four stages of teaching, setting the objectives, planning the lesson, teaching the lesson, and evaluating the lesson. These two sections mainly aim to form a basis from which the meanings from the data can be related to the research questions, why chemistry teachers need creativity, what do chemistry teachers create, and how do they create what they create. In the last section, initial and regular teacher training, I discuss initial teacher training and regular teacher training for upper secondary school teachers in Vietnam. This section aims to be a foundation for making clear meanings from the data relating to the factors that influence teachers’ teaching creatively. 2.1

The Structure of the Education System in Vietnam

The structure of Vietnam’s Education System is generally similar to those found in other countries (London, 2011). This structure is illustrated by Figure 1 (NAOV, 2005, UNESCO, 2010/2011, London, 2011). General education in Vietnam consists of primary education, lower secondary education, and upper secondary education. Lower secondary education lasts for 4 years (grade 6-9, age 11-15). After successfully completing lower secondary education, to enter upper secondary education students must have the lower secondary diploma and 15

often have to attend an entrance examination held by the Departments of Education and Training for the cities or provinces.

Figure 1: Vietnam’s Education System Structure Upper secondary education lasts for 3 years (grade 10-12, age 16-18). After successfully completing upper secondary education and passing the final examination, students are awarded the diploma of secondary school education issued by the Department of Education and Training for the cities or provinces. Graduated upper secondary school students either have to take a College/University entrance exam held by the Minister of Education and Training with the intention of entering College or University, or registers for vocational training (NAOV, 2005). 16

Upper secondary schools, similar to other levels of academic education, are organised in three different forms, including public schools, people-founded schools, and private schools (NAOV, 2005, title 1, article 48), (a) Public schools are established, invested for infrastructure, covered financially for regular expenditures by the State; (b) People-founded schools are established, invested for infrastructure, covered financially for operating costs by the local community; (c) Private schools are established, invested for infrastructure, covered financially for operating costs by social organisations, social-professional organisations, economic organisations, or individuals with non-state budget funding.

Besides ordinary upper secondary schools, the State also establish the schools for “ethnic minority children, and/or children of long-term resident families in areas with extreme socioeconomic difficulties” (NAOV, 2005, title 1, article 61); for disabled and ‘handicapped’ people (ibid., title 1, article 63), for gifted students in arts, sport and athletics (ibid., title 1, article 62), and for exceptional students in certain subjects. The upper secondary schools for exceptional students, in certain subjects, are often called specialised schools or schools for gifted students. In each city and province, there is usually one upper secondary school for gifted students. In some big cities, such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, there are more than one school for gifted students. Point 1 of article 62 of the Education Law of Vietnam (ibid.) makes clear about this type of school. Specialised schools (school for gifted students) are established at upper secondary level for students with excellent achievements in learning to develop their talents in certain subjects while assuring comprehensive general education.

Moreover, there are many private centres that are established with the main aim of supporting upper secondary school students who want to pass the College/University entrance exams. These centres are established with the agreement of the departments of education and training for cities or provinces. However, the professional activities of these centres are not administrated by the official organisations. The objectives of general education, including general objectives and particular objectives for each level, are presented in the article 27, the Education Law of Vietnam (NAOV, 2005). 1. The objectives of general education are to help students develop comprehensively by acquiring morals, knowledge, physical health, aesthetic values and other basic skills, develop personal ability, flexibility and creativeness, with a view to forming the socialist Vietnamese personality, to building the civic conduct and duty, to preparing them for further studies or entering the work force, participating in the building and defending of the Fatherland.

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2. Primary education aims to help the students form initial foundations for correct and long-lasting moral, intellectual, physical and aesthetic developments, along with the development of basic skills for them to enter lower secondary education. 3. Lower secondary education is directed towards the students' consolidation and development of the outcomes of primary education, provision of a general and basic knowledge along with initial understanding on techniques and career orientation to enter upper secondary education, professional secondary education, vocational training or the workforce. 4. Upper secondary education is directed towards the students' consolidation and development of the outcomes of lower secondary education, completion of the general education and common understanding on techniques and career orientation, provision of conditions for students to develop their personal ability in order to choose their development direction, to enter universities, colleges, professional secondary education schools, vocational training schools or the workforce.

In the previous paragraphs, I introduced the structure of Vietnam’s Education System. I also made clear the educational aims of general education and different types of schools for general education. Here, I am going to introduce the location for my study. My study is an investigation of participants’ perspectives on teachers’ creativity in teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam. Thus, my participants are those who work with 10th-12th graders (from 16 to 18 year olds) and graduated upper secondary school students who fail the college/university entrance exam for the first time and want to take that exam again. The majority of my participants have worked for the public upper secondary schools (the most popular type of upper secondary schools) and the upper secondary schools for gifted students. These participants also work for the centres that privately tutor students for the college/university entrance exams. Some of my participants work for either the private schools or private centres. The rest of my participants are those who used to be upper secondary teachers and now their recent work relates to teaching chemistry for upper secondary students. 2.2

Learning Chemistry

Before going into the world of learning chemistry, the first question that should be asked is “what is learning?” There are many definitions of learning (see Jarvis et al., 2008, Knowles et al., 2012, Schunk, 2012, Westwood, 2008), I prefer two of them. Firstly, learning is defined as “the process of gaining knowledge and expertise” (Knowles et al., 2012, p.17). Secondly, learning is defined as “the act or process by which behavioural change, knowledge, skills, and attitudes are acquired” (Boys, Apps, et al., cited in Knowles et al., 2012, p.10). The former is general while the latter is more particular. However, these two definitions both include two components of learning, 18

product and process. With the aim of understanding why teachers need creativity and what they can create, I will present what and why upper secondary school students learn chemistry based on my own view as an experienced chemistry teacher. 2.2.1 What Students Learn When I start teaching chemistry for a new generation of students, I often start with a lesson, entitled “What is Chemistry?” This lesson is conducted in various ways depending on who I work with, “normal” students or gifted students, 10th graders, 11th graders, 12th graders or students who will attend university entrance exams again; and depending on where I teach, in a public school or in a private centre. However, regardless of whom and where, the lesson always happens with the first question: “What is Chemistry?”. Consider that I am working with ordinary 10th graders in a public school, a conversation in the class may occur as follows. I am the person who poses the first question “What is Chemistry?” The answers and the follow-up questions may be either mine or my students’. -

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What is chemistry? Chemistry is the study of matter and the changes it undergoes. What is matter? Matter is anything that occupies space and has mass. For example, water, air, iron, steel, soil, sand, plastic, etc. What is the difference between water and air in terms of matter? The former is a substance (is a form of matter that has a definite composition and distinct properties, such as water (H2O), oxygen (O2), nitrogen (N2), etc.) while the latter is a mixture (a combination of two or more substances in which the substances retain their distinct identities). Air is a mixture of many substances, such as O2, N2, etc. What is the difference between water (H2O) and oxygen (O2) in terms of substance? The former is a compound (consisting of two or more types of atoms) and the latter is an element (consisting only one type of atoms). What is the difference between water (H2O) and methane (CH4) in terms of compounds? The former is an inorganic compound while the latter is an organic compound (a type of chemical compounds whose molecules contain carbon). Is water always a liquid? No, it isn’t. It is a liquid at room temperature. It changes into a colourless gas (steam) at 100oC and into a crystalline solid (ice) at 0oC. If I put quicklime (CaO) into water, is water still remaining? No, it isn’t. It changes. Quicklime reacts with water to form slaked lime, CaO + H2O → Ca(OH)2. What is the difference between water that changes into ice and water that changes into slaked lime? The former is a physical change (a change of states) while the latter is a chemical change (a chemical reaction, a formation of new substances). How and why do those changes happen? …

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What is the difference between the reaction of quick lime with water and the reaction of preparing quicklime from limestone? The former releases heat while the latter needs heat to be performed Why are they different? … What is the difference between the reaction of sodium with water and the reaction of magnesium with water? The former happens very quickly while the latter happens very slowly. Why are they different? … What is water used for? For drinking, washing, cleaning, cooking, growing our food, making solutions, making new substances, as well as many, many other things Why don’t we have a solution of water and cooking oil? …

Together with this conversation, some diagrams are also constructed as seen in Figure 2 and Figure 3. What are the objectives of that lesson? For 10th graders, through this lesson I try to introduce them to what they will learn (the curriculum). The questions that they can answer partly reveal the core issues of chemistry, the study of matter and the changes it undergoes. Figure 2 is a diagram of the classifications of matter. The knowledge presented in this graph is already known by 10th graders because all concepts are taught when they were upper secondary students.

Figure 2: The Classifications of Matter Additionally, they could partly understand what is presented in Figure 3. They have already grasped that an understanding of a chemical substance consists of an understanding of its physical properties, chemical properties, applications and preparations. They will understand through this diagram that, at the level of upper secondary education, there is a logical order that should be followed in order to achieve a deep understanding of a substance. In particular, learning about a substance will start with its structure (the structures of molecules or crystals). Then, the understanding of its physical and chemical properties is constructed based on the understanding of the 20

structures. Finally, the understanding of its applications and preparations is constructed based on the understanding of physical and chemical properties. Therefore this is different from lower secondary school students who are often taught more factual knowledge, upper secondary school students will often be taught more conceptual and procedural knowledge. In other words, instead of often answering the “what” questions, upper secondary school students will frequently deal with the “how” and “why” questions. That is the reason why students can answer the “what” questions of “What is Chemistry” in the lesson presented above, but they have not been able to answer “why” questions?

Figure 3: The Structure of a Lesson of a Compound This diagram also reveals that for the purpose of deeply understanding a substance, they will learn some basic theories of chemistry. They will learn atomic structures and chemical bonds (the ways that atoms link together to form molecules or crystals) to understand structures of substances. They will learn the Periodic Table and the Periodic Law to understand the relationship of composition, structures and properties of the many substances that they will learn. They also learn different types of chemical reactions, the heat of reactions, reaction rates and chemical equilibrium in order to understand why a reaction happens, what reaction productions are, whether a reaction happens quickly or slowly, whether reaction efficiency is high or low, and how to manipulate a chemical reaction. In other words, unlike lower secondary school students who are taught the major facts and concepts of chemistry, upper secondary school students are taught not only the major facts and concepts of chemistry, but also the substantive structure (variety of ways in which the basic concepts and principles of the discipline are organised to incorporate its facts, discussed in the previous chapter) of chemistry knowledge. 21

Then, I show them the short forms of the contents of the chemistry textbooks for students from grade 8 to grade 12 as seen in Figure 4. Through this figure, I show them an order of what they will learn and when they will learn it. Also through this figure, students can see “the spiral principle” of the standard curriculum content. Some core lessons that they were taught when they were lower secondary school students will be taught again with higher levels of breadth and depth and higher levels of complexity and abstraction. Moreover, students will recognise that what they will learn in upper secondary schools is not “the end” of chemistry knowledge. It is only the foundation for further education or training.

Figure 4: Content of Chemistry Textbooks for Students from Grade 8 to Grade 12 Basically, “the spiral principle” of the standard curriculum content can be understood based on the revised version of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives (discussed later in this chapter). Based on this taxonomy, it can be explained that upper secondary school students can learn some lessons again that they already learned in lower secondary schools. The difference is that the lessons that upper secondary school students learn are more complex and abstract in the knowledge dimension and/or the cognitive process dimension. For example, the learning objective for lower secondary school students to learn chloric acid is to remember that chloric acid is an acid 22

(conceptual knowledge) and can react with some metals, bases, and salts (factual knowledge). While the learning objective for upper secondary school students to learn chloric acid is to understand the nature of an acid, based on Arrhenius theory and Brönsted-Lowry theory of acids and bases (conceptual knowledge) and to understand how the reactions of chloric acid with other substances happen (procedural knowledge). Everything that my students and I discuss around the question “what is chemistry” seems to unfold that what upper secondary school students learn in chemistry classes is only knowledge of chemistry. Actually, it is not. Studying chemistry in upper secondary education aims not only to internalise chemistry knowledge, but also to understand science in general, to have skills of conducting science experiments, to understand and deal with the chemistry world around them, to develop their own skills of thinking, and so on. What students learn is completely understood through a comprehension of why students learn. Therefore, the following section is not only to present the possible reasons why students learn chemistry, but also to make clear students’ learning objectives. 2.2.2 Why Students Learn Human activities are mainly purposive activities. For a successful act, people need to know not only what they do, but also why they do it. It is no different for learning activities. To learn successfully, students need to know not only what they will learn, but also why they will learn it. Therefore, besides the question “What is Chemistry?” I often ask my students “Why do You Need to Learn Chemistry?” The answers to the latter question can be constructed in different ways depending who I talk to and where I ask this question. However, the most common reasons why students need to learn chemistry can be summarised as follow. Firstly, secondary school students learn chemistry for a general understanding of chemistry, a kind of understanding for people in ordinary life. People in ordinary life should know the difference between semi-skimmed milk and whole milk and which one they should drink; how many calories they need a day and how to eat healthier; the difference between polyester clothes and cotton clothes and which one they should wear; how to use detergents effectively; understand some chemistry terms widely used in ordinary communications, such as catalysis, sublimation, organic bonds, and so on, in order to use them correctly; and so on. Generally speaking, chemistry is everywhere in the world around us. It is in the food we eat, clothes we wear, water we drink, medicines 23

we take, air we breathe, cleaners we use, materials we construct, languages we speak, etc. Therefore, secondary school students learn chemistry partly to understand the chemistry of the world around them and to deal with their daily life. Secondly, they learn chemistry to prepare for their further education and training. To become chemists, environmentalists, pharmacists, chemistry engineers, chemistry teachers, and so on, they must learn chemistry because chemistry is the core knowledge for those professionals. To become physicists, biologists, geographers, archaeologists, doctors, construction engineers, architects and so on, they also have to study chemistry because chemistry closely relates to physics, biology, geography, archaeology, medicine, construction, and so on. Thirdly, they learn chemistry for an understanding of science. By studying chemistry, students can understand what science is and how science works because, as with other domains of natural science, chemistry is the study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world. Additionally, the paradigms, methods, and equipment used to study chemistry overlap with those used to study not only other domains of natural science, but also social science. For example, studying chemical nomenclatures is not detached from studying languages. In addition, they study chemistry to develop their initial skills of doing scientific research. They learn what scientists do through theoretical lessons and they practice what scientists do through conducting chemistry experiments Fourthly, these students study chemistry to develop their morality, aesthetic, thinking skills, and so on. For example, solving chemistry problems is one of various ways to improve students’ ability of problem solving. By identifying the core elements of a problem, looking for a strategy to solve it, and solving it, students become familiar with the steps of solving other kinds of problems. Fifthly, they study chemistry for fun. Most students like to observe or conduct chemistry experiments. They are more fun than physics or biology experiments. Substance changes together with the changes of state, colour, sound, smell, and taste are all magical. Students love magical things and they enjoy the fun from this magical activity. Finally, they study chemistry for the tests. Firstly, chemistry is a compulsory subject for students from grade 8 to grade 12 in Vietnam. In every grade, students have to pass the 24

tests and the exams of chemistry (grade point average of 3.5/10 at least) in order to study at higher grades. Secondly, chemistry is often one of six subjects in the leaving exams that 12th graders have to attend in order to be awarded the diploma of secondary school education issued by the departments of education and training for the cities or provinces. Thirdly, chemistry is one of three subjects in university entrance exams that students have to take in order to enter the universities of group A (three subjects of the exam are maths, physics, and chemistry) or group B (three subjects of the exam are maths, chemistry and biology). Fourthly, gifted students learn chemistry also for the tests, ranging from local, regional, and national to the International Chemistry Olympiads. 2.3

Teaching Chemistry

Teaching is defined differently in the literature. I prefer this definition, “teaching is regarded as an intentional activity in which opportunities to learn are provided” (Jarvis, 2006, p.19). Teaching firstly is an intentional activity. I agree with Petty (2009) that intentional teaching activity can be conducted in the same pattern as almost any purposeful human activity.

Figure 5: The Pattern of Teaching Activity This pattern includes four stages, decide on aims, plan the action, action, and evaluate the action. Similarly, teaching activity includes four stages, setting the objectives, planning the lesson, teaching the lesson, and evaluating the lesson, as illustrated in Figure 5. In the following sections, I present teaching activity according to this pattern. Moreover, Marzano (2007, p.14) commented that Research will never be able to identify instructional strategies that work with every student in every class. The best research can do is tell us which strategies have a good chance (i.e., high probability) of working well with students. Individual classroom teachers must determine which strategies to employ with the right students at the right time. In effect, a good part of effective teaching is an art.

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I agree with his standpoint. Therefore, at each stage of the intentional teaching activity, I present the effective guidelines drawing on the studies in the field. At the same time, I point out the possible empty spaces of each stage and that to fill those empty spaces teachers’ creativity (the art of teaching) is needed. 2.3.1 Setting the Objectives Before going into detail, I would like to differentiate between the meaning of two terms, aim and objective. Like other authors (Westwood, 2008, Petty, 2009), I will use the term aims (or goals) to imply general targets of a programme and a course while I have used the term objectives (or learning outcomes), including general objectives and specific objectives, to imply some concrete targets for the lessons. General objectives are what teachers intend to achieve while specific objectives are what students must achieve in order to achieve the general objectives intended by teachers. Marzano (2007), by reviewing the studies of the relationship between the lesson objectives and the students’ achievements, came to conclude that setting the lesson objectives before teaching generally enhances students’ achievements. The lesson objectives that enhance students’ achievements are considered as effective objectives. Marzano suggested that effective objectives are those that are done with the right students and at the right time. He also suggested that to make sure the objectives are effective objectives the planned objectives should be communicated to students. As a result, students’ feedback, directly from the communications, will help the teacher to improve the lesson’s effective objectives. Another way to improve the lesson’s effective objectives is based on formative assessments. In terms of cognitive domain (knowledge and intellectual skills), many scholars (Marzano, 2007, Westwood, 2008, Kyriacou, 2009, Petty, 2009) suggested the use of Bloom’s Taxonomy of learning objectives (Bloom, 1956, Anderson et al., 2001) as a helpful tool to decide the lesson’s general objectives. Bloom and his colleagues (Bloom, 1956) suggested six major categories of cognitive domain, namely knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. With the exception of application, each category is divided into sub-categories. Those categories were ordered from simple to complex and from concrete to abstract. Bloom’s taxonomy has been a well-known framework for educators and teachers to establish general educational objectives

(Anderson et al., 2001). Later, Bloom’s taxonomy was revised. The

theoretical perspective for this revision is as follow. 26

Objectives that describe intended learning outcomes as the result of instruction are usually framed in terms of (a) some subject matter content and (b) a description of what is to be done with or to that content. Thus, statements of objectives typically consist of a noun or noun phrase—the subject matter content—and a verb or verb phrase—the cognitive process(es) … In the original Taxonomy, the Knowledge category embodied both noun and verb aspects … This anomaly was eliminated in the revised Taxonomy by allowing these two aspects, the noun and verb, to form separate dimensions, the noun providing the basis for the Knowledge dimension and the verb forming the basis for the Cognitive Process dimension (Krathwohl, 2002, p.213).

Based on this perspective, a two dimensional table of educational objectives, namely, the Taxonomy Table was constructed as Figure 6. The details of each type of knowledge within the knowledge dimension as well as each type of cognitive process within the cognitive process dimension is explained in the work of Anderson et al. (2001). In my view, the details of each type of knowledge and each type of cognitive process are very useful for teachers in determining the lesson specific objectives for the right students. In particular, depending on students’ interests, abilities, and needs teachers can change the complexity and the abstraction of the lesson by making changes in the knowledge dimension and/or the cognitive process dimension.

Figure 6: The Taxonomy Table In terms of the affective domain (growth in feelings or emotional areas) and psychomotor domain (physical skills), Petty (2009) also suggested using Bloom’s Taxonomy as a tool to decide the lesson objectives. However, according to my observations so far, the taxonomies of educational objectives in terms of the effective domain (Krathwohl et al., 1964) and the psychomotor domain (Harrow, 1972, Simpson, 1970) have not been acknowledged widely by researchers or educators. Therefore, setting lesson objectives with the aims of developing students’ feeling, emotion, and physical skills mainly depends on teachers’ creativity. In the previous paragraphs, the objectives concept and the tools to decide effective objectives were presented. In the following paragraphs, I present the resources to build the lesson objectives. According to Petty (2009), objectives may be drawn up with 27

reference to one or more of the following: the course aims, the syllabus, the programme of study, the unit specification, the ‘scheme of work’, attainment targets, performance criteria or statements of competence. In particular, in Vietnam, objectives may be drawn up with reference to the Education Law of Vietnam and the statutory documents (the standard curriculum content, textbooks, and other documents issued by the minister of education and training, by departments of education and training and by schools). According to the Education Law of Vietnam (NAOV, 2005, Title 1, Article 27), the aims of general education are to enable students to develop comprehensively in terms of morality, knowledge, physical health, aesthetic, and basic skills for life. General education also aims to foster personal abilities as well as self-motivated and creative abilities. Additionally, there are general education aims to develop social, cultural and political standpoints. Finally, general education has an aim of preparing for vocational education or higher education. For upper secondary education, point 4, Article 27 of the Education Law of Vietnam (NAOV, 2005) emphasize, Upper secondary education is directed towards the students' consolidation and development of the outcomes of lower secondary education, completion of the general education and common understanding on techniques and career orientation, provision of conditions for students to develop their personal ability in order to choose their development direction, to enter universities, colleges, professional secondary education schools, vocational training schools or the workforce.

At the level of upper secondary education, each discipline devotes to one or some aspects of the educational aims. For example, developing students’ physical health is the main aim of physical education; developing students’ morality and political standpoints are the main aims of civil education; and so on. However, besides the main aims, teaching each discipline also includes achieving other educational aims. For example, teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam not only completes students’ general knowledge of chemistry and prepares for vocational and higher education, but also develops students’ morality, physical health, aesthetic, basic skills for life, creative ability, political standpoint, etc. (Nguyen, 2007, MOET, 2012). In addition to the educational aims authorised by law, there are also the aims and objectives mandated by the minister of education and training, by departments of education and training and by schools. Basically, these aims and objectives are not different from the aims mandated by law, but they present the cementing of aims and 28

objectives for particular contexts set out in the law. These aims and objectives are presented in teachers’ resources, including the standard curriculum content, textbooks, and other documents issued by the organisations mentioned before. It seems that there are enough aims and objectives, from general ones to specific one, for teachers to follow. So a question posed here is whether teachers’ creativity is necessary in terms of setting lesson objectives. My answer is “Yes” because the research is not enough to guide teachers to set lesson objectives. For example, there have not been robust theories that can support educators in setting lesson objectives in terms of the affective domains and the psychomotor domain. In addition, even guided by the research, setting lesson objectives for different students and at the right time is each teacher’s personal tasks (Marzano, 2007). I use the words of Hattie (2008) to support these arguments, It is students themselves, in the end, not teachers who decide what students will learn. Thus we must attend to what students are thinking, what their goals are, and why they would want to engage in learning what is offered in schools. Learning is very personal to the teacher and to each student. While we assemble students in groups (classes, and within-class groups), the meaning of the implications of education is personal for each of us (ibid., p.241)

2.3.2 Planning the Lesson According to Nguyen (2007), chemistry lessons for upper secondary school students in Vietnam consist of the classroom lessons and the laboratory lessons. The classroom lessons can be divided into four types, including the informational lessons (supplying new knowledge and skills), the drill lessons (conducted after several informational lessons with the aims of completing students’ new knowledge and skills), the review lessons (conducted after each chapter and at the end of each semester with the aims of systematising knowledge and skills that students have already learnt), and the assignment lesson (conducted after a lesson, several lessons, a chapter, and a semester with the aims of evaluating students’ learning). Different types of lessons have a different structure of lesson plan. However, each lesson plan always includes what should be taught (lesson content), how teachers teach it (teaching methods) (Davison and Leask, 2005), and what physical tools teachers use to teach (teaching tools). In turn, based on the planned lesson content, the selected teaching methods, and the prepared teaching tools, teachers will design the particular activities for teachers and students. In the following paragraphs, I focus on how teachers plan lesson content, the factors that influence teachers’ selecting teaching methods and what teaching tools teachers have. In 29

each of these, I relate them to the findings of the studies discussing what teachers should follow in order to teach effectively and the possible empty spaces that should be filled in using teachers’ creativity. 2.3.2.1 Planning Lesson Content Lesson content is a part of content knowledge that students are taught at a certain time. As discussed in the section on learning chemistry, lesson content includes the major facts and concepts as well as the paradigms and the criteria of the subject matter. In Vietnam, lesson content is composed by a group of authors and the complete content is presented in the student books. So what more do teachers need to do with lesson content in their planning of lessons? I think that there are two tasks that teachers need to do with lesson content and these should be considered as teachers’ creativity. Firstly, the given lesson content may not be perfect; it may contain ill-articulated themes, unimportant concepts, and so on. Therefore, teachers should go beyond the structure of the textbooks and create alternatives. According to Tsui (2003), this task is often conducted by expert teachers rather than novice teachers. Secondly, according to Shulman (1986b, 1987), teachers must develop another form of content knowledge, namely, pedagogical content knowledge in order to help students to easily understand content knowledge, as discussed in the chapter on teachers, teaching and creativity, and pedagogical content knowledge. This task must be done by all teachers for effective teaching. However, the lack of a precise definition of pedagogical content knowledge as well as the lack of understanding about how to construct pedagogical content knowledge can make teachers confused when applying this term in practical teaching (Berry, 2012). In my view, the suggestions by Marzano (2007) about what teachers should do in the stage of planning content knowledge may be useful for teachers to have their own pedagogical content knowledge while forming a complete theory of pedagogical content knowledge may not have been developed. According to Marzano, there are three questions that teachers should think about when they plan the lessons; “What will I do to help students effectively interact with new knowledge?”, “What will I do to help students practice and deepen their understanding of new knowledge?”, and “What will I do to help students generate and test hypotheses about new knowledge?”. Having reviewed the research in the field of effective teaching, Marzano (2007) proposed the possible answers to these questions. 30

Firstly, to help students effectively interact with new knowledge, Marzano suggested that through various activities, teachers should help students to recall their old experiences relating to a new content and start thinking about the new content. In addition, teachers should divide new content knowledge into small chucks and help students to process each chunk of content knowledge through the more specific strategies of summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. Secondly, to help students practice and deepen their understanding of new knowledge, Marzano made many suggestions. Going through Marzano’s suggestions, I have found that the Taxonomy Table of Educational Objectives (Anderson et al., 2001) is a useful tool for teachers to help students practice and deepen their understanding of new knowledge. For example, teachers can ask students to interpret or exemplify, classify, summarise, infer, compare, and explain in order to deepen their understanding. Thirdly, to help students to generate and test hypotheses about new knowledge is to help them to develop highly intellectual skills, including analysing, evaluating and creating. Again, the Taxonomy Table of Educational Objectives should be a useful tool to conduct this task. Actually, in my view, the difference between Shulman’s (1987) idea of pedagogical content knowledge and Marzano’s (2007) suggestions of teaching students new knowledge is the difference between product and process. In other words, the process of preparing lesson content for teaching new lessons as suggested by Marzano will produce the product that is pedagogical content knowledge introduced by Shulman. In the previous chapter, I argued that developing pedagogical content knowledge could be seen as teachers’ creativity. In the findings chapter, I will discuss the evidence relevant to this. 2.3.2.2 Planning Teaching Methods A teaching method consists of the principles and methods used for teaching. The number of teaching methods are numerous and a particular teaching method may be known by different terms (Hattie, 2008). However, the teaching methods are basically divided into two groups, instructivist-based methods and constructivist-based methods (Westwood, 2008, Porcaro, 2011). Actually, no single method of teaching is either an instructivist-based method or a constructivist-based method. Instead, the teaching methods constitute a continuum ranging from the teaching methods mostly based on instructivism to the others mostly based on constructivism (Porcaro, 2011). 31

Porcaro (2011) made a useful comparison between instructivist teaching and constructivist teaching from their philosophical perspectives to their strengths and weaknesses in practices. Instructivist teaching supports the view that knowledge is independent from students’ consciousness. The main duty of a teacher (an instructor) is to communicate and transfer knowledge to students as efficiently and effectively as possible. Instructivist teaching is given the credit for bringing to students systematic knowledge in short periods of time. It is criticized because of encouraging passive learning and is ill-suited for complex processes. Conversely, constructivist teaching supports the view that students actively learn much of the knowledge through personal interpretation and social construction. The main duty of a teacher (a facilitator or a supporter) is to form the “scaffolding” in which a student brings his/her own experiences into a communication with other students and the teacher about realities in order to construct knowledge of the realities. Constructivist teaching is acknowledged to enhance students’ active and collaborative attitudes to learning and doing. However, it is criticized for being time-consuming, less-organised for students’ knowledge, and over-looking the essential role of cognitive activity. I take a middle-ground position between instructivism and constructivism. Similar to other authors (see Westwood, 2008, Porcaro, 2011), I believe that each type of teaching method, even instructivist-based methods or constructivist-based methods, are beneficial to understanding and improving learning. No single method of teaching can be used for all types of content knowledge, for all ages and learning abilities of students, or for achieving all educational goals. Conversely, many teaching methods can be used to teach a certain type of content knowledge for students at a certain age in order to achieve certain educational objectives. To select one or some appropriate teaching methods for a lesson, teachers must consider the educational objectives, the nature of content knowledge, students’ learning abilities, and physical conditions all together. Because of the diversity of educational objectives (discussed in the last section), the diversity of students’ learning abilities, and the diversity of physical conditions, teachers should be creative in order to select an appropriate method (discussed in the findings chapter). Moreover, Porcaro (2011, p.40) commented that “in many lesser-developed countries, traditional instructivism continues as the norm”. This comment is generally right for teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam (Nguyen, 2007). In 32

recent years, the requirements of reforming teaching methods, actually, the requirements of applying constructivist-based methods have been emphasized by the Education Law of Vietnam (NAOV, 2005, Title 4, Article 72 ) the Minister of Education and Training (MOET, 2009, MOET, 2010, MOET, 2011a, MOET, 2012). In fact, the pure constructivist methods have rarely been applied because of economic conditions, educational tradition, socio-political conditions, cultural sensitivity, work force requirements, teacher status and skills, available technology, support structures, and location of schools; instead, the majority of teachers tend to integrate the constructivist methods into the instructivist methods (discussed in the findings chapter). That could also be teachers’ creativity in the stage of planning the lesson. 2.3.2.3 Planning Teaching Tools Teaching tools are physical devices that classroom teachers use to help their students learn quickly and thoroughly; a teaching tool can be as simple as a chalkboard or as complex as a computer program (Petty, 2009). Teaching tools are often classified as visual-tools (e.g., chalkboard, pictures, graphs, maps, and models), audio-tools (e.g., radio and tape recorders), audio-visual tools (e.g., television, motion picture, video films, and living objects), and activity tools (e.g., exhibitions, experimentation in the laboratory, and work-shop) (Forster, 2009). Now, teaching tools should be categorised into two groups, traditional tools (including all teaching tools mentioned before) and computer-based tools that not only can be alternatives to the traditional tools (for example, Microsoft PowerPoint, a software for multi-media presentations, can be a powerful alternative for almost all the traditional teaching tools), but also unfold new applications in which a typical example is e-learning. Teaching tools play various roles in the teaching-learning process (Nguyen, 2007, Forster, 2009, Petty, 2009, Marzano, 2007). Firstly, teaching tools enable students to receive information from different senses (e.g., seeing, hearing and touching) so that they have more opportunities to learn effectively. Many teaching tools bring students visual information that is easier to process than other types of information. Secondly, teaching tools motivate students’ learning. The diversity of information makes the lesson more creative. Thirdly, teaching tools bring the theoretical lessons closer to realities and, therefore, increase students’ belief in the knowledge that they are taught. Finally, teaching tools may help to increase the productivity of both teachers and students. 33

To select appropriate teaching tools for teaching, Forster (2009, p.224) gave the following suggestions, (i) The aid should have a relevance to the topic to be taught. (ii) The aid must be such so as to suit the topic and helps to make the study of the topic interesting. (iii) Any teaching aid used should not only be interesting and motivating but it also has some specific educational value. (iv) The aid to be used should be a better possible substitute in terms of reality, accuracy and truthful representation of the object or the first hand experiences. (v) The aid should be simple. (vi) The aid should suit the physical, social and cultural environment of the students. (vii) The teaching aid is easily available. (viii) The teaching aid must help in proper realization of stipulated learning or instructional objectives of topics in hand.

However, in the stage of preparing teaching tools, teachers not only select appropriate teaching tools, but also improve the existing teaching tools and create new teaching tools (discussed in the findings chapter). I consider improving the existing teaching tools and creating new teaching tools to be part of supporting teachers’ creativity. 2.3.3 Teaching the Lesson The main question for this study relating to the stage of teaching the lesson is what teachers’ creativity is during the lesson. I think teachers’ creativity in this stage relates to what teachers do when setting the objectives and planning the lesson (the pre-active phase of teaching). I suppose that there are three cases. Firstly, if teachers have a rich repertoire of particular educational activities due to carefully setting the objectives and planning the lesson, teachers will flexibly select and change educational activities in order to help the majority of students learn effectively. Secondly, if teachers only prepare a framework for the lesson, teachers will improvisationally generate new educational activities within that framework. Thirdly, teachers can intuitively go beyond the framework and the educational activities prepared and generate alternatives. These three cases that are about teachers’ creativity in the stage of teaching a lesson are actually discussed as flexible teaching, improvised teaching and intuitive teaching, respectively, in chapter four on teaching and creativity (especially in the section on teaching as performance). I provide some evidence for this discussion in the findings chapter. 2.3.4 Evaluating the Lesson The quality of teaching the lesson can be either formally evaluated by examining students’ learning achievements and the comments of the colleagues and administrators, or informally evaluated by teachers themselves based on students’ informal reflections. 34

Examining students’ learning achievement includes both summative assessment (examinations held at the end of each term, the leaving exams for 12th graders, and the university entrance exams) and formative assessment (oral tests within each period, 15 minutes paper tests after several lessons, 45 minutes paper test after a chapter, and experiment reports after each laboratory lesson). In comparison with summative assessment that aims to sum up the students’ achievements, formative assessment (or on-going assessment) is more useful for teachers to evaluate the lesson and improve it later (Petty, 2009). Through formative assessment, teachers can recognise students’ learning abilities and difficulties and teachers can change educational strategies based on what they recognise. Another formal way to evaluating is based on colleagues’ comments through class observation. In Vietnam, teachers are encouraged to observe colleagues’ classes as much as possible to learn from colleagues’ experiences of teaching as well as contributing to colleagues’ work. Within each term, each teacher often observes colleagues’ classes three times. Teachers follow the criteria presented in the observation sheet (see Table 1) to evaluate colleagues’ work. However, in my own experience, teachers often do not attend to the criteria. In the meeting after class observation, teachers regularly discuss praise and constructively criticise colleagues’ work based on their experience. Contents Content Knowledge Teaching Methods Teaching Tools Classroom Management Outcomes

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

Requirements Precise and scientific Systematic, sufficient, and focus Relates to daily life (if possible) and educative Appropriate to the lesson content and the discipline Integrating appropriately different teaching methods Appropriate to the lesson content and the discipline Appropriate presentation, demonstration, and so on Conduct flexibly the steps of teaching Motivate students’ learning Majority of students learn effectively

Points

Table 1: The Criteria for Evaluating Teachers’ Teaching Teachers also evaluate the lesson informally based on students’ reflections (students’ behaviours towards teachers’ teaching). In my view, informally recognising students’ feedback can be considered as teachers’ creative potential (mini-c creativity). Through students’ informal reflections, teachers can recognise ‘problems’ that they have to solve within classes or after classes.

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2.4

Initial and Regular Teacher Training

According to point 1, article 77 of the Education Law of Vietnam (NAOV, 2005), the standard requirement for upper secondary school teachers is “having graduate certificates from teacher universities or having graduate certificates from other universities together with the initial teaching certificates”. To become students of teacher universities, similar to other kinds of universities, students have to pass the national university entrance exams. Different departments in teacher universities require students to take the exams with different subjects. Full-time students of teacher universities are trained for four years (HCMUP, 2010, HNUE, 2009). For chemistry student teachers, besides various sub-subjects of chemistry (e.g., general chemistry, physical chemistry, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, analytic chemistry, applied chemistry), student teachers are also taught various related subjects (e.g., Marxist Leninist philosophy, history of Communist Party, economics and political science, foreign languages, education, psychology, teaching methods). In my own experience, chemistry student teachers often consider chemistry as a “major subject” and have interest in this subject; while the related subjects are often considered as “minor subjects” and have not been given enough attention. In my view, this perception has negatively influenced my quality of teaching (as discussed in the introduction chapter) as well as that of my colleagues (as discussed in the findings and discussion chapters). Often, third-year student teachers attend a period of teaching observation. In this period, students come to different upper secondary schools and observe teaching in real contexts. During this period, student teachers are required to make comments on what they observe as well as practice teaching with “students” who are their classmates. Usually, fourth-year student teachers attend a ten-week period of practice teaching at upper secondary schools (HCMUP, 2010, HNUE, 2009). During this period, student teachers are guided by mentors, who are experienced upper secondary school chemistry teachers, to teach several classes (often for 10th and 11th graders). To gain graduate certificates from teacher universities, in addition to having achieved a grade point average (GPA) in all subjects (teaching practice included) student teachers have to pass either leaving exams or oral examination of their dissertations (HCMUP, 2010, HNUE, 2009). Often, only student teachers who have GPA over 7/10 are allowed to conduct scientific studies and write dissertations. In my opinion, almost all those 36

students have chosen to conduct chemistry research rather than education or pedagogy research. I would consider that this may be caused by the perception of “major subject” and “minor subject” as mentioned above and/or by the weakness of social research in Vietnam. After having gained graduate certificates of either teacher universities or other universities together with having initial teaching certificates, student teachers spend a twelve-month period of pre-service teaching before become in-service teachers (Vietnam, 2003). In the period of pre-service teaching, student teachers continue to be guided by experienced teachers. In this period, pre-service teachers are required to undertake more teaching observation while their teaching is observed and commented upon by their mentors. After twelve months of pre-service, pre-service teachers can become in-service teachers if they have good recommendations from mentors as well as the principals of the schools where they spent the period of pre-service teaching (Vietnam, 2003). At the beginning of August of every year, in-service teachers attend a regular teaching programme. This programme often lasts for two weeks. It aims to “improve knowledge of subject matter and knowledge of general pedagogy of upper secondary school teachers, and improve their abilities to adapt to the new requirements of developing general education and the criteria for upper secondary school teachers” (MOET, 2011b). According to the circular of the ministry of education and training (MOET, 2011b), this programme includes two main parts, a compulsory part and an optional part. The former contains the instructions relating to the guidance to conduct academic year tasks issued by the ministry of education and training and the departments of education and training within cities and provinces. The latter consists of taught content with the aims of improving teachers’ knowledge of subject matter and knowledge of general pedagogy. Groups of expert teachers from the cities and provinces have been trained in the content of the first part of the regular teacher training programme; then these groups have had the reponsibility to train other teachers in their cities or provinces. The content of the second part has often been taught by teachers from the teacher universities. I have not found in the literature anything about the efficiency of the regular teacher training programme in Vietnam. In my experience, this training was successful in helping teachers to review knowledge that they had been taught at the teacher universities rather than updating their knowledge of subject matter and knowledge of general pedagogy. 37

2.5

A Summary of the Chapter

Together with section 1.2.1 of the introduction chapter, this chapter set up the Vietnamese context for my study. Section 1.2.1 and this chapter aimed to discuss the structures that informed the construction of the theoretical framework (introduced in chapter one) that, together with the research paradigm, guided me through all stages of this study (recruiting the sample, collecting the data, analysing the data, and discussing the findings). In particular, I discussed the following issues. Firstly, I discussed the structure of the education system in Vietnam together with the types of schools and age range of the students these chemistry teachers work with. In addition to teaching chemistry knowledge to upper secondary students, these teachers also aim to help students comprehensively develop by acquiring morals, knowledge, physical health, aesthetic values and other basic skills, develop personal ability, flexibility and creativeness, and so on. They also aim to develop students’ personal abilities in order to choose their future directions (e.g. universities, colleges, professional secondary education schools, vocational training schools or the workforce). Secondly, I discussed the chemistry curriculum for upper secondary students, which is based on the spiral principle, where the chemistry knowledge that has been introduced in lower secondary schools is taught with more complexity and abstraction in upper secondary education. Thirdly, I discussed teachers’ tasks in the stages of teaching. I suggested possible spaces that may require teachers’ creativity. Finally, I discussed initial and regular teacher training for Vietnamese upper secondary school chemistry teachers. After four-years training in the teacher universities where they are mainly taught chemistry; pre-sevice teachers spend a twelve-month period of pre-service teaching before become in-service teachers. Every year in-service teachers take part in regular teacher training held by the ministry of education and training and/or the departments of education and training for cities/provinces with the aim of improving teachers’ knowledge of subject matter and general pedagogy. All of these discussions in this section will contribute to illuminating the factors which impact on teachers’ creativity discussed in chapter 6 and 7.

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Chapter 3

A LITERATURE REVIEW ON CREATIVITY

This study aims to understand the participants’ perspectives of teachers’ creativity in the field of teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam, particularly, to understand why chemistry teachers need creativity, what do chemistry teachers create, how do chemistry teachers create what they create, and which factors influence chemistry teachers’ creativity in that context. Obviously, an understanding of teachers’ creativity in teaching strongly connects to a general understanding of creativity, including what creativity is, what creative products are, how creative products are generated, and which factors influence people’s creativity. Therefore, in this chapter, I will review the literature for a general understanding of creativity. In particular, it consists of two sections. The definitions and classifications of creativity will be discussed in the first setion. The second section aims to investigate the components of creativity, creative product, creative process, creative people and creative environment. 3.1

Definition and Classification

3.1.1 Definitions of Creativity I have searched the literature for a definition of creativity. However, instead of finding a universal definition, I found that creativity is a construct which is difficult to define, that various definitions of creativity have existed at the same time, and that there are common standpoints among the different definitions. In this section, I discuss those notions and then introduce a creativity definition consistent with my general understanding of it. Many researchers have claimed that creativity is an elusive definition. In a review of fifty years of research in creativity, Mayer (1999a, p.28) proposed “An important challenge for the next 50 years of creativity research is to develop a clearer definition of creativity ...” (p.459). Recently, Kampylis & Valtanen (2010) commented that “the noun creativity is not only a relatively new and fashionable but also confusing, even misunderstood, term” (p.191) and Hennessey & Amabile (2010) stated: “Debates surrounding definition … continue to loom large”, (p.572). Going through the literature, I found some reasons why researchers have not constructed a consensus definition of creativity. Firstly, the difficulty of gaining a 39

consensus may be caused by studying creativity in different domains and by different approaches. Creativity was firstly discussed in the domain of art. Later, it has been discussed in more domains. And now, it is discussed in almost all domains, such as science, technology, business, health, education and so on. The development of the number of domains in which creativity is discussed has changed understanding of creativity (Cropley, 1999). Moreover, creativity has been studied with various approaches. In terms of psychology, creativity has been studied through various approaches, pragmatic, psychodynamic, psychometric, cognitive, social personality, evolutionary, and confluence. This has led to the existence of a range of theories of creativity, in other words, various ways to understand creativity (Sternberg and Lubart, 1999, Sternberg et al., 2005, Kozbelt et al., 2010). In this study, instead of following certain theories, I have studied the creativity theories that I have found and constructed a confluence framework from for understanding teachers’ creativity in teaching. Secondly, the difficulty of gaining a consensus definition of creativity may come from the difficulty of understanding the criteria and the components of creativity. Basically, the scholars in this field agree that the essential two criteria are originality (or novelty) and effectiveness (or usefulness, fitness, appropriateness, or value). These two criteria form what is called the standard definition of creativity, “creativity requires both originality and effectiveness” (Runco and Jaeger, 2012, p.92). However, Runco and Jaeger also suggested that these criteria should be studied more because it is not clear for whom creativity is new and useful and who is to judge (this suggestion will be discussed in detail in the section on creative products). They also proposed that there may be other criteria of creativity existing. Some scholars have suggested that ethicality should be considered as a criterion of creativity because of the existence of “the dark side of creativity”. Kampylis and Valtanen (2010, p.191) argued that “until recently, most research on creativity has focused on its positive side. However, creativity might not only be a desirable resource but also be a potential threat”. I support this view because the findings of this study reveal that, in some cases, teachers’ creativity can be both conducive to a certain educational aim and detrimental to another one. In other words, I believe that, at least with teachers’ creativity, the following three criteria for creativity should be originality, effectiveness, and ethicality. Similarly, there has not been a consensus in understanding the components of creativity. So far, “four P’s of creativity” originally introduced by Rhodes (1961) are widely 40

accepted. According to Rhodes, creativity consists of four components that are process, product, person and press (the term that he used to imply the relationship between human beings and environment, also called place or environment). However, each component has been conceptualised differently by different scholars (discussed later in this chapter). In addition, some researchers have been concerned about other components of creativity. For example, Runco (cited in Kozbelt et al., 2010) introduced the six P’s of creativity which consist of two more elements in relation to the “four P’s of creativity”: persuasion, “creative people change the way others think, so they must be persuasive to be recognized as creative”, (p.25) and potential, another hierarchy of creativity, appreciating “yet-unfulfilled possibilities and subjective processes”, (p.25). I agree with some researchers (Amabile, 1996, Csikszentmihalyi, 1996b, Cropley and Cropley, 2008) in thinking that persuasion should be considered as a part of the creative process (discussed later) rather than a separate component of creativity. I also think that potential should be considered as one category of creativity, mini-c creativity (Kaufman and Beghetto, 2007, discussed later in the next sub-section) rather than a component of creativity. In short, I still believe that creativity contains four components, product, process, person, and environment. The debate of the components of creativity is not just about the number of components and the nature of each, but also about the priority of components. Which one, creative process, creative person, or creative product, is the main part of the definition of creativity? (Parkhurst, 1999). Several definitions stressed the importance of creative people, for example “Creativity is the ability to produce work that is both novel (i.e., original, unexpected) and appropriate (i.e., useful, adaptive concerning task constraints)” (Sternberg and Lubart, 1999, p.3); some others stressed the creative process, for example, “Imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value” (NACCCE, 1999, p.30); many others stressed creative products, for example, “According to an emerging consensus among psychologists, creativity is defined as a novel yet appropriate solution to a problem or response to a situation” (Moran, 2010, p.74). I prefer to identify the main part (or parts) of a definition for creativity from my thoughts about the reasons why people need creativity. In my view, we need creativity because of our needs to survive and thrive. To survive, unlike other kinds of animal, we have the ability of intentionally generating new solutions to deal with never-ending 41

challenges coming from both the physical and social worlds. To thrive, we have the ability of intentionally going beyond the routine to have new interpretations of the world, and as a result, to contribute to the world. Therefore, it could be said that creative products result from the interaction between the ability of the individual (creative person), intentional activities of the individual (creative process) and the environment in which they live and work. From this idea, I would argue that four components of creativity, product, process, people, and environment, should be considered equally in a creativity definition. Although there has not been a universal definition of creativity, Kampylis & Valtanen (2010), after analysing and comparing the forty-two explicit definitions of the term creativity, pointed out that the researchers shared some common views, summarised as follows Creativity is a key ability of individual(s); Creativity presumes an intentional activity (process); The creative process occurs in a specific context (environment); The creative process entails the generation of product(s) (tangible or intangible). Creative product(s) must be novel (original, unconventional) and appropriate (valuable, useful) to some extent, at least for the creative individual(s) (Kampylis and Valtanen, 2010, p.198).

In other words, the researchers have agreed that the basic criteria for creative products are novelty (originality, unconventionality) and appropriateness (validity, usefulness); the levels of creativity may range from originality and effectiveness for the creator to that for all people; and the four essential components of creativity are product, process, person, and environment. As a teacher and a researcher, I need a definition of creativity as a starting point for my study and to communicate my understanding of creativity to my colleagues and students. Because there has not been a universal definition of creativity, I have suggested one for the aims recently presented. I have combined the common views of the researchers (Kampylis and Valtanen, 2010) and my personal views, mentioned before, to construct this definition. With these thoughts, I found that the definition of creativity suggested by (Plucker et al., 2004, p.90) is a useful one, “creativity is the interaction among aptitude, process, and environment by which an individual or group produces a perceptible product that is both novel and useful as defined within a social context”. However, because I believe that ethicality should be considered as a criterion of creative product (mentioned before); creativity I suggest should be defined as ‘the interaction between

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aptitude, process, and environment by which an individual or group produces a perceptible product that is novel, useful, and ethical as defined within a social context’. 3.1.2 Categories of Creativity This section aims to search the literature for an understanding of the classifications of creativity. This understanding, on the one hand, enables me to identify the theories of creativity and the research findings that should be reviewed in order to understand teachers’ creativity in teaching. On the other hand, this understanding probably provides a basic foundation for recognising, distinguishing and evaluating teachers’ creativity. In the following paragraphs, I summarise the classifications that exist, pointing out their value for my study, and suggesting possible weaknesses within these classifications. Many researchers of creativity have grouped creativity into two levels, Big-C Creativity (or extraordinary creativity, eminent creativity), and little-c creativity (or everyday creativity, ordinary creativity) (Kaufman and Beghetto, 2009, Kozbelt et al., 2010). According to Simonton (2010), the term Big-C Creativity is used to refer to the creativity of eminent people whose creative products strongly influence a domain or several domains for a long time. In other words, Big-C Creativity involves creative geniuses and their great works, like Leo Tolstoy with War and Peace, Van Gogh with the Irises, Newton with the Three Laws of Motion, Einstein with the Theory of Relativity, Mendeleev with the Periodic Table, Darwin with the Theory of Evolution, and so on. However, Big-C Creativity does not include only great names and great works that Simonton (2010) termed Boldface-C Creativity, but it also includes people whose products are formally recognizable, for example, “anyone creative enough to publish a poem in a major literary magazine, have an application approved by the U.S. Patent Office, publish a highly cited scientific article in a top-tier journal, or write the score to a mainstream feature film” (p.174). Unlike Big-C Creativity, which is the type of creativity relating to the extraordinary and paradigm-shifts (Craft, 2001), is little-c creativity which is the type of creativity relating to everyday life, intentional ideas and behaviours formed for solving life challenges or for coping with life. Richards (2010a, p.190) defined little-c creativity (everyday creativity) as “human originality at work and leisure across the diverse activities of everyday life”. Examples for little-c creativity can be seen everywhere in daily life, they can be the creating of new recipes, reorganising or redecorating houses, choosing personal style clothes, expressing personal feelings, creating new ways to learn new 43

knowledge, making new plans for work, and so on.The existence of the little-c construct has challenged the view that only certain people can be creative. Instead, it is believed that everyone is creative to some extent (Craft, 2001, Runco, 2004, Craft, 2005, Kaufman and Beghetto, 2009, Richards, 2010a). I agree with some researchers (Cohen, 1989, Kaufman and Beghetto, 2007, Kaufman and Beghetto, 2009) that the Big-C/little-c dichotomy does not represent the developmental nature of creativity. Cohen (1989) argued that the dichotomy of creative levels could not explain the nature of creativity correctly. Instead, creativity should be considered as a continuum of creative levels. Following this view, Kaufman & Beghetto (2007) argued that both Big-C and little-c creativity “rely on interpersonal and historical judgments of novelty, appropriateness, and lasting impact” (ibid, p.73), therefore, creativity which relies on intrapersonal judgment was ignored. In other words, personal creative potential (Runco, 2004) was dismissed. They also argued that it is not appropriate to categorise professional experts’ creativity, that does not reach to Big-C, as little-c creativity (Kaufman and Beghetto, 2009). In other words, there was a gap between Big-C Creativity and little-c creativity. To make good the shortcommings of the classification of creativity based on the two constructs Big-C and little-c creativity, Kaufman & Beghetto (2007, 2009) suggested a different way of classification in which, apart from Big-C and little-c, two more categories are added, that are mini-c creativity and Pro-C Creativity (or Professional Creativity). The former, mini-c creativity, the lowest level of creativity, is defined as “the novel and personally meaningful interpretation of experiences, actions, and events”, (Kaufman and Beghetto, 2007, p.73). The latter, the Pro-C Creativity construct, fills in the gap between little-c and Big-C. “Pro-c represents the developmental and effortful progression beyond little-c, but that has not yet attained Big-C status” (Kaufman and Beghetto, 2009, p.5). I found that the suggestions of Kaufman and Beghetto (2007, 2009) form a continuum that seems to cover all levels of human’s creativity. Recently, the way of classifying creativity into four categories, mini-c creativity, little-c creativity, Pro-C Creativity and Big-C Creativity, has been widely used in the study of creativity for the aims of recognising, distinguishing and evaluating creative products and making frameworks for the studies on creativity (Kozbelt et al., 2010).

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In this study, I mainly use this way of classification of creativity for the aim of identifying teachers’ creative products. However, I have found that this way of classifying creativity is not completely useful for evaluating teachers’ creativity. I consider that almost all teachers’ creativity belongs to mini-c creativity or little-c creativity; generating alternatives to both formal and informal teaching resources to deal with the challenges of teachers’ everyday tasks. However from the literature it is difficult to rank teachers’ creativity. I would suggest that a new way of classifying creativity should be constructed in which each category of creativity, mini-c, little-c, Pro-C, and Big-C, is divided into different levels of sub-categories. My data suggests, within the context of Vietnam, that on the continuum a lot of the participants’ creativity could be described as mini-c creativity. This is further discussed in the findings chapter. 3.2

The Components of Creativity

3.2.1 Creative Product Studying creative products starts by looking at the answers to two questions “what are creative products, and by what qualities are they identified?” (MacKinnon, 1968, cited in O’Quin and Besemer, 1999, p.415). In my view, to comprehend the construct of creative products, the questions are not only “what are creative products?”, but also “what are creative products in particular domains?”, and not only “by what qualities are they identified?”, but also “in what ways are they assessed?”. Understanding gained from the answers to these questions will be a foundation that enables me to explore “what teachers create?” in more depth. What are creative products and by what qualities are they identified? When the term creative product was first introduced as one of four components of creativity, Rhodes (1961) considered creative products as tangible forms of original ideas or as “artifacts of thought”. The word idea refers to a thought which has been communicated to other people in the form of words, paint, clay, metal, stone, fabric, or other material. When we speak of an original idea, we imply a degree of newness in the concept. When an idea becomes embodied into tangible form, it is called a product (p. 309)

Recently, some researchers’ views on creative products have changed. Firstly, creativity requires not only novelty, but also usefulness; consequently, novelty and usefulness have become the standard criteria to identify creative products (Runco and Jaeger, 2012). Secondly, not only the tangible forms of original ideas, but new and useful ideas, 45

even ideas kept in the minds of creators, are also considered as creative products (Kaufman and Beghetto, 2007). Therefore, generally, the term creative product implies new and useful work in both tangible and intangible forms (Kampylis and Valtanen, 2010). I support the latter view and suggest that teachers’ creative products should include teachers’ new, useful and ethical work in both tangible and intangible forms. What are creative products in particular domains? In some domains, the answers come quite easily. For example, they are works of art in art, inventions and discoveries in science, publications in literature and poetry, musical compositions in music, and so on. However, in some other domains, answering this question is not easy. For example, the answer to the questions, “what are teachers’ creative products?” is still being researched (Bramwell et al., 2011). In my view, the difficulty in identifying creative products in some domains (e.g., teaching) may be because creativity is not a supreme requirement for products of the tasks conducted in those domains. Instead, creativity is mainly required to deal with the challenges occurring in the processes of producing those products. It is diverse and ambiguous; therefore, it is difficult to recognise. In the next chapter, through reviewing the studies in creative teaching and learning, I will summarise some types of teachers’ creative products suggested by researchers. Additionally, through reviewing the studies in other fields, such as teacher knowledge, teaching as performance and teaching expertise, I will tentatively propose some other types of teachers’ creative products. In chapter 6, after presenting the findings, I will make a conclusion about teachers’ creative products. In what ways are creative products assessed? By reviewing the assessments on creativity, Plucker and Makel (2010) commented that assessment of creative products has received less attention than that of other components of creativity while creative product assessments are probably the gold standard of creativity assessment. They argued that creative product assessments are essential for assessing products in creative industries as well as in education. Additionally, creative product assessments are good indicators for assessing creative people.Plucker and Makel (2010) also considered that among different assessments of creative products, Amabile’s Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT) is very useful. I agreed with them about the usefulness of CAT because Amabile (1996, 1983) proposed a clever way to answer the core question of creative product assessment, “who is to judge?”. According to Amabile, products in a 46

specific domain are creative products when, people who are familiar with that domain agree that they are creative. A product or response is creative to the extent that appropriate observers independently agree it is creative. Appropriate observers are those familiar with the domain in which the product was created or the response articulated. (Amabile, 1996, p.33)

Based on this hypothesis, Amabile developed the Consensual Assessment Technique (Amabile, 1983, Amabile, 1996, Hennessey and Amabile, 1999). Following the CAT, to assess creative products, the judges who are familiar enough with the domain are recruited. They will judge products independently by comparing different products. Finally, the level of agreement will be evaluated using the Spearman–Brown prediction formula. “A reliability figure of .70 or higher can be considered evidence of an acceptable level of agreement between judges” (Hennessey and Amabile, 1999, p.352). I used to be an examiner who assessed teachers’ experiential initiatives. I and other members of the panel faced a problem of what was the best way to assess the creativity of a teacher’s experiential initiatives. Now, I have found that Amabile’s CAT may be a useful solution to this problem. 3.2.2 Creative Process The previous section looked for a foundation to understand what teachers create. This section has an aim of finding out how teachers create what they create. In other words, this section aims to have an understanding of the creative process. Lubart (2001) considered the creative process as “the sequence of thoughts and actions that leads to a novel, adaptive production”, (p.295). The studies into the creative process have been conducted with some different aims. The first is “to understand the nature of the mental mechanisms that occur when a person is engaged in creative thinking or creative activity” (Kozbelt et al., 2010, p.24). The second is to answer the question “what makes the creative process creative”, (Lubart, 2001, p.301); in other words, to answer the question whether the creative process and the uncreative process are a continuum or a dichotomy. Last but not least, in my view, is to understand how the factors of people and environments influence the creative process and, consequently, how to “manipulate” the creative process to some extent through those factors. Many models that describe the mechanisims of the creative process have been constructed. According to Lubart (2001), the first well-known model of the creative process is Wallas’s stage-based model, often called “the classic four-stage model”. 47

Later, a large number of studies have been conducted in various ways, such as, following the classic four-stage model, updating the classic four-stage model, studying sub-processes, and organising related sub-processes. In the following paragraphs, the classic model of the creative process and some typical models from different researchers will be introduced, together with discussions about “what makes the creative process creative” and the relationship between the creative process with other components of creativity. At the end of this section, I will present what I have learned from these models and tentatively propose a new model constructed from both what I have learned and my personal experience. According to Cropley & Cropley (2008), Wallas initially proposed a model of seven stages, including encounter (a problem or challenge is identified), preparation (information is gathered), concentration (an effort is made to solve a problem), incubation (ideas churn in the person’s head), illumination (what seems to be a solution becomes apparent), verification (the individual checks out the apparent solution), and persuasion (the individual attempts to convince others that the product really does solve the problem). Recently, this model has often been discussed as the four-stage model (Cropley and Cropley, 2008, Cropley and Cropley, 2010), including preparation (the problem is consciously identified), incubation (response for the problem is unconsciously looked for), illumination (a new idea suddenly comes), and verification (the new idea is evaluated, refined, and developed), (Lubart, 2001). Some empirical studies (Patrich, 1935, 1937, 1938, Hadamard, 1945, Rossman, 1931, cited in Lubart, 2001) confirmed that the creative process of people in different domains and at different levels of expertise fitted well within the four-stage model, and that there were some overlaps between different stages. The findings of these studies have been criticized for not being trustworthy because data interpretation was biased by the framework of the four-stage model. Some later studies did not find evidence which exactly followed the four-stage model. Instead, some evidence showed that either there was the existence of different stages, or there was interaction and recursion between the stages, and some stages needed to be divided into sub-stages. This indicated that the classic model of the creative process needed to be reconsidered (Lubart, 2001).

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Many scholars have modernized the classic four-stage model based on new understanding in this field. For example, Amabile (1996) also suggested a four-stage model of the creative process. However, she renamed each stage so that it closely connected to her understanding of what happens in that stage. Those stages include problem or task identification (identifying a problem or task and creating criteria), preparation (gathering and reactivating relevant information and resources), response generation (seeking and producing potential responses), and response validation and communication (testing the possible response against criteria). In contrast to Wallas’s view, Amabile (1996) proposed that the stages of preparation and response generation can happen in both conscious and unconscious states. I totally agree with this notion because it is clear that many discoveries in “normal science” have come from scientific reasoning rather than unconscious actions. She also proposed that this process can produce either creative products (heuristic process) or uncreative products (algorithmic process) depending on people’s knowledge and skills. In the preparation stage, if an existing algorithm which can solve a problem is identified, uncreative work will be produced. Conversely, if there is not an existing algorithm, creative responses may be generated. In my view, this notion is very useful to explain the standpoint of some researchers (Sternberg and Lubart, 1991) that too much knowledge may be detrimental to creativity. In the findings I point out that creativity appears to require extensive knowledge in the domain of chemistry teaching; however, possessing a greater repertoire of the solutions (algorithms) for regularly encountered problems may inhibit creativity. Moreover, she (Amabile, 1996) made clear the influence of some external factors at each stage of the creative process. These external factors include creativity-relevant skills (ability to break mental sets, heuristics for idea generation), domain-relevant skills (knowledge and skills), and task motivation (interest and commitment to the task). The influence of these factors can change the level of creativity of outcomes (discussed in detail in the sections on creative people and creative environments). Another example of modernizing the classic four-stage model is the model of the creative process of Cropley & Cropley (2008). They suggested a seven-stage model. In comparison with the classic four-stage model, the stage “preparation” is subdivided into “preparation” and “activation” in order to emphasize the importance of knowledge and dissatisfaction with existing knowledge. The term “incubation” is replaced by the 49

broader meaning of the term “cognition” that refers to both non-monotonic processes (“blind variation and selective retention leading to sudden jumps”, p.363) and monotonic processes (“step-by-step improvement”, p.363). This term is then changed to the term “generation” (Cropley and Cropley, 2010). The two more stages, “communication” and “validation”, are added after “verification” referring to communicability and the recognized value of creative products. In short, this model includes the following stages, preparation (general and specific knowledge accumulated), activation (problem awareness based on knowledge develops), generation (information is processed in the person’s head), illumination (the person sees a possible answer), verification (the product is checked out and found to be appropriate), communication (the product is revealed to knowledgeable others), and validation (knowledgeable others confirm the product is novel, relevant, effective, etc.), (Cropley and Cropley, 2008, Cropley and Cropley, 2010). Cropley and Cropley (2008) main purpose was to construct this model to resolve what they called the paradoxes of creativity or the mutually contradictory findings of research into creativity. For example, creativity requires divergent thinking versus creativity requires convergent thinking; creativity is inhibited by knowledge versus creativity requires extensive knowledge; extrinsic motivation inhibits creativity versus extrinsic motivation promotes creativity, and so on. To resolve the paradoxes of creativity, Cropley and Cropley (2008) proposed that different stages of the creative process require different types of knowledge, thinking skills, personalities and motivation. Therefore, inappropriately applying a certain type among different types of knowledge, thinking skills, personalities and motivation to a certain stage may inhibit creativity. For example, divergent thinking is crucial for the stages of activation and generation while convergent thinking is crucial for the stages of illumination and verification. If convergent thinking is used in the stage of activation, the level of novelty of problems is limited. This causes a low level of novelty of outcomes. In my view, this idea is very interesting not only because of its usefulness in resolving the paradoxes of creativity, but also because of its application in teaching for creativity. For example, in the stage of illumination, preventing students from immediately verifying their answers (convergent thinking) can help them to generate as many answers as possible (divergent thinking); or, in the stage of generation, not to provide 50

students with the strategy of solving chemistry problems (extensive knowledge) can help them to generate new strategies. However, I do not think it is enough to resolve all “the paradoxes of creativity”. For example, the reason why extrinsic motivation can either inhibit or promote creativity is not only which stage extrinsic motivation is used, but also what type of extrinsic motivation is used (Amabile, 1996). This notion will be discussed later in the section on motivation and is very pertinent to this study. Additionally, I think that it seems unnecessary to have seven stages of the creative process because I found that the ideas of Cropley and Cropley, just mentioned, can be satisfied by combining Amabile’s four-stage model of the creative process and the idea from Cropley and Cropley (2008, 2010) that the creative process can be broken off at any stage, begin part way through, and may happen with interaction between the stages. For example, Cropley and Cropley (2008) added the activation stage with the aim of emphasizing that problems are identified based on the dissatisfaction with existing knowledge. I think it unnecessary because, firstly, problems do not only come from dissatisfaction with existing knowledge, but also come from external requirements. Secondly, Amabile’s (1996) model can explain the type of problems coming from dissatisfaction with existing knowledge when it is admitted that there is mutual interaction between the first and second stage. I discuss this issue in detail at the end of this section. Another tendency of studying the creative process is investigating sub-processes relating to creativity and introducing models of the creative process by organising subprocesses (Lubart, 2001). One of the well-known models belonging to this type is the Geneplore Model (Finke et al., 1992, Ward et al., 1999, Ward and Kolomyst, 2010). In this model, the creative process includes two mutual interaction processes: “generative process that produces candidate ideas of varying degrees of creative potential and exploratory process that expand on that potential”, (Ward and Kolomyst, 2010, p.94). The examples of different kinds of mental processes belonging to the generative process and exploratory process are listed in Table 2 below (Ward et al., 1999). I will discuss more about these examples in the next chapter and the findings of this study. Generative Process The retrieval of existing structures from memory; The formation of simple associations among those structures or combinations of them; The mental synthesis of new structures; The mental transformation of existing structures into

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new forms; Analogical transfer of information from one domain to another; And categorical reduction, in which existing structures are conceptually reduced to more primitive constituents Exploratory Process The search for novel or desired attributes in the mental structures; The search for metaphorical implications of the structures; The search for potential functions of the structures; The evaluation of structures from different perspectives or within different contexts; The interpretation of structures as representing possible solutions to problems; and The search for various practical or conceptual limitations that are suggested by the structures

Table 2: The Examples of Geneplore Model The commonplace between creative cognition theory and many other theories of creativity is that creative products can be produced through the creative process and based on people’s existing knowledge. In addition, the creative cognition approach claimed that “although the same basic processes may be used, they are applied differently to produce different types of outcomes” (Ward, 2007, p.xxiv). The difference between this theory and the rest is that it reveals the particular ways to produce creative advances from existing knowledge (Ward, 2007). I would suggest that this model provides a very useful way to understand what happens in the stages of incubation and illumination of the classic four-stage model of the creative process, and that this model is also very useful to understand how teachers create as well as to guide teachers to create. I will give examples of using this model in the study of teachers’ creativity in the next chapter and the findings of this study. Another way to understand the creative process comes from the problem-solving approach, more precisely, the creative problem-solving approach that is considered as “a model of the creative process” and “not designed to replace individuals’ natural creative thinking processes, but to explicate this process in a way that allows them to be more systematic in how they approach challenges”, (Puccio and Cabra, 2009, p.328). This explication seems to be appropriate for various domains, particularly in education in which processes of creative teaching and creative learning are partly creative solving of problems. Problem is defined as “cognitive processing directed at transforming a given situation into a goal situation when no obvious solution method is available to the problem solver”, (Mayer, 1999b, p.437). According to Mayer (1999b), the problem solving process is often divided into two phases and some sub-processes as presented in Table 3. Phases Sub-Processes Problem Presentation (a problem solver Translating (mentally representing each

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takes the problem statement and builds sentence or portion of the problem); And an internal mental representation of the integrating (putting knowledge together problem) into a coherent structure that can be called a situation model). Problem Solution (the problem solver Planning (devising a solution plan); devises and carries out a plan for solving Executing (carrying out the plan by the problem) engaging in action); And monitoring (awareness and control of one’s cognitive processing, including assessing the effectiveness of one’s plan as it is put into action)

Table 3: The Problem Solving Processes Creative insight can occur in a certain sub-process. The nature of insight has not been fully understood yet, but there have been six suggestions of it that are Insight as Nothing New (happening when an old method of solving is used for a new problem), Insight as Completing a Schema (happening when a gap in structure is filled in), Insight as Reorganizing Visual Information (happening when a new way to look at a problem situation is used), Insight as Reformulating a Problem (happening when a new, more productive way is defined or formulated), Insight as Overcome a Mental Block (happening when inappropriate past experience is ignored), Insight as Finding a Problem Analogy (happening when solving a new problem by using the structural relations or principles in a previously solved problem), (Mayer, 1999b). Basically, I found that the sub-processes of the creative problem solving approach is similar to the stages of the multiple-stage models of the creative process and that the suggestions of the nature of insight are similar to the examples of the Geneplore model. Going through all the models of the creative process just presented, I found that these models seem to be slightly different because the authors had different aims while they constructed those models; however, they are not in contradiction to each other; instead, they support each other. For example, the models of Amabile (1996) and Cropley and Cropley (2008) together made clear the meaning of each stage of the creative process and the relationship between the creative process and the external factors while the Geneplore model and the creative problem solving model together made clear what happens within the creative process. Based on that though and on the idea that creativity is one of purposive human activities and that their basic pattern includes four stages, decide on aims, plan the action, action, and evaluate the action (Petty, 2009), I would suggest a tentative model of the creative process as in Figure 7. This model will be used

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as a framework to analyse this study’s data relating to how teachers learn, think, and teach creatively.

Figure 7: A Model of the Creative Process I keep using the terms of the classic four-stage model, but the meaning of each term is replaced by Amabile’s descriptions (1996). Preparation is the stage of identifying a problem or task and creating criteria. Incubation is the stage of gathering and reactivating relevant information and resources. Illumination is the stage of seeking potential responses and producing potential responses. And verification is the stage of testing the possible response against criteria. Normally, the creative process happens in order, starting at the stage of preparation, then through the incubation stage, illumination stage and ending at the stage of verification. However, the creative process can also happen in different sequences through the stages and there are interactions between the stages (Cropley and Cropley, 2008, Cropley and Cropley, 2010). The double-headed arrows show the possible orders in which the creative process can happen and the possible interactions between all stages of the creative process. In the stage of preparation, problems or tasks can be recognized by the influence of external factors, such as task motivation or domain-relevant skills (Amabile, 1996). For example, individual’s feeling of dissatisfaction (intrinsic motivation), employer’s requirements (extrinsic motivation), and gaps in individual’s knowledge (domainrelevant skills) can be the reasons for problems or tasks emerging. Problems or tasks can be refined or totally changed by the influences of other stages (Cropley and Cropley, 2008, Cropley and Cropley, 2010). For example, knowledge collected in the incubation stage may change an individual’s views about the gaps of existing knowledge; and potential responses are not found out (in the illumination stage) or potential responses are evaluated inappropriately to the criteria (in the verification stage) and may require the refining of the problem or task.

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The incubation stage and illumination stage may include the activities happening as in the generative process and explorative process, respectively, of the Geneplore Model (see Table 2). I give examples for this notion in the findings of this study. In the verification stage, responses can be subjectively and objectively evaluated (Amabile, 1996, Csikszentmihalyi, 1996b, Cropley and Cropley, 2008). I agree with Amabile (1996) that the creative process is influenced by domain-relevant skills, creativityrelevant skills and task motivation. I also believe that this process may produce high creative products, low creative products as well as uncreative products (Amabile, 1996, Lubart, 2001, Ward, 2007) depending on what happens in each stage and how external factors impact upon the creative process. Following theories of creative problem solving (Mayer, 1999b), I believe that creative insight or “aha” moments, can happen at the preparation stage, the incubation stage, as well as the illumination stage. If at least one of three outcomes of these stages, problem, problem solving strategy, and response, respectively is new, the necessary criterion, novelty, of a creative product is guaranteed. 3.2.3 Creative Person I admit that almost all people have some degree of creativity, in other words the majority of people have the potential to think and act creatively (Runco, 2004). I also acknowledge that some people will be more creative than others. To understand why an individual is more creative than another, I need to understand attributes of highly creative people and the relationship between these attributes and other components of creativity, especially the creative process. Many creativity researchers (Sternberg and Lubart, 1991, Amabile, 1996, Feist, 2010) supported the view that highly creative people possess several specific personalities, a certain degree of domain knowledge, a certain degree of intelligence, and a certain degree of task motivation. In this subsection, each attribute and the relationship between these attributes and individuals’ ability to think and act creatively will be examined. Understanding a portrait of creative people will partly inform what a portrait of a creative teacher is which is one of the aims of this study. 3.2.3.1 Personality Personality is defined as “the relative enduring unique ways that individuals think, act, and feel”, (Feist, 2010, p.114). After reviewing the typical literature relating to creative personalities, I discovered two different schools of thought. In the following paragraphs, 55

I introduce these two standpoints. Then, I tentatively explain the difference between the two and suggest further questions for this study. The first standpoint focuses on a set of different personalities associated to creativity. Sternberg (2007) considered creativity as a habit. He described this habit as follows Creative people routinely approach problems in novel ways. Creative people habitually (a) look for ways to see problems that other people don’t look for, (b) take risks that other people are afraid to take, (c) have the courage to defy the crowd and to stand up for their own beliefs, and (d) seek to overcome obstacles and challenges to their views that other people give in to, among other things (ibid, p.4).

Therefore, creative people have personalities which are associated with the creative habit as described above.These personalities include, but are not limited to, willingness to tolerate ambiguity (accept and value ambiguous and formless ideas, and keep extending them), willingness to overcome obstacles (caused by crowds and conventions), willingness to take sensible risks (caused by opposite and different ideas), and self-efficacy (believe in one’s own creative potential), (Sternberg and Lubart, 1991, Sternberg, 2007, Sternberg, 2010).These creative personalities are a part of creative personalities, belonging to what Feist (2010) called cognitive traits and social traits. Feist (2010) also introduced other personalities which are associated with creativity. Building on the qualitative and quantitative reviews of personality and creativity from 10 years ago, Feist (2010) divided personalities relating to creativity into four groups of personality traits, namely, cognitive personality traits dealing with how people habitually process information, solve problems, and respond to new situation, social personality traits involving first and foremost behaviours and attitudes that concern one’s relationships to other people, motivational-affective personality traits defined by a person’s desire to persist in activities and to be successful in his or her activities, and clinical personality traits including the normal personality dimension of psychoticism and its related concept of schizotypy. He concluded The cognitive traits (openness and cognitive flexibility), social traits (normdoubting, nonconformity, independence, extraversion-introversion, aloofness, hostility, coldness, and dominance, self-confidence/arrogance), motivationalaffective traits (drive, persistence, intrinsic motivation, and positive affect), and clinical traits (psychoticism, latent inhibition, and schizotypy) all function to make creative thought, behaviour, and achievement more probable, (ibid, p.125).

Different from the first standpoint, some scholars believed that the personalities of a creative person are not a set of different traits, but a set of differently paradoxical traits (McMullan, 1978, cited in Cropley and Cropley, 2008, Csikszentmihalyi, 1996a). After 30 years of researching how highly creative people live and work, Csikszentmihalyi 56

(1996a) believed that a highly creative person possesses complicated personalities; “instead of being an individual, each of them is a multitude” (p.35). From in-depth interviews with 91 creative eminences, he proposed the ten antithetical traits presented in highly creative people as follows, (1) Creative people have a great deal of physical energy, but they're also often quiet and at rest. (2) Creative people tend to be smart yet naive at the same time. (3) Creative people combine playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility. (4) Creative people alternate between imagination and fantasy, and a rooted sense of reality. (5) Creative people tend to be both extroverted and introverted. (6) Creative people are humble and proud at the same time. (7) Creative people, to an extent, escape rigid gender role stereotyping. (8) Creative people are both rebellious and conservative. (9) Most creative people are very passionate about their work, yet they can be extremely objective about it as well. (10) Creative people's openness and sensitivity often exposes them to suffering and pain, yet also to a great deal of enjoyment.

Why do the researchers have different standpoints about the personalities of highly creative people? In my view, this difference has resulted from the difference between two standard criteria of creativity, originality and effectiveness. To create original products, creators should be open to experience, be nonconformist and independent. Conversely, to guarantee that original products are also effective, creators should be disciplined, have a rooted sense of reality, and so on. Therefore, the personalities of highly creative people summarised by Feist (2010) are related to the first standard criteria of creative products, originality; while the differently paradoxical traits of highly creative people summarised by Csikszentmihalyi (1996b) are related to both standard criteria of creative products, originality and effectiveness. Personally, I agree with Csikszentmihalyi (1996b) in believing that a creator should not be an individual, but a multitude. How do the personalities of highly creative people influence the creative process? I tentatively suggested a model of the creative process as in Figure 7. I believe that identifying a new problem, in the stage of preparation and generating new possible responses, in the stage of illumination, are necessary to guarantee that the products are original. Therefore, a special personality constellation as summarised by Feist (2010) strongly influences the preparation stage and the illumination stage; the ones that oppose these personalities, as summarised by Csikszentmihalyi (1996b), influence the two other stages of the creative process. I have also found that studying other writers on personalities relating to creativity has emphasized domain-general (Feist, 2010, Sternberg, 2010) rather than domain-specific, 57

and creative eminences (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996a) rather than lay people. Therefore, the questions that needs posing for studies in creative teaching should be “what are the consistencies and differences between creative teachers’ personalities and common creative personalities?” and, “do teachers have a set of paradoxical traits like creative eminences?” These two questions will be explored in the next chapter and the findings of this study. 3.2.3.2 Knowledge Weisberg (1999) meticulously reviewed the relationship between knowledge and creativity. In this review, he presented both the agreements and the disagreements among the researchers on this issue. The researchers agreed that one needs to have knowledge of the domain with the aim of going beyond and creating something new and useful within that domain. However, they do not totally agree about the amount of domain knowledge one needs to have. For this disagreement, Weisberg presented two contradictory views which he called the “tension view” and the “foundation view”. People supporting the tension view proposed that too much knowledge may be detrimental to creativity because one’s past knowledge can formulate one’s thinking styles. This view has been supported by some studies. For examples, Simonton’s study (1984) showed that “the peak of eminence occurred at about midway through undergraduate training” (Weisberg, 1999, p.229). An inverted U-shape was used to demonstrate this phenomenon. Both very high and very low levels of domain knowledge may be detrimental to creativity. Other studies (Luchins and Luchins, 1959; Frensch and Sternberg, 1989; cited in Weisberg, 1999) showed that novices often solve new problems more easily than experienced problem solvers in the experimental conditions because they are not influenced by traditional methods of problem solving. Conversely, people supporting the foundation view proposed that “knowledge is positively related to creativity” (p.226). This proposition is supported by the 10-year rule and the studies relating to developing expertise. The study of Hayes (1989) and many other researchers led to an important conclusion that “even the most noteworthy and “talented” individuals required many years of preparation before they began to produce the work on which their reputations were built” (Weisberg, 1999, p.230). The number 10 is only a conditioning number implying “many years of preparation” which is different from domain to domain and slightly different from individual to individual within each domain. Ericsson et al., (1993) and many other researchers, Weisberg 58

included, proposed that one, during many years of preparation, needs to practice deliberately, the type of practice which “consists of a set of activities specially designed to improve performance in some skill” (Weisberg, 1999, p.233), in order to develop expertise before creating notable works. In other words, “deep immersion in one’s chosen field is necessary before innovation is produced” (p.227). Weisberg favoured the foundation view. He argued that Simonton’s study (presented in the first paragraph of this section) was not convincing because “formal education and knowledge might not be related” and “he used a sample of eminent individuals born between 1450 and 1850 … it is difficult to extrapolate to modern education based on conclusions drawn from educational levels of past centuries” (p.243). Weisberg (1999) also argued that the studies in the experimental conditions of Luchins and Luchins (1959) as well as Frensch and Sternberg (1989) are not microcosms of real-world situations. Real situations often asked for surface changes, instead of deep changes to the experimental conditions. Moreover, Weisberg (1999) showed evidence that even for the cases of deep changes to real-world conditions, expertise is necessary for creativity. However, I found opposing evidence. In the well-known book, “The structure of scientific revolutions”, Kuhn (1996) observed opposite phenomena. He stated that novices often make a paradigm shift within a domain, while experienced people seem to be good at “normal science” rather than “scientific revolution”. Almost always the men who achieve these fundamental inventions of a new paradigm have been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change. And perhaps that point need not have been made explicit, for obviously these are the men who, being little committed by prior practice to the traditional rules of normal science, are particularly likely to see that those rules no longer define a playable game and to conceive another set that can replace them (p.90).

In my view, the conflict between the foundation view and the tension view mentioned above can be resolved if we reconsider these views from the aspects of quality and quantity of creative contribution. Actually, the U-shape rule emphasized the quantity of creative contributions while the ten-year rule emphasized the quality of creative contribution. I will explain my argument as follows. Because of the lack of domain knowledge, novices are not bound by the paradigms of that domain, so some novices can generate the ideas which go beyond the domain paradigm and make a paradigm shift (evidenced by the experiments of Luchins and Luchins (1959), Frensch and Sternberg (1989), and the comment of Kuhn (1990)). However, it is difficult for novices, who often have not gained enough knowledge of the 59

domain to generate valuable responses as well as justify what they have found. Therefore, there are not many great contributions created by novices (evidenced by the U-shape rule). After a long time of deliberative practices, people become experts, they firmly grasp knowledge of the domain so that they can find out the big gaps of the domain, generate the responses to fill the gaps, and evaluate effectively what they have found; in other words, they can generate great contributions for the domain (evidenced by the ten-year rule). However, not many people become experts and not many experts continue to find out something new because they already possess a great repertoire of the responses to the problems often emerging in that domain. Sternberg and Lubart (1991) warned that this knowledge could be a double-edged sword. Therefore, the number of creative contributions by people with high levels of knowledge tends to decrease (evidenced by the U-shape rule). It seems to be that the number of people who are midway through achieving expertise creates the biggest creative solutions. They grasp enough knowledge of the domain, but do not have enough responses to domain problems and are not tied firmly by the domain paradigms. Consequently, there are a huge amount of creative contributions coming from this group, evidenced by the U-shape rule. Additionally, I would suggest that knowledge of a certain domain often includes several different types that influence individuals’ creativity differently. Moreover, individual’s creativity is influenced by not only individual’s knowledge, but also individual’s personalities (discussed previously) and individual’s intelligence and task motivation (discussed later) so that the influence of knowledge on creativity should be investigated together with the influence of other factors (personalities, intelligence, and task motivation). Because of what I discussed in the prior paragraphs, in the discussion about the relationship between teachers’ knowledge and teachers’ creativity in the findings of this study, I will also refer to teacher expertise development, types of teacher knowledge, and teachers’ personalities. 3.2.3.3 Intelligence Intelligence is defined as “an ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt to the environment, to learn from experience, and to engage in reasoning to overcome obstacles” (Neisser, 1996, cited in Kim et al., 2010, p. 395). The relationship between intelligence and creativity has been understood differently in the typical theories on intelligence and creativity (Sternberg and O'Hara, 1999, Kim et al., 2010). 60

The theories on creativity tended to consider intelligence as a component of creativity. For examples, in the Investment Theory of Creativity (Sternberg and Lubart, 1991, Sternberg, 2006), intelligence was considered as one of six resources of creativity. The three intellectual skills which influence creativity are the synthetic skill, the analytic skill, and the practical–contextual skill. These three skills together ensure novelty, value and usefulness of creative products. The synthetic skill, which is the ability to see problems in new ways and to escape the bounds of conventional thinking, guarantees novelty for creative products. The analytic skill, which is the ability to recognize which of one’s ideas are worth pursuing and which are not, promises value for creative products. The practical–contextual skill and ability to know how to persuade others of the value of one’s ideas, guarantees those creative products usefulness. Similar to the Investment Theory of Creativity, in Amabile’s Componential Theory of Creativity (Amabile, 1996), intelligence is also considered as a part of creativity. She explained, It is a necessary, but not a sufficient, contributing factor. Some minimum level of intelligence is required for creative performance because intelligence is, presumably, directly related to the acquisition of domain-relevant skills and the application of creativity heuristics (ibib, p.100).

Conversely, the theories of intelligence tended to consider creativity as a component of intelligence. For example, in Guilford’s Structure of Intellect Model (Guilford, 1956, Guilford, 1959), the intellect had a three-dimension structure, including a dimension of operations (cognition, memory, divergent production, convergent production, and evaluation), content (figural, symbolic, semantic, and behavioural), and products (units, classes, relations, systems, transformations, and implications). In which, only divergent production (in the dimension of operation) was closely connected with creativity. Similarly, in the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory (a popular foundation for IQ test), there are 16 different broad factors of intelligence proposed. Of these 16, 3 factors are related to creativity (Kaufman, 2009). Although there are different views about the relationship between intelligence and creativity in the typical theories of intelligence and creativity, it is clear in those theories that the relationship between creativity and intelligence obviously exists. However, there are also studies that showed that “the relationship between creativity and intelligence is negligible at any IQ level” (Kim et al., 2010, p.402). In other words, intelligence and creativity are separate constructs (ibid).

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The lack of consensus about the relationship between creativity and intelligence in the previous studies is the main reason why, in this study, I have not spent time to explore the relationship between teachers’ intelligence and teachers’ creativity. Another reason why this issue has not been really focused upon is that, personally, I think that enhancing teachers’ creativity through teachers’ personalities, knowledge, and environment is more possible than through teachers’ intelligence because it can be argued that intelligence is influenced by genetic factors rather than social or educational factors (Kim et al., 2010). 3.2.3.4 Motivation In the previous section on personality I drew upon Feist (2010) to discuss motivation as one of four personality traits of creative people. In this section, this construct is discussed again with more details because a deep understanding of this construct can help me to understand which factors can intrinsically or extrinsically motivate teachers to be more creative. In particular, the motivation construct will be explained together with the explanations of two types of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic. Then, the nature of the relationship between motivation and creativity will be discussed. Ryan and Deci (2000a) explained the term “motivation” as follows: To be motivated means to be moved to do something. A person who feels no impetus or inspiration to act is thus characterized as unmotivated, whereas someone who is energized or activated toward an end is considered motivated (p.54).

In other words, “motivation concerns energy, direction, persistence and equifinality - all aspects of activation and intention” (Ryan and Deci, 2000b, p.69). Motivation, since around 1970 (Hennessey, 2010), has been classified into two types (Ryan and Deci, 2000a, p.54), intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, “based on the different reasons or goals that give rise to an action”. In “Creativity in Context” (1996), Amabile made detailed definitions of these two types. We define as intrinsic any motivation that arises from the individual’s positive reaction to qualities of the task itself; this reaction can be experienced as interest, involvement, curiosity, satisfaction, or positive challenge. We define as extrinsic any motivation that arises from sources outside of the task itself; these sources include expected evaluation, contracted-for reward, external directives, or any of several similar sources. (p.115)

These two types of motivation are very pertinent to the reasons for participants’ motivations and inhibitors in their creative teaching. Concisely, intrinsic motivation is “the motivation to engage in activity for its own sake” while extrinsic motivation is “the motivation to do something for some external goal” (Hennessey, 2010, p.343). 62

According to Deci and Ryan (2008a, 2008b, 2000a, 2000b, 1990), intrinsic motivation is caused by satisfying individual’s innate basic psychological needs including competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Because of the innate nature of intrinsic motivation, the individual is intrinsically motivated for certain activities. Conversely, a particular task does not relate to the intrinsic motivation of all people (Ryan and Deci, 2000a, Deci and Ryan, 2008a). They explained these needs as follows, The need for competence encompasses people’s strivings to control outcomes and to experience effectance; in other words, to understand the instrumentalities that lead to desired outcomes and to be able to reliably affect those instrumentalities. The need for autonomy (or self-determination) encompasses people’s strivings to be agentic, to feel like the “origin” of their actions, and to have a voice or input in determining their own behaviour. It concerns the desire to experience an internal perceived locus of causality with regard to action – that is, to experience one’s action as emanating from the self. Finally, the need for relatedness encompasses a person’s strivings to relate to and care for others, to feel that those others are relating authentically to one’s self, and to feel a satisfying and coherent involvement with the social world more generally (Deci and Ryan, 1990, p.243)

The relationship between motivation and creativity was proposed in Amabile’s The Intrinsic Motivation Principle of Creativity. She also proposed a mechanism to explain this principle as can be seen in Figure 8 (Amabile, 1996, p.119).

Figure 8: The Influence of Social-Environment on the Creative Process According to this principle, intrinsic motivation always promotes creative behaviours while extrinsic motivation either promotes or inhibits creative behaviours depending on different types of extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity; controlling extrinsic motivation is detrimental to creativity, but informational or enabling extrinsic motivation can be conducive, particularly if initial levels of intrinsic motivation are high. (Amabile, 1996, p.119)

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As can be seen in Figure 8, intrinsic motivation can add to creativity because it impacts positively on the stages of problem identification and response generation of the creative process (Amabile, 1996, Amabile, 1998, Hennessey, 2007, Hennessey, 2010). Through individual’s interest, involvement and curiosity, it is easier for individuals to discover problems, and the problems discovered by an individual are solved more creatively than problems externally posed (Getzels and Csikszentmihalyi, cited in Amabile, 1996). In addition, the individual intrinsically motivated enjoyably plays with new ideas that emerge without being afraid of judgment (Amabile, 1996, Ryan and Deci, 2000b, Baumeister and Vohs, 2007). In The Intrinsic Motivation Principle of Creativity, Amabile (1996) classified extrinsic motivation into two types, controlling extrinsic motivation (or non-synergistic extrinsic motivation) and informational extrinsic motivation (or synergistic extrinsic motivation), based on the negative or positive effect of extrinsic motivation on creativity. On the one hand, controlling extrinsic motivation is detrimental to creativity because it decreases intrinsic motivation. On the other hand, informational extrinsic motivation can be conducive to creativity because it either supports intrinsic motivation due to its autonomous nature, or supports the stages of preparation and response validation. The context the participants work within in Vietnam produce dichotomies for them in terms of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. In my view, Amabile’s definitions of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (1996), Amabile’s mechanism of the influence of motivation on the creative process (1996), and Ryan and Deci’s individual’s innate basic psychological needs (1990) are really helpful to study what motivates teachers to be more creative as well as how teachers motivate students. The particular questions posed for this study are “which innate psychological needs are often seen in creative teachers?”, “which external factors positively impact upon teachers’ intrinsic motivation”, and “in which ways can teachers motivate students’ creativity?” 3.2.4 Creative Environment This section aims to understand which environments can be conducive to creativity in general. This understanding may enable me to understand the environments that are conducive to teachers’ creativity in teaching. Many scholars (e.g., Rhodes, 1961, Sternberg and Lubart, 1991, Amabile, 1996, Csikszentmihalyi, 1996b, Kaufman, 2009, Kozbelt et al., 2010) believed that the environment where an individual resides, ranging 64

from the place and era of one’s early years to the place and social climate of one’s current workplace, can influence the individual’s creativity. The following paragraphs will introduce the influence of environment to individuals’ creativity from the standpoints of some well-known scholars in the field of creativity. Sternberg and Lubart, in their investment theory of creativity (1991), considered environmental context as one of six resources for creativity. They proposed that it influences creativity in three different ways. Firstly, one will be more creative if one lives or works in an environment in which one has more opportunity to interact with other creative people or creative products. Secondly, one will be more creative if one’s creative ideas are encouraged by the surrounding people. Finally, one will be more creative if one’s creative products are precisely evaluated and widely accepted by the surrounding people. This analysis is very helpful in this study as I considered the working environments of the participants impacted on their opportunities to be creative. I found in the propositions of Sternberg and Lubart (1991) two ways by which environment can influence the creative process. Firstly, environment can directly influence the creative process through the verification stage. A good environment for individual’s creativity is one that precisely evaluates what the individual creates. Secondly, environment can indirectly influence the creative process through individual’s knowledge and motivation. A good environment for individual’s creativity is one that provides that individual with both knowledge of domain and knowledge of creativity, and motivates that individual to think and act creatively. This view of Sternberg and Lubart (1991) was supported by Csikszentmihalyi, although his theory of creativity is quite different from the investment theory of creativity. Csikszentmihalyi (1996b) proposed that creativity consists of three main parts, domain (consisting of a set of symbolic rules and procedures), field (including all the individuals who act as gatekeepers to the domain), and individual (who uses symbols of a given domain, comes up with a new idea or sees a new pattern). He also offered three reasons through which environment can influence creativity. Firstly, to create something new in a domain, one must gain knowledge of that domain; however, “information is not distributed evenly in space but is clumped in different geographical nodes” (p.128); therefore, people will be more creative in a certain domain when they live and work in an environment containing rich information of that domain. Secondly, to be more creative, one needs to be motivated to create; however, “novel stimulation is 65

not evenly distributed” (p.129); therefore, people will be more creative in an environment in which creativity is encouraged. Finally, to be more creative, one needs to access the field in which what one creates can be precisely valued; however, “access to the field is not evenly distributed in space” (p.130); therefore, people will be more creative in an environment in which their creative ideas can be correctly evaluated and applied, and I would suggest valued. Amabile (1996) proposed that environment influences creativity through task motivation (Figure 8, p.63). In particular, environmental factors supporting the basic psychological needs (positive factors, see the details in Table 4) can improve intrinsic motivation or synergistic extrinsic motivation, and therefore enhance creativity. Conversely, environmental factors connoting control or negative factors, (see the details in Table 4 ibid., p.120), increases non-synergistic extrinsic motivation, and then decreases intrinsic motivation and creativity. General

Organizational

Positive

Negative

*Autonomy/sense of control; Sufficient resources; *Importance/urgency in the work; *Optimal challenge; Recognition/ reward that confirms competence; Reward that enables intrinsically interesting work; *Task matched to interests; and Sufficient task structure to support competent performance. Recognition that failure in work can provide valuable information; *Mechanisms for considering new ideas; *Highlevel encouragement toward innovation; *Immediate supervisor encouragement; Coworker skill diversity; Coworker openness to new ideas; Rigid status structures; Coworkers challenge ideas; Constructively; *Emphasis on intrinsic motivators; Competition with outside organizations; Constructive work-focused feedback; Clear strategic direction, with procedural autonomy; Cooperation; and Collaboration.

Threatening critical evaluation; Connoting incompetence; Expectation of critical evaluation; Surveillance; Contracted-for reward connoting; Restricted choice/constraint control; Arbitrary/ unrealistic deadlines; and Competition with co-workers.

Lack of communication; Lack of cooperation; Emphasis on the status quo; Emphasis on extrinsic motivators; Win-lose competition within the organization; Rigid procedures; and Apathy toward project from others in organization.

*The positive influences likely have a direct impact on intrinsic motivation. The other positive influences likely serve as synergistic extrinsic motivators.

Table 4: Social-Environmental Influences on Creativity 66

However, on carefully considering Table 4, I have realised that some environmental factors listed in this table not only influence the creative process through individual’s motivation, but also influence the creative process through knowledge of domain and creativity (e.g., Mechanisms for considering new ideas, Co-worker skill diversity), as well as directly influence the creative process through the verification stage (e.g., Constructive work-focused feedback). In summary, according to Sternberg and Lubart (1991), Csikszentmihalyi (1996b), and Amabile (1996) a good environment for creativity (a creative environment) is one in which one can gain knowledge of domain and creativity, is encouraged to live and work creatively, and is precisely evaluated for what one creates. The question posed for this study is what particular educational contexts in Vietnam, that provide chemistry teachers with knowledge of the domain and creativity, motivate these teachers to think and teach creatively, and evaluate precisely what these teachers create, look like or do they even exist? 3.3

A Summary of the Chapter

This chapter aimed to review the literature for a general understanding of creativity. The review has revealed the common views of creativity together with some controversial issues which need to be studied more. I summarise the common views and the controversial issues as follows, (1) There has not been a universal definition of creativity because of the debates relating to the criteria and the components of creativity. However, the majority of researchers in this field agreed that four main components of creativity are creative process, creative product, creative person, and creative environment; that two main criteria for a creative product are novelty and usefulness. A definition of creativity has been widely accepted as the standard definition of creativity: “creativity requires both originality and effectiveness” (Runco and Jaeger, 2012, p.92). In this study, creativity is defined as the interaction between aptitude, process, and environment by which an individual or group produces a perceptible product that is novel, useful, and ethical as defined within a social context. (2) Many scholars have agreed that creative magnitudes should be categorised into four levels, mini-c (the novel and personally meaningful interpretation of experiences, actions, and events), little-c (human originality at work and leisure across the 67

diverse activities of everyday life), Pro-C (the developmental and effortful progression beyond little-c, but that has not yet attained Big-C status), and Big-C creativity (a type of creativity that strongly influences a domain or several domains for a long time). I suggested that a detailed classification of creativity (based on the criteria of creativity) should be constructed because, based on this classification, teachers’ creativity is mainly categorised as possibly one type, little-c creativity; therefore it is difficult to rank creative levels of teachers. However I feel it is more likely to be mini-c creativity. (3) Creative products are new, useful and ethical work presented in both tangible and intangible form. Creative products should be assessed by people who are familiar with the domain in which the product was created or the response articulated (Amabile, 1996). I argued that it is more difficult to identify teachers’ creative products than identify the creative products in other domains (e.g., art, music, literature, and science) because teachers’ creativity is embodied in the process of teaching rather than in the result of teaching (students’ learning). The question for this study is what are the teachers’ creative activities in the process of teaching? (4) The creative process is “the sequence of thoughts and actions that leads to a novel, adaptive production” (Lubart, 2001, p.295). Three main approaches of studying the creative process are studying the stages of the creative process, sub-processes, and creative problem solving processes (Lubart, 2001). Those approaches support each other to bring a nearly complete understanding of the creative process. Many scholars who study the creative process (Amabile, 1996, Lubart, 2001, Cropley and Cropley, 2008) have agreed that the same process can produce creative products, less-creative products, and uncreative products depending on external factors and the interactions between the stages of the creative process. Based on this understanding, I would suggest a tentative model of the creative process as can be seen in Figure 7 (p.54). This model will be refined through the lived experiences and perspectives of the participants in this study. The ways in which those factors can influence the creative process will be described in the next paragraphs. (5) It is admitted that everyone has creative potential (Runco, 2004), and everyone can think and act creatively to some extent (Craft, 2001, Richards, 2010a). Highly creative people possess several specific personalities, certain degrees of domain

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knowledge, certain degrees of intelligence, and certain degrees of task motivation (Sternberg and Lubart, 1991, Amabile, 1996, Csikszentmihalyi, 1996b). (a) In terms of personalities, some scholars (Sternberg and Lubart, 1991, Feist, 2010) proposed a special personality constellation synergistic to creative thoughts and behaviours (e.g., autonomous and introverted, open to new experiences, norm-doubting, self-confident, self-accepting, driven, ambitious, dominant, hostile, and impulsive)

while others (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996a)

proposed a set of paradoxical traits of highly creative people (e.g., physical energy vs. quiet and at rest;

smart and naïve, playfulness and discipline,

imagination and fantasy, and a rooted sense of reality, extroverted and introverted, etc.). I argued that the difference between these two standpoints is that the former emphasised the personalities necessary to create original products while the latter emphasised the personalities necessary for both criteria of creative products, originality and effectiveness. In other words, the former pointed out the personalities that influence the stages of preparation and illumination, while the latter pointed out the personalities that influence all stages of the creative process. The question for this study is what are the typical personalities of highly creative teachers? (b) In terms of knowledge, researchers believe that one needs knowledge of a domain to think and act creatively in that domain (Amabile, 1996). The more knowledge one gains, the more valuable creative products one can generate (Hayes, 1989, Weisberg, 1999). However, when one achieves a large knowledge base of solutions for frequent problems in a domain, one’s quantity of creative products in that domain will be reduced (Simonton, 1984) and one becomes slower to solve new problems outside the paradigms of that domain (Luchins and Luchins, 1959; Frensch and Sternberg, 1989; cited in Weisberg, 1999). It is difficult for novices to generate something because of the lack of domain knowledge, but a few novices can make a great contribution in a domain because they are not tied by the paradigms of that domain (Kuhn, 1996). The questions for this study are what types of knowledge do teachers need to have in order to be creative and what types of knowledge can reduce teachers’ creativity? (c) In terms of intelligence, it is not clear in the literature whether intelligence and creativity are overlapping or separate constructs. This partly reduces my concern 69

about the relationship between teachers’ intelligence and teachers’ creativity. In addition, in my view, investigating the relationship between teachers’ intelligence and teachers’ creativity may be not useful to this study. (d) In terms of task motivation, researchers distinguished the different influence of intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation on creativity. Intrinsic motivation, caused by three innate basic psychological needs, competence, autonomy, and relatedness (Deci and Ryan, 1990), is always conducive to creativity (Amabile, 1996). Intrinsic motivation strongly influences the stages of preparation and illumination of the creative process. Extrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity if it either synergies intrinsic motivation or only interacts with the stages of incubation and verification of the creative process; if not, extrinsic motivation hinders creativity (Amabile, 1996, Deci and Ryan, 2008b). The question for this study is what exactly intrinsically and extrinsically motivates teachers to be creative in teaching chemistry in Vietnam? (6) The researchers (Sternberg and Lubart, 1991, Csikszentmihalyi, 1996b, Amabile, 1996) pointed out that a creative environment is one that provides an individual with knowledge of a domain and creativity, encourages that individual to live and work creatively, and evaluates precisely what that individual creates. The question for this study is what do particular educational contexts in Vietnam, supporting chemistry teachers’ creativity, look like or do they even exist yet?

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Chapter 4

A LITERATURE REVIEW ON TEACHING CREATIVELY

As introduced, this study aimed to understand teachers’ creativity in teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam from the participants’ perspectives. In the previous chapter, I reviewed the literature for a general understanding of creativity, including the definition of creativity, the classifications of creativity, and the components of creativity. In this chapter, I directly relate to my study by reviewing the literature for a general understanding of the connection between creativity and teachers and creative teaching. In particular, this chapter includes five sections. In the first section, creativity in education, I distinguish between some terms widely used in studying creativity in education with the aims of unifying the terms I used and pointing out the boundaries for this study. I also discuss some reasons for studying creativity in education to confirm that it is important to study teachers’ creativity in teaching. In the second section, I review the literature on teacher knowledge and its development. There are two reasons why I am interested in this. As discussed in the previous chapter, an individual’s knowledge strongly influences that individual’s creativity. Therefore, understanding teacher knowledge is necessary to understand how it influences teachers’ creativity. I also believe that teacher knowledge not only influences teachers’ creativity, but is an important type of teachers’ creative products. In the last three sections, I will, in turn, review previous studies in three traditions of research into creative teaching (Sawyer, 2011). These are teaching as performance, teacher expertise, and creative teaching and learning. The aim is to gain an understanding of teachers’ creativity from what is already known and what needs further study. In particular, the section on teaching as performance aims to investigate teachers’ creativity in the inter-active phase of teaching or teachers’ performance in classrooms. Teacher expertise investigates the relationship between the development of their expertise and their creativity. The last section, on creative teaching and learning, aims to investigate teachers’ creativity in terms of teaching creatively and teaching for creativity.

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4.1

Creativity in Education

My study focuses upon teaching creatively, exploring Vietnamese chemistry teachers’ creativity in teaching from the participants’ perspectives. The participants for my study are teachers, not students. The study focuses on my participants’ perspectives on teachers’ creative thinking and acting with the aim of achieving educational aims. Obviously, because enhancing students’ creativity is one of the educational aims of general education in Vietnam (discussed later), teaching creatively closely relates to teaching for creativity. In the following paragraphs, I discuss the importance of study in both teaching for creativity and teaching creatively. Since the end of the twentieth century, creativity in education, mainly focusing on how to enhance students’ creativity (Hong et al., 2005, Schacter et al., 2006, Bramwell et al., 2011), has been strongly developed (Sawyer, 2011). There are three questions that should be asked when we study fostering students’ creativity; (1) Can creativity be enhanced? (2) If yes, how can creativity be enhanced? and (3) why is it important to enhance students’ creativity? The scholars in creativity (Amabile, 1996, Runco, 2004, Craft, 2005, Beghetto, 2010, Kaufman and Beghetto, 2010, Sternberg, 2010, Nickerson, 2010, Craft, 2011) believe that individual’s creativity can be enhanced to some extent. I agree with them that the main reason for this belief is that the creative process is influenced by several factors (discussed in the previous chapter), for example, domain-relevant skills, creativityrelevant skills and task motivation (Amabile, 1996); these factors can be manipulated, therefore we can enhance students’ creativity through manipulating these factors. The reason why it is important to enhance students’ creativity is because of the economic, social and technological challenges (NACCCE, 1999, Craft, 2011). In terms of economic challenges, it is more difficult to predict the economic future. Therefore, students’ creativity should be enhanced to adapt for that uncertainty. Jobs which ask for people’s creativity (in the creative industries, for example) have been appearing more and more. Therefore, students’ knowledge and skills for creativity should be prepared. In terms of social challenges, both family life and social life have been dramatically changed in all countries. This offers the younger generation more options. However, this also challenges them to predict possible situations, make right selections, and adapt to what they choose. Fostering the ability of creativity may be useful for them to make predictions, make correct choices, and to adapt successfully. Thanks to the creativity of 72

humans, technologies, (especially, the information and communication technologies) have been radically developing. In turn, these technologies lead the way people live, work and create. Therefore, students’ creativity should be enhanced in order to both adapt to the developments and support these developments. In my view, another reason why students’ creativity should be enhanced is that creativity is an essential feature of humans that must be nurtured even without the economic, social and technological challenges emerging since the end of the twentieth century. It is easily observed that humans are enormously creative in comparison with other kinds of animals. Humans use their creative ability to improve their living conditions and to operate in greater harmony with the physical world. Education plays a most important role in this nurturing process. This view is clearly presented in the Education Law of Vietnam. The aims of general education are to help students to develop comprehensively by acquiring morality, knowledge, physical health, aesthetic values and other basic skills for life; to develop personal abilities, activeness and creativeness; to form the identity of the socialist Vietnamese; to building citizenship; and to prepare them for further studies or entering the work force, and participating in the building and defending of the Fatherland (NAOV, 2005, title 1, article 27, italics added).

This view is also supported by researchers (Guilford, 1950, Simonton, 2000, Ward, 2007, Kim, 2007), and eminent educators (Piaget, 1973, Vygotsky, 1967/2004, Dewey, 2011). For example, Vygotsky (1967/2004) stated that we must enhance students’ creative imagination because human’s future always depends on their creative imagination. We should emphasize the particular importance of cultivating creativity in schoolage children. The entire future of humanity will be attained through the creative imagination; orientation to the future, behaviour based on the future and derived from this future, is the most important function of the imagination. To the extent that the main educational objective of teaching is guidance of school children’s behaviour so as to prepare them for the future, development and exercise of the imagination should be one of the main forces enlisted for the attainment of this goal. (Vygotsky, 1967/2004, p.87)

However, I agree with some researchers (Schacter et al., 2006, Ward, 2007) that the recent challenges and the inherent relationship between creativity and education give an important requirement for education not only to enhance students’ creativity, but also to enhance teachers’ creativity because, firstly, teaching with the aim of fostering students’ creativity cannot be separated from teachers’ creativity in teaching (NACCCE, 1999, Jeffrey and Craft, 2004, Snyder et al., 2013). Teachers’ creativity can positively influence students’ creativity without the intention of teaching for creativity and, 73

conversely, teachers must be creative to follow the strategies for enhancing students’ creativity (discussed later in the study). Secondly, teachers’ creativity is essential for both successful (or effective) teaching (Marzano, 2007, Bramwell et al., 2011) and good teaching (NACCCE, 1999). Besides the given educational strategies, teachers must generate new educational strategies so that they meet the diversity of students’ interests, abilities, and needs as well as the diversity of educational contexts (discussed in the findings chapter). In summary, human beings have an ability for creativity that is important for them to survive and thrive. It is more important today because humans have to have creativity to deal with the recent challenges of economy, society and technology. Creativity can be enhanced; therefore, teaching for creativity has become a task for teachers. Consequently, investigating teaching for creativity has become an important research aim for researchers in creativity in education. Another important research aim is to study teaching creatively not only because teaching creatively closely connects to teaching for creativity, but also because teachers’ creativity in teaching is essential. 4.2

Teacher Knowledge and Its Development

In the previous section, I discussed the importance of studying teaching for creativity and teaching creatively within the area of creativity in education. In this section, I review teacher knowledge and its development with the belief that there is a close connection between teacher knowledge and teachers’ creativity. In comparison to research on teaching which has a long history, research on teacher knowledge has been expanding since the 1980s with the belief that what teachers know and how they express their knowledge is central to student learning (Connelly et al., 1997). In particular, research on teacher knowledge is conducted with the purpose of investigating what teachers know, how they know what they know, and the relationship between what they know and their teaching act (ibid.). The three purposes of research into teacher knowledge will lead the review in this section. In addition, I will not discuss the relationship between knowledge and creativity because this relationship was discussed in the previous chapter. Instead, as also discussed in the previous chapter, I think that researchers have not paid enough attention to the influence of different types of knowledge within a domain upon

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creativity. Therefore, in this section, I emphasise the categories of teacher knowledge and some types of teacher knowledge that I consider as their creative products. 4.2.1 Classifications of Teacher Knowledge From reviewing literature on teachers’ knowledge and its development (Carter, 1990, Grossman, 1995, Munby et al., 2001, Tsui, 2003, Cohen, 2008), it appears that there were two key standpoints used to categorise teachers’ knowledge. In the first teachers’ knowledge was divided into two forms, paradigmatic form and narrative form. In the second it is categorised into various domains. The first classification is influenced by the work of Jerome Bruner, an American psychologist. According to Bruner (1986), there are two modes of thought, paradigmatic and narrative. The paradigmatic mode presents logical structures of thought while the narrative mode presents mental, cultural and symbolic structures of thought. Knowledge of the physical world is often described by the former while knowledge of social reality is described by the latter. In other words, Paradigmatic ways of knowing emphasize generalizable laws and principles applicable across a wide variety of contexts. Knowledge within the natural sciences has been described as paradigmatic knowledge. In contrast, narrative ways of knowing are more contextualized and situation–specific (Grossman, 1995, p.22).

Recently, research into teachers’ knowledge (together with research on teaching) has moved toward teachers’ narrative forms of knowing because this form of teachers’ knowledge is also important for teachers to teach effectively (Schön, 1983, Grossman, 1995, Clandinin and Connelly, 1998, Munby et al., 2001). Munby, Russell, and Martin explained, People talk freely of the "knowledge base" for teaching, and such knowledge includes both maxims and findings from classroom research. Yet a teacher's knowledge is also heavily dependent on the unique context of a particular classroom, and teachers often express and exchange their knowledge in the narrative mode of anecdotes and stories. Narrative thinking comes naturally to teachers, perhaps more naturally than paradigmatic thinking (Munby et al., 2001, p.877 and p.878).

The latter is influenced by Shulman’s multiplicity of types of knowledge (Munby et al., 2001). In the early 1980s, studies into teaching and teacher education seemed to focus on teachers’ teaching acts more than teachers’ content knowledge (Shulman, 1986b, Shulman, 1986a). Shulman called the lack of study into teachers’ content knowledge “the missing paradigm”. In reading the literature of research on teaching, it is clear that central questions

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are unasked. The emphasis is on how teachers manage their classrooms, organize activities, allocate time and turns, structure assignments, ascribe praise and blame, formulate the levels of their questions, plan lessons, and judge general student understanding. What we miss are questions about the content of the lessons taught, the questions asked, and the explanations offered. (Shulman, 1986b, p.8)

There were many studies on teaching acts, but studies into the ‘cornerstones’ for those acts were still missing. Shulman called these cornerstones “the knowledge base” (Shulman, 1987). In his presidential address (Shulman, 1986b), his categories of the knowledge base included content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and curricular knowledge. Later (Shulman, 1987), the categories were expanded into seven domains, content knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, curriculum knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, knowledge of learners and their characteristics, knowledge of educational contexts, and knowledge of educational ends, purposes, and values, and their philosophical and historical grounds. Researchers in this area have had slightly different frameworks. A clear and detailed framework was proposed by Grossman (Grossman, 1995, p.20) shown in Table 5. Knowledge of Content Knowledge of Learners and Learning Knowledge of General Pedagogy Knowledge of Curriculum Knowledge of Context

Knowledge of Self

Including both subject matter knowledge and more explicitly pedagogical knowledge of the subject matter, termed "pedagogical content knowledge" Including knowledge of learning theories; the physical, social, psychological, and cognitive development of students; motivational theory and practice; and ethnic, socioeconomic, and gender diversity among students. Including knowledge of classroom organization and management, and general methods of teaching. Including knowledge both of the processes of curriculum development and of the school curriculum within and across grade levels Including knowledge of the multiple and embedded situations and settings within which teachers work, including the school , district, or area, and state or region; also including teachers ' knowledge of their students and their families , as well as the local community; and including knowledge of the historical, philosophical, and cultural foundations of education within a particular country Including teachers ' knowledge of their personal values, dispositions, strengths, and weaknesses, and their educational philosophy, goals for students, and purposes for teaching

Table 5: Domains of Teacher Knowledge I would argue that it is better to use the two above foundations together to classify teacher knowledge. Additionally, I would argue that the narrative form of teacher knowledge is one of teachers’ creative products. This is pertinent to my study in 76

understanding how the participants conceptualised their teaching when they were trying to be creative. In the following paragraphs, I review some specific types of teacher knowledge to illustrate my arguments. 4.2.2 Personal Practical Knowledge Personal practical knowledge is a narrative form of teachers’ knowledge. According to Carter (1990, p.300), “research on teachers' personal practical knowledge focuses on the personal understandings teachers have of the practical circumstances in which they work”. Carter also pointed out that This tradition does provide a rich picture of the effects of experience and the conditions under which teachers use their knowledge to make sense of a complex, ill-structured, classroom world of competing goals and actions. It furnishes, in other words, a theory of how teachers learn by teaching and how teachers use their knowledge, rather than a generalized conception of what teachers know (Carter, 1990, p.302).

Carter’s conception and comment on personal practical knowledge drew on the work of scholars such as Elbaz et al., (1998). Elbaz (1983), offered the term practical knowledge, to support the idea that teachers’ roles should be understood from teachers’ own perspectives, or by studying teachers’ everyday practices and thinking behind these practices. This is directly related to my approach in this study. She studied a case of a very experienced high school teacher of English, a Canadian teacher, called Sarah. Due to the findings of this study, Elbaz proposed that teachers hold a special kind of knowledge which is experiential, personal and practical-oriented, namely practical knowledge. Elbaz conceptualised teachers’ practical knowledge as follows This knowledge encompasses first-hand experience of students’ learning styles, interests, needs, strengths and difficulties, and a repertoire of instructional techniques and classroom management skills. The teachers know social structures of the school and what it requires, of teacher and student, for survival and for success; she knows the community of which the school is part, and has a sense of what it will and will not accept. This experiential knowledge is informed by the teacher’s theoretical knowledge of subject matter, and of areas such as child development, learning and social theory. All of the kinds of knowledge, as integrated by the individual teacher in terms of personal values and beliefs and as oriented to her practical situation, will be referred to here as “practical knowledge” (Elbaz, 1983, p.5).

Based on this idea, Elbaz (1983) pointed out how teachers’ practical knowledge is formed; what types of practical knowledge are formed; and how actively teachers use their practical knowledge to shape and direct the work of teaching. In particular, she proposed that teachers’ practical knowledge is formed by five different orientations, including situational orientation (teachers’ practical knowledge comes from the 77

interaction with a particular practical context), personal orientation (the teacher as the ultimate practical authority on what students do and teachers’ practical knowledge as the result of their effort to assume that authority in a responsible and personally meaningful way), social orientation (teachers’ knowledge is socially conditioned), experiential orientation (suspension of doubt, time perspective, and tension of consciousness), and theoretical orientation (teachers’ actions are informed by theory rather than separated from it). In addition, Elbaz (1983) introduced five broad domains of teachers’ practical knowledge, including self (knowledge of individual’s personality, age, attitudes, value, beliefs, and personal goals), milieu (the social structure of the school and its surrounding community), subject matter (content knowledge and theories of learning), curriculum (the structure of learning experience and the curriculum content), and instruction (classroom routines, classroom management and student needs). Moreover, Elbaz (1983) proposed a structure of teachers’ practical knowledge in which we can see the way teachers use their knowledge in teaching acts. In her view, there are three levels of practical knowledge, including rules of practice (what to do and how to do it in a particular situation frequently encountered in practice), practical principles (more inclusive and less explicit formulations in which the teachers’ purposes, implied in the statement of the rule, are more clearly evident), and images (the least explicit and most inclusive of the three, the general orienting frameworks). These ideas were very useful when considering what, why and how my participants were conceptualising chemistry teaching and their own creativity. Tsui (2003) made a comparison between Elbaz’s (1983) work and the work of Clandinin and Connelly (1998). Generally, Elbaz emphasised the influence of situational and social orientation on teacher knowledge while Clandinin and Connelly emphasised the influence of personal and experiential orientation on teacher knowledge While Elbaz’s work emphasizes the practical aspect of teacher knowledge in the sense of knowledge as a function of a teachers’ response to the situation, the work of Clandinin and Connelly emphasizes the personal aspect of teacher knowledge, and refers to it as “personal practical knowledge” (Tsui, 2003, p.47).

Clandinin and Connelly defined this term personal practical knowledge as A term designed to capture the idea of experience in a way that allows us to talk about teachers as knowledgeable and knowing persons. Personal practical knowledge is in the teacher’s past experience, in the teacher’s present mind and

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body, and in the future plans and actions. Personal practical knowledge is found in the person’s practice. It is, for any one teacher, a particular way of reconstructing the past and the intentions of the future to deal with the exigencies of a present situation (Clandinin and Connelly, 1998, p.150).

According to Clandinin and Connelly (1998), teachers’ personal practical knowledge is constructed by the interaction among three landscape aspects, the personal, the inclassroom, and the out-classroom. Therefore, studying teachers’ personal practical knowledge needs more than just observing teachers’ classrooms, “it is necessary to work directly with teachers in all aspects of the lives in classrooms, outside classrooms and in their personal lives” (Connelly et al., 1997, p.666). Their studies were qualitative studies, mostly based on the methodology of narrative enquiry. They suggested a set of key terms used to understand teachers’ personal practical knowledge. These key terms include image, rules, practical principles, personal philosophy, metaphor, cycles, rhythms, and narrative unities. Understanding these key terms, which describe teachers’ personal knowledge, enables researchers to understand what teachers do in their classroom context. As this study was investigating Vietnamese chemistry teachers’ creativity, this situated personal practical knowledge, combined with key creativity attributes was important in aiding my thinking. So what have I learned from the works of Elbaz, Clandinin and Connelly? Firstly, I found that the five broad domains of teachers’ practical knowledge suggested by Elbaz (1983) are similar to the six categories of teachers’ knowledge base suggested by Grossman (1995). Knowledge of instruction suggested by Elbaz includes knowledge of general pedagogy and knowledge of learners and learning suggested by Grossman. This leads me to conclude that there exist two forms, paradigmatic form and narrative form, of each category of teachers’ knowledge base. For example, there are two forms of content knowledge, namely, paradigmatic content knowledge and narrative content knowledge. Secondly, the narrative form of each of the categories of teachers’ knowledge base could be considered as a teacher’s creative product because although it is derived from the paradigmatic form (theoretical orientation), it is different from the paradigmatic form as it is personally interpreted (personal orientation and experiential orientation) and it is reformed in the interaction with particular contexts (situational orientation and social orientation). Connelly and colleagues also emphasised this notion, Teachers do make a difference. They do know their situations. They are not mere screens who translate others' intentions and ideologies into practice. Teachers'

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knowledge is an essential component in improving educational practice. Those concerned with improving education need to be concerned not only with what it is they wish to happen in learning but also with teachers' knowledge and the professional knowledge landscapes in which teachers work (Connelly et al., 1997, p.674, italics added).

If chemistry teaching in Vietnam is to move forward and become creative the development of these teachers has to take these ideas into account. Thirdly, the narrative form of each of the categories of teachers’ knowledge base may be either mini-c creativity, “the novel and personally meaningful interpretation of experiences, actions, and events” (Kaufman and Beghetto, 2007, p.73), or little-c creativity, “human originality at work and leisure across the diverse activities of everyday life” (2010a, p.190). Additionally, to categorise teacher knowledge in order to make a connection between teacher knowledge and teachers’ creativity, teacher’s personal practical knowledge should be divided into practical form and personal form. Therefore, there are three forms (also considered as three levels) of teacher knowledge, including personal form, practical form and paradigmatic form which I feel may correspond with mini-c, little-c, and Pro-C creativity, respectively. 4.2.3 Subject Matter Knowledge and Pedagogical Content Knowledge Among Shulman’s (1986) multiplicity of types of knowledge, I will focus more on knowledge of content, including subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, for two reasons. Firstly, the relationship between subject matter knowledge and teaching has been widely studied. The findings of these studies may be good illustrations for the relationship between knowledge and creativity in terms of teaching. Secondly, I would argue that subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge are two different forms of content knowledge. This is a typical example of paradigmatic and narrative forms of a category of teachers’ knowledge base. Studying teachers’ subject matter knowledge includes studying “the amount and organisation of knowledge per se in the mind of the teacher” (Shulman, 1986b, p.9). Subject matter knowledge consists of the major facts and concepts in a subject discipline. Shulman preferred to use Schwab’s distinction between substantive and syntactic structures of knowledge to understand the organisation of teachers’ subject matter knowledge. He summarised these two structures as follow, The substantive structures are a variety of ways in which the basic concepts and principles of the discipline are organised to incorporate its facts. The syntactic structure of a discipline is the set of ways in which truth and falsehood, validity

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or invalidity, are established (Shulman, 1986b, p.9).

According to Shulman and his colleagues (cited in Tsui, 2003, p.51), The substantive structures of a discipline refer to the explanatory frameworks or paradigms that are used to guide inquiry in the field and to make sense of data and the syntactic structures are the canons of evidence that are used by members of the disciplinary community to guide inquiry in the field. They are the means by which new knowledge is introduced and accepted into that community.

Therefore, to say that teachers grasp subject matter knowledge is not only to say that teachers grasp the major facts and concepts in a subject discipline, but also to say that teachers grasp the paradigms and the critical criteria of that discipline (Munby et al., 2001, Tsui, 2003). Reviewing research into teachers’ subject matter knowledge, Tsui (2003) summarised the main findings of the studies about the relationship between teachers’ subject matter knowledge and teachers’ teaching, see the detail in Table 6 (ibid., p.53). What have I learned from these findings? It is clear that the more subject matter knowledge teachers have, the more creative teachers can be. For example, in the pre-active phase, while less knowledgeable teachers follow the textbooks’ structure closely (an uncreative behaviour), more knowledgeable teachers can create alternative teaching resources (a creative behaviour). In the inter-active phase, more knowledgeable teachers reveal their creativity in teaching by teaching flexibly (provide appropriate and varied presentations) and improvisationally (construct active and meaningful dialogs with students) while less knowledgeable teachers seem unable to teach in those ways. I consider this supports the view that knowledge is positively related to creativity (Ericsson et al., 1993, Hayes, 1989, Weisberg, 1999). In the next paragraphs, I will discuss another form of content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge. More knowledgeable teachers Pre-active planning Being able to go beyond the textbooks’ structure and create the alternatives; detect ill-articulated themes, unimportant concepts; and discard nonessential activities and create the alternative in order to develop themes Inter-active teaching Being able to help students make conceptual connections, provide appropriate and varied presentations, and construct active and meaningful dialogs with students.

Less knowledgeable teachers Following the textbooks’ structure closely

Presenting the subject as a collection of static fact with impoverished or inappropriate examples and analogies; emphasising seat work assignments and routinizing student input as opposed to meaningful dialog; and even over-utilising rules which can

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Being able to detect students’ preconceptions and correct them, to deal with students’ difficulties, and to exploit opportunities for useful digressions. Making the examination questions which require synthesis ideas and higher intellectual processes.

lead to misunderstanding. Reinforcing misconceptions, incorrectly criticizing students’ correct answers, and accept erroneous results.

Making mainly recall questions

Using avoidance strategy (Avoiding to teach what they lack knowledge; avoiding to answer students’ questions)

Table 6: The Influences of Subject Matter Knowledge on Teachers’ Teaching In terms of teachers’ teaching in general, Tsui (2003, p.55) concluded that “teachers’ disciplinary knowledge often has a decisive influence on the process, content, and quality of their instruction”; however, “some studies have shown that although subject matter knowledge is necessary for successful teaching, it is not sufficient”. She concluded that successful teaching is influenced by several different kinds of teachers’ knowledge in which teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge is the key. To summarise, the studies of teachers’ content knowledge reported above show that central to successful teaching is pedagogical content knowledge, which is the transformation of subject matter knowledge into forms of presentation that are accessible to learners (Tsui, 2003, p.57)

The next paragraphs focus on pedagogical content knowledge. Pedagogical content knowledge was first conceptualised by Shulman (1986). This concept was coined from a series of questions relating to teachers’ knowledge, such as “How does somebody that really knows something, teach it to somebody who doesn’t”? or “How does one’s understanding of something connect to how well they understand it for teaching?”, and “What are the sorts of things that only teachers know, that only teachers can do?” (Cited in Berry et al., 2008, p. 1274 and p.1275). Initially, Shulman conceptualised pedagogical content knowledge as a type of knowledge possessed only by teachers and as “the particular form of content knowledge that embodies the aspects of content most germane to its teachability” (Shulman, 1986b, p.9). In other words, “a form of content knowledge composed of subject matter transformed for the purposes of teaching” (Munby et al., 2001, p.881). Shulman gave examples of particular forms of pedagogical content knowledge and also pointed out that there are no perfect forms for all learners, thus each teacher has to create effective alternatives. Within the category of pedagogical content knowledge I include, for the most regularly taught topics in one's subject area, the most useful forms of

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representation of those ideas, the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations, and demonstrations - in a word, the ways of representing and formulating the subject that make it comprehensible to others. Since there are no single most powerful forms of representation, the teacher must have at hand a veritable armamentarium of alternative forms of representation, some of which derive from research whereas others originate in the wisdom of practice (Shulman, 1986b, p.9).

Shulman also pointed out that pedagogical content knowledge is formed based on not only teachers’ understanding of subject matter knowledge, but also teachers’ understanding of learners and learning. Pedagogical content knowledge also includes an understanding of what makes the learning of specific topics easy or difficult: the conceptions and preconceptions that students of different ages and backgrounds bring with them to the learning of those most frequently taught topics and lessons. (Shulman, 1986b, p.9).

In a later article, Shulman (1987) defined pedagogical content knowledge as a “special amalgam of content and pedagogy that is uniquely the province of teachers, their own special form of professional understanding” (p.8). In other words, pedagogical content knowledge is a new form of subject matter knowledge which is transformed from two components, subject content knowledge and general pedagogical knowledge. It represents the blending of content and pedagogy into an understanding of how particular topics, problems, or issues are organized, represented, and adapted to the diverse interests and abilities of learners, and presented for instruction. (p.8)

It is clear that other scholars agree with Shulman’s two main elements of pedagogical content knowledge (Grossman, 1990, Marks, 1990, Van Driel et al., 1998, Magnusson et al., 1999). It is difficult for teachers to develop pedagogical content knowledge if their subject matter knowledge is very limited and consists of many misconceptions. Teachers hardly develop pedagogical content knowledge if they are good at subject matter knowledge, but lack knowledge of general pedagogy (Van Driel and Berry, 2010). However, the studies of these researchers also revealed that there are other elements influencing the development of pedagogical content knowledge. They have extended the construct by adding more elements. For example, Grossman (1990) conducted contrasting case studies with a sample of six beginning English teachers well educated in their subject matter, but half of them entered teaching without professional training, in order to explore the nature and sources of pedagogical content knowledge in English education. She proposed that pedagogical content knowledge is one of “four general areas of teacher knowledge” including “general pedagogical knowledge; subject matter 83

knowledge; pedagogical content knowledge; and knowledge of context” (p.9). In which, pedagogical content knowledge is central and composed by the other three. Orientations toward science teaching Knowledge and beliefs about science curriculum Knowledge and beliefs about students’ understanding of specific science topics Knowledge and beliefs about assessment in science

Knowledge and beliefs about instructional strategies for teaching science

Teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about purposes and goals for teaching science at a particular grade level. Mandated goals and objectives, and specific curricular programs and materials. The knowledge teachers must have about students in order to help them develop specific scientific knowledge Knowledge of the dimensions of science learning that are important to assess, and knowledge of the methods by which that learning can be assessed. Knowledge of subject-specific strategies, and knowledge of topic—specific strategies.

Table 7: Components of PCK for Science Teaching In science, Magnusson et al. (1999, p.96) conceptualised “pedagogical content knowledge for teaching as consisting of five components” summarised in Table 7 (ibid., p.102-115). Magnusson et al. (ibid.) also argued that the amount of each component which constitutes pedagogical content knowledge is different in different teachers and that the ways in which these components are integrated are different in different teachers and different contexts (also Gess-Newsome, 1999). This is important when considering my participants’ perspectives on creative teaching in chemistry. Besides teachers’ understanding of different domains of knowledge, Van Driel et al. (1998) concluded that while subject matter knowledge is a prerequisite, the major source of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge is teaching experience. Pedagogical content knowledge therefore can be considered as a function of the two variables, subject matter knowledge and general pedagogical knowledge, and several different parameters. Reviewing science teacher knowledge research, (Abell, 2008) stated that “Their work describes four important characteristics of pedagogical content knowledge: pedagogical content knowledge includes discrete categories of knowledge that are applied synergistically to problems of practice; pedagogical content knowledge is dynamic, not static; content (science subject matter) is central to pedagogical content knowledge; and pedagogical content knowledge involves the transformation of other types of knowledge” (p.1407). 84

In summary, there is a consensus that pedagogical content knowledge exists and is important to support students’ learning; however, “research on the development of pedagogical content knowledge presents an ambiguous picture” (Van Driel and Berry, 2010, p.659). How do I understand pedagogical content knowledge? Firstly, in my view, pedagogical content knowledge is the narrative form of content knowledge. In other words, pedagogical content knowledge is a type of personal practical content knowledge. I would argue that the different views reveal that pedagogical content knowledge is formed through five different orientations suggested by Elbaz (1983) and discussed above. I agree with Shulman that pedagogical content knowledge includes the most useful forms of representation of those ideas, the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations, and demonstrations. In addition, I suggested that pedagogical content knowledge also includes questions, problems and strategies to solve problems because these are also different forms of content knowledge constructed to help students understand content knowledge (discussed in the findings chapter). I also agree with Tsui (2003) that teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge is central to successful teaching because it is generated with the aim of helping students internalise subject matter knowledge effectively. Together with considering pedagogical content knowledge as narrative content knowledge or personal practical content knowledge, I suggest that a teacher’s pedagogical content knowledge is a creative product. This type of teacher knowledge is not only different from subject matter knowledge, but it is also different from teacher to teacher as mentioned by Shulman, Since there are no single most powerful forms of representation, the teacher must have at hand a veritable armamentarium of alternative forms of representation, some of which derive from research whereas others originate in the wisdom of practice (Shulman, 1986b, p.9, italics added).

I tentatively predict that if teachers possess a huge amount of pedagogical content knowledge their need to generate pedagogical content knowledge could be decreased. Generally, I think that the paradigmatic form of teacher knowledge positively influences teachers’ creativity in teaching while the narrative form of teacher knowledge is a product of teachers’ creativity and may inhibit teachers’ creativity in terms of generating narrative forms of knowledge when teachers possess a large amount of this type of knowledge. 85

4.2.4 Summary In the previous chapter on creativity, I discussed a general relationship between knowledge and creativity. In this section, I focused on the classifications of teacher knowledge and the relationship between different types of teacher knowledge and teachers’ creativity. What I discussed in this section can be summarised as follows. Firstly, according to the scholars in the field (Shulman, 1987, Grossman, 1995), there are several different categories of teachers’ knowledge base, such as knowledge of content, knowledge of general pedagogy, knowledge of learners and learning, knowledge of curriculum, knowledge of context, and knowledge of self. Based on the studies on pedagogical content knowledge, I would suggest that there are two different forms of each category of teachers’ knowledge base. Those forms are paradigmatic form and narrative form (or personal practical form). Secondly, from the review of Tsui (2003), I pointed out that teachers’ subject matter knowledge (the paradigmatic form of content knowledge) promotes teachers’ creativity in teaching. Consequently, I tentatively predict that the paradigmatic forms of all categories of teachers’ knowledge base are positively related to teachers’ creativity. This prediction will be discussed in more detail in the findings chapter. Thirdly, I would argue that the narrative forms of all categories of teachers’ knowledge base are teachers’ creative products because they are personally or socially constructed by teachers with the aim of achieving successful teaching of particular students in particular contexts. Although the narrative forms of teacher knowledge are oriented by the paradigmatic forms, they are different from the corresponding paradigmatic forms. In addition, the narrative forms of teacher knowledge can be either mini-c creativity (if they are teachers’ personal interpretation of paradigmatic knowledge and educational contexts) or little-c creativity (if they are teachers’ originality across the diverse activities of teaching). Fourthly, I would suggest that pedagogical content knowledge is the personal practical form of content knowledge, and therefore pedagogical content knowledge is also a kind of teachers’ creative products. Shulman (1986b) suggested that pedagogical content knowledge includes the most useful forms of representation of those ideas, the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations, and demonstrations. In

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addition, I added that pedagogical content knowledge also includes questions, problems and strategies to solve problems (discussed in the findings chapter). Finally, from the review of Tsui (2003) and the studies on personal practical content knowledge (Connelly et al., 1997, Elbaz, 1983), I believe that the narrative forms of teacher knowledge are central to successful teaching. However, I predict that possessing a large amount of the narrative forms of teacher knowledge may be negatively related to teachers’ creativity because teachers may have enough solutions for almost all challenges of teaching and therefore do not need to invent creative solutions. 4.3

Teaching as Performance

As introduced in the beginning of this chapter, this section aims to investigate Vietnamese chemistry teachers’ creativity in classrooms. In particular, through this section, I am exploring what might be understood as these teachers’ creativity in the inter-active phase. “Teaching as performance” has been studied with a recognition of the similarity between teaching and theatre. Teachers stand in the classroom (the stage), in front of their students (their audiences), and present planned lessons (their scripts). Teachers have to present in an interesting, exciting and humorous way to engage students’ attention. Teachers have to present clearly and logically in order to help students to understand lessons (Pineau, 1994, Sawyer, 2011). Therefore, good teachers are those who master the techniques which are similar to theatrical techniques, As a colloquial expression, the performance metaphor is readily acknowledged by seasoned educators who recognize that effective teaching often relies upon “theatrical” techniques of rehearsal, scripting, improvisation, characterization, timing, stage presence, and critical reviews (Pineau, 1994, p.4)

According to Pineau (1994, p.6), there have been three different views about ‘teaching as performance’. The first considers teachers as “directors who orchestrate learning experience”. This view emphasises the importance of making interesting and effective scripts (lesson plans). The second view considers teachers as “actors engaged in instructional dramas”. This view emphasizes the style of teacher-centred teaching; teachers focus more on presenting lessons convincingly, interestingly, and excitingly rather than engaging in interactions with students; concentrating more on effectively transferring knowledge rather than collaboratively constructing knowledge. The last view considers “teachers as artists” operating on intuition and creativity.

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Considering teachers as directors and actors seem to emphasise teachers’ creativity in the pre-active phase of teaching (discussed in the findings chapter) while dismissing teachers’ creativity in the inter-active phase of teaching. In this section, with the aim of understanding Vietnamese chemistry teachers’ creativity in classrooms, I focus on teachers as artists. This idea has been articulated by Elliot Eisner (1979, 2002), a contemporary forerunner of the teacher-artist movement, and John Hill (Hill, 1985). In the following paragraphs, I also use the standpoints of other scholars (i.e., Marzano, 2007, Sawyer, 2011) to further illuminate the metaphor ‘teachers as artists’. Eisner (2002) proposed four senses of the art of teaching. Firstly, teachers use their own skills to create an aesthetic classroom through the way lessons are presented, questions asked, and classroom environments created. Secondly, teachers’ judgments are based mostly on qualities that unfold during classroom activities. For the purpose of achieving a qualitative end, teachers do not only use given qualitative forms, but also grasp emerging qualities and create new appropriate qualitative forms. Thirdly, teachers do not follow routines rigidly, instead they respond creatively to the diversity of classrooms. Experienced teachers possess a plentiful repertoire through which they can deal with what is emerging in class; however, their activities are not dominated by the repertoire, artistic teachers have the ability to create new activities responding with qualities and contingencies that are unpredicted. Finally, teaching outcomes result from the interaction between teachers and students rather than teachers’ plans. In other words, artistic teachers look for new outcomes which emerge in the classroom. According to Eisner, to say teaching is an art is not to say that artistic teaching is the only type of teaching. Instead, it means that artistic teaching is a type of sensitive, intelligent, and creative teaching. He considered artistic teaching as good teaching. Teachers must go beyond the routines in order to meet the needs and the abilities of particular learners. In addition, according to Eisner, artistic teachers not only provide the best opportunities for students to learn, but also provide an environment that cultivates students’ creativity. Artistry is important because teachers who function artistically in the classroom not only provide children with important sources of artistry experience, they also provide a climate that welcomes exploration and risk-taking and cultivates the disposition to play (Eisner, 2002, p.162).

Going through all the elements proposed by Eisner, teaching as a source of aesthetic experience, as dependence on the perception and control of qualities, as a heuristic or 88

adventurous activity, and as seeking emergent ends, I consider that artistic teaching is closely connected to teachers’ creative behaviours in classrooms. In particular, it relates to flexible teaching (Marzano, 2007), improvised teaching (Sawyer, 2011), and intuitive teaching (Hill, 1985). Marzano (2007) considered flexible teaching as a type of teaching in which teachers, depending on particular students and particular contexts, flexibly select one or some appropriate educational strategies from their repertoire of educational strategies. Teachers’ creativity is revealed in the sense that they do not employ just one educational strategy in a lesson. Instead, they can use alternative educational strategies depending on particular students and particular contexts. Sawyer (2011) considered improvised teaching as a type of teaching in which teachers, within the interaction with students, create new educational strategies based on their paradigms of educational strategies. In other words, improvising teachers come to classrooms without pre-planned educational strategies. Instead, they bring with them the criteria, the rules and the principles for generating educational strategies. These criteria, rules and principles make the scaffolding that guides teachers in generating new educational strategies when they interact with their students. Hill (1985) building on Maslow’s work (1954) divided teachers’ abilities for teaching into four levels, Ignorance, Wisdom, Craft, and Art, depending on the conditions of competence and awareness (Table 8).

Table 8: The Four Stages of Teachers’ Teaching Abilities A teacher who gains the fourth level of teaching, artistic teacher, is “an embodiment of skill and a lost self-consciousness” (Hill, 1985, p.216). Artistic teachers are very skilful, but they do not always follow what they are truly accomplished at. Instead, they often invent new ways to teach naturally and intuitively to deal with situations. Although Hill called this type of teaching ‘artistic teaching’, I consider it is different from flexible teaching and improvised teaching. I think the key difference is that Hill’s (1986) ‘artistic teachers’ are not too conscious of what they are doing while they are doing it. Therefore, this type of artistic teaching could be called intuitive teaching. It can be observed in the practice of teaching (discussed in the findings chapter) and it can often be seen in classes of expert teachers (discussed in the next section). According to Hill, it 89

seems that this type of artistic teaching emerges from the resonances between teachers with their students and educational contexts, To observe the teacher as artist, the proposal here is that we neither watch the person who instructs nor study those quantifiable behaviours and methods which the teacher performs. We must look at the environment, and then, with a kind of peripheral supervision, watch for the teachers’ artistry as the tip of the brush. This contact with the learners’ experience will come through subtlety, intuition, nonverbal nuance, and creative improvisation that may be out-of-awareness to the teacher (Hill, 1985, p.217).

In summary, in terms of teachers’ creativity, the studies about teaching as performance (particularly, teaching as art) revealed links to teachers’ creativity in the inter-active phase of teaching. In this phase, teachers’ creativity is expressed through three types of teaching, including flexible teaching, improvised teaching and intuitive teaching. Teachers’ creativity in the inter-active phase is oriented by particular students and particular contexts. Therefore, teachers’ creativity in this phase provides more opportunities for each student to learn effectively. It promotes the quality of teaching. In addition, artistic teachers may enhance students’ creativity because they create the environments that cultivate students’ creativity and they themselves are great models of creativity for students. It seems that there is a connection between artistic teaching and the teaching of expert teachers that I will discuss in the next section. 4.4

Teacher Expertise

Teacher expertise studies have aimed to understand how it develops and the differences between expert teachers and novice teachers. In aiming to understand my participants’ perspectives on chemistry teachers’ creativity in teaching, in this section, I explore teacher expertise and possible connections to teachers’ creativity in the different stages of expertise development. This section includes two subsections. The first is a summary of teacher expertise studies and the second is my suggestion about the relationship between teacher expertise development and teachers’ creativity. 4.4.1 Teacher Expertise Development Definitions of experts in research and in ordinary language are slightly different (Weisberg, 2006). The former considers expert as “someone who exhibits consistent superior accomplishment as the result of deliberate practice”, while the latter defines expert as “a person who exhibits a high degree of competence, but we do so irrespective of how that competence was acquired” (p.761). In this study, the former definition will be used with the aim of understanding expert teachers’ development in chemistry in 90

Vietnam. I believe that deliberate practice is necessary for teachers to become expert teachers (Berliner, 2004, e.g., Tsui, 2003). Expertise is understood as “the characteristics, skills, and knowledge that distinguish experts from novices and less experienced people” (Ericsson, 2006, p.3). There have been several frameworks for understanding how expertise develops (Ericsson, 2006). In this study expertise development will be understood through the framework in which it is considered as a qualitatively different representation and organization of knowledge because it is believed that this framework is close to the development of expert teachers (Berliner, 2001, Berliner, 2004). In this framework, Dreyfus’s model of skill acquisition is well known and widely used to understand teachers’ expertise (Berliner, 1986, Berliner, 2001, Berliner, 2004). Dreyfus’s model (1980) reveals how individuals gain skills through formal instruction and deliberate pratice. At the beginning (Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 1980, Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 1986), Dreyfus’s model of skill acquisition consisted of five stages (an additional stage will be discussed later in this second subsection). These stages are Novice, Advanced Beginners, Competence, Proficiency, and Expert. In the first stage, novices grasp context-free features and the relating rules that help them recognise these features and leads to actions. In the next stage, by dealing with situations, advanced beginners gain experiences about “meaningful additional aspects”. They can see situations through situational features and lead actions based on not only context-free rules, but also situational rules, otherwise known as maxims. Over time, the amount of relating situational information becomes overwhelming, competences, through their own experiences and others’, lead to choosing which one is more important and which one can be ignored. In other words, they have to choose a perspective. In the competence stage, there is no intervention from intuition in seeing situations as well as conducting actions. In the fourth stage, proficiency, proficient individuals have an ability to see situations through their own intuitive perspective. However, they are not able to use their intuition to lead action, but they have to decide what they should do. In the stage of expertise, experts have the ability to immediately and intuitively recognise what needs doing and what to do. Berliner (1986, 2001, 2004) building on Dreyfus’s model (1980) suggested five stages of expert teachers’ development, novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient and expert teachers. 91

Novice teachers tend not to have practical teaching experience, therefore “the behaviour of the novice is usually rational, relatively inflexible, and tends to conform to whatever rules and procedures they were told to follow” (Berliner, 2004, p.19). They start to recognise differences in the real world of teaching, and to learn from their practical experiences. Advanced Beginner Teachers develop practical, conditional and strategic knowledge which is developed autonomously, contextually, and implicitly by action. However, they are not able to systematize practical knowledge as well as completely evaluate its importance. Competent teachers conduct their tasks actively, responsibly, purposely, selectively, and priorly. They are able to evaluate what is important and what is not, and what they should do and what they should not. They no longer make mistakes of time control or targeting. However, their behaviour is not yet very fast, fluid or flexible. Proficient Teachers can recognise problems faster and more intuitively rather than rationally. It is at this time that these teachers become proficient teachers. In comparison with expert teachers, they make decisions slower because they tend not to form intuitive decision-making and still have to analyse and deliberate upon what to do. Not all teachers become proficient. Expert teachers can intuitively recognise situations and give appropriate responses. In some domains, it is quite easy to identify experts. However, in others, it is not (Chi, 2006). Generally, many researchers agree that expertise should be identified by both how experts excel and how they fail, either in an absolute context or in comparison to novices (ibid.). Chi (2006, p 23) and Berliner (2004, p 26) both detailed ways in which expert teachers demonstrate their expertise and also how they fail when taking risks. I do not detail these here as it is important to focus on the links between expert teachers and creative teachers. Tsui (2003) presented characteristics of expert teachers in two different phases of teaching, “Pre-active Phase” (the phases of choosing resources and planning the lesson) and “Interactive Phase” (the phase of interacting with students) as follows, In the phase of pre-active (1) Expert teachers’ planning is guided by being fully aware of what works and what does not for students in the classroom. In other words, expert teachers are

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more autonomous in comparison with novice teachers who depend more on rules and models which are lacking contextual variables. (2) Expert teachers’ planning is more efficient with less time on preparation due to rich and well-established experience of routines. (3) Expert teachers’ planning is more flexible and, therefore, is easier to change to adjust to specific contexts. (4) Expert teachers’ planning is more comprehensive because it is built on a rich and integrated knowledge base of rules (teaching and learning theories, curriculum, educational policies, etc.) and maxims (leaders, teachers, students, and parents’ expectation, the time and the place, etc.). In the phase of interactive (1) Expert teachers’ processing information is more efficient because of capacities of recognizing and making sense of situations. (2) Expert teachers’ processing of information is more selective based on students’ learning. (3) Expert teachers’ processing information is more improvisational due to rich and well-established experience of routines. (4) Expert teachers’ processing information is deeper and principled.

4.4.2 Teacher Expertise Development and Teachers’ Creativity The review of teacher expertise development presented in the previous subsection shows that the process of teacher expertise development can be considered as the process of learning to teach or the process of developing teachers’ personal practical knowledge. Teachers’ personal practical knowledge may include situational rules (maxims) and perspectives (Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 1986, Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 1980), or rules of practical rules, practical principles, and images (Elbaz, 1983, discussed in the section of teacher knowledge and its development). As discussed previously, I consider teachers’ personal practical knowledge as teachers’ creative product; therefore, I would argue that teachers’ creativity starts to happen at the stage of advanced beginner teachers when teachers start to generate maxims (situational rules or practical rules that help them to know what to do and how to do it). However, it should be said that the creative products of advanced beginner teachers are not only the maxims, but also educational strategies that are generated based on those maxims. Because the quality of teachers’ personal practical knowledge is increased from maxims to perspectives (or from practical rules to practical principles, and to images), I would also argue that the quality of teachers’ creativity (including generating rules, principles and images as well as generating educational strategies based on these) is often increased from advanced beginner teachers to expert teachers. I think that the quality of teachers’ creativity depends on teachers’ experiences or on teachers’ deliberate practice. This argument corresponds with “the 10-year rule” (Hayes, 1989), discussed in the section on knowledge and creativity in the previous chapter.

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Having discussed the increasing of the quality of teachers’ creativity from novice to expert I wonder if expert teachers still need creativity. Dreyfus (2009) suggested they do by expanding the five stages to six that of master. Masters have the same ability as experts and they are not satified with successes based on available perspectives. They are willing to take risks in order to continuously develop their skills and look for new successes. In other words, Dreyfus acknowledged that the majority of experts no longer need creativity while a small number of experts (masters) are motivated to continue to be creative. Bereiter and Scardamalia (cited in Berliner, 2001, p.9) divided experts into fluid experts (or adaptive experts) and crystallized experts Crystallized expertise consists of intact procedures that have been thoroughly learned through experience, brought forth and used in relatively familiar tasks. Fluid expertise consists of abilities that come into play when an expert confronts novel or challenging tasks. (Berliner, 2001, p.473).

Therefore, I would suggest the majority of expert teachers (crystallized expert teachers) become less creative because they possess rich stores of personal practical knowledge that are enough to guide them to use in relatively familiar tasks, and that only small numbers of expert teachers are fluid (or adaptive) expert teachers. These adaptive expert teachers are more open to experience than crystallized expert teachers. From the characteristics of expert teachers summarised by Tsui (2003) and Berliner (2004), it is possible for me to make the following connections in relation to expert teachers’ creativity. Firstly, expert teachers are more flexible in teaching. Because expert teachers are better at recognising task demands and social situations and possess a rich repertoire of educational strategies; they are willing to alter activities whenever they deem it appropriate. This type of teaching, flexible teaching, is a type of creative teaching as discussed in the section on teaching as performance. Secondly, expert teachers are more improvisational in teaching, because they make sense of what happens in classrooms through the meaningful patterns they possess. They can improvisationally generate new educational strategies using those patterns. Improvised teaching is also a type of creative teaching as discussed before. Expert teachers’ creativity includes flexibly applying existing educational strategies and improvisationally generating new educational strategies rather than creating new practical rules, practical principles, or images. If we consider the highest level of teachers’ personal practical knowledge as teachers’ personal paradigms of teaching; it could be said that expert teachers’ creativity mostly 94

happens through their personal paradigms of teaching. I believe that, in terms of creativity, the difference between crystallised expert teachers and adaptive expert teachers is that the former create new things under their paradigms of teaching while the latter make paradigm shifts. 4.4.3 A Summary There are some propositions relating to teachers’ creativity drawn from the review of this section. Firstly, during the five stages of teacher expertise development, teachers’ creativity starts to occur from the second stage, advanced beginner teachers because in this stage, besides using free-context knowledge to teach, they start to generate new maxims (contextual rules) to deal with particular students and particular contexts. Secondly, teachers’ creative products consist of two types. The first is a set of practical rules, practical principles and images that I would like to name the personal paradigms of teaching. The second is a repertoire of educational strategies personally generated mainly oriented by personal paradigms of teaching. Thirdly, the quality of teachers’ creativity is increased according to teachers’ experience of teaching. Fourthly, the majority of expert teachers (crystallised expert teachers) express their creativity within their personal paradigms of teaching; a small number of expert teachers (adaptive expert teachers) can go beyond their own paradigms of teaching to create new paradigms. 4.5

Creative Teaching and Learning

In the previous sections of this chapter, I reviewed literature indirectly relating to teachers’ creativity in teaching. In this section, I review literature directly relating to teachers’ creativity in teaching, creative teaching and learning. The study of creative teaching and learning has quite a long history. In the past, it focused more on art education. Since the 1990s, with the important contributions of scholars in the United Kingdom, this research has been strongly developed together with the acknowledgment that creativity is important to all subjects and that the creative potential of all students should be enhanced (NACCCE, 1999, Craft, 2005, Smith and Smith, 2010, Sawyer, 2011). Creative teaching and learning has now been studied in all disciplines and in many countries around the world. The results of these studies have been useful for teaching practice (Tan, 2007, Kaufman and Beghetto, 2010).

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From the 1990s, research into creative learning and teaching has been divided into two main branches, teaching creatively (teachers’ creativity in teaching) and teaching for creativity (teaching with an aim of enhancing students’ creativity). This study aimed to understand Vietnamese chemistry teachers’ creativity in teaching from the perspectives of my participants. Therefore, in this section, I review the literature on teaching creatively, particularly, with the aim of gaining an understanding about possible reasons why chemistry teachers need creativity, what chemistry teachers create, how chemistry teachers create what they create, and the factors that influence chemistry teachers’ creativity in Vietnam. I also review the literature on teaching for creativity because this is one of the educational aims of general education in Vietnam (NAOV, 2005) and because there is a close connection between teaching creatively and teaching for creativity (Jeffrey and Craft, 2004). 4.5.1 Teaching Creatively The factors that influence my participants’ perspectives on creativity come from them and the environments where they live and work. I deal with five issues, (1) the reasons for teaching creatively, (2) teachers’ creative products, (3) teachers’ creative processes, (4) creative teachers, and (5) creative environments. I chose the definition of teaching creatively from the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education’s report (NACCCE, 1999) as the starting point for the review, “by teaching creatively we mean teachers using imaginative approaches to make learning more interesting, exciting and effective” (NACCCE (1999, p.102). 4.5.1.1 The Reasons for Teaching Creatively The NACCCE report definition pointed out that teaching creatively has an aim of making learning more interesting, exciting and effective. The adjective “more” reveals that the authors divided the quality of teaching into two levels. Here, I temporally use the term successful teaching (Bramwell et al., 2011) to imply the lower level of teaching, a type that successfully achieves educational aims presented in the standard curriculum content, and the term good teaching (NACCCE, 1999) to imply the higher level of teaching, a type that goes beyond these educational aims. The NACCCE report proposed that teaching creatively is not for successful teaching, but good teaching Teachers can be highly creative in developing materials and approaches that fire children’s interests and motivate their learning. This is a necessary part of all good teaching (NACCCE, 1999, p.103).

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Several scholars agree with this standpoint. Ward (2007, p.xxii, italics added) pointed out that “in the case of teaching creatively, adopting creative approaches to develop lesson plans and engage students with the material can reasonably be expected to lead to better learning”. Sawyer (2004, 2011) studied one type of teaching creatively, improvised teaching. Teachers’ improvisation is defined as “the interactional and responsive creativity of a teacher working together with a unique group of students” (Sawyer, 2004, p.13). Improvised teaching he advocates is the balance between structure and creativity, or in other words, between structure and script with flexibility and improvisation, “the best teaching is disciplined improvisation because it always occurs within broad structures and frameworks” (Sawyer, 2011, p.2). Sawyer admitted that structured teaching is successful teaching, giving good opportunities for learning to happen. He also argued that structured teaching brings students lower-order facts and skills whereas teaching creatively “emphasizes learning for deeper understanding, rather than mastery of lower-order facts and skills” (Sawyer, 2004, p.12). Hill (1985) and Eisner (2002) also considered teaching creatively as a part of artistic teaching (or good teaching) comparing it with successful teaching which Eisner called “wooden, mechanical, mindless, and wholly unimaginative” (Eisner, 2002, p.156). Bramwell and colleagues (2011) argued that creativity is also necessary for successful teaching. They reviewed thirteen qualitative case studies and two quantitative studies of teachers who teach creatively and concluded that even for successful teaching, teachers must be creative in order to meet the diversity of students’ needs, interests, and abilities, and to deal with the challenges happening in particular contexts. There are no absolutely non-creative or perfectly creative teachers, and it is difficult to imagine successful teaching that does not depend on teachers’ creativity. Teachers engage in everyday creativity when they plan and improvise lessons to meet the needs, interests, and abilities of specific students while conforming to the formal curriculum and available resources and when they juggle different interpersonal, instructional, and managerial tasks and problems, handling challenges on the spot with little or no warning (Bramwell et al., 2011, p.228).

I feel this has resonance with some of my participants’ perspectives. Marzano (2007) stated that teaching resources will never be appropriate to every student in every class. Teachers must be creative in determining the resources appropriate to the right students at the right time. Research will never be able to identify instructional strategies that work with every student in every class. The best research can do is tell us which strategies have a good chance (i.e., high probability) of working well with students.

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Individual classroom teachers must determine which strategies to employ with the right students at the right time. In effect, a good part of effective teaching is an art (ibid, p.5)

As an experienced teacher, I agree with Marzano (2007) and Bramwell et al. (2011) that there are two reasons why creativity is a necessary element of teaching. The first is the diversity of students and the second are the challenges occurring in particular educational contexts. Teachers’ teaching is guided by a large number of formal and informal teaching resources; however, these resources in Vietnam chemistry teaching are neither enough nor always appropriate to particular students in particular contexts. Therefore, these teachers have to either go beyond the resources to generate alternatives, or use the resources flexibly for students in their particular contexts. I think that teaching creatively is a part of teaching, successful teaching and good teaching, because of the needs to adapt to the diversity of students and the challenges of educational contexts. The above suggests a continuum of teaching which mirrors the idea of a continuum of creativity discussed in chapter 3. I would suggest in teaching it is a continuum from non creative through mini-c to little-c and possibly towards pro- C creativity. In the findings chapter, these propositions will be discussed from the lived experiences of my participants. 4.5.1.2 Teachers’ Creative Products In the chapter on creativity, I discussed that the term creative product implies new and useful work in both tangible and intangible forms (Kampylis and Valtanen, 2010). Here, I discuss tangible and intangible forms of teachers’ creative products. “Teachers can be highly creative in developing materials and approaches that fire children’s interests and motivate their learning” (NACCCE, 1999, p.102). This suggests that teachers’ creative products are the teachers’ teaching resources including materials and approaches. Bramwell and colleagues (2011) confirm this notion. They reported that teachers’ creative products can consist of observable products, such as “new curriculum”, “websites, plays, successful businesses, and various models such as working musical instruments”, “demonstration videos and workshops”, “conference papers and journal articles”, “funding for new projects”, and “numerous MEd projects and doctoral dissertations”. (ibid, p.234). I would argue that the tangible form of teachers’ creative products does not only include alternative teachers’ resources to the standard curriculum

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content, textbooks and lesson plans, but also alternative teaching tools, discussed in the findings chapter. Teachers also construct new knowledge or intangible forms of creative products. According to Bramwell and colleagues (2011), teachers’ creative products can be new knowledge that teachers gain through their teaching experience, including knowledge of general pedagogy, knowledge of learners and learning, and knowledge of self: “We have each acquired new knowledge; knowledge about teaching, knowledge about our students, and knowledge about ourselves as professionals” (Bamford et al.,1999, cited in ibid, p.234 ). The knowledge mentioned in their report is what is called personal practical knowledge discussed earlier. Their report confirms, what I discussed earlier, that teachers’ personal practical knowledge is a type of teachers’ creative products. Teachers’ intangible creative products may be considered as knowledge that teachers have of the process of learning to teach. In comparison with teaching for creativity, studies on teaching creatively are qualitatively and quantitatively poor (Hong et al., 2005, Schacter et al., 2006, Bramwell et al., 2011). There is still a lack of evidence around teachers’ creative products. In the findings chapter I discuss participants’ perspectives on the range of creative products, tangible and intangible, they consider are produced. 4.5.1.3 Teachers’ Creative Process To understand teachers’ creative processes, I start with the NACCCE report’s phrase “imaginative approaches”. This helps illuminate how teachers create what they create. Imaginative activity is the process of generating something original: providing an alternative to the expected, the conventional, or the routine. This activity involves processes of thinking or behaving. ……a form of mental play - serious play directed towards some creative purpose. It is a mode of thought which is essentially generative: in which we attempt to expand the possibilities of a given situation; to look at it afresh or from a new perspective, envisaging alternatives to the routine or expected in any given task. Creative insights often occur when existing ideas are combined or reinterpreted in unexpected ways or when they are applied in areas with which they are not normally associated. (NACCCE, 1999, p.31, italics added)

Imaginative activity therefore, is a creative process because “it is a mode of thought” which generates “something original”. Secondly, it seems to be strongly connected with the theories of creative cognition, especially the Geneplore Model (Finke et al., 1992, Ward and Kolomyst, 2010, Ward et al., 1999) because it includes the process of generating new information from given information and exploring the potential of new 99

information which is formed by combining or reinterpreting given information in unexpected ways. Having discussed the Geneplore model generally in chapter 3, here I illustrate imaginative activity, through Ward’s (2007) use of the model related to teaching creatively. He uses a general approach to retrieving information, in two opposite ways, through abstraction. He called these “Know your Principle Strategy” and “Common Strategy”. The former is a strategy for searching as many examples as possible of subject matter in the real-world, and integrating these to the corresponding lesson (Generative Process). Then, the possible lesson plans are explored, evaluated and modified (Exploratory Process) by teachers or their colleagues before applying to teaching. This strategy may help students become more interested in the lesson through a focus on the practical side of knowledge. This brings abstract knowledge into concrete. Conversely, “Common Strategy” brings knowledge from concrete into abstract. For example, using teacher’s own knowledge and/or that of colleagues, the teacher chooses possible ways to teach a lesson, and then combines the most effective ways into a principle. This principle can be used to plan the lesson in new ways or by applying it to similar plans. There are different views of teachers’ imaginative activity. Sawyer (2004, 2011) introduced a type of teaching creatively, called improvised teaching where students play the main role in the generative process while teachers play the main role in the exploratory process. Improvised teaching is a combination of constructivist learning and improvisation. In this method of teaching, students construct knowledge through collaborative discussion. The teachers’ main duties are making a loose scaffold for the discussion, involving all students. In comparison with scripted approaches, teaching based on a pre-planned “script”, Sawyer (Sawyer, 2004) stated that Improvisation is generally defined as a performance (music, theatre, or dance) in which the performers are not following a script or score, but are spontaneously creating their material as it is performed. Improvisation can be as basic as a performer’s elaboration or variation of an existing framework – a song, melody, or plot outline. At the other extreme, in some forms of improvisation, the performers start without any advance framework and create the entire work on stage (Sawyer, 2011)

In chapter 3, I investigated the creative process and tentatively suggested a new model. I aimed to gain a concrete understanding of teachers’ creative processes. Unfortunately, I have found only a very small number of studies relating to teachers’ creative processes. This may be because studying teaching creatively has not been as strong a focus for 100

researchers compared with teaching for creativity. What I found in the literature is that the Geneplore model seems to be useful to help explain how teachers create and guide them towards creating what they want to create. In the findings chapter, I argue that my tentative model of the creative process seems to support me in a better understanding of teachers’ creative processes. 4.5.1.4 Creative Teachers In chapter 3, I discussed the external factors that influence the creative process. Although the authors have different lists of these factors, their nature is similar. According to Amabile (1996), these external factors include creativity-relevant skills, an ability to break mental sets and heuristics for idea generation, domain-relevant skills, both knowledge and skills, and task motivation, an interest and commitment to the task. In other words, the creative process can be influenced by the personal traits of an individual and the traits of the environment in which the individual lives and works. Leading from these ideas I review the literature on teachers’ personal traits that can influence their creative processes. In the next subsection I also discuss the traits of educational environments that can influence teachers’ creative processes. Hong and colleagues (Hong et al., 2005) conducted in-depth interviews with twelve First Prize winners of GreaTeach Award 2003 in Taiwan to study the factors influencing teachers’ creative teaching. The results of their research showed that, in terms of personalities, creative teachers possess the traits of creative people proposed by Sternberg and Lubart (1991), including a willingness to tolerate ambiguity, willingness to overcome obstacles, willingness to take sensible risks, and self-efficacy. In addition, they are also those who enjoy learning and have a sense of humour. In terms of motivation, according to Hong and colleagues (2005), creative teachers are intrinsically motivated. Their strong love for students and teaching are mainsprings of their motivation. In terms of knowledge, creative teachers’ possess plentiful amounts of both theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge in which practical knowledge, gained from day-to-day experiences, plays a more important role which enables them to recognise new situations correctly and give creative responses. Using Amabile’s component theory of creativity as a framework, Niu and Zhou (2010) analysed the studies on teaching mathematics in China, and concluded that Chinese teachers teach mathematics creatively. They also proposed three reasons why Chinese mathematics teachers teach creatively which includes (1) a profound understanding of 101

both subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, (2) Creativityrelevant skills are improved by developing strategies of teaching with variation, and (3) intrinsic motivation through their strong love for mathematics. It is a subject that Chinese people consider if one is good at maths, one may be smarter and have a good job in the future. Therefore, creative teachers are those who have a deep understanding of subject matter knowledge, develop effective pedagogical content knowledge, have skills in possibility thinking and are passionately fond of teaching. These attributes have a strong resonance with my participants’ perspectives on creative chemistry teaching. Bramwell and colleagues (2011), analysed 15 studies of creative teachers and reported that they are personally intelligent and always intrinsically motivated because they really care about their students. Moreover, they are hard-working, nonconforming, knowledgeable, intuitive, confident, flexible, energetic, more dominant and higher in social presence and self-acceptance. In summary, in terms of personalities, the studies on creative teachers revealed a special personality constellation that is the same as that found in creative people in general. In terms of motivation, the studies also pointed out that all creative teachers are intrinsically motivated; none referred to extrinsic motivators such as merit, pay or vacations. The main cause of their intrinsic motivation is because they really care about their students. In the findings chapter, I argue that if intrinsic motivation is also considered as a personal trait of creative people (Feist, 2010), intrinsic motivation is a key factor that influences teachers’ creativity. The causes of teachers’ intrinsic motivation are not only the need to care for students, but also the need to be effective and have prestige. I also argue that teachers are not only intrinsically motivated, but also extrinsically motivated. In terms of knowledge, the studies pointed out creative teachers are knowledgeable. Creative teachers not only have a firm grasp of subject matter knowledge, they also possess useful amounts of personal practical knowledge. However, the authors of the studies tended to emphasise that teachers’ knowledge is always conducive to teachers’ creativity, but they have not focused on the negative impact of teachers’ personal practical knowledge on their creativity. I discuss this issue in the findings chapter. 4.5.1.5 Creative Environments In chapter 3, I suggested that a creative environment is one that improves individual’s domain-relevant skills, creativity-relevant skills, motivates individuals to be creative 102

and values individuals’ creative products (Sternberg and Lubart, 1991, Amabile, 1996, Csikszentmihalyi, 1996b). In terms of teachers’ creativity in teaching, Hong et al. (2005) pointed out that an educational environment good for teachers’ creativity is one in which a teacher’s professional autonomy is respected, creative activities and professional development are cultivated by administrators, and activities are undertaken in collaboration with colleagues. The study by Niu and Zhou (2010) on teachers’ creativity in teaching mathematics revealed similar conclusions about the influence of educational environments on these teachers. Bramwell et al. (2011) concluded that successful creativity arose when teachers and their communities worked together. They analysed the relationship between teachers and their communities in two ways, teachers in community and teachers building community. In the former they pointed out that teachers’ creativity is influenced by their students, their colleagues, and the educational structures. In particular, teachers are more creative when they confront the diversity of students’ interests, abilities, and needs as well as students’ resistances. Teachers are also more creative when they have the cooperation and get compliments for their creative activities from their colleagues and administrators. Moreover, there appear to be two educational structures conducive to teachers’ creativity. The first one is a loose structure that makes a wide framework and allows teachers to improvise in that framework. The second one is a deficient structure that asks teachers to creatively improve the structure with the aim of teaching effectively. In terms of teachers building community, Bramwell et al. (2011) pointed out that a good environment for teachers’ creativity is not only one that supports teachers’ creativity, but also that allows them to use their creativity to reform that educational environment. Compared to the study by Bramwell and colleagues (2011), conducted in Canada, those of Hong and colleagues and Niu and Zhou, conducted in Taiwan and China respectively, do not mention the influence of students on teachers’ creativity or the role of creative teachers in the process of building pedagogical communities. However, their studies emphasised the influence of educational environments on teachers’ professional development. I think that this difference seems to be influenced by the difference of two traditions of teaching, teacher-centred teaching in Eastern countries and student-centred teaching in Western countries. However, it does not mean that students’ interests, 103

abilities, needs, and resistances are not influencing teachers’ creativity in Eastern schools because, as I argued elsewhere and discuss in the findings chapter, the diversity of students has an impact on teachers’ creativity. It also does not mean that teachers in Eastern schools do not contribute to pedagogical environments as can be seen from my participants’ perspectives discussed in the findings. I think that the studies reviewed above complimented each other in providing a comprehensive picture of an educational environment that is good for teachers’ creativity. In the findings chapter I summarise this picture, and give details and examples of these issues from my participants’ perspectives. 4.5.2 Teaching for Creativity It is clear in the literature that teaching for creativity aims to allow students to learn creatively and to become creative people. In other words, teaching for creativity gives opportunities for creative learning, which is defined as “both learning creatively and learning to have confidence in being creative” (Craft, 2005, p.61). Generally, in the NACCCE report (1999), teaching for creativity is defined as “forms of teaching that are intended to develop young people’s own creative thinking or behaviour”, (p.103). During the process of reviewing the literature on teachers’ creativity in teaching, like other authors (Hong et al., 2005, Schacter et al., 2006, Bramwell et al., 2011), I found that most studies focused on teaching for creativity rather than teaching creatively. However, it is evident that there is a relationship between teaching for creativity and teaching creatively (NACCCE, 1999, Jeffrey and Craft, 2004). Therefore, here I review the literature on teaching for creativity with the aim of gaining a greater understanding of its relationship to teachers’ creativity. In the NACCCE report (1999), the authors mentioned that “teaching for creativity involves teaching creatively. Young people’s creative abilities are most likely to be developed in an atmosphere in which the teacher’s creative abilities are properly engaged” (ibid., p.103). This statement pointed to a correlation between teaching for creativity and teaching creatively, but it does not reveal the nature of this association. Through empirical research, Jeffrey and Craft (2004) made clear this association, The research … shows that the relationship between teaching creatively and teaching for creativity is an integral one. The former is inherent in the latter and the former often leads directly to the latter. We suggest that if these distinctions continue to be used it should be made clear that: teachers teach creatively and teach for creativity according to the circumstances they consider appropriate and sometimes they do both at the same time; teaching for creativity may well arise

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spontaneously from teaching situations in which it was not specifically intended; and teaching for creativity is more likely to emerge from contexts in which teachers are teaching creatively notwithstanding some evidence of creative reactions to constrained situations. Learners model themselves on their teacher’s approach, find themselves in situations where they are able to take ownership and control and are more likely to be innovative, even if the teacher was not overtly planning to teach for creativity (Jeffrey and Craft, 2004, p.84).

I totally support this view. In the following paragraphs, drawing on the above my review considers two different perspectives that I have temporally called the creativityoriented view and the pedagogy-oriented view. The former comes from several modern systematic theories of creativity, in particular, Sternberg and Lubart’s investment theory of creativity and Amabile’s componential theory of creativity into teaching for creativity. The latter comes from discussions relating to the relationship between the types of teaching and teaching for creativity. 4.5.2.1 The Creativity-Oriented Views Sternberg and Lubart (1991) proposed the Investment Theory of Creativity. According to this theory, a creative person, like a businessman, has an ability to buy low by chasing potential creative ideas which are unknown or considered as unworthy and sell high through overcoming resistances and successfully forming real creative ideas. The theory consists of twelve keys: redefine problems, question and analyse assumptions, don’t assume creative ideas sell themselves, encourage idea generation, recognise knowledge is a double-edged sword and act accordingly, encourage students to identify and surmount obstacles, encourage sensible risk taking, encourage tolerance of ambiguity, help students build self-efficacy, help students find what they love doing, teach students the importance of delaying gratification, and finally provide an environment that fosters creativity (the full table can be seen in appendix 6, p.269). The process of buying low and selling high requires six resources, including intellectual abilities including synthetic, analytical and practical-contextual; knowledge of the domain; styles of thinking; a personality that overcomes obstacles, takes sensible risks, tolerates ambiguity and has self-efficacy; intrinsic motivation; and an environment that is supportive and rewarding of creative ideas. Sternberg and colleagues (Sternberg, 2010, Sternberg, 2007, Sternberg and Williams, 1996) suggested the twelve keys, stated above, for developing students’ creativity. Several of these keys aim to foster one of the above six resources of creativity.

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Analysing Sternberg and colleagues’ twelve keys, I recognised that to enhance students’ creativity, teachers must focus upon individual differences; particularly, depending on each student’s interests, abilities, and needs to guide that student to define and/or redefine problems, to question assumptions effectively, to persuade others of the value of his/her idea, and so on. As students’ interests, abilities, and needs are very diverse, teachers must have a rich repertoire of educational strategies to support them. This requires teachers to be more creative. Teachers also need to be creative in order to model creative behaviours to students. Their creativity is essential to teach for creativity, or as proposed by Jeffrey and Craft (2004), teaching creatively is inherent in teaching for creativity. According to Amabile’s componential theory of creativity (Amabile, 1983, Amabile, 1996), domain-relevant skills, creativity-relevant skills, and task motivation are the important components which directly influence the creative process and, consequently, influence creative thinking and behaviours. Each component and the influence of these on the creative process were reviewed in chapter 3. Based on the framework of the componential theory of creativity, Amabile and her colleagues conducted many studies on enhancing creativity. Additionally, she used this framework to review studies on the impact of social factors and training programmes on creativity. She (Amabile, 1983, Amabile, 1996) gave several tentative suggestions about how to maintain and enhance students’ creativity through general and social factors. The general factors included: skills to teach providing stimulating environments that support problem solving; teaching methods that promote critical faculties to enable students to critique their own and others’ work; enthusiastic, professional and encouraging teacher behaviours; avoiding peer influences to conform; and considering the dangers of too much formal education. Her suggestions for the social factors included: socialisation where parents foster creativity, exposing children to models of creative achievement and cultural diversity; modelling positive and pleasurable work attitudes; freedom that encourages independence and abilities to self evaluate; carefully considered rewards; and recognising children’s individual differences and levels of interest and ability. (The detailed table of ‘Suggestions of Maintaining and Enhancing Students’ Creativity’ can be found in appendix 7, p.270). In considering these general and social factors suggested by Amabile, I concluded that to enhance students’ creativity teachers must be creative to deal with individual 106

differences and to construct models of creative achievements. In addition, teachers who want to enhance students’ creativity must be aware of creativity and have knowledge of creativity. This notion is supported by Beghetto (2007) and Tan (2007). Beghetto suggested that teachers cannot teach for creativity when they still have misunderstandings about creativity. For example, creativity is understood as a synonym for unrestrained originality. This is a misunderstanding of the standard definition of creativity. It is also thought of as a major breakthrough, which is a misunderstanding of creative magnitude. Sometimes it is considered to be the potential of certain students with the support of some special creative techniques. Tan (2007) proposed that to teach for creativity, teachers are required to have not only knowledge of the strategies of teaching for creativity, but also knowledge of creativity in general, Creative teachers are knowledgeable and expert professionals. They are granted creative autonomy in their classroom. They establish purposes and intentions, build basic skills, encourage acquisition of domain specific knowledge, stimulate curiosity and exploration, build motivation, encourage confidence and risk taking, focus on mastery and self-competition, promote supportable beliefs, provide balance and opportunities for choice and discovery, develop selfmanagement or metacognitive skills, teach techniques and strategies for facilitating creative performance and construct environments conducive for creativity and encourage imagination and fantasy (Tan, 2007, p.xxxii)

In summary, to teach for creativity, teachers must be aware that it is one of the educational aims and teachers have to have a general knowledge of creativity, a knowledge of teaching for creativity and think and teach creatively in order to teach for creativity. 4.5.2.2 The Pedagogy-Oriented View In the pedagogy-oriented view there are two general types of teaching, instructivist teaching, also known as didactic teaching, teacher-centred teaching or traditional teaching and constructivist teaching or student-centred teaching. Here I focus upon some characteristics of each type that relate to teaching for creativity. Having reviewed the literature, I would argue that both instructivist teaching and constructivist teaching support teaching for creativity to some extent and, additionally, teachers needs creativity to use either instructivist teaching or constructivist teaching with the aim of fostering students’ creativity. Constructivist teaching is based on the view that students actively construct much of their knowledge through personal interpretation of social interaction (Schunk, 2012). Many scholars believe that constructivist teaching supports students’ creativity 107

(Beghetto and Plucker, 2006). There are some explanations for this belief. Firstly, personally or socially constructing knowledge per se can be considered as creativity because students successfully construct new knowledge themselves (Craft, 2005). Secondly, letting students construct knowledge themselves can enhance students’ divergent thinking, or possibility thinking, and students’ imagination that is essential for creative thinking (Beghetto and Plucker, 2006). Within this type of teaching, a teacher becomes a supporter who builds scaffolding upon which students construct their knowledge. I would argue that building scaffolding for each lesson requires some creativity by the teacher because the scaffolding does not exist in formal teaching resources. Using the scaffolding, teachers improvisationally interact with students and create new educational strategies to help them achieve the learning goals. Sawyer (2004, 2011) called improvised teaching, a type of teaching creatively. My argument here relates to the section on the creativity-oriented view, that teaching for creativity requires teachers’ creativity. Moreover, drawing upon the ideas of Jeffrey and Craft (2004), below I argue that teachers can enhance students’ creativity even though teachers may not set out to do that. Instructivist teaching is based on the view that knowledge is independent from students; a teacher has a duty to communicate and transfer knowledge to students (Porcaro, 2011). A question, raised in the literature, is whether there is a conflict between traditional teaching and teaching for creativity (Cropley and Cropley, 2007, Beghetto, 2010, Baer and Garrett, 2010). In terms of teaching, there seem to be different goals between traditional teaching and teaching for creativity; traditional teaching has the aim of teaching students standard content knowledge and skills which can enable them to pass tests while teaching for creativity has an aim of enhancing students’ abilities to think outside the box. Cropley and Cropley explained, An enduring problem for teachers is the tension between traditional educational goals (such as possession of large numbers of facts, accurate recall of memorized material, correct application of standard techniques) and creativity-oriented goals (e.g., discovering problems, inventing unexpected answers, linking traditionally separate areas). The former are of such obvious value that their worth scarcely needs to be defended, but the latter are less widely accepted. Indeed, they are sometimes seen as antipathetic to academic rigor (Cropley and Cropley, 2007, p.211 and 212).

Consequently, traditional teaching emphasizes convergent and evaluative thinking while teaching for creativity emphasizes divergent thinking. Traditional teaching favours 108

teacher-centred teaching while teaching for creativity favours student-centred teaching. Traditional teachers evaluate and reward students’ expected responses and students’ compliant and conforming behaviours, while teaching for creativity evaluates and rewards students’ potentially creative ideas and their nonconformity, impulsivity and disruptive behaviours (Beghetto, 2010). Some researchers (Cropley and Cropley, 2007, Baer and Garrett, 2010, Beghetto, 2010) argued that either there is a dialectic relationship between teaching effectively and teaching for creativity, or there are techniques by which teachers can achieve the goals of teaching effectively and teaching for creativity at the same time. Baer and Garrett (2010) argued that traditional teaching gives students knowledge of a domain which is necessary for creativity whilst teaching for creativity gives students the ability to think creatively which is necessary for them to understand the knowledge of that domain in more depth (see also Sawyer, 2004). They also suggested that all types of thinking, including divergent, convergent, and evaluative thinking are essential for both learning effectively and thinking creatively. In terms of effective learning, the best students’ answers to teachers’ questions are generated through students finding out for themselves. In terms of creativity, these types of thinking are necessary for different stages of the creative process (Cropley and Cropley, 2008). Baer and Garrett stated that teacher-centred teaching and student-centred teaching are on a continuum. It is possible for a teacher to reach a balance between the two extremes. They argued that extrinsic motivation, where teachers offer students rewards or evaluate students’ work, does not completely curtail students’ creativity because it helps to improve students’ knowledge and skills necessary for thinking creatively. Extrinsic motivation may increase students’ creativity if it is in synergy with intrinsic motivation (see more in Amabile, 1996). Generally speaking, various scholars (Cropley and Cropley, 2008, Baer and Garrett, 2010, Beghetto, 2010) have pointed out that traditional teaching and teaching for creativity are not in conflict, but support each other. As I argued in the section on the personalities of creative people, both traditional teaching and teaching for creativity are necessary to enhance students’ creativity because the former tends to help students to generate effective products while the latter helps them generate original products. In the following paragraphs, I introduce some examples that illustrate it is possible for ‘teaching for creativity’ to harmonize with ‘traditional teaching’. Many well-known creative thinking techniques, such as Brainstorming (Osborn, 1963), Mind Mapping 109

(Buzan and Buzan, 2007), Six Thinking Hats (De Bono, 2009), Creative Problem Solving (Parnes, 1967), and so on have been used as teaching techniques to enhance both learning effectively and students’ creativity (Cropley, 1992, Amabile, 1996, Starko, 2010, Baer and Garrett, 2010). ‘Brainstorming’ and ‘mind mapping’ help to foster students’ divergent thinking skills. The ‘six thinking hats’ and ‘creative problem solving’ enable students to become familiar with the stages of the creative process. There are also techniques which can improve students’ creative thinking and creative personalities at the same time. For example, Landau (Landau, 2007) suggested a technique for teaching for creativity, called education through questions. She divided questions into several types, ranking from the lowest to the highest level, including descriptive (who, what, when, where, how), causal (why), subjective (how do I feel about it …?), imaginative (what happens if …?), judgement (what is more important, better?), and future (what else I can do ..?). She pointed out that the experience of educators’ show that teaching through questions is more challenging than giving facts. It also encourages children to ask questions because it increases their curiosity. Teaching through questions enhances students’ willingness to overcome obstacles and become curious. The hierarchy of the type of questions suggested by Landau (2007) seems to me to be similar to the different stages of the creative process. Therefore, teaching students through these types of questions may enable students to become familiar with creative thinking processes. There are also solutions which help to create a balance between traditional teaching and teaching for creativity. Cropley and Cropley (2007) offered a way to assess that does not decrease, but increases students’ creativity by requiring creative responses from them. They have a slightly different view of creative products and how to assess these. Besides two standard criteria for creative products, effectiveness and originality, they added two more, elegance and generalizability, and divided creative products into four types, ranging from effective products at one end of a continuum through original products and elegant products to innovative products, characterized by effectiveness, novelty, elegance and generalizability at the other end. These also suggested the indicators through which teachers could assess students’ responses (see the indicators in Cropley and Cropley, 2007).

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4.5.2.3 A Summary The creativity-oriented view illustrates that to teach for creativity, teachers must be aware of this as an educational aim, have general knowledge of creativity, knowledge of the strategies for enhancing students’ creativity, be creative to conduct these strategies and become creative models. In other words, teachers must be creative to teach for creativity The pedagogical-oriented view showed that teachers who use constructivist teaching methods may enhance students’ creativity without realising they are, because it is inherently conducive to students’ creativity due to an emphasise on developing students’ habits for actively and collaboratively constructing new knowledge and divergent thinking skills. Instructivist teaching could also be conducive to students’ creativity as it emphasises a systematic development of students’ knowledge of domain and convergent and evaluation thinking skills useful for creativity. The discussion revealed that it is possible to integrate strategies for teaching for creativity into traditional teaching in order to develop students’ academic achievement and creativity. 4.6

A Summary of the Chapter

My study explored Vietnamese chemistry teachers’ creativity in teaching from the participants’ perspectives. The following is a summary of the key themes emerging from chapter four. 1. There appear to be two important aspects to creativity in education, teaching for creativity and teaching creatively. The former enhances students potential to be creative and supports skills development to cope with recent economic, social and technological challenges (Craft, 2011). The latter is important because teaching creatively plays a role in teaching and teaching for creativity. 2. Teachers’ knowledge base includes different categories of knowledge, such as content, general pedagogy, curriculum, learners and learning and knowing the context. (Shulman, 1986b, Shulman, 1987, Grossman, 1995, Munby et al., 2001). It emerged that there are two forms of teacher knowledge, paradigmatic form that is free-context knowledge and narrative form which is personal practical knowledge. A sound understanding of free-context knowledge is usually conducive to teachers’ creativity because it can help teachers go beyond the formal resources to create alternatives. 111

I tentatively argued that personal practical knowledge, especially pedagogical content knowledge, is a type of teacher’s creative product. It is personally constructed in order to effectively teach particular students in particular contexts. Teachers’ personal practical knowledge may be either mini-c creativity, “the novel and personally meaningful interpretation of experiences, actions, and events”, (Kaufman and Beghetto, 2007, p.73), or little-c creativity, teachers’ originality across the diverse activities of teaching. I also argued that teachers’ personal practical knowledge can inhibit teachers’ creativity. If teachers possess a great repertoire of personal practical knowledge, including solutions for problems emerging from particular students in particular contexts, teachers no longer need to create new solutions for similar situations. 3. In discussing ‘teaching as performance’ the ‘teachers as artists’ metaphor implied that teachers are creative during teaching particularly in the inter-active phase. Comparing the art of teaching proposed by Eisner (2002) and the ideas of other researchers (Hill, 1985, Marzano, 2007, Sawyer, 2011), I argued that there are three types of teachers’ creativity flexible teaching, improvised teaching and intuitive teaching. 4. The section on teacher expertise development revealed five different stages novice, advanced beginner, competence, proficiency, and expertise (Dreyfus, 2009). Teachers truly start to create new things in teaching at the advanced beginner stage. They learn from the contexts and generate new personal practical knowledge that helps them to cope effectively with particular contexts. From advanced beginners to experts, teachers’ personal practical knowledge is developed from concrete to abstract, from maxims to perspectives (Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 1986, Dreyfus, 2009) or from practical rules to practical principles and images (Elbaz, 1983). I considered the highest level of teachers’ expertise is their personal paradigm for teaching. This allows them to be more flexible and provisional in teaching. However, their large repertoire can inhibit creativity illustrated in crystallised expert teachers. 5. In the discussion on creative teaching and learning I highlighted: (a) There are two reasons why teachers need creativity in teaching. Some researchers (Hill, 1985, NACCCE, 1999, Eisner, 2002, Ward, 2007, Sawyer, 2011) proposed that teachers need creativity for good teaching. Other 112

researchers (Bramwell et al., 2011, Marzano, 2007) suggested teachers need creativity for successful teaching. I consider both are needed. (b) Teachers’ creative products can be both tangible and intangible. The former can be alternative teaching resources (NACCCE, 1999, Bramwell et al., 2011) or new knowledge gained from experience. Pedagogical Content Knowledge can be considered as intangible creative products. (c) I concluded that the Geneplore Model (Finke et al., 1992, Ward and Kolomyst, 2010, Ward et al., 1999) is a useful model when discussing teachers’ creative processes and to guide them towards new teaching strategies. (d) In terms of the personalities of creative teachers, I explored the views of some researchers (Hong et al., 2005, Niu and Zhou, 2010, Bramwell et al., 2011) that highly creative teachers have a special personality constellation consistent with that of highly creative people, as proposed by Sternberg and Lubart (1991) and Feist (2010). Creative teachers are intrinsically motivated by caring for students, as teaching professionals and through the subjects they teach. I wondered whether highly creative teachers possess the same set of paradoxical traits as highly creative people proposed by Csikszentmihalyi (1996b). Some researchers (Hong et al., 2005, Niu and Zhou, 2010, Bramwell et al., 2011) also suggested that highly creative teachers are knowledgeable and have a sound understanding of both paradigmatic and narrative forms of knowledge. Teachers’ knowledge supports their creativity (Hong et al., 2005, Niu and Zhou, 2010) and their large repertoire of personal practical knowledge allows them to be more flexible and improvisational (Hong et al., 2005). The negative effect of this knowledge on teachers’ creativity was not focused on in the literature but has emerged in this study. (e) Environments that foster teachers’ creativity often have challenges created by the diversity of students’ aims, interests, and abilities and loose and deficient structures within the educational contexts (Bramwell et al., 2011). Teachers’ creative thinking and acting should be cultivated by administrators and colleagues (Bramwell et al., 2011, Hong et al., 2005, Niu and Zhou, 2010). (f) Finally teaching for creativity explored the notion that teachers need creativity to teach for creativity. However sometimes a creative teacher unintentionally 113

teaches for creativity positively influencing students’ creativity through developing their sound understanding of subject knowledge and providing them with a model of a creative person. All of the above will be discussed in relation to the themes which emerge from the data in this study.

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Chapter 5

RESEARCH DESIGN

In this chapter, I introduce my research aim, purpose, and objectives, discuss the research paradigm, ontology, epistemology, methodology, and axiology and the research methods selected to achieve what this study set out to investigate. 5.1

Research Aim

As discussed elsewhere in the previous chapters, maintaining and nurturing students’ creativity is one of the educational aims of general education in Vietnam (title 1, article 27, the Education Law of Vietnam,

NAOV, 2005). Recently, this aim has been

emphasized in many countries because of the need to deal with the economic, social and technological challenges (NACCCE, 1999, Craft, 2011). Therefore, studying how to maintain and nurture students’ creativity was crucial. I also argued that students’ creativity cannot be detached from teachers’ creativity (Schacter et al., 2006, Ward, 2007). Therefore, studying how to maintain and nurture teachers’ creativity was also crucial. Teachers’ creativity is seen as essential in Vietnam because nurturing this, with the aim of improving the quality of education and training, has been emphasized in recent years (NEUV, 2007, MOET, 2012). In order to inform the creativity debate in Vietnam the government, and others in education, have highlighted the need to study what teachers and others do when they engage in what they think is creative teaching. An understanding of how to nurture Vietnamese chemistry teachers’ creativity in order to nurture students’ creativity and academic achievement is an important purpose of this study. To gain this understanding, I firstly researched the literature to consider the various constructs, from the general constructs of creativity, categories of creativity, creative people, processes, products, and environments to the particular constructs of creative teachers and teaching. This has then helped me to consider how creativity in secondary science education in Vietnam has been understood since the year 2000 through the experiences and perspectives of my participants. My understandings, resulting from the literature review are summarised at the end of the third and fourth chapters. This revealed that more situational studies should be conducted to fully understand how to nurture teachers’ creativity in order to nurture students’ creativity and academic achievements, as what constitutes creativity is seen differently in different cultures. This understanding has also guided me in what I should conduct in this stage of my study 115

when gaining a situational perspective on these areas in Vietnamese chemistry teaching since the year 2000. In particular, through this study, I aimed to understand teachers’ creativity in teaching (teaching creatively) from the experiences and perspectives of experienced and successful teachers who teach chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam. This understanding may provide evidence for both the existing understanding and my tentative propositions elsewhere in the previous chapters. Consequently, this study may help me to have a fuller understanding of Vietnamese chemistry teacher’s levels of creativity in teaching and possible ways forward. It may also add to the understanding in studying creative teaching. I hope to provide the government with a sense of where we are and to contribute to change. Like other researchers (Kampylis and Valtanen, 2010, NACCCE, 1999, Rhodes, 1961) who believe that the purpose and components of creativity should be studied in order to understand it, I investigated the purposes and the components of Vietnamese chemistry teachers’ thinking on creativity in teaching, including their perspectives on their reasons for their creativity, creative products and processes. I also explored their creative characteristics, and the environments these teachers work in, in order to understand these from my participants’ perspectives. My study aimed to investigate the following research questions in Vietnamese upper secondary schools: Why do chemistry teachers need creativity? What do chemistry teachers create? How do chemistry teachers create what they create? Which factors influence chemistry teachers’ creativity? 5.2

Research Paradigm

The term paradigm already exists as a synonym of the terms model and pattern. However, the meaning of this term has been reconstructed. Kuhn (1996) who brought this concept into the science community identified these terms. He considered paradigm as “an accepted model or pattern”, however he stated that, “a paradigm is rarely an object for replication”, but “it is an object for further articulation and specification under new or more stringent conditions” (p.23). He also suggested several different ways to

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understand this term, for example: “set of received beliefs” (p.4), “an accepted judicial decision in the common law” (p.23), or By choosing it, I mean to suggest that some accepted examples of actual scientific practice examples which include law, theory, application, and instrumentation together provide models from which spring particular coherent traditions of scientific research (p.10).

At present, the definition of paradigm widely used by researchers is the generic one proposed by Guba (1990, p.17), “a basic set of beliefs that guide action”. In terms of scientific inquiry, “a basic set of beliefs” includes beliefs of ontology (What is the nature of reality?), epistemology (How do I know the world?), methodology (What are the best methods for gaining knowledge about the world?), and axiology (What is the role of values?), (Heron and Reason, 1997, Creswell, 2007, Denzin and Lincoln, 2011b). The following paragraphs are my views relating to my research paradigm. My study was firstly a study into creativity. In terms of ontology, it is hard to say unquestionably that creativity is a reality out there to be studied or creativity is a social construct. Creativity may have some objective characteristics. For example, creative people are motivated by some basic innate psychological needs (Deci and Ryan, 1990, Ryan and Deci, 2000a, Deci and Ryan, 2008b); and the personalities of creative people are influenced by genes and brain structures (Feist, 2010). However, creativity is also influenced by social factors (Sternberg and Lubart, 1991, Amabile, 1996, Csikszentmihalyi, 1996b). Creativity is influenced by domain-relevant skills and creativity-relevant skills which individuals can gain from formal or informal learning (Amabile, 1996). Creativity happens in the interaction of an individual with the domain and the field in which the individual lives and works (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996b). Even motivation and creative personalities are partly influenced by social environment (Amabile, 1996, Csikszentmihalyi, 1996b, Sternberg and Lubart, 1991). Therefore, it is possible to say that creativity is socially constructed to some extent. In this study I focused upon Vietnamese upper secondary chemistry teachers. My study was secondly investigating the participants’ perspectives related to Vietnamese upper secondary school chemistry teachers’ creativity in teaching. As discussed in previous chapters, this type of creativity is produced when teachers interact with mandated educational aims, educational objectives intended by teachers and students, teachers’ physical and mental resources, and students. Therefore, creative

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teaching seems to be a product of the interaction between teachers and the educational environments rather than a readily existing reality. Finally, my study was conducted within the context of Vietnam. Besides social factors mentioned above, creativity in this context is also influenced by the social, cultural, economic, and political conditions of Vietnam which is changing in response to international and economic pressure. Therefore, chemistry teachers’ creativity in this context should not be considered as an independent reality; instead, it should be considered as a product of interaction between teachers and the environment in which they live and work. In summary, I believe that teachers’ creativity in teaching is a social construct, formed within the interaction between teachers and the environment in which they live and work, and that the best way to understand it is to understand the nature of teachers’ lived experiences and perspectives about it. In other words, my research paradigm, in terms of ontology, epistemology and methodology, is consistent with the assumptions of social constructivists and the standpoints of hermeneutic phenomenologists. In the next sections, I introduce social constructionism as a philosophical perspective (ontology and epistemology) for my study. I also introduce the hermeneutic phenomenological approach, one of the theories within social constructionism (Crotty, 1998), as a theoretical perspective (methodology) that guided me to choose particular methods for recruiting the sample, collecting data, and analysing data to conduct my study. At the end of this section, I discuss the last issue of my research paradigm, axiology. 5.2.1 Social Constructionism Social constructionism is the confluence of many schools of thought which share some common assumptions (Burr, 2003, Gergen, 2009, Lock and Strong, 2010). The common assumptions of social constructionism can be described as follows (Guba and Lincoln, 1994, Burr, 2003, Gergen, 2009, Lock and Strong, 2010, Lincoln et al., 2011): it challenges the view that there are meaningful realities out there, not dependent on human consciousness, and that to understand the world, humans need to explore its nature by observation. Accordingly, it challenges the existence of “taken-for-granted knowledge”. In social constructionists’ views, realities are the products of human intellects in interaction between subjects and objects. “The world and the objects in the 118

world are indeterminate. They may be pregnant with potential meaning, but actual meaning emerges only when consciousness engages with them (Crotty, 1998). Humans socially and experientially construct realities and describe and interpret them. Because the process of constructing knowledge depends on where, when and how individuals live, and what individuals experienced; socially constructed knowledge is multiple, local and specific. Crotty (1998, p.42) summarised these assumptions as follows, All knowledge, and therefore all meaningful reality as such, is contingent upon human practices, being constructed in and out of interaction between human beings and their world, and developed and transmitted within an essentially social context.

In this study I considered the social construction of the context in upper secondary chemistry in the schools in Vietnam through the socially constructed realities of the participants and their lived experiences. In the previous paragraphs, I discussed the assumptions of social constructionism. In the following paragraphs, I make a comparison between social constructionism and some typical schools of thought in terms of ontology and epistemology. In terms of ontology, there are two schools of thought often mentioned in the literature, realism and relativism. Realists believe that the realities are independent of human mind and possess their own meaning, Realist ontologies … range from the view that the world of objects and social structures exists independent of human experience to the idea that, although the world exists independent of any one person, human perception is such that our reality is a pre-interpreted one (Madill, 2008, p.731).

Conversely, relativists reject the existence of apodictic truths while supporting the view that the realities can be understood differently in different contexts, There are … two deeply interrelated points central to all discussions of relativism. The first is the claim that our experiences, moral judgments, claims to knowledge, and so on can be understood only relative to something else such as particular languages and particular social and cultural practices. The second is the denial that there can be any universal or apodictic truths (Smith, 2008, p.749).

Therefore, ontologically, because of challenging the objective existence of realities and the existence of pre-interpreted knowledge, social constructionism is totally different from realism. Because of the emphasis on multiple, local and specific knowledge, social constructionism comes closer to relativism (Guba, 1990, Guba and Lincoln, 1994, Lincoln et al., 2011). Epistemologically, social constructionism is different from both objectivism: “knowledge can increasingly approximate the real nature, or quality, of its object” 119

(Ratner, 2008a, p.567), and subjectivism: “In this view, what we think, imagine, feel, remember, expect, understand, and strive for is entirely the product of ourselves.” (Ratner, 2008b, p.839). Social constructivists neither objectively explore the world as objectivists do, nor subjectively create the world as subjectivists do; they construct the world through the interaction between them and the world. Social constructionism therefore comes closer to transactional subjectivism, that is, that assertions about “reality” and “truth” depend solely on the meaning sets (information) and degree of sophistication available to the individuals and audiences engaged in forming those assertions (Guba, 1990, Guba and Lincoln, 1994, Lincoln et al., 2011). In the introduction of 5.2, I stated that my research paradigm was consistent with the thoughts of social constructivists. Here, I would like to elaborate by using their language to relate it directly to teachers’ creativity. Ontologically, I believe that teachers’ creativity in teaching is not an objective reality that exists independently of teachers’ experience; instead, it emerges in the interaction between teachers, their tasks and the educational and wider situational contexts. Consequently, teachers’ creativity in teaching is different from creativity in other disciplines and different from the experience of different teachers in different contexts. Teachers’ creativity in teaching is multiple, local and specific. Epistemologically, knowledge of teachers’ creativity comes from neither discoveries nor inventions; instead, it comes from the experience of the communities of teachers and the communities of researchers in the field of education. Therefore in terms of knowledge of teachers’ creativity in teaching it is socially constructed. However, how is it socially constructed? Theoretically, this question will be investigated in the next section. 5.2.2 Hermeneutic Phenomenological Approach The following paragraphs summarise some relevant thoughts of three great philosophers, Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), and Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) that strongly impact upon the formation of hermeneutic phenomenology and my thinking for this study. The hermeneutic phenomenological approach developed by Van Manen (1990) will be presented as the main foundations which guided me to choose the particular research methods for recruiting my sample, collecting data, and analysing data. 120

Phenomenology is the study of phenomenon, defined as whatever intentionally appears in consciousness (Moustakas, 1994). The term intentionality widely used in phenomenology means that “consciousness is always transitive”; “To be conscious is to be aware, in some sense, of some aspect of the world” (Van Manen, 1990, p.9). Phenomenologists believe that “subjects and objects are essentially interrelated” (Howarth, 1998, p.6475). Husserl realised the importance of knowledge formed by pure consciousness which comes before empirical knowledge and “serves as the essential beginning of a science that seeks valid determinations that are open to anyone to verify” (Moustakas, 1994, p.26). He believed that thorough phenomenology, “disclosure of a realm of being which presented itself with absolute certainty, arising from experience, seemed possible” and “true meaning through penetrating deeper and deeper into reality” is reached. Husserl’s phenomenology is transcendental phenomenology (Moustakas, 1994). It becomes an approach to study knowledge, or in other words, to explore the essence or the nature of a phenomenon. To explore the nature of a phenomenon, Husserl created the methods which are named epoche, transcendental-phenomenological reduction, and imaginative variation. These methods can be summarised as follows: researchers advocate bracketing off all objects supposed as existing out there as well as all presupposition, move to pure consciousness of everything perceived and make a complete description of all phenomenon’s components by recalling, thinking and using imagination and intuition to grasp the essence of the phenomenon (Moustakas, 1994, Smith et al., 2009). Heidegger agreed with Husserl about the importance of studying a phenomenon. However, he did not agree with the process of exploring the essence of a phenomenon through pure consciousness because what appears in consciousness is not being (sein), but being-there or being-in-the-world (dasein) (Palmer, 1969). Therefore, he emphasized the importance of historicity and pre-understanding toward grasping the essence of a phenomenon. Understanding it is not only through the fresh and naïve description of pure consciousness, but also through interpretation of experience from the angle of one’s background (Hammond et al., 1991, Smith et al., 2009). Heidegger refused the absolute of object as in realism. However, unlike Husserl’s subjectivism view, Heidegger determined an interactive relation between subject and object. Heidegger suggested the interpretive process under the form of a hermeneutic circle: 121

“moving from the parts of experience to the whole of experience and back and forth again and again to increase the depth of engagement with, and the understanding of texts” (Laverty, 2003, p.9). Building on Heidegger’s idea Gadamer argued that individual’s understanding is limited. He used the term horizon to imply the limitation of individual’s knowledge. Therefore, to understand in detail a phenomenon, one needs to go beyond one’s horizon as well as seek overlap with others’ horizons, namely fusion of horizons (Moran, 2002). “For Gadamer, shared understanding is a genuine ‘event’ which brings something real into being, something which arises over and above our wanting and doing” (p.252). Moreover, Gadamer, like Wittgenstein, appreciated the importance of language in the interpretative process because of the close connection between language and thought (Moran, 2002). Gadamer’s argument about the connection between language and thought can be summarised as follows (Moran, 2002): When we are born into the world, we are simply born into a world of others, we will be told firstly about the world through the language structure that already exists. Then we can think of the world, understand our experience, and guide our actions through the meaning and functions of words and within the boundary of the language structure. We can also reconstruct the world by having the commitment of others, and together with this process, we and others reconstruct the language structure as well. Consequently, language is not a passive vehicle for our thought, it is thought. Language and thought, therefore, are inseparable (Burr, 2003). The ideas of Husserl, Heidegger, and Gadamer form the foundation of hermeneutic phenomenology (Van Manen, 1990, Smith et al., 2009). Van Manen (1990, p.38) explained, Phenomenology because it is the descriptive study of lived experience (phenomena) in the attempt to enrich lived experience by mining its meaning; hermeneutics because it is the interpretive study of the expression and objectifications (texts) of lived experience in the attempt to determine the meaning embodied in them (Van Manen, 1990, p.38).

Why did I choose a hermeneutic phenomenological approach as the theoretical foundation which guided me to conduct this study? Firstly, I chose this because of my research aim. This study aimed to understand creativity in teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam. As discussed before, I consider creativity in teaching as a social construct, and because it is a social construct, it is multiple, local and specific. In other words, the meanings of creativity in teaching socially constructed 122

by upper secondary school chemistry teachers in Vietnam may be different from the meanings of that socially constructed by teachers in other levels of education, in other disciplines, and in other countries. Using Husserl’s ideas, I believe that a good way to understand the meaning of creativity in teaching, socially constructed by the participants is to understand their lived experience and what they consider is creativity in teaching. However, I am not searching for the meaning of this construct from the pure consciousness of these teachers as Husserl discussed because I believe that the meaning embodied in their lived experience of creativity in teaching should be understood in relation to the environment where they live and work, which is closer to Heidegger’s views. Moreover, like Gadamer, I believe that the best understanding should be conducted based not only on the shared experience of these participants in Vietnam, but also upon the understanding constructed by other people in other levels of education, in other disciplines, and in other countries. Secondly, I chose this approach for its own value. In terms of axiology, research guided by this approach has the advantage of being close to the human world that is socially constructed, and reduces the gaps between theory and practice because it studies lived experience, “…as we live through it and recognize it as a particular type of experience” (Adams and van Manen, 2008, p.616). This approach is open to new horizons of knowledge, “allows exploration of rich, multifaceted, intangible, and dynamic phenomena, such as being, occupation, and “everyday” aspects of life” (Wilding and Whiteford, 2005). In other words, “it is human beings who bring schemata and frameworks into being and not the reverse” (Van Manen, 1990, p.45). This approach is appropriate to pedagogical research in general. According to Van Manen (1990, p.2): Pedagogy requires a phenomenological sensitivity to lived experienced (children’s reality and life-world). Pedagogy requires a hermeneutic ability to make interpretive sense of the phenomena of the life-world in order to see the pedagogic significance of situation and relation of living with children.

Concretizing the theories of hermeneutic phenomenology, Van Manen (1990, p30-31) suggested that “hermeneutic phenomenological research may be seen as a dynamic interplay among six research activities”: (1) turning to a phenomenon which seriously interests us and commits us to the world; (2) investigating experience as we live it rather than as we conceptualize it; (3) reflecting experience on the essential themes which characterize the phenomenon; (4) describing the phenomenon through the art of writing and reviewing; (5) maintaining a strong and oriented pedagogical relation to the phenomenon; (6) balancing the research context by considering parts and whole.

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Van Manen’s explanation about the first activity has been very useful for me to refine my research aim as discussed at the beginning of this chapter. I will discuss his explanations on other activities in the section on research methods. 5.2.3 Axiology In the previous sections, I discussed the first three issues of my research paradigm, ontology, epistemology, and methodology. Here I aim to discuss the last issue, axiology. In particular, I discuss the role of researcher values in the scientific process, the criteria for qualitative studies and the ethical issues. 5.2.3.1 Researcher Values Generally, positivists and post-positivists, maintain that there is no place for researcher values in the research process, however “constructivists–interpretivists maintain that the researcher’s values and lived experience cannot be divorced from the research process”, and “it is a fallacy to even think that one could eliminate value biases in such an interdependent researcher–participant interaction” (Ponterotto, 2005, p.131). As discussed in the previous sections, I believe that teachers’ creativity in teaching is a social construct. The understanding of it is socially constructed within the process of seeking overlap among the lived experience of my participants, my experience as a researcher and an experienced chemistry teacher, and the experience of other researchers in the field. As a teacher who has over 18 years’ experience of teaching chemistry for students in the upper secondary school, school for gifted students, and in private centres within Vietnam, my experience of teaching creatively surely influences the ways that I interpret my participants’ experiences. In addition, my experience can add to my understanding of participants’ lived experiences and perspectives on chemistry teachers’ creativity in teaching. As a researcher I have knowledge of research, creativity, pedagogy, and teachers’ creativity in teaching gained from the findings and review of previous studies. These types of knowledge, on the one hand, can help me to generalise on the lived experiences of my participants and my own experience. These types of knowledge also allow me to recognise the typical characteristics of teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam. 124

Having considered the ideas of Heidegger and Gadamer, I believe that my knowledge and experience play an important role in the interactions between my participants, me and the ideas of other researchers. This will support me in constructing the essence of the phenomenon of Vietnamese chemistry teachers’ perspectives on creativity in teaching. However, I had to consider the ethics of being a part of this interaction. These issues will be discussed in the next two sections. 5.2.3.2 The Criteria for Qualitative Studies Using criteria and accepted standards is one approach to assessing the quality of a research study (Elliott and Lazenbatt, 2005). In this section, I discuss this with the aim of demonstrating my strategies to assure the quality of this study. I start with a discussion about the criteria for assessing the quality of quantitative and qualitative studies and end with a discussion relating these criteria to this study. Quantitative and qualitative studies are often distinguished by their research aims (exploring the realities vs. understanding realities), research paradigms (positivism vs. social constructionism), research methods (random sampling vs. purposive sampling; experiments and surveys vs. interview and observation; statistical analysis vs. interpretation), and types of data (number vs. text), (Bryman, 2008, Creswell, 2009). Generally, “quantitative studies emphasize the measurement and analysis of causal relationship between variables” (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011a, p.8), while “qualitative study is a situated activity that locate observers in the world” (ibid, p.3) in which “qualitative researchers study things in their natural setting, attempting to make sense of, or interpret phenomena in terms of, the meanings people bring to them”, (ibid, p,3). The criteria often used to evaluate the quality of quantitative studies are validity and reliability (Golafshani, 2003). Validity implies accurate and objective measurement while reliability implies repeatability of results (consistently over time, representative for the total population and can be reproduced under a similar methodology), (Fossey et al., 2002, Golafshani, 2003). I agree with some researchers (Lincoln and Guba, 1985, Horsburgh, 2003, Golafshani, 2003) that quantitative conceptualizations of reliability and validity are unsuitable for evaluating qualitative studies because of the difference in research purposes and paradigms. For example, it is difficult for results of qualitative studies to be consistent over time and representative for the total population because unlike quantitative studies 125

that are often free from time and contexts, qualitative studies are bound by time and contexts (Lincoln and Guba, 1985, Shenton, 2004); it is also difficult to have objective results because the researcher’s values and lived experience cannot be detached from the research process. Lincoln and Guba (1985) suggested alternative criteria used to assess the quality (or trustworthiness) of qualitative studies. These criteria include credibility where a credible study is one where the researchers have accurately and richly described the phenomenon in question, transferability where a study’s worthiness is determined by how well others can determine to which alternative contexts the findings might be applied, dependability which suggests that if similar conditions are applied, a similar explanation for the phenomenon should be found, and confirmability that ensures that the interpretations and findings match the data), (Given and Saumure, 2008). Quality criterion Possible provision made by researcher Credibility Adoption of appropriate, well recognised research methods; Development of early familiarity with culture of participating organisations; Random sampling of individuals serving as informants; Triangulation via use of different methods, different types of informants and different sites; Tactics to help ensure honesty in informants; Iterative questioning in data collection dialogues; Negative case analysis; Debriefing sessions between researcher and superiors; Peer scrutiny of project; Use of “reflective commentary”; Description of background, qualifications and experience of the researcher; Member checks of data collected and interpretations/theories formed; Thick description of phenomenon under scrutiny; Examination of previous research to frame findings Transferability Provision of background data to establish context of study and detailed description of phenomenon in question to allow comparisons to be made Dependability Employment of “overlapping methods”; In-depth methodological description to allow study to be repeated Confirmability Triangulation to reduce effect of investigator bias; Admission of researcher’s beliefs and assumptions; Recognition of shortcomings in study’s methods and their potential effects; Indepth methodological description to allow integrity of research results to be scrutinised; Use of diagrams to demonstrate “audit trail”

Table 9: Provisions Made by Qualitative Researchers My study was a qualitative study because of the characteristics of the research aim (understanding realities), paradigm (social constructionism), methods (purposive sampling, semi-structured in-depth interviews, and thematic analysis) and types of data (transcribed texts and lived experiential writing). Although the criteria for the trustworthiness of qualitative studies is still a controversial issue (Krefting, 1991, 126

Fossey et al., 2002, Golafshani, 2003, Horsburgh, 2003, Elliott and Lazenbatt, 2005, Morrow, 2005, Rolfe, 2006, de Witt and Ploeg, 2006, Denzin, 2011), I chose the criteria suggested by Lincoln and Guba (1985), because I found that they were appropriate to my research aim and purpose. This was to understand teachers’ creativity in teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam from the participants’ perspectives with the purpose of improving the teaching quality of chemistry teaching in Vietnam. How did I ensure that my study met these criteria? Experienced researchers (Lincoln and Guba, 1985, Shenton, 2004, Whitehead, 2004, de Witt and Ploeg, 2006) suggested different strategies that should be followed to meet these criteria. For example, Shenton (2004, p.73) suggested those strategies as seen in Table 9. I had kept in mind their suggestions and applied them selectively to each stage of this study. 5.2.3.3 Ethical Issues This research adhered to the Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research (BERA, 2011). All responsibilities to participants and the community of educational researchers were considered and observed completely. In particular, the rights of participants, the confidential and anonymous treatment of participants’ data and protection of participants from any harm, were considered as compulsory norms for conducting this research. An invitation letter (see Appendix 1, p.246), an information sheet (see Appendix 2, p.247) and a consent form (see Appendix 3, p.250) were designed and provided for the potential participants. The information sheet included the aim of the research, and possible contributions to the Vietnamese education system, the voluntary nature of involvement, and the valuable contribution they could make to this study. Also, the methods of collecting data and ways of using data were outlined. The participants had the right to make initial decisions after they read and understood the provisional information. In addition, participants’ workloads and daily routines were considered and they had the right to withdraw from the research at any time. In fact, although those who had been invited to become my participants were not familiar with being participants in a social study, they had been very enthusiastic in their willingness to discuss their role in my study, its aims and the ways that I intended to conduct the study. All of them agreed to become my participants and none of them decided to withdraw from the research. 127

All data collected from participants have been securely protected by transferring them into password protected electronic files. The participants were informed and they were asked for their consent to any secure transfer of their data, as well as having the right to check the accuracy of data held about them, and also the key issues and themes emerging from their individual data and to make amendments. Any information published in the thesis has been used anonymously. All participants’ names used in this study are pseudonyms and all efforts have been made to protect their identities, whilst recognising issues around anonymity. Confidentiality was unproblematic to assure however anonymity in the small field of upper secondary chemistry teaching in Vietnam had tensions. Some participants can be identified from their profiles and I discussed this with them. Whilst names have been changed these participants were not concerned about being recognised. Therefore I have included their profiles as agreed with them. 5.3

Research Methods

In this section, I discuss how I recruited the sample, gathered data and analysed it, consistent with my research aim and paradigm. 5.3.1 The Method of Recruiting the Sample As already discussed, teachers’ creativity in teaching is formed in the interaction between teachers and the environments in which they live and work. Teachers’ awareness of creativity in teaching is constructed from their lived experience and forms the phenomenon which I investigated for this study. I aimed to understand creativity in teaching through gaining an understanding of the nature of participants’ lived experiences and what they considered to be creativity in teaching. According to Van Manen (1990), the nature of lived experience can be understood by tracing etymological resources, searching idiomatic phrases, using personal experience, and obtaining experiential descriptions from others. I found the first three were useful for my study but I focused on the fourth one ‘obtaining experiential descriptions from others’.. There are many idioms about teachers and teaching in Vietnam. Some of them, which partly reveal the nature of creative teaching in Vietnam, are discussed in the findings chapter. I also used my experiences as a creative teacher in Vietnam as the starting point for the research. Van Manen (1990, p.62) pointed out that “we gather other people’s experiences because they allow us to become more experienced ourselves”. This view is consistent with Gadamer’s fusion of horizons. Gathering other 128

teachers’ experiences and views about creative teaching enabled me to go wider and dig deeper into my understanding of teaching creatively. It also enabled me to find out teachers’ shared experiences of teaching creatively as they defined it. Gathering other teachers’ lived experiences of their teaching seemed to be the best way for me to understand the nature of this phenomenon in Vietnam. What is considered creative teaching in other countries and what is actually happening in upper secondary chemistry teaching in Vietnam may differ but this study aimed to investigate whether creative teaching was occurring in this context. Consequently, teachers with significant experiences of teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam were suitable participants. Ideally my participants needed to be creative teachers; however, finding teachers in Vietnam who were defined as creative teachers against the criteria in the literature at that stage was not considered feasible. In choosing the sample I considered they needed to be ‘successful teachers’. In my view, these were those who successfully achieved the mandated educational aims or personal educational objectives in the Vietnamese context. In particular, they were those who were rewarded as good teachers as defined by the departments of education and training or the minister of education and training in Vietnam. They were also those who were trusted by their colleagues and students due to their achievements. I started the interviews with questions relating to participants’ creative products (discussed in section 5.3.2.1) to ensure that they had experience of teaching creatively as defined within the Vietnamese context. To meet the criteria of credibility, transferability, and dependability, I tried to broaden the range of participants. In particular, they included chemistry teachers who came from different types of schools (public and private upper secondary schools, upper secondary schools for gifted students, and private centres of tutoring for university entrance exams) and from four different cities – Hanoi (the capital of Vietnam, in the north of the country), Danang (my home town, in the middle of Vietnam), Hue (another city in the middle of Vietnam), and Ho Chi Minh City (the largest city in the south of Vietnam). The participants also included subject specialists (as defined by the minister of education and training and the departments of education and training), scientists, and university teachers. I recruited these participants for several reasons. Firstly, they used to be successful teachers or had recently taught chemistry to upper secondary students. Secondly, I believe that teachers’ teaching creatively is influenced by the educational 129

policies, the standard curriculum content, student books, and the typical supplementary reading books, therefore the phenomenon of teaching creatively needed to be understood in more depth if it was to be investigated not only from the perspectives and experiences of teachers, but also from that of educational administrators (subject specialists) as well as scientists and university teachers who were the authors of the standard curriculum content, student books, and the typical supplementary reading books. I conducted the first stage of data collection in April 2010. In this period, I recruited a sample of eight participants. Four of them were successful teachers from two cities. The rest were scientists, university teachers and specialists recruited for the reasons already discussed. In the second stage, in January 2011, I recruited nine more participants with the aim of digging deeper into the themes that emerged from analysing the data of the first stage, and gathering more information in some aspects where I thought I did not have enough from the first stage interviews. The participants’ profiles are introduced in the following paragraphs. 5.3.1.1 The first eight participants’ profiles My first participant spent 30 years teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students. In that period, he taught at an upper secondary school for gifted students. Many of his students won the National Chemistry Olympiad and several of them won the International Chemistry Olympiad. The second and the third participants were university teachers. Both of them had been authors of recent upper secondary chemistry textbooks and one of them was a member of the national committee for compiling the upper secondary chemistry curriculum. They had contributed to many innovations in the high school chemistry curriculum and textbooks with the intention of advancing the quality of upper secondary chemistry teaching and learning. The fourth participant was a subject specialist at a department of education and training. She had spent nearly 30 years in high school chemistry teaching and won city's best teacher award many times. She had spent quite a lot of time studying and applying the creative thinking techniques to teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students. The last four participants had been upper secondary chemistry teachers. They were recruited for the following reasons. Firstly, they had been most successful teachers in 130

tutoring privately for university and college entrance exams. Secondly, they had been prestigious upper secondary school chemistry teachers in the city where they lived and worked. Finally, they were recommended by the specialist in chemistry at the department of education and training and they were mutually recommended in the interviews which I conducted. 5.3.1.2 The nine other participants’ profiles In the second stage of my study, I recruited nine more participants because I needed more information in some particular contexts (e.g., training students for the International Chemistry Olympiads, privately training students for university entrance examinations, improving students’ skills in chemical experiments). Two of the nine participants were scientists who had strongly influenced the quality of training students for the International Chemistry Olympiads, and for university entrance examinations. One of the nine participants was a head of an upper secondary school for gifted students. He was well known through initiatives that he created when he was a chemistry teacher. Others were successful teachers who came from different cities. As stated in the ethics section the names used in this study are pseudonyms and all efforts to protect participants’ identities have been made. 5.3.2 The Methods of Collecting Data There are several methods for collecting participants’ lived experiences in hermeneutic phenomenological studies (Van Manen, 1990, Creswell, 2007, Smith et al., 2009), such as interview, observation, and lived experiential writing (diaries, biography, lived experiential description). Having read a range of researchers (Lincoln and Guba, 1985, Shenton, 2004, Whitehead, 2004, de Witt and Ploeg, 2006), the main method that I used to collect data was interviews (discussed later). I believe that in using this method, I was able to access a rich, detailed, first-person account from my participants about their experiences (Smith et al., 2009) and what they considered to be creativity in teaching. I collected typical supplementary reading books and lesson plans from my participants in order to gain a detailed understanding of their perspectives in addition to data from their interviews. The definition of interview per se, as well as the definition and purposes of a qualitative research interview is clearly introduced in the work of Kvale and Flick (2007), An interview is literally an inter-view, an interchange of views between two persons conversing about a theme of common interest (p.5) … The research

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interview is an inter-view where knowledge is constructed in the inter-action between interviewer and the interviewee (p.1) … A qualitative research interview attempts to understand the world from the subjects’ point of view, to unfold the meaning of people’s experience, to uncover their live world prior to scientific explanation (p.xvii).

The interview in hermeneutic phenomenological research, according to Van Manen (1990, p.66), works for two purposes: (1) It may be used as a means for exploring and gathering experiential narrative material that may serve as a resource for developing a richer and deeper understanding of a human phenomenon, and (2) The interview may be used as a vehicle to develop a conversational relation with a partner (interviewee) about the meaning of an experience.”

I used interviews, particularly semi-structured in-depth interviews to collect participants’ lived experiences and what they defined as teaching creatively. Unlike a structured interview that has fixed questions asked in an unchanged order, a semi-structured interview has a set of open-ended questions used in a flexible way (Ayres, 2008, Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009). “An open-ended question is a type of question that researchers pose to participants that allows them to select how they orient to the research topic” (Roulston, 2008a, p.582). Semi-structured interviews have their own purposes and are guided by a written interview guide (Ayres, 2008, Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009). My interviews were in-depth interviews because in them, my participants were “encouraged and prompted to talk in depth about the topic under investigation” (Cook, 2008). In the following sections, I discuss the content of the interviews and the ways that the interviews were conducted. 5.3.2.1 The content of the interviews I had prepared an interview guide before conducting the interviews. The interview guide consisted of a set of different open-ended questions which were divided into two groups, a group of starting questions and a group of follow up questions (Full interview schedule in appendix 4). The starting questions I believe that the four components of creative teaching (teachers’ creative products, processes, characteristics, and the environment for their creativity) needed to be investigated in order to understand the construct of creativity in teaching. In my starting questions, I focused on the first component, teachers’ creative products, because I wanted to ensure that my participants had the opportunity to discuss their experiences that they defined as teaching creatively. I believe that the participants’ responses gave 132

me an understanding of teachers’ views on creative products, and also clues that guided me in posing the following questions to understand other components of teaching creatively as defined by the participants. I used two basic criteria for creative products, novelty and usefulness, to pose the following questions: (1) Could you tell me about your significant achievements as a chemistry teacher? (2) To achieve these, what have you done differently in comparison with your colleagues? These two questions allowed me to probe for aspects of usefulness and novelty. The follow up questions The follow up questions predominantly consisted of two types. The first included questions encouraging participants to talk in more depth. These questions included: Can you generalise that type of your experience? Can you explain why you think like that? Can you please give me some examples?. I believed that the answers to these questions would be useful for analysing if they included three elements, thesis statement, explanation, and examples. The second type of follow up question was posed for the purpose of gathering participants’ experiences about other components of creative teaching as defined by them. 5.3.2.2 Conducting the interviews All the interviews were face-to-face and one-to-one interviews. In the first stage of collecting data (from April 2010), before the interviews I had sent those who I wanted to become my participants the invitation letter, the consent form, the information sheet and the two general starting questions. The interviews were held in the places suggested by the participants so that they could feel more comfortable and able to concentrate. These interviews were conducted in Vietnamese and recorded by taking notes and recordings. Each interview lasted about an hour and started with the discussions relating to the roles and the rights of participants; the confidentiality and anonymity of the data collected and published; and the aims of the study and the ways in which the study would be conducted. Then, our discussions related to the two general starting questions previously sent to them. After that, our discussions related to the follow up questions that I posed depending on what we had discussed. During the interviews, I also suggested that they provide me with, or send me a sample of, their lesson plans and/or

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their supplementary reading books and documents that could help me to understand clearly what they mentioned in the interviews. The second stage of collecting data (from January 2011) was held in a similar way to the first stage. However, the content of the interviews had some differences. Firstly, for the participants that I interviewed in the first stage, I sent them the report of the preliminary findings (in Vietnamese) that I had from analysing the data of the first stage and discussed the content of the report with the purposes of verifying my analysis and investigating several aspects in more depth that I did not initially understand clearly. Secondly, for the participants that I had just recruited within this stage, I posed questions directly related to aspects of teaching creatively which I thought these “new” participants had rich experiences of. 5.3.3 The Method of Analysing Data I used the method of “thematic analysis” to analyse the data. Braun and Clarke (2006, p.79) defined thematic analysis as “a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within data”. The term theme literally means “an element (motif, formula or device) which occurs frequently in the text” (Van Manen, 1990, p.78). In qualitative research, “a theme captures something important about the data in relation to the research question, and represents some level of patterned response or meaning within the data set” (Braun and Clarke, 2006, p.82). Braun and Clarke (2006) suggested “a number of choices” which should be considered before analysis. I outline my choices as follows. Firstly, my study was conducted within a hermeneutic phenomenological approach in which “phenomenological themes may be understood as the structures of experience” (Van Manen, 1990, p.79). According to Van Manen (1990), finding out the structures of experience is both easy and difficult. It is easy because seeing the meaning or essence of a phenomenon is something everyone does constantly in everyday life. However, it is difficult because it is not easy to determine and explain that meaning or essence. For example, observing a teacher’s class, it is quite easy for observers to say the teacher is very creative, less creative, or even uncreative. But, it is not easy to fully explain what a creative teacher is. In other words, people easily see the nature of a phenomenon and save it under the form of tacit knowledge. The difficulty is how to transfer the tacit knowledge to explicit understanding. Therefore, the main duty of a hermeneutic 134

phenomenologist is to appropriately reflect, clarify, and make explicit the essence of the lived experience. In particular, for this study, my duty was to reflect and explain the essences (the structures of meaning or the themes) of teachers’ creativity in teaching from the perspectives and experiences of my participants. In other words, the themes of my study therefore had to be the structures of teachers’ perspectives and experiences of creativity in teaching. My themes did not depend on quantifiable measures because of the multiple, local and specific nature of social constructs. Secondly, my thematic analysis aimed to “provide a more detailed and nuanced account of one particular theme, or group of themes, within the data” rather than “provide a rich thematic description of your entire data set, so that the reader gets a sense of the predominant or important themes” (Braun and Clarke, 2006, p.83). Thirdly, I used an inductive approach to analyse my data. Themes were not identified from the existing theories, but from data themselves. However, I would consider that they were not purely data-grounded themes because hermeneutic phenomenologists admit that researchers’ historicity and pre-understanding strongly influence the interpretive process (Palmer, 1969). Heidegger’s hermeneutic circle and Gadamer’s fusion of horizons (discussed in section 5.2.2) were used in analysing data and reflecting upon themes. In particular, the perspectives and experiences of each participant had been analysed before the shared perspectives and experiences of all participants were investigated. In turn, the process of investigating the shared perspectives and experiences influenced the process of reconsidering these from each participant. Perspectives and experiences from each participant and as a whole group were interpereted and illuminated through the theoretical framework of this study (discussed in the introduction chapter), including my understanding of the educational context of Vietnam and the existing understanding of creativity and teaching creatively of previous studies reviewed in the literature chapters. Moreover, during the process of analysing the data, the initial codes, the theme-like statements, and the themes were discussed with my supervisors and my peers who have conducted studies in education. Different versions of descriptions of themes were also discussed with my participants and my supervisors in order to ensure the rigour of the data analysis and findings. Fourthly, the themes of my study were semantic themes. My study aimed to describe and interpret the meanings of participants’ perspectives and experiences of teaching 135

creatively, rather than to go beyond these to make predictions or assumptions. These perspectives and experiences were contextually situated in the secondary school chemistry community in Vietnam. Finally, my analysis was conducted under the paradigm of social constructionism in which meaning and experience are socially produced and reproduced (Burr, 2003). I have learned to do thematic analysis from the step-by-step guides of Van Manen (1990), Braun and Clarke (2006), and Smith et al. (2009). My process of analysis happened in the multiple phases suggested by these authors. What I did in this process is discussed in the following paragraphs. Phase 1 – Transcribing The interviews were conducted in Vietnamese. I had the transcripts in Vietnamese and analysed data in Vietnamese as well. I did not translate the transcripts into English because I was concerned to fully understand what the participants had said. The transcribing process is often considered time-consuming and boring (Braun and Clarke, 2006). However I found the transcribing process positive as I generated initial codes while I transcribed. While I was listening to the whole tape, I paused and freely took notes in the margins of whatever made sense to me. Phase 2 – Initial Coding I manually coded my transcriptions by firstly using the technique of line-by-line coding, then sentences and phrases coding. I found that each technique had its own advantages. Coding is understood as “naming segments of data with a label that simultaneously categorizes, summarizes, accounts for each piece of data” (Charmaz, 2006, p.43) and “line-by-line coding means naming each line of your written data” (Glaser, 1978, cited in Charmaz, 2006, p.50). I agreed with Charmaz (2006) that although it seemed arbitrary, the line-by-line coding technique can help researchers to be more focused and to avoid missing important meanings. Line-by-line coding often gave me literal meanings while sentences and phrases coding gave me implicit meanings of participants’ lived experiences. At this stage, in my view, listening to the recordings was very important. Each time I listened to the recording again, I recognized some new meanings. Therefore, I combined reading and rereading the transcript with listening to them again and again. This immersed me in the data. 136

Figure 9 is an example of this stage. The first column shows the content of the transcription. The second column shows the result of the line-by-line coding. The last column is the result of sentence or phrase coding.

Figure 9: An Example of Initial Coding Phase 3 – Searching for Themes After coding each participant’s transcription, I used the software of Mind Genius Education 4 (supported by Northumbria University) to categorise what I had done through the coding process. The processes of categorising were influenced by the key issues emphasized by participants as well as a list of questions I had made (see Table 10 below). Why What

Which How When Where Who

Why do teachers need creativity in teaching? What does creativity mean for teachers? What does creative teaching mean for teachers? What did teachers create in the activities considered as creative teaching? What factors influenced what teachers did? How did teachers create what they created? How external factors influenced what teachers did? When did teachers create what they created? When did teachers teach more creatively? Where did teachers create what they created? Where did teachers teach more creatively? Who (with what characteristics/what level of knowledge/what types of perception) teaches more creatively? Who (with what characteristics/what level of knowledge/what types of perception) learn more creatively?

Table 10: The Questions Used to Summarise Participants’ Significant Statements 137

An example of the categorising is illustrated by Figure 10 in which the below section is the entire categorising and the above section is one branch of that categorising.

Figure 10: An Example of the Categorising When the categorising of all participants was finished, I made a comparison between the categories to classify and group similar significant statements from participants. The activities at this stage were conducted with the support of the software Nvivo 9 (supported by Northumbria University). After reading and re-reading the significant statements in each group, I made a list of theme-like statements together with the explanations for these statements as shown in the following table. Teachers’ creativity is a product of the interaction between teachers and environments Because of deficiency of resources: Deficiency of teaching aids; Deficiency of lab equipment; Deficiency of resources for teaching to the tests (contextual content and curriculum standard; chemistry questions and problems; and strategies to solve chemistry problems) Because of highly competitive environments: Private tutoring for highly competitive university entrance examination; Tutoring for examinations for gifted students; Emulation movements Because of students: Variety of learning abilities; Enhancing effective learning

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Because of teachers: Enhancing effective teaching; Quitting a boring repetitive job; Role models There are not many highly creative teachers Because of teacher training: Not appreciated yet; Not updated yet Because of educational leadership and management: Not evaluated, commended and rewarded; Constraint by content standard, curriculum distribution Because of teachers’ perception of creativity Some teachers are more creative than others Private tutors for the university entrance examination; Teachers who work for high school for gifted students; Teachers with a high sense of responsibility Teachers generate alternatives to resources and activities Creating teaching aids: Illustrative pictures, graphs, models, animations, and movies; Reference materials Changing the ways to conduct chemistry experiments: Chemical substances saving; Easy to conduct; Conformity to material facilities Composing content standards and curriculum distributions: Conformity with different tests and exams; Conformity to length of courses Creating chemistry questions and problems: Conformity with different tests and exams; Conformity with different purposes (illustration, practice, review, assessments) Creating strategies to quickly solve chemistry problems: Systematising knowledge and classifying chemistry problems; Using creatively “the law of conservation of mass”; Using creatively “the law of conservation of electric charge”; Using creatively “net ionic equation”; Using creatively “average amount”; Using creatively “the degree of unsaturation formula”; Creating “the diagonal method”; Creating the “graph methods”; Creating strategies to quickly balance redox equations Giving lessons effectively: Developing forms and learning methods for similar lessons; Changing organisation of lessons (in comparison with student book, teacher book); Applying flexibly and effectively teaching methods (lecture method, lecture demonstration method, heuristic method, historical method, discussion method, etc.); Applying flexibly and effectively thinking styles (analysing, synthesis, evaluation, comparison, generalisation, inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, etc.) to explain knowledge; Creating memorising tips; Creating metaphors; Integrating flexibly and effectively chemistry of daily life into lessons Who is a creative teacher? Characteristics: Passion, Confidence, Freedom, Responsibility, Studious, Scepticism. Motivation: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Knowledge: Master of chemistry knowledge; Good at maths, physics, biology and literature. How is a creative product formed? Trial and Error: Selecting appropriate teaching methods; Selecting apparatus and methods to conduct chemistry experiments Combination: Integrating matching questions, fill-in-the-blank questions, true or false questions into multiple choice questions (the sole form of questions used in the university entrance examination) Equivalence: Applying maths and physics methods to solve chemistry problems. Evolution: Developing contextual standard content and curriculum distribution; Changing organisation of lessons Improvisation

Phase 4: Defining and Naming Themes 139

At this stage, I had used my research aims, purposes and objectives to reconsider the meanings of the theme-like statements so that they became meaningful for my study. In particular, I had chosen the five interrogative pronouns, standing for the research questions, as the key components. Then I identified the attributes of each component and made the connections between the components. This task is illustrated by Figure 11. This graph led me to construct an organised structure as illustrated by Figure 12. Figure 11: Searching Themes Based on the Research Questions

I had also been back to the literature reviewed in the previous chapters to reconsider the meaning of the theme-like statements so that they became meaningful in the field of creative teaching from the perspective of my participants. This task aimed to ensure that my findings were dependable. Moreover, I had considered “the criteria” of a good thematic analysis report suggested by Braun and Clarke (2006) while reconsidering these statements. It is important that the analysis (the write-up of it, including data extracts) provides a concise, coherent, logical, non-repetitive and interesting account of the story the data tell – within and across themes (Braun and Clarke, 2006, p.93)

Figure 12: An Organised Structure of the Components of Teacher Creativity

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Five themes and several sub-themes were constructed as presented in the findings chapter. Phase 5: Making Descriptions A lot of different versions of descriptions of data were written. After collecting data for the first time with a sample of eight participants and analysing these, I wrote the first description (in Vietnamese). This description was sent to the participants to ensure that my interpretations matched the data. This was participant verification of their data. The later descriptions were written in English so that I did not send them to my participants; instead, I only discussed these with them by email or phone and clarified the issues that I needed to clarify. The content of the latter descriptions was often discussed with my supervisors and my peers who provided useful advice; however the ultimate decisions on the way I presented and interpreted the data were mine. The final description including the themes and sub-themes are presented in the next chapter.

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Chapter 6

FINDINGS

This chapter presents the findings of this study and aims to illuminate the area of teachers’ creativity in teaching (teaching creatively) from the experiences and perspectives of experienced and successful teachers who teach chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam. The findings include five themes that emerged from the data and my analysis. The first theme, creativity is an essential part of teaching, emerged from these participants’ views that Vietnamese chemistry teachers need to be creative in order to deal with the challenges coming from different students in different educational contexts, and from the participants’ views to teach in a more interesting, exciting, and effective way which they considered constitutes creative teaching. The second theme, being creative in all stages of teaching, emerged from the participants’ perspectives that they could generate new, useful and ethical thoughts and actions at almost all stages of their teaching. This theme also highlighted their views on the purposes and the reasons for their teaching creatively along with a government requirement for teachers to be creative. The third theme, multiple phases of the creative process, is an analysis of the different phases of the creative process, my participants reported they went through, that aimed to generate what they considered were their creative products. The fourth theme, teachers’ knowledge and personalities and the impact on their potential to be creative, derives from the analysis of the participants’ views on the influence of their ‘teacher knowledge’ and their ‘teacher personalities’ for teaching creatively. The final theme, good environments for teachers’ potential to thrive, is a consideration of ideal educational environments that could enhance these teachers’ potential to teach creatively. As stated in chapter five all participants’ names are pseudonyms and all efforts have been made to protect their identities whilst recognising the issues around anonymity (discussed in chapter five). 6.1

Creativity as an Essential Part of Teaching

This first theme emerged from the analysis of the data from the interviews with participants. The first statement that Mr Quy made to me in the interview was, Thank you very much, Hung, for conducting this study because in Vietnam, teaching is identified as a rowing job and the teacher is like a boatman who repeats a repetitive job day after day. However, actually, teaching needs people who are very creative. Teaching is a creative job. (Mr Quy, appx.4, par.01. p.252)

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The proverb, a teacher as a boatman (thầy giáo như người lái đò), is widely used in poetry, literature, music, and painting to represent teachers and teaching in Vietnam. I have not found any official documents that explain why a teacher has been compared to a boatman. Based on my experience as well as discussions with my colleagues, I found, two tentative reasons why this proverb has been used. Firstly, there is a similarity in some professionals’ eyes between a boatman’s task and a teacher’s task. The main duty of a boatman is to transfer passengers from this side to the other side of the river. Similarly, teachers use the ‘knowledge boat’ to help students cross the ‘knowledge river’ to the ‘knowledge shore’. Secondly, there is a similarity between the two ways of doing their jobs. A boatman brings passengers from this side of a river to the other side, then back to the former to bring other passengers. In the same way, teachers teach the same lessons from this generation of students to another generation. This comes from the model of the school curriculum and teachers’ interpretation of what they need to do. The second way of understanding that proverb focuses upon the uncreative and boring repetition of some teaching careers. It compares teaching to a rowing job which does not seem to need creativity, and therefore it supposes teaching, and therefore a teacher does not need creativity either. However, Mr Quy and others of my participants did not agree with this argument. They believed that teaching needs people who are very creative and teaching is a creative job. Later in this theme, I investigate why teachers think they need to be creative and to what extent teaching is a creative job. To begin with I am going to share how my participants’ conceptualised the term creativity in teaching. Although my participants constructed meanings of creativity in teaching using different words, their perceptions about this construct shared some commonalities. In the following paragraphs, I introduce the perceptions of creativity in the teaching of two participants whose perspectives were repeated by those of the other participants. Creativity means knowing how to use, apply fixed knowledge, which is presented in the books, flexibly, depending on objects. Objects, here, can be understood in a broad sense (learners), or narrow sense (upper secondary students). Doing it in a certain way in order to achieve the highest effectiveness. Successfully fostering students’ activeness and studiousness. Having a passion for our subject instead of studying passively (Mr Quoc, appx.4, par.05, p.253). Creativity means … there are somethings that are different from the convention … it means you have to create something new … In terms of theoretical lessons, you have to summarise so that it helps students understand the lesson easily, understand naturally, and be able to solve advanced, difficult problems … in terms of practical lessons, you have to find out something different. Following the textbooks is not

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creative … you have to attract students … (Mr Khoa, appx.4, par.09, p.254)

There are some commonalities in these definitions but I asked myself how these views differ from just good teaching. Firstly, the literature reviewed led me to the conclusion that teachers’ creativity involves originality. Teachers’ teaching can be considered as creative if what they created is something different from the conventional. The difference from the conventional can be something new in comparison with the traditional and formal teaching resources, the textbooks for example (Mr Khoa) or with the teaching experiences of their colleagues (Miss Le) or with their own experiences of teaching (Mr Sai, Mr Quoc) and within the context of their working environment. This seems to fit with mini-c creativity (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2007) discussed earlier. Secondly, also discussed earlier teachers’ creativity involves effectiveness. Teachers do things differently in comparison with the conventional to help students learn easily, effectively, actively, in an interesting way, and so on. These teachers’ creativity aimed to improve the quality of students’ learning. In other words, these teachers’ creativity was part of good teaching but good teaching might not always be creative. Originality and effectiveness of the teachers’ creativity within the context of the Vietnamese situation will be evidenced in the second theme and is key to understanding creativity within this context. It is clear that my participants’ perception of creativity, when they talk about it is not different from the standard definition of creativity, “creativity requires both originality and effectiveness” (Runco and Jaeger, 2012, p.92). However what they are actually able to do is limited by the Vietnamese context and may not be as creative as would be recognised from a wider and international perspective. Creativity in teaching can be considered as teachers creating something new with the aim of improving the quality of students’ learning instead of following the standard curriculum. I use this definition of creativity in teaching for the next discussions. I will come back to refine this definition later. Teachers as Artists Now, I will investigate why teachers need to be creative in teaching and to what extent teaching is a creative job by chasing an alternative metaphor that my participants often mentioned, teachers as artists. That (teaching) is an art. One must be an artist, have a bit of artistry, in order to do that. Right? If one is a bookworm, one cannot create something new … I said in a school meeting. “What is a teacher? A teacher is a disciplined artist”. An artist

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often does not obey any order. If you are both artistic and disciplined, you will be a good teacher … (Mr Hoa, appx.4, par. 12, p.255).

Obviously, when teachers compared themselves with artists, they wanted to challenge the metaphor “teachers as boatmen” to say that teaching needs people who are very creative and teaching is a creative job. However, the sentence that Mr Hoa emphasised, a teacher is a disciplined artist, revealed that teaching is not completely a creative job. Teachers have to obey some orders in teaching. Mr Hoa explained, … Artist means that teaching in class, one does not talk dryly exactly the same as the content of the student books … I think like this, a singer sings a song, a singer is considered as an artist, she sings right on the lyrics, tone, rhythm, and melody, we still feel it is trivial. But if she understands the spirit of a song, we could be moved when she sings. That’s a real artist. In comparison, a teacher is the same. A teacher who can summarise a textbook and solve (chemistry) problems very well is just like a singer who sings only right on the lyrics, tone, rhythm, and melody, but not … Using the “spirit of a lesson” is quite serious, but it is similar to what Hung used to say: “for what purpose do we have to teach pH, for what purpose do we have to teach the concentration?” … (Mr Hoa, appx.4, par. 12, p.255).

This statement firstly points out that there are “some orders” that teachers have to “obey”. At the level of general education in Vietnam, the student text books are embodiments of the standard curriculum content; therefore, student text books have become the compulsory teaching resources (“some orders”) that teachers have to follow to teach. However, according to Mr Hoa, it is not good practice if teachers follow exactly the same as the content of the textbooks. Instead, teachers have to find out the spirit of a lesson and make the lesson come alive to students rather than teach it dryly. Here the ‘spirit’ of the lesson is seen as creative. These views are restricted because of the lack of exposure in Vietnam to the criteria of creative teaching as discussed in the literature review. Therefore, this explanation also revealed the way Mr Hoa defined the purpose of teaching creatively. By comparing creative teaching with a good singer who uses her creativity to move the audiences, Mr Hoa wanted to say that good teachers are those who use their creativity to motivate students’ learning. In other words, teaching creatively has the purpose of making learning more interesting and exciting. This fits to some extent with the creative criteria of some authors (NACCCE, 1999). This view was supported by Mr Nguyen. He claimed successfully transferring knowledge from the textbooks to students was not good teaching. A good teacher had to think outside the book to motivate students’ learning. … In my opinion, knowledge in the student books will sleep in them if teachers’ presentation doesn’t catch students’ attention. If (teachers) want to have students’ attention and inspire them, teachers must think of different ways of presentation depending on their creative ability … It’s clear that students can read (understand)

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the textbooks. Presenting the textbooks is not teaching, explaining each word in the textbooks is not teaching … (Mr Nguyen, appx.4, par.20, p.258)

Mr Nguyen had his idea of varying the creative abilities of teachers which he felt required possibly presenting teachers with original connections in adapting the resources to present to the students in different ways. Mr Gon supported this view by comparing teachers with MCs (Master of Ceremonies). Like MCs, teachers have to use their creativity to generate new versions of lesson content that should be graceful, attractive, humorous, fluent, logical, and convincing to students. I think a teacher is like an artist. It means that you are like an MC (a master of ceremonies)… Artist? Firstly, it means talking. We should talk gracefully and attractively; both humorously and seriously … when we talk fluently, argue closely and logically … students are convinced immediately ... (Mr Gon, appx.4, par.24, p.260).

Obviously, it could be concluded from the views of these participants that the purpose of teaching creatively is to make learning more interesting, exciting and effective. Mr Gon interestingly introduced his own creative criteria by talking about teaching as needing to be done gracefully, attractively, humorously, seriously and fluently at the same time requiring substance through close argument and logic. However, in addition to comparing a teacher with an MC, Mr Gon also compared a teacher with a juggler: “I think, in a classroom, a teacher is like both a juggler and an MC”. Unlike the static images of singers and MCs, a juggler gives us a dynamic image. Perhaps, the following explanation of Mr Hai is better for us to understand this dynamic image, Ah, right, I used the term artistic … I used to say: a teacher is both a director and an actor/actress. We direct and act as well. That is an art … I often talk to my colleagues: you need to have a script for each class, and who is an actor/actress? And this role is very complicated because of dealing with changing situations. It is different from a film script … (Mr Hai, appx.4, par.25, p.260).

The explanation by Mr Hai provided me with several interpretations. Firstly, by comparing the teachers’ planning of the lesson and teaching the lesson with directors making scripts and actors/actresses’ performances, Mr Hai meant that teachers are creative in both the pre-active phase and the inter-active phase of teaching (discussed further in the second theme). Secondly, by saying you need to have a script for each class, I believe Mr Hai meant that the diversity of students and educational contexts is one of the reasons for teachers’ needing to be creative. This provided an insight into the perspectives of this participant about what he considered to be creative teaching however does this go beyond good teaching into creativity, as defined in the wider context beyond the Vietnamese situation? This was also mentioned by Mr Quoc, creativity means knowing how to use, apply fixed knowledge, which is presented in the 147

books, flexibly, depending on the objects (the students). Thirdly, the term dealing with changing situations revealed that teaching is a dynamic process. It is always changing within the interaction between teachers, students and educational contexts. The changes emerging from this interaction are the challenges for teachers. The participants felt teachers needed creativity to deal with those challenges. In short, teachers’ creativity is needed not only to make learning more interesting, exciting and effective, but also to deal with the challenges that come from the interaction with different students and different educational contexts in Vietnam. In summary, the key ideas from this theme appeared to be as follows: Good teaching from the perspective of my participants is both disciplined and creative. They consider that teaching is disciplined because teachers have to follow some compulsory teaching guidance (e.g., the standard curriculum and content) to teach. Teaching is creative because teachers need to create something new in comparison with the available (formal and informal) teaching resources for the purposes of making learning more interesting, exciting and effective and dealing with the challenges coming from the interaction with different students in different contexts within chemistry teaching in upper secondary schools in Vietnam. This idea will become clearer with further information presented in the next theme. 6.2

Being Creative in All Stages of Teaching

As discussed in the first theme, the metaphor, mentioned by Mr Hai, a teacher is both a director and an actor/actress has led me to think that teachers have the potential to be creative in all stages (or all phases, as in Table 11) of teaching. I found evidence to support the way the participants perceived this idea of creativity from their lived experiences. Therefore, this theme firstly aims to present the evidence of various creative activities of teachers through different stages of teaching from the perspectives of the participants. Phases Pre-Active Phase

Stages Setting the objectives Planning the lesson

Inter-Active Phase

Teaching the lesson Evaluating the lesson

Creative Activities Resetting the lesson’s objectives Restructuring and transforming the lesson content Determining appropriate teaching methods Improving and creating teaching tools Teaching flexibly, improvisationally, and intuitively

Table 11: Teachers’ Creative Activities at Different Stages of Teaching

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Secondly, through each of these creative activities, I will point out the reasons why these teachers conducted these creative activities, the resources that they needed in order to be creative, the products that they created and the possible ways that they followed to create what they created. All these teachers’ creative activities, that they defined as creative, and are presented in this theme are summarised in Table 11 above. 6.2.1 Resetting the Lesson Objectives As presented in the chapter on research design, I sent two broad questions to my participants before the interviews with the aim of finding out their significant achievements in teaching and the creative factors within those achievements from their perspective. Mr Phan came to the interview with a list of answers. The following is one of them, Reading carefully and studying carefully the contents needed to present to students to select essential points. Then, trying to present completely these points … Actually, those (the lesson objectives presented in the student text books) are not my objectives. The objectives in the student text books are presented for form’s sake. They are impratical … For example, the lesson objectives include ten points, which are the points needed to present, but I just present some points … Sometimes, we teach chemistry, but we don’t need to teach chemistry at all. We only need to teach students the ways of thinking … (Mr Phan, appx.4, par.28, p.261).

Two things emerged from Mr Phan’s experience. Firstly, he had not rigidly followed the lesson objectives presented in the student text books. Secondly, the lesson content and the particular educational context were the important resources he used to set the lesson objective. Why hadn’t Mr Phan rigidly followed the lesson objectives presented in the student text books? He explained that they are impratical, or in other words, they are not completely appropriate to the particular teaching context. My discussion with Miss Chuyen about this issue maybe more helpful to understand why the given objectives were impratical, (It) depends on students I teach. Sometimes, this section or another is not (necessary to be taught), but the main content knowledge must be achieved. How do we teach? Requirements for different students are different. Try to adapt to that thing … (Additionally) the aim of students often is learning to the test. Commonly, they study to the test. Passing university entrance exam, only that thing … Therefore, I only focus on the important contents, I don’t do the same way as the textbooks … Actually, it is not right that I don’t follow the textbooks because we have to follow the content knowledge. However, I only stress on what is necessary for the exam. Something like discovering the electron, discovering this particle, that particle, (Miss Chuyen, appx.4, par.34, p.263)

Her explanation revealed that students’ learning abilities and students’ learning aims and needs strongly influenced her setting of educational objectives. This participant was 149

clearly influenced to teach to the test which she realised was not what should occur. Teachers should consider improving the lesson objectives to some extent because individual requirements for different students are different. Additionally, some of the participants considered improving the lesson objectives in part because students may have learning needs that are not mentioned in the statutory documents, for example, the aim of learning to the test. Within the context of privately tutoring students for the university entrance exams, Miss Chuyen reduced her objectives by rejecting those that did not serve the aim of learning to the test (for example, the objective of remembering the history of the research on atomic structure). Conversely, also within this context, sometimes teachers had to add more to the lesson objectives to support one of the students’ learning aims, learning to the tests, as in the following experience of Mr Nguyen. He added two more objectives that he needed in each lesson to help students to be able to pass the exams easily; these were grasping strategies for solving chemistry problems and grasping more content knowledge (e.g., the objective of remembering the reactions occurring between sodium and pure ethanol and ethanol in different solvents). Teachers must have something different that is more helpful for students. For example, to solve a problem, what tools do students need to have? How to teach so that students can grasp all they need? For example, how many cases are there for the reaction between ethanol and sodium? How pure ethanol reacts? How about aqueous ethanol solutions? (Mr Nguyen, appx.4, par.20, p.258)

Thus, the first reason why my participants did not rigidly follow the lesson objectives presented in the student text books was because the given objectives did not completely meet particular students’ learning abilities and learning aims or needs particularly the pressure to ensure the students passed the exams. Clearly this impacted negatively upon creativity as understood in the wider context beyond Vietnam. The second reason why teachers did not rigidly follow the lesson objectives presented in the student text books was also mentioned by Mr Phan, sometime, we teach chemistry, but we don’t need to teach chemistry at all. We only need to teach students the ways of thinking. What I think he was saying was that the aims of developing students’ content knowledge was emphasised too much in student text books while the aims of developing students’ thinking skills had not been considered appropriately. This had more positive potential to lead to creative teaching. Mr Quy had a similar view relating to the educational aim of developing students’ philosophical and political standpoint and students’ creativity, 150

Another point I want to talk to you about. There is one thing which has been neglected by Vietnamese teachers … science teachers have forgotten the philosophy of natural science. Philosophy, of course, is not only Marxist-Leninist philosophy. For example, the dialectic, Hegel’s dialectic is a foundation of philosophy. Using philosophical thoughts to enlighten the chemistry laws can help students to understand more thoroughly. … Students want to be creative; they have to see that the world conforms to the laws. Due to the perception that the world conforms to the laws, students start to find out the ways to discover the laws … For a long time, Marxism-Leninism has been imposed. This has caused antipathy. Students don’t want to study Marxist-Leninist philosophy … Gradually; there is a blank of philosophy in our society … (Mr Quy, appx.4, par.03, p.253)

What Mr Quy said also meant that through content knowledge of a certain lesson, teachers could achieve other educational aims. In particular, he showed that through some chemistry lessons, teachers could teach students some philosophical perspectives. Teaching students several philosophical perspectives, according to Mr Quy, had an aim of not only developing students’ philosophical and political standpoints, one of the educational aims of general education in Vietnam (NAOV, 2005, title 1, article 27), but also helped students understand deeper knowledge and to become more creative due to the understanding of the philosophy of natual science. However, according to Mr Quy, recently, the political condition of Vietnam had caused a lack in teachers’ knowledge of philosophy. Consequently, it had become very difficult for teachers to set the lesson objectives to achieve the aim of developing students’ philosophical standpoint as well as achieve some related aims already mentioned. In short, what Mr Phan and Mr Quy said meant that besides the aim of developing students’ knowledge of the subject, other educational aims had not been catered for appropriately in each lesson. Therefore, teachers needed to reset the lesson objectives, to generate some new lesson objectives, so that as many educational aims as possible could be achieved. In the previous paragraphs, I mainly discussed the reasons why teachers had to reset the lesson objectives instead of achieving the given objectives rigidly. However, it can also be seen in those discussions the types of knowledge that teachers needed to have in order to reset the lesson objectives. These types of knowledge included knowledge of the educational aims, knowledge of content, knowledge of students’ learning aims, needs and abilities, and knowledge of some subjects relating to the educational aims. Obviously, teachers also needed knowledge of the curriculum. However were the participants’ views, that these activities were creative, justified? Judged against the criteria for creativity I set out earlier in this study there were small emergent practices 151

towards creativity. However the dominance of the requirements of the curriculum content and the pressure of passing exams from the students appeared to inhibit creativity. Knowledge of the curriculum helped teachers reset the objectives of a lesson in relation to the previous lessons and the later lessons, as mentioned by Mr Hai, When I prepare a lesson, I firstly put that lesson in the curriculum, my first step, the curriculum. The former lesson was taught like this, so how about the latter? Secondly, the text books are composed in an unchanged way. I determine what its cores are and, sometime, I have to turn it upside down to fight (teach), not follow it, as long as we can get our target (Mr Hai, appx.4, par.25, p.260).

It also appeared that the teacher needed skills in turning the lesson into a creative experience for the students which Mr Hai alluded to with his ‘turn it upside down to fight, not follow…’. I think that this is where knowledge of the criteria of creativity can support these participants in resetting the lesson objectives. In summary, from my participants’ views and experiences, the prescribed lesson objectives presented in the student text books had focused more on the aim of developing students’ chemistry knowledge while other educational aims (e.g., enhancing students’ creativity, developing students’ philosophical and political standpoints) had not been appropriately focused upon. In addition, the prescribed lesson objectives were not completely appropriate to particular students’ learning aims, needs and abilities. Those were the reasons why teachers needed to reset the lesson objectives. In this case, teachers’ creative products were the alternative to the prescribed lesson objectives. To reset the prescribed lesson objectives, teachers needed to grasp the educational aims and objectives issued by law and the minister of education and training; to grasp the standard curriculum content, to understand students’ learning aims, needs and abilities, and to have knowledge of other subjects relating to the educational aims. At the same time the teachers needed to be supported in developing their creativity so they were not forced to ‘teach to the exam/test’ as the pressure from students can stop teachers from teaching creatively. 6.2.2 Restructuring and Transforming the Lesson Content As said by Mr Hoa (presented in the first theme), a creative teacher does not talk dryly exactly the same as the content of the student text books. His words made me think that teachers generate something different from the student text books obviously with the aim of improving the quality of students’ learning. This task includes two criteria of creativity, originality and usefulness (Runco and Jaeger, 2012) and, therefore, should be considered as teachers’ creativity. 152

Going through the experiences of my participants about not following dryly exactly the same as the content of the student text books, I realised that creative teachers, within this context but possibly more widely, either restructure the lesson content so that it meets students’ learning aims, needs and abilities, or transform the lesson content so that it is not only comprehensible to students, but also motivates students’ learning. In the following paragraphs, I will analyse these creative activities of the participants from my data. 6.2.2.1 Restructuring the Lesson Content The following paragraphs were my participants’ views and experiences of modifying or altering the structure of lessons so that they were appropriate to students’ learning aims and needs, learning abilities, and learning difficulties. The first experience related to teachers restructuring the lesson content, with the aim of reducing students’ misunderstanding of content knowledge, is demonstrated by the comments of the following participant. I have learned from Mrs … this stuff. There are two important (chemical) properties of nitric acid, strong acidity and strong oxidising. “The thing is which type of reaction you will write, acid-base or redox, when nitric acid reacts with a compound A”. At the beginning of the lesson, she said like that … then, she concluded that “if A is a reducing agent, if we predict that A is a reducing agent, then nitric acid shows strong oxidising property. If A is not a reducing agent” … then, she gave an example, FeO reacts with HNO3 and Fe2O3 reacts with HNO3 … In one lesson, find out the core of the lesson, saying that thing first, posing and solving that problem first, that’s all. Because of that, students never make a mistake when they write reaction equations … (Mr Hoa, appx.4, par.10, p.255)

Often, two different chemical properties of nitric acid, strong acidity and strong oxidising are explained in two different parts in turn. This way of presentation was not helpful for students when they worked with some reactions in which nitric acid played both the role of an acid and the role of an oxidising agent, such as the reactions of nitric acid with substances that contain iron (II). To overcome this obstacle, teachers kept the structure of the lesson unchanged and added a notice or, as can be seen in the example above, changed the structure of the lesson; instead of emphasizing the role of nitric acid, teachers emphasized the role of substances that reacted with nitric acid. This experience allowed me to think that having an understanding of students’ learning difficulties and a sound understanding of content knowledge are important to enable teachers in restructuring the lesson (to generate new structures of the lesson) so that students’ misunderstanding of lesson content can be avoided. 153

The second experience related to a teacher restructuring the lesson content for a particular group of students, less able students. For this group of students, the main solution Mr Gon decided upon was reducing the amount of knowledge and rehearsing this small amount of knowledge many times in different ways. I have just composed a supplementary reading text for the leaving exam … mainly for poor students … Firstly, basic knowledge, I selected very carefully, then I have the bold sections, the italicized sections … The second part, I have prepared a set of questions relating closely to the basic knowledge with more details. For example, is fat an ester? How many functions does that ester have? … There are 19 to 20 small questions like that in the chapter of lipid and ester … The third part will include the types of theoretical questions, the types of problems, and some common strategies of solving problems … The part four will be multiple choices tests … (Mr Gon, appx.4, par.22, p.259)

The third experience related to teachers restructuring the lesson content so that it met students’ learning needs. In particular, Mr Nguyen restructured the student text books so that these helped students learn to pass the university entrance exams. The main solution Mr Nguyen chose was restructuring the student text books so that they closely connected to the standard content of the exams. I considered that Mr Nguyen’s endeavours of generating new structures for the student text books with the aim of helping students to pass the university entrance exams were in a small way creative. However, this approach may also inhibit students’ creativity as will be discussed in the next chapter within the ethical criteria of teachers’ creative products. In 1989, the Minister of Education and Training published the collections of exams for university entrance. That set of books, in my view, is highly valuable. However, the thing is, knowledge in “the collection of exams” includes (chemistry) knowledge from grade 8 to grade 12 … With more than 140 exams, students don’t know how to study to achieve success. Therefore I rearranged them all. I classified all questions and problems by group, all theoretical questions of general and inorganic chemistry, and all theoretical questions of organic chemistry, all strategies of solving general and inorganic chemistry problems, and then all strategies of solving organic chemistry problems. During one year, I both taught and rearranged in accordance with those headlines. After that, I published a four-volume book … All books are composed based on a norm like this: for each lesson, I summarise the theories of the lesson, keep fitting the order of the textbooks; present all different types of problems and appropriate solving problem techniques which are easiest and the most concise to understand and apply; and use the techniques presented to solve a series of samples which belong to the types mentioned. It can be said that the fourvolume book are fellow-travellers for students who learn to take the university entrance exam. It can reduce effort which costs for studying because it is systematic. Students study each lesson systematically. Therefore, it is very successful. Students who are not living in urban areas, where there are poor conditions for studying with private tutors, also write to say thanks to me because they can teach themselves based on my books. (Mr Nguyen, appx.4, par.16, p.257)

In summary, according to my participants’ views and experiences, although the student text books had been carefully composed by those who had been both experts in teaching 154

and in studying chemistry, they were still imperfect. They had not completely met students’ learning aims, needs and abilities, and sometimes caused students to misunderstanding. Therefore, it was necessary for teachers to restructure the lesson content. The new structure of lesson content was designed to meet their students’ learning aims, needs and abilities as well as avoid their students misunderstanding concepts. To restructure the lesson content, it was important for teachers to understand content knowledge as well as students’ learning aims, needs, abilities, and difficulties. In undertaking the restructuring process there were small elements of creativity but often this was limited by external pressures and sometimes inhibited students’ creativity. 6.2.2.2 Transforming the Content Knowledge In the previous section, I discussed participants’ views on teachers’ creativity in restructuring the lesson content so that it meets students’ learning aims, needs and abilities. In this section, following my participants’ views and experiences I would argue that, even if teachers keep the structure of the lesson content unchanged, teachers must transform the content knowledge into a new form, a form for teaching purpose, as emphasised by Mr Nguyen, Knowledge in the student text books will sleep in them if teachers’ presentation doesn’t catch students’ attention … teachers must think of the different ways of presentation depending on their creative ability … (Mr Nguyen, appx.4, par.20, p.258)

As presented previously in the first theme, Mr Gon also mentioned about this form and set the criteria for it, We should talk gracefully and attractively; both humorously and seriously … when we talk fluently, argue closely and logically … students are convinced immediately ... (Mr Gon, appx.4, par.24, p.260).

By suggesting that teachers’ teaching should be graceful, attractive, humorous, fluent, scientific, logical, and convincing to students, Mr Gon meant that besides being comprehensible to students, the content knowledge that teachers teach should also be interesting to students. In other words, teachers need to transform content knowledge in such a way that it is not only understandable to students, but also motivates students’ learning. Mr Gon considered this form of teaching lesson content as a set of ideas for teaching. According to him, the ideas for teaching emerged when teachers worked with some general questions that guide them to effectively prepare content knowledge for teaching. Sometimes, I feel sorry for some young teachers, even some old teachers, about

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their lack of ideas for teaching, teaching without ideas for teaching. For example, you have to think of how to introduce the lesson interestingly, how to express knowledge in understandable ways … (Mr Gon, appx.4, par.23, p.259)

One way that Mr Gon used to develop ideas for teaching was integrating knowledge of chemistry for daily life into the lesson content. I really like to integrate chemistry for daily life to be more plentiful. Students really like that … For example, when we teach starch, what should we talk more about starch in order to make the lesson more interesting … When we have not had the internet, I looked for the books relating to applications, or relating to biochemistry, for example … (Mr Gon, appx.4, par.24, p.260)

Similar to Mr Gon, Mr Phan also had concerns about transforming content knowledge in order to improve and motivate students’ learning. In particular, Mr Phan had often focused on three criteria of his form of teaching content knowledge: understandable, memorable, and humorous. To make content knowledge comprehensible to students, Mr Phan had often divided a complicated part of lesson content into small portions. He had explained each small portion before explaining the whole part, Selecting very complicated contents, dividing them into small parts, and then explaining each part … For example, the periodic law is very long. I let students write it down into a long line on the blackboard, just one line. Then I underline this. What are the element’s properties? Because when students read the whole sentence, they don’t know what an element is and what elements’ properties are, therefore, I ask them to underline these phrases, elements’ properties, and an elementary substance. Now, elements’ properties, what should we talk about …. (Mr Phan, appx.4, par.28, p.261)

Sometimes, he applied this strategy to the whole lesson, For example, this morning, when I was teaching a chemical bond lesson, I just asked them to focus on three words … the first one is atom, the second one is molecular, the third one is crystal, uh, and the fourth one is stable. Then, I asked them to make a link between those words so that you can understand the lesson. Later, if you are asked about a chemical bond, you can recall all from those words … (Mr Phan, appx.4, par.28, p.261)

As mentioned before, according to Mr Phan, the last criterion for his presentation was humour. He often integrated humorous factors into the lesson content. According to Mr Phan, this strategy cheered students up, helped them approach new lessons happily, and helped them to understand and remember new knowledge more easily. I have many things to say for cheering students up … Sometimes, the connections in between like that can both help students to both remember lessons and be cheerful. For example, When I started to teach acid rain, I laughed and talked to them like this: “Formerly, when I was young, it was possible to walk under the rain together with my lover. But now, you can’t. Why? Because you can’t walk and scratch at the same time. Dropping acid rain makes you itch” (Mr Phan, appx.4, par.30, p.262)

Mr Phan’s first criterion of forming content knowledge into a new way to make it understandable to students was important because it was clear that not all chemistry 156

phenomena could be observed easily and not all theories of chemistry and the related domains could be explained to upper secondary students. In these cases, we needed other ways to explain chemistry knowledge. Miss Le suggested one way she helped students understand an abstract concept was to create analogies, or in other words, to relate new concepts to concepts with which students were already familiar. The most difficult lessons for students are those in which there are abstract concepts. For those lessons, firstly, searching for illustrated images, secondly searching the examples of daily life. For example, to describe fast movement undetermined position of electrons, we suggest students should observe the movement of fan propellers … (Miss Le, appx.4, par.38, p.264)

The following are some examples relating to Miss Le’s ideas. Mrs Hue gave an interesting experience of teaching Le Chatelier's principle (If a chemical system at equilibrium experiences a change in concentration, temperature, volume, or partial pressure, then the equilibrium shifts to counteract the imposed change and a new equilibrium is established). Tenth graders are not asked to understand this principle because they have not got enough knowledge of maths and physics to understand. Instead, they are asked to remember this principle to predict the effect of a change in conditions on a chemical equilibrium, or to manipulate a chemical equilibrium. However, it is difficult to remember if we do not understand. Mrs Hue created a way that helped students to understand the above principle when they did not have sufficient knowledge of maths and physics; she made an analogy between the principle and a phenomenon happening in the macro world. For example, I teach chemical equilibrium, if I say “if we lower the temperature, the equilibrium will shift to counteract the imposed change”, students look half believing. But I say “the weather is like this, if it is cold tomorrow, you all will wear a jacket spontaneously. Why?” Then, students realise, ah, we have to find a way to increase temperature when it is decreased. Those examples don’t bring the nature of chemistry, and are not quite right, but students can accept them (Mrs Hue, appx.4, par.43, p.265).

Mr Phan gave a similar example, he also used a phenomenon from the macro world to explain a concept of the micro world that is difficult to observe, hybridization of atomic orbitals. For example, when I teach hybridization (of atomic orbitals), I teach the concept of hybridization by saying: “a girl makes lemon juice for four boys”. Because carbon has three p-orbitals and one s-orbital. If I ask a student to make the overlaps, there will be two types of overlaps, s-s overlap and s-p overlaps. Therefore, there are three C-H bonds which are different from the last one. (Similarly), “the first three cups of lemon juice are good, but the fourth one is bad because of lack of lemon or sugar. How can we make four good cups of lemon juice?” I have them pour all into a mug, mix evenly, and then pour into four cups again. “It was proved by experiment that the four C-H bonds are the same, so the four orbitals must be

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hybridized before making the bonds” … (Mr Phan, appx.4, par.28, p.261)

Besides helping students understand new knowledge, teachers also were concerned about how to help students remember knowledge. My participants observed that teachers often generated mnemonics (short poems, acronyms, memorable phrases, or similar images) to help students remember, He often teaches very concisely and tries to help his students remember the lesson in the classroom. In fact, almost all of them can remember … he talks briefly and gives them the ways to remember, by a line of poetry, a funny phrase … (Miss Le, appx.4, par.39, p.264)

So far, my participants’ views and experiences showed teachers’ attempts to create explanations, analogies, examples, and to help students to understand lessons and to learn lessons in an interesting and exciting manner. However, sometimes, instead of generating those things, teachers generated frameworks (the scaffolding) to help students construct knowledge themselves as Mr Phan’s experience demonstrates, For example, this lesson, I taught. Actually, the structure of this lesson in the student text book is not quite appropriate because everything is included in this figure … Therefore, I asked students, from the figure 1.1, asked students to comment. We guide them to have the comments like this: each electron has a certain energy level, then … This lesson, for example, I asked students to learn by rote (at home), without understanding … Then, in the classroom, call a student, then start to develop, “please present the aims of the examples 1, 2, 3”. When students are successful to present the aims of these examples, we start to develop new knowledge … (Mr Phan, appx.4, par.29, p.262)

Analysing the data in the previous paragraphs explained what teachers did in the planning stage of a lesson in order to help students approach and internalise new knowledge in an effective and exciting way. In my view, what they considered as their creative products were new or different teaching solutions that helped them to teach more effectively. In other words, this was good teaching as it drew upon their ability to create new solutions which could potentially be mini-c or even little-c creativity. I now turn the discussion to what the participants’ thought teachers should do in this stage with the aim of helping students to have a sound understanding. Mr Khoa suggested a useful way forward: creating chemistry problems for which students already had a sound understanding of the chemistry knowledge required to solve the problem. According to Mr Khoa, the typical features of creating questions and problems emphasised both skills of understanding and application, and required students to retrieve knowledge from many previous lessons at the same time. This approach was instead of requiring students to just remember and retrieve knowledge from a single lesson. 158

The most important part (of text books) is (chemistry) problems … (Students) shouldn’t learn the whole student text book in a parrot-fashion (rote). Force them to apply (theoretical lessons) into (answering questions and solving problems). Specially, the strategies of solving problems shouldn’t be classical ones, but must be modern ones … These problems are completely advanced ones, the problems which ask you to have to apply creatively. Many, even theoretical questions, you have to do in certain ways which let students apply all knowledge of the curriculum, combine both inorganic chemistry and organic chemistry … (Mr Khoa, appx.4, par.07, p.254)

Specifically, the strategies for solving problems have been the main focus for the teachers in Vietnam. Creating and possessing a large number of strategies that can be used to solve chemistry problems quickly and precisely has become one of the important criteria for good chemistry teachers. Mr Nguyen supported this view, One wants to prove that one is better than others; one must have something really striking. The strikingness might be formulas; the strikingness might be the way that one uses to solve that problem which people solve by this way, but one uses a different way, which is more interesting, (one becomes) naturally striking. (Mr Nguyen, appx.4, par.17, p.257)

Being a good chemistry teacher or a ‘striking’ teacher appeared to be important to these participants but it did not seem to support the view that these were necessarily creative teachers. The interesting and effective strategies for solving chemistry problems had often been created based on the basic laws of chemistry and strategies used in some related subjects, such as maths and physics. There were many ways which both solved a number of chemistry problems and used a range of strategies. However, below I introduce only two examples with the aim of demonstrating two “principles” for creating strategies for solving chemistry problems mentioned above, Example 1: 0.7 gram of a precipitation is obtained when V litter (in the standard condition) is plugged into 2.0 L of a 0.01 M solution Ca(OH)2. Determine the value of V. Answer In the reactions happening between XO2 (CO2 or SO2) and M(OH)2 (M2+ stands for Ca2+, Sr2+ or Ba2+), the relation between the number of moles of XO2 and the number of moles of MXO3 is presented by the graph below.

Students can use this graph to solve the above problem.

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From 0.07 moles of the precipitation, using the graph, two value of number of moles of CO2 is obtained, 0.007 mole and 0.033 moles. Therefore the values of V are either 0.1568 L or 0.792 L, respectively.

This strategy for solving chemistry problems was termed “the graph method”. It was constructed by integrating maths into chemistry. It helped students to understand deeply and visually the reaction happening between CO2 and Ca(OH)2. It also revealed that teachers could create new strategies by reapplying the strategies used in different domains or different sub-domains. Example 2: m grams of iron powder are burned in an oxygen atmosphere, forming 3 gram of a mixture. The mixture is dissolved completely in excess HNO3. Supposedly, 0.56 L of NO (in the standard condition) is the only product of this reduction step. Determine the value of m. Answer The oxidation step The reduction step 0 +3 𝐹𝑒 � → 𝐹𝑒 + 3𝑒 � 𝑂 � → 2𝑂−2 �20 + 4𝑒 𝑚 56



𝑚 56

3−𝑚 32



𝑁 +5 +

Balancing numbers of electrons exchanged: ⇒𝑚 = 2,52

𝑚 3 × 56

3−𝑚 32

3𝑒 �

3×0.025

=4×

+2 →𝑁 �

0.025 3−𝑚 +3× 32

0.025

This strategy for solving chemistry problems is termed “the method of conservation of electrons”. This method is used to solve the complicated problems relating several redox reactions, based on a basic principle: the total number of electrons is conserved during a redox reaction, or in other words, the number of electrons given off by the oxidation step is equal to the number taken up by the reduction step. This strategy helps students to understand, at a deeper level, the nature of redox reactions. The data revealed that some of these teachers could create new strategies by using basic principles or laws of chemical reactions. Besides the positive aspect that more and more chemistry problems, and strategies to solve them, were being created by some of the participants, a negative aspect of this issue emerged. Mr Hai complained that many chemistry problems created by chemistry teachers were not accurate in terms of the nature of chemistry, I am not satisfied with “paper” chemistry problems. They are not real. I eliminated (them) immediately, eliminated. I take an example; there are problems like these, which have existed for a long time. They still exist. “A metal reacts with a sufficient acid”. It could not be … It means our problems must be close to reality. Excess acid must be used, more reality. Or I met a problem like this. I don’t accept a problem like this. Mg and Fe react with a solution of copper salt. The reactions are very complicated, particularly with Mg. I observed … Mg reacts with water clearly … I had to correct this. Zn and Fe are acceptable … (Mr Hai, appx.4, par.26, p.260)

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In chapter 1, I argued that ethicality should be considered as a criterion for teachers’ creative products. The reasons that lead me to this point were the examples from the data that were similar to the ones Mr Hai mentioned. Mr Hai was clearly worried by teachers ignoring knowledge or giving inappropriate examples. The teachers who created those chemistry problems only focused on the aspect of the pedagogy of knowledge (simplifying the realities so that students could understand) while dismissing the nature of that knowledge. I also observed from my previous experience and my data that many teachers dismissed or, worse, undermined several educational aims while they tried to meet students’ aims, needs and abilities. For example, while trying to help students to pass the university entrance exams, some teachers provided students with a huge amount of test tips. I would claim that this reduced students’ attention to the nature of science as well as reducing opportunities for them to learn creatively. In summary, I have just discussed one of the teachers’ activities which I consider requires some form of creativity, that of transforming content knowledge. The purpose of this activity was to make a new form of content knowledge that was understandable to students and this form of content knowledge also provided students with more opportunities to learn in a more interesting and exciting manner. In other words, the purpose of transforming content knowledge was to help students to learn effectively and efficiently. It may have helped students to construct knowledge for themselves by using alternative explanations, analogies, examples, demonstrations, mnemonics, questions, problems and strategies for solving problems, and scaffolding. Some effective ways of transforming content knowledge were used by my participants as can be seen from the data analysed above, such as integrating chemistry for daily life into content knowledge to make it more interesting; linking lesson content to unusual things that were funny so that content knowledge became more interesting; dividing content knowledge into smaller portions and explaining each portion before explaining the whole so that content knowledge became easier to approach and internalise; generating analogies that were understandable to students; generating the scaffolding that helped students to internalise knowledge themselves; transferring content knowledge into short poems, acronyms, memorable phrases, or similar images that helped students remember content knowledge; posing questions and generating problems that helped students to firmly understand content knowledge.

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One ethical issue noticed by my participants in terms of transforming content knowledge was that within this process, teachers had to avoid letting students misunderstand the nature of the content knowledge. 6.2.3 Determining Appropriate Teaching Methods In this section, through my participants’ views and experiences, I unfold teachers’ ideas on their creativity in the stage of planning teaching methods. Starting with Mr Quy’s experience, Teachers’ main creative products must be creating the creative ability of students. It means we have to create students’ habit of creativity, gradually conduct ability of self-thinking, and then ability of self-taught, (which is) the most essential factors of creative work … Because the self-taught process is a process asking for creativity. Due to abilities in being self-taught, one can become creative … For example, when I teach radio activity. After a series of instructing, we have an equation, for example 𝑁 = 𝑁0 × 𝑒 −λ𝑡 . I stop right there and ask my students: … “From this expression, how many possibilities, how many problems are there which are able to be asked?” … The experiences show that this is a good way to teach the teams (of gifted students) because we cannot predict completely what the exams look like. Therefore, letting candidates consider what people can be asked from this basic issue …. Students themselves have to think more … Therefore, students are not astonished when they meet a strange problem because it already existed in their mind … (Mr Quy, appx.4, par.02, p.252)

It was clear in Mr Quy’s story that in addition to the aim of helping students to learn chemistry, Mr Quy’s had two other objectives, teaching to the tests and enhancing students’ creativity. He had strong ideas about how to encourage creativity but the contextual constraints of teaching to the test was still very present. I will return to this in the next chapter. He used both a lecture approach and discussion in his class. He instructed on some basic points of the theories and spent the rest of the time in letting students construct possible questions and problems relating to the theories under instruction. Through this method of teaching, he achieved all his intended objectives. On the one hand, students understood the content knowledge and were prepared well to be able to deal with the tests. On the other hand, he considered students’ creativity was enhanced because he thought that the best way to enhance students’ creativity was by providing more opportunities for students to construct knowledge themselves. He continued, Basically, all recently successful people in education or science are self-educated people. Professor … is an example. He had a Bachelor’s degree in Biology. Later he taught himself to build the first set of physical chemistry textbooks in our country. I have been in many countries, made a comparison with textbooks of different countries, and I realised that there are many things only thought of and solved by self-taught people … a self-taught process is a creative process … I take an example, an equation. In textbooks, it’s often said “after some steps, we have” …

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someone accepts this and learns the final equation. But people who have the ability to conduct research don’t accept that … You have to prove that equation by yourself. You have to find out the steps … It is possible to have a new way … you yourself have to find out the way, you yourself have to explain what people already knew. Later, you can find out new conclusions (Mr Quy, appx.4, par.02, p.252).

From

Mr

Quy’s

views

and

experience

we

learn

that

he

considered

selecting teaching methods depended on the lesson objectives. Therefore, if teachers generate alternatives for the lesson objectives (as discussed in the sub-theme of resetting the lesson objectives), teachers will need to generate alternative teaching methods appropriate to those objectives. From Mr Quy’s perspective he considered that required teachers’ creativity. However, teachers’ creativity in terms of generating alternative teaching methods was more complicated because determining a teaching method was influenced not only by the lesson objectives, but also by other factors such as contextual constraints within Vietnam. The following experiences of other participants illuminate this issue. For example, in classes of gifted students, we use a type of (teaching with) few words. Actually, I talk less and stimulate their thinking more, by questions or something else. Moving down to the classes of poor students, explanation is needed more; giving a lecture. It forces us to work harder. Because of the students, we have to do it like that … (Miss Chuyen, appx.4, par.36, p.264)

Miss Chuyen stressed the influence of students’ learning abilities on the way teachers’ select methods. According to her, instructivist teaching (teacher-centred teaching) was more appropriate for less able students while constructivist teaching (student-centred teaching) was more appropriate for more able students. This appeared to be a limiting factor in her ability to be creative with less able students. Mrs Hue was concerned about another aspect, whether it was possible to apply the constructivist-based methods to recent educational conditions? Teachers should be free to use their strengths to teach effectively. They shouldn’t be forced to follow this method, that method. For example, reforming teaching methods, asking teachers to generate group activities. I observed the class of my colleague, she generated group activities, but expected outcomes weren’t achieved. Recently, it is very difficult to follow the requirements of reforming teaching methods, using student-centred methods. You see, students have to learn five different subjects in five periods each day, and then go to extra-classes to prepare for university entrance exams. In this education system, what students’ parents take an interest in is “passing university entrance exam”, that’s it. Then, students don’t need to be self-taught. Actually, they don’t have time for being self-taught. See, the curriculum is too heavy; students have to study more than ten subjects; in each subject, each day, they have a huge amount of homework. So? Reforming teaching methods in order to let students be more active? It is impossible. Moreover, students focus more on the theoretical lessons than chemistry experiments. Why? Because chemistry experiments are not required in university entrance exams … (Mrs Hue,

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appx.4, par.44, p.266)

Mrs Hue’s answer to the question, whether it was possible to apply the constructivistbased methods to recent educational conditions, was “No”, because students were learning for the tests; they liked to be provided with the essential knowledge for the tests rather than to construct knowledge themselves. In addition, the pressure caused by the curriculum, their teachers, and their parents took away their active learning. I agree that teachers’ selection of teaching methods also depended on students’ learning aims, needs and abilities, as well as other social factors. However, I did not think that it was impossible to apply constructivist-based teaching methods in the Vietnamese context. Mr Quy’s experience, discussed previously, was an example of applying constructivist-based teaching methods. However whether this was just good teaching or creative teaching needs to be considered in relation to the wider international definitions of creative teaching and these examples were more closely related to good teaching than to creative teaching. This will be discussed in the next chapter. However Mrs Hue’s example demonstrated the difficulties that were faced in Vietnam in trying to reform teaching methods. Her views showed the power of the context upon teachers’ thinking in Vietnam. Another example coming from Mr Su’s experience illustrated a feasible way to integrate constructivist teaching into “traditional” teaching (instructivist-based teaching), When I accepted this job (writing the student text books), surely, I had the primary intention … The first is the preciseness of the content knowledge, the second is to let students become those who can do, not parrots …(The) Majority of previous text books followed the way like this: Describing a theorem, then here are examples or here are pictures (for demonstration). I have always done conversely. I firstly present pictures or data then draw a conclusion … that is the heuristic method. I didn’t think of creativity (when I composed the text books), but that is creativity. Why? What is creativity? Creativity means that you have to base yourself on events, phenomena, (and) facts to draw something new. You have to train, train students how to create later … what a scientist does is creativity. (Mr Su, appx.4, par.46, p.266)

I feel it is important to explain about the difference between the previous and recent text books. The lessons of chemical substances in the previous upper secondary chemistry textbooks, used before 2006, had the same structures, including the following sections in this order: the molecular structure, physical properties, chemical properties, application, and preparation. Each unit of knowledge was often presented in three parts: a thesis statement, explanation, and demonstrative examples. According to Mr Su, this way of presenting content knowledge produced more “thinkers” than “doers” which he considered was not creative teaching. He also criticised the previous books containing 164

unchangeable knowledge. Based on this type of book, teachers often used the lecture demonstration method (or even worse, read-write method) for teaching, and students often learn in a parrot-fashion. Therefore, in each section, Mr Su changed the order of presenting knowledge. He presented data, experiments, or examples first, and then guided students to conclude and explain what they observed. He stated that using this order, teachers would mostly use a heuristic method and students’ learning would be more active and therefore he considered it would be more creative. However I would suggest that the two ideas of being more active and being creative do not necessarily naturally follow one another. This will be discussed further in the next chapter. I am also not sure I totally agreed with Mr Su. I think the difference between the “new” books and the “old” books was the difference in reasoning methods rather than teaching methods. The “new” textbooks intended to enhance students’ ability of inductive reasoning. Following these textbooks, students were asked to give comments and conclusions drawn upon what they observed or experimented with. Conversely, the “old” textbooks intended to enhance students’ abilities in deductive reasoning. Following these textbooks, students were asked to predict the physical properties and chemical properties of a chemical substance based on its molecular structure as well as the theories of chemical reactions; and then predict its applications based on its physical and chemical properties. I would argue that these two types of reasoning, inductive and deductive, were both necessary for human thinking, and of course, for creativity in science as well as within the context of Vietnam. However, I agreed with him that predicting the properties of a substance based on its structure was more difficult and less interesting for many students than drawing a conclusion about the properties of a substance based on observations. In my experience, to effectively use a deductive approach in teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students, we should create “bridge” lessons which provide links between the theories of chemistry and lessons of chemical substances. For example, before teaching lessons on the chemical substances, I usually teach some lessons created by myself, such as the “Relationship between molecular structure and physical properties”, “Relationship between molecular structure and chemical properties of inorganic substances”, etc. It seemed that Mr Su’s way of presenting the lesson content, from concrete to abstract, was easier for students to join in the process of constructing knowledge. In other words,

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this way of presenting the lesson content gave more opportunities for teachers to apply constructivist-based teaching methods into traditional teaching. In summary, there were already many teaching methods and the advantages and disadvantages of each method seemed to be plentifully presented in the literature. Therefore, it was not necessary for teachers to create new teaching methods. Instead, it appeared from the participants’ perspectives that teachers’ creativity in this stage was in the way they determined one, or some, or several different teaching methods which were appropriate to the lesson content, the lesson objectives intended by teachers, students’ learning abilities, and the particular educational contexts. However, how far creative teaching was being achieved or whether it was just good teaching was inconclusive at this stage. 6.2.4 Improving and Creating Teaching Tools In our discussion on what could be considered as chemistry teachers’ creativity, Miss Le made the following point, Making animations is teachers’ creativity. Many teachers themselves made simulations of the furnace; of chemical reactions … some made video clips of chemical experiments … Making models for teaching is also teachers’ creativity. For example, Mrs … made models of electrons and “quantum boxes”. Students drew the electron configurations by attaching the models of electron onto the quantum boxes. It was visual and easy to understand … (Miss Le, appx.4, par.40, p.264).

I agree with her to some extent that what teachers did, as she listed, was creative and I would suggest it was creative because they were new and useful. This will be discussed in the next chapter. I also agreed with her that these type of teachers’ creative activities were not simple because they required teachers to have various types of knowledge and skills. As an experienced examiner who used to evaluate the teaching tools created by teachers, I realised that it was very difficult for almost all teachers to create accurate and effective teaching tools because it required teachers to not only have a sound understanding of content knowledge, but also to have the skills for making the tools. For example, to create an animation that simulates the interaction between two hydrogen atoms to form a hydrogen molecule, teachers must have a sound understanding of chemical bonds, skills in using MS PowerPoint or Macromedia Flash, and skills in drawing. Besides the teaching tools mentioned before, experiments play an important role in science education (Hofstein and Lunetta, 1982). However, according to my participants, 166

this type of teaching tool was not good enough for teachers to teach effectively in Vietnam. In particular, there had not been sufficient chemicals; the quality of experimental devices were poor; and the safety conditions for conducting chemistry experiments were not guaranteed, as observed by Mrs Thi, For the lessons in classrooms, teachers conduct experiments as well. However, teachers bring equipment to conduct several demonstrative experiments in the classrooms just for some lessons. Mostly letting students watch the clips because they don’t cause pollution … Preparing hydrogen sulphide, it is bad-smelling, poisonous, pollution. Mr … conducted (that experiment) one time; the class couldn’t stand it … (because there was no fume hood). According to the textbook, all groups have to conduct that experiment. I see it’s much polluted … I have bought, for example, sets of equipment used to put together … glass tubes and rubber corks often don’t fit together. Moreover, the rubber corks made in Vietnam are melted before used … Even pre-assembled sets are not fitted and are only able to be used for one time … (Mrs Thi, appx.4, par.48, p.267)

In that condition, teachers themselves had to prepare chemicals, used alternative equipment, and replaced the suggested chemistry experiments with other chemistry experiments in order to conduct sufficient chemistry experiments, which were effective and safe. These tasks were also regarded as teachers’ creativity, by Miss Le from her perspective, In the level of secondary education in Vietnam, equipment and others haven’t been sufficient. However, creativity in terms of experiments is like that, in the deficient conditions, people have been able to alter this equipment to another to conduct experiments quite safely … (Miss Le, appx.4, par.40, p.264)

The following paragraphs were examples from the data of teachers’ perspective on creativity in generating alternative chemistry experiments that were safe, economical, and convenient for teachers to teach. For example, preparing chlorine. I don’t do exactly the same as the textbook because … amount of chlorine formed is too much, not needed … I have used a Vshaped test tube … In this branch I will add potassium permanganate or potassium chlorate. I already prepare a rubber cork. In another branch, I will add sodium hydroxide … When it is ready to observe the experiment, I will drop hydrochloric acid into (the former branch), and then cover immediately. When the tube turns to yellow and the litmus paper is discoloured, students observe the phenomenon clearly … then I let sodium hydroxide run into (another branch) to neutralize the hydrochloric acid and absorb chlorine, it’s not poisonous any more … (Mrs Thi, appx.4, par.48, p.267) I have changed, more or less, almost all experiments and practical lessons in comparison with the textbooks … I (will) take an example, teaching acetylene, all by experiments. However, how to do it both fast and efficiently? Often, people add water, forming this, then … But that way forms bad-smells. In addition, precipitate with silver nitrate is not yellow, but black, because of extraneous matter. Therefore, I have created a continuous system. The gas formed is plunged into an alkaline filter, to process, then passed into bromine, then passed KMnO4, finally silver nitrate … I have set up on a ring stand as a helix. One can bring about by one’s hand (Mr Hai, appx.4, par.25, p.260)

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Teachers had not only seen the difficulties in conducting chemistry experiments in classrooms, they had also seen the difficulties in guiding students to conduct experiments in the laboratories. These difficulties included the high number of students in each class (often, there are 50 students in each class); the time for experiments was short, and the equipment inadequate. Miss Le had a good solution to overcome these difficulties. She had created a set of experiment notebooks (for students from grades 8 and 9, lower secondary schools, to grades 10, 11 and 12, upper secondary schools) which were very helpful, as evaluated by her: “Teachers have used these, they have found them more convenient, and therefore they have been involved more in the practical experiment”. I used to use her experiment notebooks and I had found that they were a very useful product. Those were the all-in-one notebooks. Each lesson was a combination of the experimental report form and the content of practical experiment lessons presented in the student text books. However, the big difference from the student text books, which described experiments conducted in ideal conditions, was that all experiments in these notebooks were described so they could be conducted in “real” conditions with the chemicals and equipment available. Moreover, at the end of each lesson, there was either an open question or a practical problem. Those notebooks had benefitted the three objects relating to classes for practical experiments namely the laboratory assistants, teachers, and students. Firstly, it was easier for laboratory assistants to prepare chemicals and equipment because all the chemicals and equipment, required by the notebooks, already existed in the labs of secondary schools. Secondly, it was easier for teachers to guide “overcrowded classes” to conduct experiments because they did not have to spend much time to introduce the purposes of the lessons, and chemicals and equipment; explain experimental procedures, etc. which were described in detail in the notebooks. Finally, it was easier for students to conduct experiments because “students themselves can study the way to conduct experiments” before the class, and “students can concentrate more on conducting the experiments; not wasting time making report forms”. This was definitely good teaching and within the situation of Vietnamese secondary education considered creative teaching for this context. However these do not necessarily go far enough for it to be considered creative teaching within the wider international understanding of creativity. However it was an important step towards creative teaching within Vietnam.

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In summary, teachers’ creativity in terms of planning teaching tools included both generating new teaching tools, such as new graphs, pictures, models, animations, movies, multi-media presentations, webpages, and so on, and improving experimental equipment. The level of teachers’ creativity in this case was strongly influenced by the educational contexts. In particular, the lack of teaching tools, the asynchronicity of teaching tools, and the low quality of teaching tools were the main causes requiring teachers’ abilities to adapt and in their terms be creative. To improve and create teaching tools effectively, teachers were required to not only have a sound understanding of content knowledge, but also knowledge and skills relating to the tools that they wanted to improve or create. 6.2.5 Teaching Flexibly, Improvisationally and Intuitively Teachers’ creativity observed in classrooms could either be what teachers created in the pre-active phase (resetting the lesson objectives, restructuring and transforming the lesson content, determining the appropriate teaching methods, and improving and creating teaching tools) or what teachers created during the teaching of the lesson. What teachers created in the pre-active phase was discussed in the previous sections; in this section, I focus upon the participants’ perspectives on teachers’ creativity during their teaching in classrooms and whether there were signs of teacher creativity. I start with Mrs Hue’s experience, I love freedom. I teach what I like to teach in order to achieve the best. I cannot teach if I am forced to follow 5 steps of teaching. If I attend the exams for good teachers, examiners may strongly criticize my teaching style. But if I am asked to teach students so that they surely pass the university entrance exam, I will take that task immediately. That’s two different stories (Mrs Hue, appx.4, par.42, p.265).

As introduced in chapter 2, in Vietnam, teachers are often required to follow the five steps of teaching (managing the class, examining the previous lesson, teaching the new lesson, reviewing the lesson, and giving homework) respectively. Following these five steps, the ministry considered, would guarantee students would pay enough attention in the new lesson, approach the new lesson and internalise new knowledge effectively and with excitement, and have a sound understanding of new knowledge. So why did Mrs Hue choose not to follow these steps? It was clear that to say I cannot teach if I am forced to follow 5 steps of teaching was not to say she had refused the importance of these steps of teaching, or generally speaking, refused the structures mandated by the minister of education and training or she had refused the findings of the research on 169

teaching. Instead, it just meant that she had selected what she had considered to be the best for her teaching. Miss Chuyen made this standpoint clearer, I teach many classes, of different levels. In some classes, I use this way; in others, I use another way. It’s not imitated servilely, not imitated servilely. Depends on the students I teach. (Miss Chuyen, appx.4, par.36, p.264)

Generally, Vietnamese chemistry teachers’ teaching in classrooms is guided by the structures mandated by the minister of education and training; from the findings of the research on teaching; and through their own lesson plans. However, these experienced and good teachers, and they would argue creative teachers, did not rigidly follow that guidance; instead, they used that guidance flexibly depending on particular contexts. I would suggest naming this type of teaching as flexible teaching. This seemed to fit with Dreyfus and Dreyfus’s (1980) stages of teacher expertise, they could be called ‘expert teachers’. In the classroom, these teachers not only flexibly applied what they already knew or had prepared, but they also created something new during their teaching. Were they also creative teachers? Keep listening to Mrs Hue’s story, I never prepare what I will say, like A in this part and B in another. I feel, I am, flexible, very flexible. For example, when I express an issue, I look at students’ eyes, I feel students don’t catch my meaning, and then I look for new language to express … There must be more than 80% students who understand what I say. If (students) don’t accept yet, I will look for new language; a new way until I can solve that problem (Mrs Hue, appx.4, par.42, p.265).

What Mrs Hue created was the content knowledge transformed for the teaching purpose as discussed in the sub-theme “transforming the content knowledge”. I found that my other participants had similar experiences. For example, in the interview, Mr Phan showed me his student text book. In that book, he made a lot of notes in the margins of each page and on stick-it notes. He explained, Actually, I cannot change this book because of these things … It means this, while I am teaching, what expressions I feel are best, it means there are many ways to express a lesson, the way of expressing that helps students internalise the best, I will write down that one. It means that instead of preparing a normal lesson plan, now, I see, if I teach this content and I express it like this, students will understand better. Then I will write down on a paper, generally speaking, on a note. I will transfer them into my lesson plan later (Mr Phan, appx.4, par.28, p.261).

It seemed the experience of Mrs Hue and Mr Phan was in contrast to those of Mr Gon and Mr Nguyen which I will discuss now. Mrs Hue and Mr Phan did not seem to prepare the content knowledge before teaching while Mr Gon suggested that the more carefully we prepare, the more interestingly we teach. If not, we might talk in a 170

confused way, without logic, then that class is not successful. Mrs Hue did not prepare the strategies to solve chemistry problems, I don’t want to teach by a stream of sayings … Even I don’t want to prepare the way to solve a (chemistry) problem, instead, in the classroom, I and my students together look for a method. Sometimes in the classroom, another (chemistry problem solving) method or idea arose in my mind and I felt excited. If not, I would probably quit my job because of repeating the same issues day after day (Mrs Hue, appx.4, par.43, p.265).

While Mr Nguyen commented that it was very difficult for teachers to successfully solve a chemistry problem during teaching without preparation, You face a problem which hasn’t been prepared at home. Suddenly you solve it. There are two situations. Either it’s very simple or it’s very complicated. (If it’s very complicated), you solve it recklessly, you will get stuck immediately (Mr Nguyen, appx.4, par.20, p.258).

So was there a real conflict between the experiences of these participants. Let’s come back to Mrs Hue’s story, If we said “non-preparation”, it is not right … (It) just means non-preparation of words, non-preparation of language. Actually, I have a lot of concerns, I try to find out … For example, physical and chemical properties are easy, but the issues of the theories of chemistry, how to help students to grasp, to understand, for learning the lessons of the substances later are very much a concern … For example; today I teach … I use that example. If I reuse it tomorrow, I myself feel very ashamed although they are two different classes. I don’t like that. That is my character … For example, orbital, when I teach, I can use an example of a goal keeper, but next year I won’t use that example again, instead, I will talk about where students can be found more in the breaking-time, classroom or canteen? You (the student) have a right to sit in the classroom or even go to the coffee shop, but the probability of finding (students) in those positions are little … I teach class A, class B, totally differently, but I always feel ashamed of myself. I talk like a machine. I feel the job is boring. For example, today I was going to school; I talked to myself, If there was not any interesting thing I would take the example of a football stadium. But, suddenly, while I was teaching, I imagined another. Then I talked and I felt it was more interesting. Then, keep improving. (Mrs Hue, appx.4, par.45, p.266)

It was clear from her experiences that there was not a real difference between these participants in terms of preparation. They all had a greater repertoire of scripts of teaching. The difference, if it existed between them, seemed to be the difference between crystallised expert teachers and adaptive expert teachers (discussed in chapter 3). Mrs Hue was a adaptive expert teacher. She had a greater repertoire of successful scripts for teaching, but she had not wanted to use them again and again because although the old scripts guaranteed successful teaching, they could not motivate teachers to teach. Therefore, creating alternative pedagogical content knowledge during teaching, did not necessarily aim to improve and motivate students’ learning, but

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motivated teachers’ teaching. I would suggest naming this type of teaching as improvised teaching. Returning to Mrs Hue’s example of a football stadium partly illuminated our understanding of an adaptive expert teacher. In the chemistry student text book of 10th graders, atomic orbital is defined as a specific region around the atom's nucleus in which the probability of finding any electron of an atom is the biggest (approximately 90%). A classic metaphor often used by many teachers to explain the phrase “probability of finding” is the example of “the probability of finding a goal keeper in a football match”. It is assumed that there is a football match that happens in 100 minutes (including the added time). During this time, the goal keeper has a right to move to any position on the field. However, because of his duty, the goal keeper is often located in a region around the goal, approximately 90 minutes. It is said that the probability of finding the goal keeper in this region is 90%. This specific region is called the penalty area. Similarly, a specific region around the atom's nucleus, in which the probability of finding any electron of an atom is approximately 90%, is called the orbital. In her classroom, Mrs Hue created an alternative; she used the movement of a student, instead of the movement of a goal keeper to imply movement of an electron and a canteen, rather than a penalty area, to imply an orbital. The following was another example for improvised teaching. I analysed this example to illustrate that when teachers grasped the rule to generate a certain example, they generated many similar examples. Similarly, when teachers grasped the rule for generating a type of chemistry problem, they could generate many similar problems within that type, For example, I tutor privately for the university entrance exams, I was teaching so wonderfully that students praised me saying: “he never needs any lesson plan; puts his hand in his pocket, he can teach from sunrise to sunset”. You used to be a private tutor; you know that the types of problems for university entrance exams are limited, right? (Chemistry) problems relating to two equations with two unknowns already have a form. The remaining issue is data. Use calculators, think of some data and give them to students. We can teach like that from sunrise to sunset (Mr Vu, appx.4, par.49, p.267)

We saw from Mr Vu’s experience that when teachers grasped the “paradigms” or an existing framework for teaching, they could create many different teaching strategies within those paradigms. In the previous paragraphs, I discussed the participants’ views on two types of teaching creatively that we observed in the inter-active phase of teaching, which I had labelled 172

flexible teaching and improvised teaching. As discussed, I gained a partial understanding of how teachers teach flexibly and improvisationally. However, I had also found another type of teachers’ teaching in classrooms that was more difficult to understand. For example, Mrs Hue said that she created jokes to break the ice but she herself did not know how she did this, In the classroom, although I am very strict, there are my words, they (her colleagues) think I have already prepared what to say at appropriate sections in order to interest students or make them laugh to break the ice. But, honestly, I never, never (prepare to) say those words at that time. I just look at my students and say it inspirationally, so it is very graceful. They said that my talking is graceful. Later, some young teachers wanted to copy. They thought they should make a joke in the classroom, a wee bit of artistry, but they became ridiculous because what they had prepared was not suitable to the contexts (Mrs Hue, appx.4, par.45, p.266)

Similarly, Mr Hoa could present and formulate the lesson interestingly without preparation. He himself did not understand how he taught like this, I do not boast, but when all my colleagues observed what I taught, they said that although Mr Hoa teaches chemistry, but it looks like he is teaching literature … when I was teaching, I could naturally say very interesting sentences, I could talk interestingly for a long time. When I thought back, I saw it was very interesting. But that was not prepared, without any lesson plan … I have no idea why I can talk like that … (Mr Hoa, appx.4, par.12, p.255)

To distinguish this type of teachers’ performance with flexible teaching and improvised teaching discussed previously, I would suggest naming this type of teaching as intuitive teaching because teachers did not intentionally plan to do what they did. In summary, what emerged from the data were three typical types of teachers’ teaching. Firstly, teachers employed one or some instructional strategies, from the many strategies that they knew, planned to teach particular students at particular times (flexible teaching). Secondly, teachers used the principles of generating instructional strategies to create new strategies within the classroom (improvised teaching). Finally, teachers created something new for particular students at particular times without their intentional planning for it (intuitive teaching). It seemed that, all these three types of teachers’ performances were often seen in expert teachers rather than others because they were based on teachers’ greater repertoire of teaching scripts. These types of teacher performances also revealed another reason why teachers needed these strategies in teaching as suggested by one of the participants: some teachers used these strategies in order to overcome the boring repetition of teaching the same lessons again and again. I considered these three types of teaching -flexible, improvisational and intuitive- as forming ingredients of good teaching and perhaps leading towards creative teaching. 173

6.3

Multiple Phases of the Creative Process

This theme emerged from the participants’ views about teachers’ creative processes, in other words, about the sequence of thoughts and actions by which teachers created something new and useful and the factors that influenced those thoughts and actions. Why do we need to understand teachers’ creative process? In my view, we have two aims. Firstly, understanding how a teacher creates something new and useful can help other teachers to create similar things in order to teach effectively. Secondly, understanding the factors that influence teachers’ creative processes may inform us of possible ways to enhance teachers’ creativity. In the second theme, being creative in all the stages of teaching, some factors that influenced teachers’ creative processes (e.g., teachers’ knowledge and educational contexts) were discussed. In the following paragraphs, I will follow the typical experiences of three participants to look into what happened in teachers’ minds when they tried to create new and useful activities. I start with Mr Khoa’s story. The most important parts (of the text books) are (chemistry) problems … (Students) shouldn’t learn the whole student books in a parrot-fashion (rote) … you have to do it in certain ways which lets students apply all their knowledge of the curriculum, combining both inorganic chemistry and organic chemistry … At that time, I mainly created. Besides, (I) studied the National (Chemistry) Olympiad of Poland, USSR, and France. (We) have to understand (the standard curriculum content) to apply, have to add or cut details, have to be creative … Generally speaking, they come from human knowledge. It means that, I read much, somewhere. I studied the exams of this country, that country. I looked for their strategies to solve (chemistry problems), then I realised that their strategies are complicated and too lengthy. Then I thought “are there other strategies?” … The time that I have created something is firstly before sleeping time, lying and thinking of whether there is a different strategy to solve that problem. Secondly, walking. I do love walking. For example, walking to school … walking and thinking of some new (chemistry) problems … sometime, It took a month to create an interesting thing. Now, I have been thinking about how to teach chromatography to upper secondary school students … (Mr Khoa, appx.4, par.08, p.254)

Some ideas can be construed from Mr Khoa’s story. Firstly, teachers’ creative processes happened through multiple stages. There were three clear stages happening in his mind. The first stage was the stage of either identifying the task (e.g., creating chemistry problems that helped students to avoid rote learning) and creating criteria for the task (e.g., let students apply all their knowledge of the curriculum, combining both inorganic chemistry and organic chemistry), or identifying problems (e.g., their strategies are complicated and too lengthy) and creating criteria for the problem (e.g., obviously, other strategies that were simple and concise). 174

The second stage was the stage of gathering relevant information and resources (e.g., … they come from human knowledge … I read much … I studied the exams of this country, that country). The last stage was the stage of seeking or producing the potential responses (e.g., … lying and thinking … walking and thinking … sometimes, it took a month to create an interesting thing … Now, I have been thinking about …). Secondly, I found in Mr Khoa’s story that there was interaction between the first stage and the second stage. The task that Mr Khoa wanted to solve was that the number of chemistry problems for upper secondary school students in the 1980s was very limited. Therefore, he wanted to create more chemistry problems with the aims of widening and deepening students’ understanding of chemistry knowledge. According to him, the criteria for solving chemistry problems focuses on students’ understanding rather than students’ remembering, and stresses combining knowledge from many lessons rather than using the knowledge from one single lesson. The second problem emerged when he was gathering information to solve the first problem. In particular, when he studied chemistry problems created by other authors, he recognised that strategies that other authors used to solve their problems were not good enough (too long and difficult to understand). Therefore, he wanted to create other strategies that were shorter and easier to understand. Thirdly, the ways in which Mr Khoa solved the task and the problem can help us to understand more about the second and third stage of the creative process. Firstly, how did Mr Khoa generate the chemistry problems? The first way was to study the problems created by other authors in other countries and edit them so that they were appropriate to the standard curriculum content of Vietnam. The second way was to generate completely new problems. Mr Khoa retrieved knowledge from many chemistry lessons, found out the connections between the retrieved knowledge, and transformed them into the form of problems. How did Mr Khoa generate effective and understandable strategies to solve chemistry problems? As discussed in the previous theme, his main principles to generate new strategies were either using the laws of chemistry or applying the strategies of solving maths and physics problems into solving chemistry problems. These two principles were the same as two examples of the generative processes in the Geneplore model, categorical reduction, in which existing structures are conceptually reduced to more primitive constituents and analogical transfer of information from one domain to another (Ward et al., 1999). 175

The second story came from Mr Nguyen. His success started at the end of the 1980s when the ministry of education and training published “the collection of chemistry tests for college and university entrance exams”, often called “the collection of exams”. At the beginning, the question, the problems, as well as the answers of the exams were directly selected from “the collection of exams”. Later, from the second half of the 1990s, the content of the university entrance exams was no longer based on “the collection of exams”, but they have still been influenced by that. The success of Mr Nguyen was a set of supplementary reading books which were very useful for students who were practicing for the university entrance exams. At that time, his books had two new points. Firstly, he made close connections between chemistry lessons and the questions and the problems for the exams. Secondly, he constructed a system of strategies that helped students to solve chemistry problems effectively. In 1989 the Minister of Education and Training published the collections of exams for university entrance. That set of books, in my view, is highly valuable. However, the thing is, knowledge in “the collection of exams” includes (chemistry) knowledge from grade 8 to grade 12 … With more than 140 sets, students don’t know how to study to achieve success. Therefore I rearranged all. I classified all the questions and problems into groups, all theoretical questions of general and inorganic chemistry, and all theoretical questions of organic chemistry, all strategies of solving general and inorganic chemistry problems, and then all strategies of solving organic chemistry problems. During one year, I both taught and rearranged in accordance with those headlines. After that, I published a four-volume book … I always think about the strategies to solve problems, the strategies that are easy for students to understand. If they are very complicated for us, they will be more complicated for students … When the collection of exams was published … I didn’t know how to teach, day and night, spending sleepless nights to solve (the problems), looking for all possible ways to solve these because there was not any (supplementary reading) material. One year later, the instruction manual was published, but its instructions were not good, frankly. However, I had to rely on that instruction to find out new solutions … For the first several years, it was very painstaking … I had new ideas when I wasn’t satisfied with my task. For example, I taught a problem. I saw it was right. The answer was right. However, coming home, I was dissatisfied with it. I looked for a better way. I had to search for anything that related to that issue … I looked for books, everywhere, all my friends’ lectures. I searched every nook and cranny for books. I collected them all … Then I produced a formula, “if you want to solve that problem, you have to follow the following steps” … I have improved my ideas by composing books ... I had written the drafts. I followed the drafts to teach and observed students’ reflections. Then I came to conclude what is good and what is not good … (Mr Nguyen, appx.4, par.16, p.257)

What I interpret from the story of Mr Nguyen was that first of all, his creative process as he perceived it also contained three stages, identifying the task or problem (e.g., too many samples of exams and that the strategies to solve the problems of the exams were not good) and creating criteria (e.g., a classified set of exams, a set of good strategies to solve chemistry problems); gathering the relevant information and resources (e.g., … I 176

had to search for anything that related to that issue … I looked for books, everywhere, all my friends’ lectures. I searched every nook and cranny for books. I collected them all …); and seeking potential responses (e.g., day and night, spending sleepless nights to solve, looking for all possible ways to solve …). Secondly, it was clear in Mr Nguyen’s story that there was one more stage in his creative process, the stage of evaluating the possible responses through students’ feedback (e.g., … I have improved my ideas by composing books ... I had written the drafts. I followed the drafts to teach and observed students’ reflections. Then I came to conclude what is good and what is not good …). The first task that Mr Nguyen conducted, classifying the questions and the problems of the collection of exams, was not too difficult. It was based on the standard curriculum content to divide the questions and problems into appropriate groups. The more difficult task that Mr Nguyen conducted was finding out the strategies to solve the problems. Mr Nguyen faced this issue because, at the beginning, there was no instruction manual; he had to create the ways to solve them. After creating or finding out a strategy, he verified it by teaching and having students’ feedback. If students’ feedback was negative, he would either improve the strategy or look for a new one. Later, he could learn other ways of solving problems from his colleagues and from the instruction manual. However, from his analysis if what he had learned was not good enough, he would improve or alter it. Usefully from Mr Nguyen’s story, I would suggest that students’ feedback is a useful way for teachers to verify their creative responses and that students’ negative feedback can help teachers to recognise new problems that need to be solved. Thirdly, what I discussed in the previous paragraph also revealed that there was an interaction between the fourth stage and the others. If students gave teachers negative feedback on the possible solutions given (the stage of evaluating), the teachers needed to start the creative process again from a certain stage of the creative process which attended to the substance of the students’ evaluation. The third story came from Mr Hoa. First of all, I found that the way he described what he considered his creative process was similar to my discussion on the last two stories. I found a different element from his two experiences. The first experience was that he often recognised the problems from students’ negative feedback, he spent time looking for the solution and found some possible solutions, and then he applied what he found in the next class. In this case, the second stage was the stage of reactivating relevant 177

information rather than gathering relevant information and the insight emerged within an intentional activity of seeking potential responses. For example, that day, I came to the classroom and taught that lesson. I saw how bad it was. I imaged that students didn’t grasp that point yet. That night, I arrived home and I thought immediately. Actually, I thought right after getting out of the class. That night I thought. The next morning I thought. The day after, when I taught the same lesson in another class, surely, I changed. I found a way I thought (it’s good). Therefore, surely, for one lesson, (what) I teach in the third class, second class is much better than in the first class. Surely. The lesson which I teach in three different classes is never the same. The next class always benefits more than the previous class. Often, the third class is the most perfect … (Mr Hoa, appx.4, par.13, p.256)

The second experience was that while he was teaching, what he said to the students made him think of how to create an interesting multiple-choice question. In this case, the insight suddenly emerged within another activity instead of emerging from the process of seeking the potential responses, It is like this, Hung. When I was teaching, I suddenly realised I can create an interesting multiple choice question. While I was saying that students saw this knowledge when they were 10th graders; they will see it again when they will be 12th graders. Often, they will combine three of them into one question. Uh, unexpectedly I said it like that. Then I had already created a question. If I am sitting here and thinking, I cannot figure it out. But in the teaching process, I can, because I am inspired by the relation between different lessons; I always talk to students about that … (Mr Hoa, appx.4, par.13, p.256)

In summary, from the stories, it is possible to propose the following ideas. Firstly, these teachers’ creative processes as they defined them appeared to happen in four different stages, including identifying the task or problem and creating criteria; gathering and reactivating relevant information and resources; seeking and producing potential responses; and evaluating the possible responses against the criteria. Secondly, because there were interactions between the stages, they considered their creative processes either happened in the order of the stages listed above or without that order; it also could have happened and ended at any stage of that process. Thirdly, they considered this process not only produced creative activities, but could also produce less-creative or uncreative activities when teachers found potential responses during the stage of gathering and reactivating relevant information and resources. Fourthly, the potential creative responses appeared to emerge from the process of intentionally seeking them or when teachers were doing other activities.

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6.4

Teachers’ knowledge and personalities and the impact on their potential to be creative.

Some teachers are more creative than others. In this theme, I will point out several “internal” factors that allowed some teachers to become more creative than others. I will point out the typical traits that might be considered creative teachers. Going through the data, I recognised two internal factors that strongly influenced teachers’ perceptions of creativity. Those were teachers’ knowledge and teachers’ personalities. 6.4.1 Teachers’ Knowledge and Teachers’ Potential to be Creative In the second theme, being creative in all stages of teaching, I discussed the categories of knowledge that teachers needed to have in order to be creative at certain stages of teaching. In this sub-theme this issue will be discussed further; this comes from the participants’ perspectives about this issue. I will also try to make clear some of the negative influences of teachers’ knowledge on teachers’ potential to be creative. 6.4.1.1 Knowledgeable Teachers and potential creative teaching Going through the data, I realised that almost all categories of knowledge, that teachers needed to have in order to be creative, were often conducive to teachers’ creativity. I will discuss my participants’ opinions about the relationship between several categories of teachers’ knowledge and teachers’ creativity to illuminate this idea. I will also argue that the deeper and wider the teachers’ understandings of those categories of knowledge were, the more creative they had the potential to be. Knowledge of Content Teachers’ level of understanding of content knowledge, firstly, related to their ability to restructure the lesson content and transform content knowledge into pedagogical content knowledge. Mr Quoc emphasised that if teachers did not grasp content knowledge, they could not change the structure of the lesson content. Grasping knowledge firmly to be able to put something forward, change something. If knowledge is not grasped, one is bound by some books, is not able to be flexible … (Mr Quoc, appx.4, par.06, p.253)

While Mr Phan emphasised that teachers did not need to understand content knowledge as scientists, they had to understand enough so that they could transform content knowledge in such a way that it was comprehensible to their students. I understand what I need for teaching. Of course, I don’t need to understand all … but enough to analyse them (chemistry knowledge) so that students can understand them … (Mr Phan, appx.4, par.32, p.262)

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Miss Le had a similar point of view and she added that teachers also had to understand enough to deal with unexpected situations happening during their teaching, We don’t need to be a wise man, but we have to be an expert in what we teach in classes … If not, we will land in an embarrassing situation when we are asked by students (Miss Le, appx.4, par.39, p.264)

Mr Hoa admitted that the limitation of teachers’ content knowledge could cause teachers’ to use avoidance strategies (avoiding teaching what they lacked knowledge in; avoiding answering students’ questions) and teachers’ to misinterpret the lesson content, In teaching, do you know what I feel sorry about? To achieve sound knowledge, I haven’t, haven’t known all as you. If I know everything like you, I will teach very well. Honestly, my knowledge is limit; therefore I don’t dare to talk too much about knowledge. To some extent, I have to stop, don’t dare to talk more. Therefore, I have an experience. I often talk to the young teachers who have just graduated: “If you know surely that it is right, you will be able to talk about it”. Because young teachers often base on this thing, they reason deductively other things. I have often seen that. “Know surely, you can reason. If not, don’t, because I met this. I had reasoned like that. When the students posed a question, I was in a quandary” … (Mr Hoa, appx.4, par.11, p.255)

Similarly, Mr Hai commented that the limitation of teachers’ content knowledge could be the cause of generating chemistry problems that were not right, I am not satisfied with “paper” chemistry problems. They are not real. I eliminated (them) immediately, eliminated. I take an example, there are problems like this, but exist for a long time. They still exist. “A metal reacts with a sufficient acid”. It could not be … It means our problems should be close to reality. Excess acid must be used, more reality. Or I met a problem like this. I don’t accept a problem like this. Mg and Fe react with a solution of copper salt. The reactions are very complicated, particularly with Mg. I observed … Mg reacts with water clearly … I had to correct. Zn and Fe are acceptable … (Mr Hai, appx.4, par.26, p.260)

Secondly, as considered in the second theme, teachers’ understanding of content knowledge also related to other creative activities discussed by the participants. For example, it was very difficult for teachers to generate and improve teaching tools if they did not have a sound understanding of content knowledge. Knowledge of Contexts Understanding the learners and contexts was very important so that some participants stated that this type of teachers’ knowledge was more important to teachers’ creativity than teachers’ content knowledge. For example, Mr Nguyen stated that About knowledge, of course, I think you are an upper secondary teacher. It is stipulated that you have to be a university graduate. That’s enough. You have all kinds of knowledge. Sometimes, it is not sure that a PhD can do. Because he thinks why they (upper secondary students) cannot do the things that are very simple … I saw this clearly. My former teacher, professor …, after some words he teaches, students no longer follow him because he thinks that everything is easy … while, sometimes, students don’t know what 1/3 plus 1/5 equal; there is someone who say it equals 2/8, that’s terrible … (Mr Nguyen, appx.4, par.20,

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p.258)

Knowledge of particular students and particular contexts helped teachers to identify the problems needed to solve and generate the criteria for evaluating the possible responses (as discussed in the second theme). Participants considered that generating educational strategies appropriate for the right students at the right time was an outcome of teachers’ creativity (discussed in the first theme); the understanding of particular students and particular contexts was vital. The story of Miss Chuyen demonstrated her perspectives on the important roles of these types of teachers’ knowledge in terms of teachers’ creativity. In this story, we could see that because she recognised that training gifted students had been ignored in her school, she identified this task as her new task; and because she had understood the shortcomings of her students, she generated new curriculum content appropriate for her students. However, her perspective was still limited by the exams. To be honest, the training (gifted students) in my school was so gloomy. At the time I just came, it was so gloomy. There is nothing (good) relating to natural science subjects … My students are rural students. Their abilities of approaching different resources of information are very limited, very limited, but they are studious, very studious … Therefore I have to investigate effectively all information resources … by individuals, the individuals who have had experiences of teaching (for gifted students). Secondly, I studied the tendencies of the exams … I collected all the previous exams … Then I built a plan, my own plan. The first is about curriculum and content, the second issue is time … You already know about my students. Two classes per week are not enough. I have increased the length of time. Additionally, preparing more homework … After studying and relating things, I made a plan and asked the school manage board to allow me to teach … I had to ask them because they think it is impossible to win for this subject, therefore, they had not put it in the school plan … After my achievement, they changed their mind … (Miss Chuyen, appx.4, par.35, p.263).

Knowledge of Teaching Methods Determining appropriate teaching methods for a particular lesson required not only teachers’ understanding of content knowledge, learners and learning, and context, but also teachers’ understanding of general pedagogy. In particular, knowing more teaching methods and having a deep understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of the teaching methods that gave teachers more opportunities to successfully select appropriate teaching methods, as Mr Quoc experienced, The common characteristic of creative teachers, first and foremost, is loving the profession … second, is having a sound understanding of subject knowledge. (They also) have to know many teaching methods. Grasping knowledge firmly to be able to put something forward, change something. If knowledge is not grasped, one is bound by some books, is not able to be flexible. Even worse, using teaching methods mechanically … (Mr Quoc, appx.4, par.06, p.253)

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Knowledge of Creativity In the last paragraphs, I gave several explanations and examples for my argument that all categories of teachers’ knowledge were essential for these teachers’ potential to be creative. Now, I am continuing to argue that those categories of teachers’ knowledge were not enough for all teachers’ creative activities. For example, teachers needed to have knowledge of creativity if they wanted to generate the activities that enhanced students’

creativity

(Beghetto,

2007,

Tan,

2007).

As

a

result,

teachers’

misunderstanding of creativity could negatively influence students’ creativity. Some participants identified creativity with intelligence and considered intelligence as a completely innate ability so that they were not concerned about how to enhance students’ creativity. For example, Mr Nguyen: I don’t have a concern about students’ creativity because my students are those who did not pass the university entrance exams. They are studying to take the exams again. These students prefer to listen (to teachers) than to do things themselves … my students only want to follow what I teach … Mr Hung: Do you think that the way we often follow to train students for the university entrance exams can kill students’ creativity? Mr Nguyen: Actually, creativity is rooted in intelligence, it cannot be killed … (Appx.4, par.21, p.259)

This misunderstanding of creativity could have been caused by “teachers have not been taught about creativity in the education university” (Miss Le) and teachers “have not seen an official instruction relating to enhancing students’ creativity” (Mr Vu). Many more examples for this argument were seen in the first theme. For example, teachers needed to have knowledge of maths and physics to apply the strategies of solving maths and physics problems to solve chemistry problems; they needed to have knowledge of biology to generate more examples of chemistry for daily life; they needed to have knowledge of literature to generate poetical mnemonics and to generate interesting, exciting, and convincing explanations; they needed to have knowledge of philosophy to develop students’ philosophical and political standpoints, and so on. Therefore, this sub-theme led towards a view that teachers needed to know all categories of knowledge relating to creativity in teaching and learning in order to be creative. This sub-theme included the idea that those categories of knowledge had the potential to be conducive to teachers’ creativity. So could teachers’ knowledge also be a threat to teachers’ creativity. No, replied Mr Quoc, Mr Hung: You said that if one wants to be creative, firstly one must be good at

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knowledge … However there is an issue which I have not explained yet. People stated that when your knowledge reaches a certain threshold, you can still be creative, but if your knowledge is too much, you will follow formulae, creative ability will be decreased? Mr Quoc: I don’t agree with that view because when (knowledge) is presented, it depends on different objects, different users. For each object, it is necessary to create an appropriate way. Secondly, how can we have too much knowledge? It’s always insufficient. Except you are self-satisfied, it’s always not enough. (In addition), it is not mentioned yet that it’s necessary to be updated, renewed more and more. Sometime, the old one cannot be used. Additionally, if you have much (knowledge), it was much a period in time; at another it can be insufficient. It’s enough for this job, but insufficient for another. Therefore, it’s never redundant. It must be understood that (we have to) study forever, until (coming to) the world of the dead. Never stop. Science is developing, how can we stop? … (Appx.4, par.06, p.253)

Mr Quoc’s perspective was that you could never have too much knowledge and this was not a barrier to creativity. However, my standpoint was in line with some of the other participants that there was a category of teachers’ knowledge that may reduce teachers’ creativity. I will discuss this idea in the next sub-theme. 6.4.1.2 Teachers’ Knowledge May Be Harmful to Teachers’ creativity In the previous part, I argued that teachers’ knowledge was a resource (material) for teachers’ creativity. In this section, I am going to argue that teachers’ knowledge is also the product of teachers’ creativity and that teachers’ knowledge may inhibit their creativity. I will start with the experience of Mr Quoc to clarify the first point. Writing what the curriculum requires, what students need, not writing what authors have ... What students need, we serve … In your mind, if you don’t grasp them yet, how can you express them surely? (If) you write a book, you must read. Besides what you already accumulated, you must read (more), this book (and) that book, this literature (and) that literature, to supplement your knowledge. But, then, it must be “kneaded” carefully in your mind. You write what is yours. That’s good … The same as teaching. All knowledge must be possessed by teachers … they say what is theirs … not borrowed knowledge … Grasping knowledge firmly to be able to put something forward, change something. If knowledge is not grasped, one is bound by some books, and not able to be flexible … (Mr Quoc, appx.4, par.04, p.253)

Mr Quoc’s experience of writing the student books and teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students seemed to reveal four different forms of content knowledge that teachers have. I defined these forms of knowledge as follow (see Figure 13). Supplied content knowledge is content knowledge that teachers are taught at universities of education and during teacher training programmes, or learn from other resources, such as colleagues’ understanding, textbooks, online resources, and so on (… If you write a book, you must read. Besides what you already accumulated, you must read more, this book and that book, this literature and that literature, to supplement your 183

knowledge). Personal content knowledge is personal understanding of the supplied content knowledge (then, it must be “kneaded” carefully in your mind … You write what is yours). Practical content knowledge is a form of content knowledge that is transformed to be understandable for students at a certain level of education (...Writing what the curriculum requires, what students need, not writing what authors have ... What students need, we serve …). The embodiment of practical content knowledge is the lesson content presented in the student book. Personal practical content knowledge is personal understanding of practical content knowledge (…All knowledge must be possessed by teachers … they say what is theirs … not borrowed knowledge …). The embodiment of personal practical content knowledge may consist of personal understanding of the lesson content, the restructured lesson content, and a repertoire of pedagogical content knowledge.

Figure 13: Different Forms of Content Knowledge Therefore, it could be said that with the exception of the supplied content knowledge (paradigmatic form of content knowledge), the rest of the forms of teachers’ content knowledge were their creative activities developed by personally interpreting or transforming the paradigmatic form of content knowledge. A question that should be posed is how did these forms of knowledge influence teachers’ creativity? I start with Mr Phan’s comment about the creative ability of Mr Nguyen to find out possible answers to that question, I have observed many young teachers’ classrooms. I have found what’s interesting in the lesson they designed, what’s interesting in the lessons they presented … Mr Nguyen is also a very creative teacher. But that’s when he was young, not now. Now he’s got so much experience … (Mr Phan, appx.4, par.31, p.262)

In making this comment, Mr Phan seemed to assert that experienced teachers could be less creative because they had too many solutions to the situations that they often had to deal with. In the interview, Mr Nguyen also confessed that. Through his story, we also realised that it was difficult for him to adapt to the new situation (changing the form of chemistry questions) because, instead of finding out new solutions, he had still used his 184

old “paradigm” for the new situation. It could be said that Mr Nguyen was a crystallised expert teacher who brought his experience forth and used it in relatively familiar tasks. I was more successful when the questions (of the university entrance exams) were long-answer questions. I gave students very detailed lessons, step by step … Honestly, my style is one who holds others’ hands and carefully shows them how to do. Therefore, the poor and fair students like me very much because I taught very slowly, not hurried, not hurried at all. Later, when the questions have been multiple-choice questions; because the numbers of questions are too many and because of the heavy pressure of the curriculum, we have to teach all issues, so I have to be in a hurry. But when I was in a hurry, I found that my teaching was not effective. If I teach slower, I teach more effectively. If I am more in a hurry, I teach more ineffectively. I still think that my best method is the method including many steps, very detailed … (Mr Nguyen, appx.4, par.18, p.258)

I return to Mrs Hue’s story to understand more about this issue. Through her story, I was made aware that she was a very experienced teacher; she may have had the solutions for almost all situations that she had to deal with. This had caused boredom for her. She had gone beyond her boredom from her perspective by being more creative in the stage of teaching the lesson (the inter-active phase). Mrs Hue could be considered as an adaptive (fluid) expert teacher who demonstrated this when she confronted new generation of students, I don’t want to teach in a stream of talking … I don’t even want to prepare the way to solve a (chemistry) problem, instead, in the classroom, I and my students together look for a method. Sometime in the classroom, another (chemistry problem solving) method or idea arose in my mind and I felt excited. If not, I probably would quit my job because of repeating the same issues day after day … For example; today I teach … I use that example. If I reuse it tomorrow, I myself will feel very ashamed although they are two different classes. I don’t like that. That is my character … For example, orbital, when I teach, I can use an example of a goal keeper, but next year I won’t use that example again, instead, I will talk about where students can be found more in the breaking-time, classroom or canteen? You (student) have a right to sit in the classroom or even go to coffee shop, but probability of finding in those positions are little … I teach class A, class B, totally differently, but I always feel ashamed of myself. I talk like a machine. I feel the job is boring. For example, today I was going to school; I talked to myself, If there was not any interesting thing I would take the example of a football stadium. But, suddenly, while I was teaching, I imagined another. Then I talked and I felt it was more interesting. Then, keep improving. (Mrs Hue, appx.4, par.43 and 45, p.265 and 266)

6.4.1.3 A Summary and Suggestions In this sub-theme, teachers’ knowledge and teachers’ potential to be creative, the following propositions emerged from my analysis of the participants’ views. Firstly, they considered creative teachers were knowledgeable teachers. To conduct teachers’ creative activities, they felt that teachers must grasp all categories of the teachers’ knowledge base, such as knowledge of content, knowledge of general pedagogy, 185

knowledge of curriculum, knowledge of learners and learning, and knowledge of context. The participants also thought that teachers had to grasp knowledge of some subjects relating to chemistry knowledge, such as maths, physics, and biology. Teachers had to have knowledge relating to teaching tools, such as knowledge of information and community technology. I concluded that teachers had to grasp knowledge of some subjects relating to the educational aims, such as knowledge of creativity, knowledge of philosophy, and so on. It was obvious in the data that some participants did not have a clear knowledge of creativity as defined in the wider international context. Secondly, all categories of knowledge mentioned above had the potential to be conducive to teachers’ creativity. The deeper and wider the understanding of those categories teachers had, the more opportunities they had to deal with particular students, particular contexts, and other challenges emerging from the interactions between teachers, students, and educational contexts. Thirdly, narrative form (including knowledge more contextualized and situation– specific) of teachers’ knowledge was not only knowledge of contexts, but also included many solutions that teachers created in order to deal with the challenges of teaching. For example, pedagogical content knowledge is a narrative form of content knowledge that teachers created in order to help students internalise content knowledge and motivate students’ learning. Often, if teachers possess a greater repertoire of those solutions, the teachers’ creativity could be reduced. Teachers with a great deal of expertise in dealing with the challenges of teaching had a very large range of examples and ideas which could sometimes inhibit their potential or need to be creative. However teachers who were adaptive expert teachers, concerned with the effective aspect of teaching and motivating students appeared to have a greater potential to be creative. However all of the above aspects summarised in this subtheme had to be contextualised to what was considered to be creative by these participants within the Vietnamese situation. 6.4.2 Teachers’ Personalities and Teachers’ Potential to be Creative Going through my participants’ views and experiences, I found that all my participants shared two common characteristics relating to their description of creative teaching. They all had a passion for teaching and they were all disciplined artists. This is discussed further in the next chapter. In this sub-theme, I discuss the following ideas: firstly, teachers’ passion for teaching positively influenced their potential creative processes; their passion for teaching was driven by the need to be caring for students, to 186

be effective, to have prestige, and to earn a reasonable income; secondly, ‘disciplined artist’ was a metaphor that implied that teachers were both disciplined and artistic. 6.4.2.1 A Passion for Teaching One thing that I recognised easily when I conducted the interviews for this study was that all my participants had a passion for teaching. They really liked to teach and always tried their best to teach. I could feel their passion through their descriptions about their work, for example, Many times when I come back from school, I talk to Mr … (her husband, also her colleague): “Today I taught very well”. I praised myself. I felt very happy. Sometime, I have felt dissatisfaction because of many factors, like the noises outside or students’ disregard … I am very emotional when I teach. When I teach, I am very concentrated. If there is just only one (negative) factor, like the room is not cool enough or I wear a too tight shirt, I cannot teach, I feel sultry, I cannot teach. General speaking, I am like a singer. It means that I must be inspired. If there is only one (negative) factor, I cannot teach. I will be very sad that day … (Mrs Hue, appx.4, par.42, p.265)

My participants also had similar comments when I had asked them about the characteristics of other teachers they thought were creative. The phrase that I had from the responses of almost all participants was “professional love”. In comparison with teachers’ knowledge, participants considered “professional love” was emphasized as a more important factor to enable teachers to be creative. For example, Mr Quoc stated that, The common characteristic of creative teachers, first and foremost, is loving the profession … second, is having a sound understanding of subject knowledge (Mr Quoc, appx.4, par.06, p.253).

Firstly I had to consider the significance of ‘professional love’ in relation to creative teaching and secondly why did these participants love their profession? The statements by Mr Hoa and Mr Hai seemed to clarify this. The common characteristics of them (the creative teachers), quite seriously, is that they love their career … Because of loving their career, caring for students; teachers start to think how to help students to understand. Therefore, creativity will appear. If not, they just get into a rut; rigidly follow the student text books … (Mr Hoa, appx.4, par.12, p.255) If one wants to be creative, one must have love and passion … Loving your career, having a passion for your career, having love and passion for students. That’s a necessary condition … I have often said that “we have to respect students, admit their critics, and then we have creativity”. When I have passion, after a class I always think: “Was my teaching effective today? How about this section?” And, sometime, moving from this class to another, I have changed immediately. Because of some sections which are not OK, some sections which are not interesting. Moving to another class, we change a bit. Actually, there is nothing perfect. If we have a soul that is career loving and student caring, we

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should do so. (Mr Hai, appx.4, par.25, p.260)

In summary professional love started with teachers’ caring for students. Because teachers really cared for their students, they thought of the basic questions for teaching, how to provide students with the best opportunities to learn (the stage of preparation). Then, they spent much time finding out the possible responses to that question (the stage of incubation and illumination). After applying what they had found in teaching, they evaluated what they did (the stage of verification) in order to find out the shortcomings (the stage of preparation) and improve the quality of the next classes (another creative process). In short, professional love did not directly help teachers to generate new and useful responses; instead, it motivated them to follow all stages of the creative process to generate potential creative responses. Why did these teachers love their profession? The first reason I found was that they loved their profession because they really cared for their students, as some participants stated, (Creative) teachers must love their career … Loving your career starts with responsibility. Responsibility firstly for ourselves, for students, and for their family and the society … I teach a student, I always think that behind him, his parents, other members of his family are looking at me … (Mr Tran, appx.4, par.50, p.268) I love my career; I really love to teach … Why do I love to teach? … Firstly … When I create something new, students see them as interesting, students feel cheery, I am suddenly moved … (Mr Gon, appx.4, par.23, p.259).

Besides caring for students, there were some other reasons why teachers loved their profession. They loved it because they could do their best with that profession, because they were respected for what they had done, and because they could earn a good income from their teaching. We must have a passionate motive, a passion. A passion of how to do well, how to do things creatively. Therefore, for example, this illustrative picture. I drew it, but I didn’t see it as beautiful. I drew it again and again until I felt satisfied. It is not because of money, it is not because of something else, it is not because of compliments. I did it for my own satisfaction. Satisfying my passion … passion towards science, towards a goal … (Mr Su, appx.4, par.47, p.267) For me, the motive forcing me to work firstly is my feeling of happiness of working … of students’ achievement … secondly is increasing income. It’s also important … (Miss Chuyen, appx.4, par.34, p.263) I just have one thought … If I do something, I will do it for the best … I am a teacher, I have to study and do anything with the intention of my teaching being good, that’s it … nobody can put pressure on me, I am not under any pressure, just my own motive as I said. However, open a bracket, in my view, if our teaching in the classroom is interesting, easy to understand, there will be more students coming to our extra classes … (Mr Hoa, appx.4, par.14, p.256)

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Because of the family circumstances, when I came out into society I have tried to have success in order to raise my family. During the process of trying to have success to raise my family, I had some initiatives. Those initiatives appropriate to that time and benefited my students; therefore, I have had prestige. That is it. That is my logic. To consolidate my prestige, I have written the reference books … Due to this (writing the reference books), my name became well known and because my name is well known, I have more students … (Mr Nguyen, appx.4, par.19, p.258)

In summary, from the perspectives of my participants it could be said that passionate teachers were creative teachers. These teachers considered that a teachers’ passion for teaching was driven by the need to care for students, to be effective, to have prestige, and to earn a reasonable income. These needs motivated them and from their perspective to think and act creatively within their context. In other words, their passion for teaching positively influenced their potential creative processes. 6.4.2.2 Discipline and playfulness As introduced in the first theme, my participants often used the metaphor “a teacher as an artist” to imply their teaching. I said in a school meeting. “What is a teacher? A teacher is a disciplined artist”. An artist often does not obey any order. If you are both artistic and disciplined, you will be a good teacher … I am a teacher, I have to study and do everything with the intention of my teaching being good, that’s it … nobody can put pressure on me, I am not under any pressure … (Mr Hoa, appx.4, par.12 and 14, p.255 and 256) I think a teacher is like an artist. It means that you are like an MC (a master of ceremonies)… Artist? Firstly, it means talking. We should talk gracefully and attractively; both humorously and seriously … when we talk fluently, argue closely and logically … students are convinced immediately ... (Mr Gon, appx.4, par.24, p.260). Ah, right, I used the term artistic … I used to say: a teacher is both a director and an actor/actress … To me, I don’t care how others evaluate me, but students. I don’t care about the titles. Good Teacher? No … I am a bit cracked and risky … artistic, but risky … (Mr Hai, appx.4, par.25, p.260). I am very emotional when I teach. When I teach, I am very concentrated. If there is just only one (negative) factor, like the room is not cool enough or I wear a too tight shirt, I cannot teach, I feel sultry, I cannot teach. General speaking, I am like a singer. It means that I must be inspired. If there is only one (negative) factor, I cannot teach. I will be very sad that day … (Mrs Hue, appx.4, par.42, p.265)

Because this metaphor was frequently mentioned, I discussed it with my participants quite carefully. Two main meanings for this metaphor emerged from these discussions. The first meaning of this metaphor was discussed in the first theme, by making a comparison with an artist and art; my participants may have wanted to state that creativity was an essential part of teaching. 189

The second meaning of this metaphor was that by making a comparison with an artist, my participants wanted to state that creative teachers and artists shared some common characteristics that may have been typical characteristics of creative people. The following view of Miss Le seemed to be a typical example of my participants’ views on this, I don’t think about the term artistic literally. I think that, they are free people, who think independently, are confident, and are not bound, are not restrained … because when they work for their profession, they are not restrained by promotion or anything else. Artistic means not to favour (promotion or anything else); they only have a passion for their job … (Miss Le, appx.4, par.41, p.265)

She made a list of personalities (e.g., passion, freedom, independence, confidence) that were not only artists’ personalities, but also personalities often seen in teachers who were more creative in teaching. Going through the second and third theme, I saw that these personality traits were essential for what my participants could create and how they created what they created. Other aspects that emerged which were not included but were important were flexibility and humour. Why did my participants try to emphasise that they were artists? In my view, it could be teachers’ resistance to the social perceptions of teachers and teaching as presented in the first theme. My participants wanted to assert that teaching was a creative job, and was not as uncreative a job as people often implied from the ‘boatman metaphor’. They wanted to assert that they were also creative people who possessed creative personalities, but were not those who did not need creativity at all as people often thought. Mr Hoa emphasised this point and said, “… a teacher is a disciplined artist … If you are both artistic and disciplined, you will be a good teacher …”. I stand in the middle of two opposing perceptions. I believe that these teachers had creative personalities that helped them to create new things in teaching; however, they also respected the law of education. Therefore they were both disciplined and possessed playfulness. 6.5

Good Environments for Teachers’ Potential Creativity to Thrive

In the interviews, my participants often commented that almost all creative teachers were those who taught the gifted students or privately tutor students who wanted to attend university entrance exams. For example, At present, in our country, there are groups of teachers who are very creative; those are teachers who privately tutor for university entrance exams, firstly. Secondly, those are teachers who teach gifted students. (Mr Quy, appx.4, par.01. p.252) Actually, generally evaluating current chemistry teachers, I do not feel secure. Creative ability is very low, except teachers who work in upper secondary schools

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for gifted students or teach gifted students ... (Mr Tran, appx.4, par.50, p.268)

Based on these comments, it might have been concluded that teaching gifted students and privately tutoring students for university entrance exams were the two areas that supported teachers’ creativity. Conversely, teaching “normal students in “normal” upper secondary schools may not have supported teachers’ creativity. I did not support this view but I will follow my participants’ experience to understand why the first two environments supposedly supported teachers’ creativity while the last did not before concluding what might be a good environment for teachers’ creativity. To understand why my participants considered teaching gifted students could enhance teachers’ creativity, I return to the story of Miss Chuyen. She was not a teacher in upper secondary schools for gifted students. She taught gifted students within a “normal” school. However, her story had something similar to my own experience as a teacher in an upper secondary school for gifted students. To be honest, the training (gifted students) in my school was so gloomy. At the time I just came, it was so gloomy. There is nothing (good) relating to natural science subjects … My students are rural students. Their abilities to approach different resources of information are very limited, very limited, but they are studious, very studious … Therefore I have to investigate effectively all information resources … by individuals, the individuals who have had experiences of teaching (for gifted students). Secondly, I studied the tendencies of the exams … I collected all the previous exams … Then I built a plan, my own plan. The first is about curriculum and content, the second issue is time … You already know about my students. Two classes per week are not enough. I have increased the length of time. Additionally, preparing more homework … After studying relating things, I made a plan and asked the school manage board to allow me to teach … I had to ask them because they think it is impossible to win for this subject, therefore, they had not put it in the school plan … After my achievement, they changed their mind … I want to teach gifted students because I want to improve my knowledge … when people talked about advanced knowledge, I was like a fish out of water. But I can’t learn without an aim, I must have an aim … (Miss Chuyen, appx.4, par.35, p.263).

The story of Miss Chuyen revealed three reasons why teachers perceived that they would become more creative when they taught chemistry to gifted students. Firstly, content knowledge that gifted students were taught was much more difficult than that for “normal” students. To teach gifted students, teachers had to learn more content knowledge. Consequently, as discussed in the third theme, the more content knowledge teachers had, the more pedagogical content knowledge they could generate, and the more flexibly and improvisationally they had the potential to teach. Mr Hoa had the same experience, The milestone that both my experiences and knowledge was improved very much is the time when I attended marking the papers of gifted students, teaching gifted students … what I internalised improves my teaching in classrooms very much …

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(Mr Hoa, appx.4, par.15, p.257)

Secondly, teaching gifted students forced teachers to be creative because there were no official documents that assisted teachers to teach gifted students. Teachers themselves had to generate almost all the teaching resources, from the curriculum, lesson content to homework. Thirdly, teaching gifted students provided teachers with more opportunities to meet other colleagues who were very good at content knowledge and considered very creative in teaching. This encouraged teachers to be more creative. I already had some views about why teachers who taught gifted students had the potential to become more creative. Now I will unfold the reasons why teachers who privately tutor students for university entrance exams were also perceived as very creative. Perhaps, the best way to find out these reasons is by returning to Mr Nguyen’s story, Because of the family circumstances, when I came out into society I have tried to be successful in order to raise my family. During the process of trying to be successful to raise my family, I had some initiatives. Those initiatives appropriate to that time and benefited my students; therefore, I have had prestige. That is it. That is my logic. To consolidate my prestige, I have written the reference books … Due to this (writing the reference books), my name became well known and because my name is well known, I have more students … I didn’t work for any (upper secondary school), left them behind, I have taught privately. When I started to teach, I realised my decision is right. My decision is right because I wasn’t bound any more, wasn’t bound by any administrative structure of education (system). Therefore, I have wholeheartedly been teaching. At that time, I had to look for anyway to earn money; therefore, I had to use my brain to think of how to teach well. Because in Saigon, he says you must stand firm in the first class. Ah, the manager of the centre introduces you. If you can’t, you are fired … If you damage his business, you are fired. He can invite you to drink month after month, but for teaching, he will invite another … In this environment, one wants to prove that one is better than others; one must have something really striking. The strikingness might be formulas; the strikingness might be the way that one uses to solve that problem, people solve by this way, but one uses different ways that are more interesting, naturally (one becomes) striking … (Mr Nguyen, appx.4, par.17 and 19, p. 257 and 258)

The story of Mr Nguyen revealed two typical features of the environment of privately tutoring students for university entrance exams. Firstly, that it was an environment free from the constraints of the education system and the prescribed curriculum and methods of teaching. However it had other pressures to perform well or to be sacked. Teachers were not forced to follow the standard curriculum content and the student text books. Teachers were also not forced to achieve all of the educational aims. They were free to construct new teaching resources with only one aim: to help students to pass the university entrance exams. Secondly, that it was a very competitive environment. Teachers tutored students in the private centres. They had to create something new in 192

comparison with other colleagues to attract students and help students learn effectively and excitedly. So why was there a perception that “normal” upper secondary schools did not support these teachers’ creativity. The following were participants’ perspectives. There are some reasons that can skill teachers’ creativity … for example, the curriculum. There are some content we don’t need to teach, students can read and understand easily, but we have to teach and have to teach in 45 minutes … there are some lessons that through that lesson we can improve students’ thinking skills, but we don’t dare to teach by that way, we have to focus on how to help students to remember the content … (Mr Phan, appx.4, par.33, p.263) I think we haven’t got the environment that improves students’ creativity and teachers’ creativity … the main reason is egalitarianism … everything is equal, for example, salary. The good teachers are the same as not so good teachers. You are creative; you earn that amount of money. They are not creative, they earn the same amount. This leads to sluggishness. Why do we need to be creative? Creative teachers are not encouraged. Some teachers can improve teaching tools very well. That is creativity … However, who cares? … (Miss Chuyen, appx.4, par.37, p.264)

These comments revealed that “normal” upper secondary schools had not been good environments for teachers’ potential to thrive because there were the constraints of the compulsory and inflexible administrative formalities while there was a lack of competition and the opportunities to have a reasonable income. In summary, what was a good environment for teachers’ creativity? This study showed that a good environment for teachers’ creativity was the one in which, firstly, teachers had opportunities to improve their knowledge relating to teaching (knowledge of subject matter, knowledge of related subjects, knowledge of general pedagogy, knowledge of learners and learning, knowledge of curriculum, and so on) and their knowledge of creativity (knowledge of what should be created and how to create them). Secondly, teachers’ love for teaching was encouraged, by both reducing the compulsory and inflexible administrative formalities and adding the competition and the opportunities to have a reasonable income. However having analysed the data and having been exposed to a wide range of literature through my study I had begun to tentatively conclude that this might not be the case. The situational context meant that I felt what they believed to be ‘creative’ was limited by the situational constraints created by our Vietnamese context and the pressures to meet commercial and international agencies will require significant changes which I set out in the findings part of my conclusion.

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Chapter 7

DISCUSSION

This chapter aims to discuss the findings presented in the previous chapter and in particular, from my analysis and interpretation of the findings to discuss the contradictions and tensions that emerged from the data. It also aims to discuss potential implications from this study, point out any limitations of the study, and propose future suggestions for research. The findings will be discussed in five sections corresponding to the key findings presented and the research questions of this study conducted in the context of teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam, including (1) Why do chemistry teachers need creativity? (2) What do chemistry teachers create? (3) How do chemistry teachers create what they create? And (4) Which factors influence chemistry teachers’ creativity? In relation to these research questions, the sections that will be discussed include the participants’ perspectives on teachers’ creative activities, teachers’ creative process, the aims and reasons for trying to teach creatively, attributes of creative teachers, and environments for teaching creatively from the teacher’s situated experiences and perspectives. In each section, the key findings will be summarised, and then discussed in relation to the educational context of Vietnam and the literature review. 7.1

Teachers’ Creative Activities

The findings from the data on teachers’ creative activities led me to consider that the participants’ creative teaching was little-c creativity, “human originality at work and leisure across the diverse activities of everyday life”, Richards (2010a, p.190). In this section I discuss both teacher “originality” (teachers’ creative products) and teacher “diverse activities” in which they created new and useful products (teachers’ creative activities). In particular, through discussing teachers’ creative activities, I will point out what the data suggested they created. There were three reasons why I started the discussion chapter with a discussion of “teachers’ creative activities”. Firstly, I considered that it was inappropriate to discuss teaching creatively in detail before considering and critiquing whether the creative activities described by the participants were actually creative activities and whether their experiences of teaching creatively could be seen as creative from the wider and international perspectives on creative teaching; this was a key issue in this study. Secondly, if all teachers’ activities were considered as purposive activities, activities 195

with certain aims and reasons (Petty, 2009), understanding teachers’ creative activities could partly unfold the aims and reasons for teaching creatively as discussed in detail in the second section. Thirdly, according to my definition of creativity (p.42), a creative activity is the outcome of the interaction between a creative process, a creative person, and a creative environment, I believe that an understanding of teachers’ creative activities is fundamental to understand the rest of the components of creativity as well as the relationship between those components; as discussed in detail in the last three sections of this chapter. In addition, the main aim of this section is to gain some understanding about components of teaching creatively (creative activities, creative processes, creative teachers, and creative environments) as indicated from the findings. This understanding will, on the one hand, lead towards supporting the future development of creativity within the Vietnamese context and help the educational administrators in Vietnam to reconsider their guidance for teaching creatively (quoted in p.5). On the other hand, this understanding may help teachers to recognise what they could create in order to improve their teaching quality within the Vietnamese context. The teachers’ creative activities discussed in this section firstly satisfy two criteria of creative activities, novelty and effectiveness (Runco and Jaeger, 2012). As analysed in the second theme of the findings chapter, being creative in all stages of teaching (p.148), within the context of Vietnamese chemistry teaching, the novelty of teachers’ creative activities meant that they were different to the available formal teachers’ teaching resources (e.g., the standard curriculum content, student text books, and other statutory documents) or informal teachers’ teaching resources (e.g., teachers’ lesson plans, teachers’ teaching experience) in Vietnam. The effectiveness of teachers’ creative activities meant that what teachers created helped them to teach effectively within the constraints of the Vietnamese context. Besides these two criteria of novelty and effectiveness I will discuss another criterion of teachers’ creative activities that emerged from analysing the data, ‘ethicality’, how to avoid the negative side of creativity; in particular, how teachers’ creative activities that set out to achieve certain educational aims might actually have negatively impacted on other activities. In the second theme that emerged from the teachers’ perspectives and experiences presented in the findings chapter, arising from my analysis was the different creative activities of teachers in the different stages of teaching evidenced from their experiences 196

and perspectives. I will discuss each type of these identified teachers’ creative activities in turn in relation to the educational context in Vietnam and the literature. At the end of this section, I will discuss several possible implications and future suggestions for research. Teachers’ creative activities during the resetting of the lesson objectives produced alternatives to the prescribed lesson objectives. As discussed in chapter 2, chemistry teachers in Vietnam are required not only to ensure students’ gain a large general knowledge of chemistry, but also to develop students’ morality, physical health, aesthetic, basic skills for life, creative ability, political standpoint, etc (Nguyen, 2007, NAOV, 2005, MOET, 2012). The findings (see the subtheme Resetting the Lesson Objectives, p.149) revealed that the prescribed lesson objectives (presented in the student text books) mainly focused on the aim of developing students’ chemistry knowledge, therefore teachers perceived the need to create other lesson objectives depending on lesson content to achieve other educational aims, such as basic skills for life, creative ability, and philosophical standpoint. This could be said to bridge the gaps that teachers’ perceived in the curriculum documents etc. and requires creative thinking (Bramwell et al., 2011, Marzano, 2007) on the teachers’ part. Additionally, the participants considered that prescribed lesson objectives did not completely meet particular students’ learning needs (e.g., learning for the tests) and students’ learning abilities (especially the learning abilities of gifted students and less able students), therefore, the participants considered that it was necessary to reset the lesson objectives which, due to the pressures of the exams, limited what they could do creatively. This finding is supported by educational researchers in terms of effective teaching. However this was not creative teaching in the wider and international sense of creative teaching. For example, Marzano (2007) agreed that the lesson objectives created by each teacher appropriate for students’ learning aims, needs and abilities is crucial for effective teaching however it may not lead to creative teaching. From the above discussions, I would suggest, firstly, that teachers should reset the lesson objectives to meet students’ learning aims, needs and abilities because the prescribed lesson objectives did not seem to meet the learning aims, needs and abilities of all students. Secondly, in the Vietnamese context, resetting the lesson objectives becomes more important because of the deficiency of the prescribed lesson objectives 197

relating to other educational aims including creativity. However, developing students’ content knowledge is catered for. How these teachers reset the lesson objectives to achieve all educational aims and to meet students’ learning aims, needs and abilities was suggested by the data and presented in the last chapter. However, when I considered the ideas of researchers (Marzano, 2007, Westwood, 2008, Kyriacou, 2009, Petty, 2009), I would suggest that, in terms of developing students’ knowledge and thinking skills, teachers should consider the Taxonomy Table (Anderson et al., 2001, Krathwohl, 2002) as a useful tool in determining the different levels of complexity and abstraction that can be included in lesson objectives to make them appropriate to particular students’ learning needs and abilities (discussed in the chapter 4). Teachers’ creative activities during the restructuring of the lesson content produced alternative structures for the lesson content. As mentioned in chapter 2, a set of chemistry books for upper secondary school students in Vietnam have been composed by a group of university teachers on behalf of the minister of education and training. This set of books is the embodiment of the standards for curriculum content. The student text books are legal-documents that teachers have to follow to teach. I used to be a member of the national committee for evaluating upper secondary school chemistry textbooks; I know that the content knowledge of the student text books was examined very carefully to avoid possible mistakes relating to the nature of chemistry knowledge. However, pedagogical aspects of the text books have not received the necessary attention needed for effective or creative teaching. I would suggest that this has caused the issues mentioned by the participants (see the subtheme Restructuring the Lesson Content, p.153), that the structures of some lessons do not cater for students’ learning needs and abilities. Sometime, they have lead to students’ misunderstanding the subject content knowledge. I would consider that it is very difficult to have perfect student textbooks where the structure of each lesson is suitable for all students; therefore, teachers should be allowed to be creative in considering how to restructure their lessons so that they suit the abilities and interests of their students. By reviewing the literature, Tsui (2003) proposed that one of the differences between novices and expert teachers is that novices often follow the textbooks’ structure closely while expert teachers can detect the shortcomings of the textbooks’ structure and generate alternatives. I partly agreed with 198

her proposition because detecting the shortcomings of the textbooks’ structure and generating alternatives mainly depended on teachers’ understanding of students’ learning needs and abilities and their abilities to generate creative solutions. Novice teachers are often lacking in this type of understanding. All of the participants were lacking in a wider knowledge of creativity. However, in my experience, not just expert teachers have the ability to detect the shortcomings of the textbooks’ structure and to generate alternatives. Instead, I believe that advanced beginner teachers start to have this ability (discussed in the subtheme mentioned above). I also believe that the more teaching experience teachers have, the more they are able to detect shortcomings in the textbooks’ structure and to generate alternatives. All of these are affected by the context in which they operate. The opportunities for situated creative action are currently restricted in Vietnam and these needs to be addressed if we are to have a creative curriculum. These teachers’ creative activities during the transforming of content knowledge process, from book to action, produced a new form of content knowledge. Shulman (1986, 1987) discussed that teachers themselves must create a new form of content knowledge for teaching purposes. He named this form as pedagogical content knowledge (discussed in chapter 4), “the ways of representing and formulating the subject that make it comprehensible to others” (Shulman, 1986b, p.9). The findings of this study (see the subtheme Transforming the Content Knowledge, p.155) appeared to support his view. Shulman (1986b) suggested that this form of content knowledge included the most useful forms of representation of the ideas, the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations, and demonstrations. Through the evidence from the data, I would suggest that this form of content knowledge was demonstrated through the mnemonics, questions, problems and strategies for solving problems, and scaffolding that helped the students to construct knowledge themselves. These were all products of these teachers’ little-c or emerging creative activities within the context of Vietnam, although this may not be seen as such within the wider international context. Shulman (1986b, 1987) suggested that this form of knowledge must be comprehensible to students. From my participants’ perspectives and experiences; I would suggest that this form of content knowledge was not only comprehensible to students, but also interesting to them. I would also consider that this form of content knowledge was 199

constructed to meet the aims of improving students’ learning, motivating students’ learning and beginning to experience creative science in a small way. Moreover, from my participants’ perspectives and my own experience (discussed at the end of the subtheme mentioned above), I would suggest that teachers should be concerned with the ethical aspects of pedagogical content knowledge. It means that while trying to transform content knowledge so that students can understand and feel happy to learn, teachers should not dismiss or damage other educational aims as well as the nature of content knowledge. I would suggest that this aspect had not been taken fully into account by my participants. How pedagogical content knowledge is formed had not been fully understood by the participants (Abell, 2008, Van Driel and Berry, 2010). From my analysis of the data, I gained some insights into their development of pedagogical content knowledge. Firstly, to make knowledge more comprehensible to students, my participants used various strategies, which these individual professionals considered to be creative, such as organising new knowledge into digestible chunks, creating analogies, creating mnemonics, posing questions and problems, making a framework, and so on. This finding was supported by the previous studies as discussed in chapter 2. For example, some researchers (Marzano, 2007, Petty, 2009) believed that organising new knowledge into digestible chunks could make knowledge more comprehensible to students because it simplified the complex content and gave students opportunities to process, in turn, a set of understandable knowledge units. Glynn (1991) believed that a good way to help students understand an abstract concept is to create analogies, or in other words, to relate new concepts to concepts with which students are already familiar. Sprenger (2005) believed that if students understood new knowledge, transferred new knowledge into their own knowledge, and if this knowledge was reinforced, rehearsed, reviewed, and retrieved, students could remember that knowledge for a long time. However, some types of knowledge, especially knowledge in the category of factual knowledge (Anderson et al., 2001), are more difficult to remember. In this case, creating new and useful mnemonics was essential for the participants with their aim of teaching effectively, which they also considered to be creative. Again as discussed above this was not creative teaching as defined within a wider international context. Secondly, to motivate students’ learning, my participants often integrated the factors that students like, such as humour, applied chemistry knowledge, and so on into the 200

lesson content. They considered this to be teaching creatively. However this fitted more comfortably with effective teaching or good teaching. This finding was also supported by other studies. For example, some scholars (Ward, 2007) believed that integrating applied knowledge into lessons could help students to be more interested in the lesson because of focusing on the practical side of knowledge. Through these discussions, I had realised that the ways that my participants transformed content knowledge for teaching purposes were in line with the findings of studies of teaching strategies of many educational researchers (Glynn, 1991, Sprenger, 2005, Marzano, 2007, Petty, 2009, Taber, 2012). Therefore, I agreed with Shulman (1986b, 1987) that knowledge of content and knowledge of general pedagogy (especially, the theories of teaching) were two important resources for teachers to develop pedagogical content knowledge. In addition, I also suggested that this kind of teachers’ creative activity was not just limited in the situated context of Vietnam education system, but should be also considered in other education contexts. The similarity between what my participants created and the ways that Ward applied the Geneplore model (Ward et al., 1999) into teaching creatively (discussed in section 4.5.1.3) led me to think that the examples of the Geneplore model (Table 2) may be a useful strategy that teachers could follow to create more creative responses. This could lead the participants from effective and good teachers towards being creative teachers as defined by the wider international academic community. However the constraints placed upon them by the present context would have to change to enable this to occur. Teachers’ creative activities whilst determining appropriate teaching methods produced new ways of applying the available teaching methods. The findings (see the subtheme Determining Appropriate Teaching Methods, p.162) revealed that my participants did not create new teaching methods; instead they selected one or several available teaching methods for each lesson that were appropriate to the lesson objectives, students’ learning aims, needs and abilities, and the particular contexts. This finding led me to consider that the more teaching methods that teachers were trained in, the more opportunities they had to select the most appropriate methods for specific contexts. The findings revealed several examples for this view. For example, teachers often used instructivist-based teaching methods to help students to have initial knowledge and systematised knowledge while constructivist-based teaching methods were used to help students to have deeper understanding. This experience was supported 201

by the studies of some educational researchers (Westwood, 2008, Baer and Garrett, 2010). My participants noticed that, for less able students they often used instructivistbased teaching methods rather than constructivist-based teaching methods. In other words, they directly taught specific knowledge to less able students rather than helping them to construct knowledge themselves. Moreover, my participants pointed out that some reasons for this such as crowded classrooms, a heavy curriculum, the students’ needs to learn for the tests, etc. inhibited their use of constructivist-based teaching methods or indeed creative approaches. In fact, as discussed by Porcaro (2011), the creativity of teachers in Vietnam as well as other less-developed countries was integrating constructivist-based teaching methods into instructivist-based teaching methods. This kind of the participants’ creative activities was clearly limited by the situated context of the Vietnam education system. Teachers’ creative activity in improving and creating new teaching tools produced new ways of using the teaching tools. Traditionally, the main teachers’ tools in Vietnam were blackboards and chalk. In the digital age, blackboard and chalk had partly been replaced by computers, projectors as well as other high-tech devices. My participants considered that (see subtheme Improving and Creating Teaching Tools, p.166), in Vietnam preparing PowerPoint files for teaching, drawing graphs and pictures for illustrative purposes, creating models, making animations or movies for simulative purposes, and so on were mainly the teachers’ tasks. They also considered that these tasks should be regarded as teacher’s creativity. I partially agreed with them because what they created was novel and effective; teachers created new teaching tools that helped to improve the quality of teaching and learning. However this was creative within the context of Vietnam not necessarily as defined by the wider and international academic community. In addition, my participants pointed out that the poor condition of the labs, the asynchronous and low quality of experimental equipment required my participants to be more creative in generating new ways of using the equipment. I would consider that the creativity of my participants in this case seemed to happen within the specific conditions of my country rather than teaching creatively in other countries. Teachers’ creative activities whilst teaching flexibly, improvisationally, and intuitively produced alternatives to the lesson objectives, alternatives to the lesson content

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structure, Pedagogical Content Knowledge, new ways of applying the teaching methods, and new ways of using the teaching tools and alternative teaching tools In the subtheme Teaching Flexibly, Improvisationally and Intuitively (p.169), I analysed the teachers’ creative activities, teaching flexibly, teaching improvisationally, and teaching intuitively that happened in the participants’ classrooms. I defined flexible teaching, with reference to Marzano (2007), as a type of creative teaching in which teachers used available teaching resources flexibly depending on particular students in particular contexts. I defined improvised teaching, with reference to Sawyer (2011), as a type of creative teaching in which teachers intentionally created a certain kind of teachers’ creative product (alternatives to the lesson objectives, alternatives to the lesson content structures, pedagogical content knowledge, etc.). I defined intuitive teaching, with reference to Hill (1984), as a type of teaching creatively in which teachers naturally and intuitively created a certain kind of teachers’ creative products. Hill (1984) suggested that this kind of creative teaching emerged in the consonance between teachers’ sub-consciousness and teaching contexts. Analysis of the data in that subtheme revealed that these activities produced these teachers’ creative activities that were similar to their creative activities discussed in the previous subsections. However, these activities allowed me to conclude that these creative activities could be produced either from the independent working processes of these teachers or from their interactions between themselves and their students. In summary, the following ideas may be drawn from the above discussions. Firstly, I considered that my participants were creative in their teaching within the situated context of the Vietnamese education system. What they perceived as their creative activities satisfied two criteria of creative activities (novelty and effectiveness) as suggested by creativity researchers. These teachers’ creative activities were new to them because they were different in comparison with the formal teaching resources (i.e., the prescribed lesson objectives, the structure of lesson content, content knowledge, the given guidance of using teaching methods, the available teaching tools) or informal teaching resources (teachers’ old experiences of teaching). These teachers’ creative activities were effective because they helped them to teach effectively. I would also suggest that teachers should consider another criterion for their creative activities, “ethicality”. I suggested that these teachers’ creative activities were considered as ethical activities if they helped them to achieve one or some educational aims while they 203

did not prevent them from achieving others, and provided they did not cause students’ to misunderstand the content knowledge. Secondly, I considered that these teachers’ creative activities seemed to be produced especially in the Vietnamese context (e.g., alternative teaching tools), however some other elements such as pedagogical content knowledge could be produced in all contexts. Thirdly, I suggested that the educational administrators in Vietnam should consider reconstructing their guidance for teaching creatively (quoted in p.5) because their guidance did not seem to fully describe or facilitate teachers’ creative activities (for example, they had not been aware of teachers’ creativity in the classroom, such as flexible teaching, improvised teaching and intuitive teaching). They had not pointed out creative activities and the criteria for creative activities corresponding to the creative activities as defined in the wider international context. In this section, I mentioned these teachers’ aims and reasons for their creativity, their production of new resources, and how they created their creative activities. However, I had not come to a conclusion at this stage beyond tentative suggestions, because these issues will be discussed in more depth in the next sections. 7.2

The Aims and Reasons for Teaching Creatively

In the first and second themes of the findings presented in the previous chapter (creativity as an essential part of teaching and being creative in all stages of teaching, respectively) I presented my participants’ aims and reasons for teaching creatively. As can be seen in these themes, there were two different views emerging from the data about the purposes these teachers had for teachers’ teaching creatively as expressed through their perspectives and experiences. The first aim was that teaching creatively within the situated context of Vietnam was to go beyond the requirements authorized by the ministry of education and training, as well as other educational organisations in Vietnam, to help students to have a deeper understanding and to feel more engaged in learning. These teachers considered that they needed creativity to achieve this aim because it was clear from their perspectives that there were no resources for teaching that went beyond the official requirements that they could effectively work with. For example, Mr Khoa created new chemistry problems and new strategies to solve those problems to help students to have a deeper understanding of the content knowledge (p.158); Mr Phan created funny metaphors to 204

help students to feel excited about learning new knowledge (p.156). I would suggest that this view was in line with the views of many researchers (Hill, 1985, NACCCE, 1999, Eisner, 2002, Ward, 2007, Sawyer, 2011). As discussed in chapter 4, these researchers suggested that teachers need creativity to go beyond effective (successful) teaching towards good teaching. In other words, teachers use their creativity “to make learning more interesting, exciting and effective” (NACCCE, 1999, p.102) The second aim, emerging from these teachers’ perspectives and experiences, was that teaching creatively was also aimed at achieving effective teaching because to achieve the official requirements (issued by the ministry of education and training as well as the department of education and training for cities and provinces), teachers needed creativity to deal with the challenges coming from the diversity of students - the differences of students learning aims, needs and abilities, for example Mr Nguyen restructured the student textbooks so that they were suitable for students’ learning aim of passing university entrance exams while Mr Gon restructured the student textbooks so that they were suitable for his less able students (p.154); the diversity of educational contexts - the differences of task requirements and physical conditions, for example Miss Chuyen created new teaching resources for a new task of teaching gifted students (p.181) while Mr Hai and Mrs Thi generated new ways of conducting chemistry experiments to deal with the poor physical conditions of the labs (p.167); and while Mrs Hue preferred to create new examples, explanations, metaphors, and so on when she met new students and she was able to use older materials to teach effectively while avoiding the boring repetition of teaching (p.170). All of these participants in their different ways I considered were engaging in little-c creativity to create effective and good learning environments for their specific contexts, given the particular constraints of those contexts. I considered that this view was supported by other researchers (Jarvis, 2006, Marzano, 2007, Sawyer, 2011). Jarvis (2006) argued the more teachers are concerned about supporting each student in terms of learning and achieving individual potential, the more teachers have to follow their own teaching styles instead of following the teaching methods prescribed. Similarly, Marzano (2007) argued that research will never be able to identify instructional strategies that work with every student in every class. Therefore, determining which strategies to employ with the right students at the right time depends on teachers’ creativity and this was supported in the data from these teachers’ 205

perspectives of what being a creative chemistry teacher meant within the Vietnamese context. More generally, Bramwell et al. (2011) came to conclude that It is difficult to imagine successful teaching that does not depend on teachers’ creativity. Teachers engage in everyday creativity when they plan and improvise lessons to meet the needs, interests, and abilities of specific students while conforming to the formal curriculum and available resources and when they juggle different interpersonal, instructional, and managerial tasks and problems, handling challenges on the spot with little or no warning (ibid, p.228)

In summary, through ideas which emerged from the data and the supportive ideas which emerged from the literature, I would suggest that teaching creatively is essential for both effective teaching (successfully achieving the official requirements) and good teaching (achieving better learning outcome in comparison with the official requirements). In addition to the reasons why these teachers needed creativity, the lack of teaching resources, the diversity of students, the diversity of contexts that appeared to resonate with the stand points of researchers in the literature discussed before, I would suggest another aspect that emerged from the data around their need for creativity. They needed creativity to create alternative teaching resources in order to overcome the boring repetition of teaching and to motivate students to learn. Therefore, perhaps their teaching could be considered as “human originality at work and leisure across the diverse activities of everyday life” (Richards, 2010a, p.190), or in other words, these teachers’ creativity in teaching might be classified as “little-c creativity”. A fuller understanding of the aims and reasons around teaching creatively coming from the participants’ perspectives and experiences as well as the stand points of some researchers as stated before allowed me to consider an issue debated in the introduction chapter: is teaching a science or an art? The science of teaching emphasised the important role of the educational research findings and, especially in Vietnam, the teaching guidance mandated by law and educational organisations on teachers’ teaching. However the art of teaching emphasised the important role of teachers’ creativity in teaching (as discussed in the introduction chapter). It is obvious from the literature (Jarvis, 2006, Marzano, 2007) that the educational research findings and the official teaching guidance are essential for teaching. It was also evident from this study as discussed before that the need for teachers to teach creatively is essential for teaching to develop in Vietnam. Consequently, I would conclude that teaching is both a science and an art; these teachers need, not only the educational research findings and the official

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teaching guidance, but also their personal creativity in order to achieve effective teaching as well as good teaching (Jarvis, 2006, Marzano, 2007). This conclusion, which I have drawn from my participants’ perspectives and experiences as well as the ideas of educational researchers, did not only challenge the social perception about teachers and teaching in Vietnam (teachers as boatmen) but also challenges teachers, teacher mentors, educational administrators, and educators in Vietnam who consider teaching creatively as an important option. Teaching creatively needs to become an integral part of teaching for chemistry teachers in Vietnam; these teachers’ creativity needs to be nurtured by teachers themselves as well as all responsible people within education in Vietnam. 7.3

Teachers’ Creative Process

From analysing the participants’ experiences of creating their creative activities (see the theme Multiple Phases of the Creative Process, p.174), I would consider that their creative processes included four stages and that the aims of these stages were identifying a task or problem and creating criteria; gathering and reactivating relevant information and resources; seeking and producing potential responses; and evaluating the possible responses against the criteria. The similarity between my finding and Wallas’ classic four-stage model (cited in Lubart, 2001) enabled me to name these stages as preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification, respectively. However, these findings revealed several differences in comparison with Wallas’ classic four-stage model. Firstly, from the experiences of Mr Khoa and Mr Nguyen analysed in that theme, I found that their creative processes could happen in order, from identifying a task or problem and creating criteria to evaluating the possible responses against the criteria. However, the experiences of these participants also pointed out that there were interactions between the stages, therefore, new creative processes could be started not at the stage of preparation, but at the stage of incubation, or illumination, or verification. These teachers’ creative processes did not always stop at the verification stage. Instead, it could stop at the incubation stage or the illumination stage if these teachers found effective responses from the available resources or their existing experiences. These findings seemed to be supported by creativity researchers. For example, Cropley and Cropley (2008, 2010) proposed that the creative process can happen either in the “classic” order, from preparation to incubation, to illumination and to verification, or in 207

other orders; it can start at any stage and end at any stage and there are mutual interactions among the stages. These findings as well as the support of creativity research enabled me to consider constructing a model of these teachers’ creative process as can be seen in Figure 14. In this model, I use the double-headed arrows to show the possible interactions between the stages as well as the possible orders that these teachers’ creative processes could happen.

Figure 14: A Model of Teachers’ Creative Process Secondly, from the experiences of these participants, I found that the mental process described above did not only produce creative activities, but also uncreative activities because if the participants found effective responses from the resources or their old experiences, these responses were not new. These findings were also supported by creativity researchers. For example, Amabile (1996) proposed that one thinking process can explain the formations of creative, less-creative or uncreative responses. Thirdly, from the experiences of Mr Khoa and Mr Nguyen, I found that there was a similarity between the strategies that these participants used to create creative activities and the examples (see Table 2, p.52) that the authors (Finke et al., 1992, Ward et al., 1999, Ward and Kolomyst, 2010) used to illustrate the Geneplore model. In the first section of this chapter, I tentatively suggested that the strategies that my participants used to transfer content knowledge were in line with the research findings relating to strategies to teach effectively. Therefore, I would suggest for further studies that investigating the Geneplore model and the pedagogical research findings relating to teaching strategies in more depth may be useful to explain what happens in the stages of incubation and illumination. Fourthly, analysing Mr Hoa’s experience discussed in that theme unfolded that some possible responses emerged intuitively rather than intentionally. This finding was in line 208

with the proposition of Cropley and Cropley (2008, 2010) that potential responses (the “insight” or Aha! Moment) can result from either an intentional activity (responses emerging during the process of seeking potential responses) or unintentional activities (responses emerging during the process of other activities). Fifthly, from analysing the data in the theme mentioned above as well as the resources for these teachers’ creative activities mentioned in the first section of this chapter, I agreed with Amabile (1996) that the creative process was influenced by several factors, such as knowledge, personalities, and social environments. These factors as well as the influences of these factors on these teachers’ creative processes will be discussed in more depth in the next two sections. 7.4

The Characteristics of Creative Teachers

In the subsection 7.2, I discussed the aims and reasons for teaching creatively. One of the propositions in that discussion was that teachers needed creativity to deal with challenges coming from the diversity of students and educational contexts for the aim of teaching effectively. This proposition, consequently, led to another proposition: teaching creatively is an essential part of effective teaching or effective teachers are potentially creative teachers. Through the process of recruiting my sample as discussed in section 5.3.1, I considered my participants to be effective or good teachers, and therefore, they could be considered as potentially creative teachers. However it is clear that their creativity was context bound within the Vietnamese educational system and may not be perceived as creative as defined by the wider and international academic debates on creativity. Their creative activities as discussed in section 7.1 evidenced this assumption. In other words, theoretically as well as practically, I concluded that my participants were creative teachers as defined within the limits of the Vietnamese system but not as defined by the wider and international academic community. This conclusion was a necessary condition to start discussing the characteristics of creative teachers. Their characteristics will be discussed in relation to their perspectives on creative processes and creative products. In short, with the aim of understanding the characteristics of creative teachers, I will discuss the characteristics displayed by my participants that emerged from the data and impacted upon their creative processes and creative activities.

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7.4.1 The influence of teachers’ knowledge on teachers’ creativity In chapter three, I reviewed the literature to explore the perspectives of the researchers about the relationship between knowledge and creativity. Most researchers I reviewed (see Weisberg, 1999) believed that one needs to have knowledge of a domain with the aim of going beyond and creating something new and useful within that domain. The findings of this study (see the subtheme Teachers’ Knowledge and Teachers’ Potential to be Creative, p.179) revealed a similar conclusion: to be more creative (to be able to create various creative activities as discussed in the section 7.1), teachers should grasp many different categories of teacher knowledge. Analysing the data presented in that subtheme pointed out that, besides the categories of knowledge that Shulman (1987) called the knowledge base of teaching (i.e., knowledge of content, knowledge of general pedagogy, knowledge of curriculum, knowledge of learners and learning, and knowledge of context), teachers also have to grasp knowledge of some domains relating to the educational aims (e.g., knowledge of philosophy, knowledge of creativity), and some domains relating to teaching tools (e.g., knowledge of information and communication technology). However, while some researchers (Weisberg, 1999) proposed that knowledge is always conducive to creativity, they believed that knowledge may be both conducive and detrimental to creativity. Cropley and Cropley (2008) called this the paradox, “knowledge may well be indispensable for creativity, but can also be a threat to it” (p.358), and Sternberg and O'Hara (1999) called this a double-edged sword of knowledge, On the one hand, in order to advance a field beyond where it is, one needs the knowledge to know where the field is … On the other hand, knowledge can impede creativity by leading an individual to become entrenched (p.256).

The findings of this study (see the subtheme Teachers’ Knowledge May Be Harmful to Teachers’ creativity, p.183) revealed that some of these experienced teachers’ creativity could be reduced because of their large repertoires of teaching strategies generated to deal with various students in various contexts and therefore they did not need to create more strategies. This finding enabled me to consider that teachers’ personal practical knowledge (solutions that teachers create in order to deal with the challenges emerging in the interaction with particular students and particular educational contexts, similar to what other authors named maxims and perspectives (Dreyfus, 2009, Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 1986), or practical rules, practical principles, and images (Elbaz, 1983)) can be 210

detrimental to teachers’ creativity. Moreover, I would argue that some experienced teachers’ creativity can be reduced because when these teachers possess a huge amount of narrative knowledge, the number of the challenges (the needs for teachers’ creativity) may be reduced significantly. On the contrary, the findings (discussed in the subtheme mentioned above) also revealed that some of these experienced teachers were more flexible, improvisational and intuitive in teaching. This finding together with the views of some researchers that expert teachers spend less time preparing lessons while they are more flexible, improvisational, and intuitive in performances (Berliner, 2001, Tsui, 2003, Berliner, 2004) enabled me to consider that these teachers’ narrative knowledge could be detrimental to teachers’ creativity in the pre-active phase rather than inter-active phase. Moreover, I believe that there were two types of expert teachers, crystallised experts teachers and fluid (or adaptive) expert teachers among my participants. The former tended to be less creative and to feel it was difficult to deal with new situations because they were bounded by their experiences while the latter tended to go beyond their experience to overcome the boring repetition of teaching and to deal with new situations. From those propositions, I would suggest that to be more creative in teaching, teachers should be aware that the more “knowledge base” they have the more creative they could be but it could also inhibit their creativity. The term “knowledge base” that I used here implied not only what Shulman (1987) suggested, but also knowledge of some domains relating to the educational aims and teaching tools as mentioned above. Moreover, I would suggest that teachers should be aware of “the experiential teaching trap”. The experiences of effective teaching can lead teachers to feel that it is difficult to deal with new situations and can feel bored because of these repeated experiences. 7.4.2 The influence of teachers’ personalities on teachers’ creativity The findings of this study, as analysed in the subtheme Teachers’ Personalities and Teachers’ Potential to be Creative, (p.186) showed that my participants’ typical personality traits relating to creativity was a “love for teaching” or professional passion. Because of their “love for teaching”, they tried their best to overcome the possible challenges to teach effectively and to make students’ learning more interesting, exciting, and effective. The findings also revealed that these teachers’ professional passion was driven by four needs, including the need to care for students, the need to do their best, the need to have prestige, and the need to earn a reasonable income. The first three 211

needs corresponded to what Deci and Ryan (1990, 2008b) called individual’s innate basic psychological needs including relatedness, competence, and autonomy, respectively. These three needs caused what is called intrinsic motivation, “the motivation to engage in activity for its own sake” (Hennessey, 2010, p.343). Therefore, in line with the researchers ( Hong et al., 2005, Niu and Zhou, 2010, Bramwell et al., 2011) who conducted studies relating to teaching creatively I would argue that creative teachers are intrinsically motivated to teach creatively. The last element that drove my participants, the need to earn a reasonable income, could be considered as extrinsic motivation, “the motivation to do something for some external goal” (Hennessey, 2010, p.343). Because the need to earn a reasonable income forced my participants to care more for students and do their best in creative teaching, I would argue that this type of extrinsic motivation supported their intrinsic motivation. In other words, the need to earn a reasonable income was a synergistic extrinsic motivation (Amabile, 1996). In short, I would consider that these teachers were intrinsically motivated to teach creatively; and they were also extrinsically motivated to teach creatively by the need to earn a reasonable income. Moreover, the findings of this study (as analysed in the subtheme 6.4.2.2) pointed out that these participants were free from their mandated teaching resources and from the administrations of the schools. I would consider teachers’ freedom from teaching resources as openness to experience, one of the cognitive personality traits of creative people (Feist, 2010). While teachers’ freedom from the administrations of the schools could be seen as willingness to overcome obstacles, willingness to take sensible risks, and self-efficacy; these were the habits (Sternberg, 2007), or the social personality traits (Feist, 2010) of creative people. Therefore, together with the trait of a “love for teaching”, this can be classified as a motivational-affective personality trait (Feist, 2010), I am drawn to the ideas of researchers (Hong et al., 2005, Niu and Zhou, 2010, Bramwell et al., 2011) who conducted studies relating to teaching creatively to conclude that creative teachers possess a special personality constellation shared by creative people as proposed by Feist (2010) and Sternberg (2007) (discussed in section 3.2.3.1). However, my participants’ freedom was relative (discussed in the subtheme 6.4.2.2). They did not need to teach exactly the same as the content of the textbooks, but they had to respect the standard curriculum content as well as the educational aims and objectives. They did not care how the administrators evaluated them, but they were concerned 212

about how their students evaluated them. This finding led me to consider the view of other writers such as Csikszentmihalyi (1996a) and Cropley and Cropley (2008) that creative people possess the antithetical traits synergistically. Analysing the data in that subtheme revealed that besides the personalities of creative teachers discussed above, my participants were also disciplined teachers who conformed to the guidance of the statutory documents which constrained and inhibited the extent of their creative potential. 7.5

Environment for Teaching Creatively

The findings of this study, discussed in the theme Good Environments for Teachers’ Potential Creativity to Thrive, (p.190) showed several typical features of an environment that could potentially support these teachers’ creativity. Firstly, it was an environment that gave them opportunities to both improve, and put constraints on, their knowledge relating to teaching creatively. Secondly, that it was a complex environment where the private tutoring sector provided potentially more freedom than the general upper secondary school system. The former supported some of these teachers’ creative thoughts and actions far more than the latter. Thirdly, it was an environment where these teachers were controlled by too many inappropriate regulations but the challenges of this provided them with the motivation to over come the difficulties through attempts at creative solutions. Fourthly, it was an environment that was very competitive particularly in the private tutoring sector and in the gifted and talented schools. Fifthly, it was an environment where these teachers could receive rewards (e.g., respect from their colleagues and students, and a reasonable income) for their good and effective teaching and the achievements of their students. In turn this led the teachers to adapt the environments creatively in order to achieve good and effective teaching. The findings of this study, in terms of creative environments for teachers and what enabled and inhibited their creative potential, were well supported in the findings of studies on creativity by other researchers such as Sternberg and Lubart (1991), Amabile (1996), and Csikszentmihalyi (1996b). As discussed in the chapter on reviewing the literature on creativity, generally, an environment that supports an individual’s creativity is one that offers the opportunities for the individual to have a sound knowledge of the domain; to provide models of creativity that the individual can follow; encourages the individual to be creative; recognises the individual’s creativity (Sternberg and Lubart, 1991, Csikszentmihalyi, 1996b) and provides individuals with 213

informational or enabling extrinsic motivation and removes the controlling extrinsic motivation (Amabile, 1996). The agreement between the findings of this study and the findings of previous studies in terms of creative environments enabled me to propose that the typical features of an environment that supported teachers’ creativity presented in this study should be considered by Vietnamese educational administrators as well as policy makers with the aim of forming educational environments in which all teachers have opportunities to become creative teachers in the schools and colleges in Vietnam. In summary, in this chapter the findings of the study were discussed through the lens of the theoretical framework constructed from my understanding of the context of the Vietnamese education system, the themes that emerged from the data, and my understanding of creativity and creative teaching. In the next chapter, all that has emerged from this chapter, the meanings of the findings, the possible implications from these findings, and the limitations and future suggestions for research will be discussed with the aim of concluding this study.

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Chapter 8

CONCLUSION

The title of this study is “An Investigation into Vietnamese Teachers’ Perspectives on, and Experiences in, Creative Teaching of Chemistry in Upper Secondary Schools in Vietnam”. The main aim of this study was to understand teachers’ creativity in the field of teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam from the insiders’ perspectives and experiences with the pupose of improving the quality of teaching and policy in this field. There are several specific reasons why this aim was established and developed. Firstly, I believe that teachers’ creativity is generated in the mutual interaction between teachers and educational contexts. Teachers are aware of the challenges that emerge in the educational contexts and they create original, effective and ethical responses to those challenges. In line with the assumptions of social constructivists (Burr, 2003, Gergen, 2009, Lock and Strong, 2010), I believe that teachers’ creativity is a social construct. It is multiple, local and specific. As well as sharing some common elements because of typical characteristics of being a teaching professional; teachers’ creativity in different domains, different levels of education, and different countries also consists of several specific characteristics. Therefore, I considered it was important to study teachers’ creativity in the Vietnamese educational contexts to produce outcomes pertinent to the social context. Secondly, studying teachers’ creativity in the Vietnamese context was urgent because while Vietnamese teachers have been required to be more creative in order to improve their teaching quality as well as enhance their students’ creativity (MOET, 2012, NEUV, 2007, Tran, 2010), studies with the aim of understanding teachers’ creativity in the Vietnamese context have not been based on the literature. Therefore, I considered it was important to study teachers’ creativity in the Vietnamese context with the purpose of developing my understanding of teachers’ creativity in teaching and embedding this within the wider literature. From the findings of this research I will also be trying to support chemistry teachers to develop their understanding of creativity in teaching within the Vietnamese contexts. Thirdly, as discussed in chapter 3, a context free understanding of teachers’ creativity has not been fully achieved. I think this limitation, has occurred because researchers in the field of creativity in education have paid much more attention to the issue of 215

teaching for creativity than teachers’ creativity in teaching (Hong et al., 2005, Schacter et al., 2006, Bramwell et al., 2011). I also suggest this limitation exists because researchers who study teachers and teaching in various traditions, including teacher knowledge and its development (Abell, 2008, Grossman, 1990, Grossman, 1995, Shulman, 1986a, Shulman, 1987, Van Driel and Berry, 2010, Munby et al., 2001, Carter, 1990, Elbaz, 1983), teaching as performance (Eisner, 2002, Hill, 1985, Runco, 2007, Sawyer, 2011), and teacher expertise (Dreyfus, 2009, Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 1986, Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 1980, Tsui, 2003), have not really focussed upon teachers’ creativity, while I have found that these particular teachers’ creativity can be partly understood through the above studies. Therefore, throughout this study, I also had an aim of making a modest contribution to the context free understanding of chemistry teacher’s creativity in teaching. To achieve the research aims, four research objectives (research questions) were established. Those research questions included why Vietnamese upper secondary school chemistry teachers needed creativity, what they created, how they created what they created, and which factors influenced their creativity. Those research questions were established based on the belief that to understand these chemistry teachers’ creativity, it was necessary to understand the purposes behind their creativity (NACCCE, 1999) and the components of their creativity corresponding with the following four components of creativity: products, processes, people and environments (Kampylis and Valtanen, 2010, Rhodes, 1961). I believed that a good way to achieve these understandings was to understand perspectives and experiences of teaching creatively from creative insiders. My belief was supported from the standpoint of hermeneutic phenomenologists (Smith et al., 2009, Van Manen, 1990). In turn, their standpoints and the criteria (credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability) of the trustworthiness of qualitative studies, suggested by Lincoln and Guba (1985), enabled me to select appropriate research methods. In particular, I recruited seventeen participants who were mainly successful upper secondary chemistry teachers (potentially creative insiders) coming from four different cities in Vietnam. The data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews and lived experiential writings (supplementary reading materials composed by the

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participants). Analysing the data through thematic induction produced five themes as discussed in the previous chapter. In the following sections of this chapter, I will firstly follow the research questions to summarise the findings of this study. Secondly, I will point out the limitations of this study and suggest several future research areas that will be built upon from this initial research. Thirdly, I will suggest several implications that can be drawn from the findings as well as leading towards conceptualising future research. 8.1

The Findings Relating to the Research Questions

As mentioned, this study aimed to understand teachers’ creativity in teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam from the insiders’ perspectives and experiences; in particular, to understand why chemistry teachers needed creativity, what chemistry teachers created, how chemistry teachers created what they created and which factors influenced chemistry teachers’ creativity. This section deals with reflections on those objectives. 8.1.1 Why Teachers Need Creativity From the findings of this study, it was clear that there were at least three reasons why Vietnamese upper secondary school chemistry teachers needed creativity as part of their teaching portfolio. These included the diversity of their students, the diversity of the educational contexts, and the repetition of their teaching. I will discuss each of these ideas from the findings in turn. At the end of this section, based on the reasons why Vietnamese upper secondary school chemistry teachers needed creativity and the literature reviewed I will tentatively make a conclusion about the relationship between teachers’ creativity and teaching. The Diversity of Students Different students may have different aims in terms of their learning and needs and definitely have different learning abilities. It is impossible to have formal teaching resources that meet all students’ aims for their learning, their needs and their abilities; therefore, these teachers considered they needed creativity to generate alternative teaching resources or to use existing teaching resources differently to meet these learning aims, needs and the abilities of particular students so that they could learn effectively. 217

In terms of students’ aims and needs in learning, in Vietnam, the majority of upper second students study with the aim of passing the college or university entrance exams. It is not an official educational aim, but it should be considered because when students realise that their needs are satisfied, they are happy to study and they study with more motivation. To satisfy the personal aims of students, participants said they had to reset the lesson objectives, restructure the lesson content, and determine appropriate teaching methods to meet those aims. They also felt constrained by the examination process. In terms of students’ learning abilities, different students definitely have different learning abilities. The participants felt that teachers could not use just one educational strategy to teach a certain lesson to all students. For example, some of the participants thought that the less able students were required to achieve a lower level of learning objectives.They therefore considered that less able students should work with the structure of the lesson content in a more concrete way and with a more repetitive approach. They suggested that the explanations, examples, demonstrations, questions, problems, and strategies to solve problems for less able students should be different from those for average or good or talented students. To achieve the same learning outcome, passing the college or university entrance exams, for example, some participants stated that less able students should be taught mainly through instructivistbased teaching methods rather than constructivist-based teaching methods. All these tasks they felt required teachers’ creativity. However I feel this curtailed creativity. Moreover, it was not just about the learning abilities of their different types of students (less able students and more able students); it was also about the learning difficulties of each of their students. Among the more able students some participants considered that there were some who found difficulty with understanding chemistry knowledge which closely related to knowledge of maths, physics or biology that these students were not as good at; some quickly understood the theories of chemistry, but found it difficult to conduct the related experiments. Furthermore,they suggested it was necessary for these teachers to be creative in order to generate new educational strategies or use existing educational strategies in new ways to help students to overcome those difficulties. The Diversity of Educational Contexts Firstly, this research found that teachers’ tasks were often different from school to school in Vietnam; therefore, these teachers thought they needed creativity to deal with the challenges of various tasks. For example, it is the role of chemistry teachers in upper 218

secondary schools for gifted students not only to ensure the comprehensive development of students (the Title 1 and 4, Article 27 of the Education Law of Vietnam, NAOV, 2005), but also to develop their special aptitudes. Some of the participants considered that this task required teachers to reset the lesson objectives, restructure the lesson content, provide new explanations, new questions and problems, new learning activities, and more. Secondly, different schools in Vitenam have different physical environments for teachers to teach in; therefore, these teachers said they needed creativity either to effectively use the existing teaching conditions or to overcome the deficiencies of the context. In Vietnam, for example, teachers are encouraged to prepare multimedia presentations. However, pictures, movies, animations, and the resources necessary for effective multimedia presentations have not been provided; therefore these teachers often created these for themselves. In addition, in Vietnam, the chemicals and equipment for chemistry experiments are not adequate in terms of either quantity and or quality; therefore, again these teachers needed to be creative to improve the environment and existing resources of both chemicals and equipment or to make alternatives in order to teach effectively. The Repetition of Teaching The third reason for teachers’ creativity in teaching, highlighted by some of the participants, related to the boring repetition of teaching. This research found that teachers may have taught the same lessons from one generation to the next generation of students. At the beginning of the these teachers’ careers, through the stages of novices or advanced beginners, they did not feel bored when teaching the same lessons again and again because of the diversity of the students and the diversity of the contexts requiring them to teach the same lesson content differently to adapt to the students and the contexts. However, after a few years of teaching, some of these teachers reported possessing a greater repertoire of teaching strategies, the maxim and perspectives as suggested by Dreyfus (2009) or practical rules, practical principles, and images as suggested by Elbaz (1983), that they used again and again to teach almost all students effectively; it was at this stage some of them reported to feeling bored because of the repetition. They said that this often resulted in students still learning effectively, but not becoming excited about their learning because they ‘the teacher’ were not excited. To

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overcome this obstacle, some of these teachers created something new in order to motivate their own teaching and, consequently, motivate their students to learn. Teachers’ Creativity and Teaching In summary therefore the findings of this study showed three reasons why Vietnamese upper secondary school chemistry teachers needed creativity in order to teach effectively. These were the diversity of students (the diversity of students’ aims for learning, needs and learning abilities), the diversity of educational contexts (the diversities of educational objectives and physical conditions), and the repetition of teaching. Comparing these three reasons, the first two were proposed by other educational researchers (Bramwell et al., 2011, Marzano, 2007). Although these reasons were found from the context of this study and particular examples for the reasons may be different from time to time and from context to context; however, based on the experiences and perspectives of all participants; my own experiences; and the support of other educational studies (as mentioned), I would propose, from my research that these three reasons can be considered as the basic reasons why teachers (in different contexts) need creativity in teaching. Because teachers always face challenges coming from the diversity of students, the diversity of educational contexts, and the repetition of teaching, I agree with Bramwell et al. (2011) that teachers’ creativity in teaching is an essential element of successful teaching (Bramwell et al., 2011). Teachers have to follow the formal teaching resources to teach, while they also have to create alternatives or use the formal teaching resources differently to deal with the challenges coming from situations mentioned above. In other words, I agree with researchers such as (Marzano, 2007) that teaching is both structured and creative. 8.1.2 What Teachers Can Create The findings of this study showed that Vietnamese upper secondary school chemistry teachers had the potential to be creative in all phases of teaching, including the phase of planning lessons (pre-active phase) and the phase of teaching (inter-active phase). These particular teachers’ creative activities in the preactive-phase consisted of resetting lesson objectives, restructuring and transforming lesson content, determining appropriate teaching methods, and improving and creating teaching tools. Based on the thoughts of researchers ((Eisner, 2002, Hill, 1985, Marzano, 2007, Sawyer, 2011), I classified the participants’ creative activities within the inter-active phase into flexible teaching (teachers changed teaching resources and teaching approaches so that they 220

were appropriate to particular students in particular contexts), improvised teaching (teachers intentionally generated alternative teaching resources and/or new ways of using existing teaching resources), and intuitive teaching (teachers generated alternative teaching resources and/or new ways of using existing teaching resources in a way they were not originally intended to be used). Although these teachers’ creative products were diverse depending on their creative activities, I would suggest that what they created should be classified into two categories, alternative teaching resources and new ways of using existing teaching resources. In the following paragraphs, I will discuss in detail each type of teachers’ creative products and then point out the category of creativity that these belonged to as well as the criteria for judging their creativity. Alternative Teaching Resources Firstly, the alternative teaching resources that these teachers created were alternative lesson objectives. Lesson objectives included general objectives (what students had to achieve at the end of the lesson) and specific objectives (what students had to achieve in order to achieve the general objectives). On the basis of lesson content, students’ learning aims, needs and abilities, these teachers reported resetting lesson objectives so that students could achieve the educational aims (the general targets of a programme and/or a course issue). Secondly, alternative teaching resources that these teachers created were alternative structures for lesson content and alternative forms of content knowledge. They said they restructured lesson content (in other words, made different structures of the lesson content in comparison with the state text books) with the aim of making it appropriate for students’ learning aims, needs and abilities. They created new forms of content knowledge, already named as pedagogical content knowledge by Shulman (1986b, 1987), with the aim of making content knowledge comprehensible to students (Shulman, 1986b, Shulman, 1987) and motivating students’ learning. Shulman (1986b) suggested that pedagogical content knowledge includes “the most useful forms of representation of those ideas, the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations, and demonstrations” (p.9). I found from the data that it also consisted of questions, problems, strategies to solve problems, and scaffolding for students to construct knowledge for themselves. 221

Finally, alternative teaching resources that these teachers created were new teaching tools, such as new pictures, new movies, new animations, new models, new multimedia presentations, and so on. This type of teachers creative products seemed to happen within the specific conditions of my country, because of the poor condition of the labs, and the asynchronous and low quality of experimental equipment. These same issues are not necessarily found in other countries. New Ways of Using Existing Teaching Resources The experienced teachers in my sample possessed a greater repertoire of teaching resources (educational aims and objectives, content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, teaching methods, teaching and learning activities, and so on). These teachers were creative when they used different teaching resources to teach the same lesson effectively and excitingly for different students in different contexts. I found that typical examples of teachers’ creativity in terms of generating new ways of using existing teaching resources were using creative teaching methods. These teachers did not necessarily create new teaching methods. Instead, they selected and applied one or more certain teaching methods appropriate to a particular lesson, student, and context so that their students could achieve learning outcomes. A Classification and a Criteria of Teachers’ Creativity My data suggested that these teachers’ creative products were mainly generated with the aim of dealing with the challenges of everyday tasks, led by their personal interpretations of the diversity of students, the diversity of educational contexts, and the boring repetition of teaching the same lessons. Therefore, these teachers’ creativity could be considered as little-c creativity or everyday creativity, a type of creativity relating to intentional ideas and behaviours generated for solving life challenges or for coping with life (Craft, 2001, Richards, 2010a), led by their mini-c creativity, defined as “the novel and personally meaningful interpretation of experiences, actions, and events”, (Kaufman and Beghetto, 2007, p.73). Similar to other kinds of creative products, the literature suggested that two standard criteria for teachers’ creative products are originality and effectiveness (Kampylis and Valtanen, 2010, Runco and Jaeger, 2012). I consider that originality means what teachers create is different from the teaching resources that they already have and/or different from their use of those teaching resources. I think effectiveness means what 222

teachers create has a key aim of helping students to learn effectively and excitedly. Besides these two criteria, I have discussed what I considered was one more criterion for these teachers’ creative products; that was ethicality. I think that ethicality means what these teachers created to achieve certain educational objectives did not create difficulties for students to understand other educational aims. What they created, relating to content knowledge, also did not cause students to have any misunderstandings of the nature of content knowledge. As discussed in the findings chapter these ideas were evidenced in my data. 8.1.3 How Teachers Create What They Create The findings of this study allowed me to make two propositions relating to how these teachers created what they created. (1) In line with the ideas found in the literature of some of the researchers into creativity (Amabile, 1996, Csikszentmihalyi, 1996b, Cropley and Cropley, 2008), I found that these teachers’ creative processes were also multiple-phase processes. The model of teachers’ creative processes as can be seen in Figure 14 (p.208) seems appropriate to explain this process. In particular, my data suggested that these teachers’ creative processes often started at the stage of preparation. In this stage, they identified new tasks (as a result of schools’ requirements or personal intents) or new problems (caused by their dissatisfaction with their teaching or with existing teaching resources). In the stage of incubation, these teachers gathered and reactivated relevant information and resources. If information and resources were not enough for them to generate responses to the tasks or problems or they found out that there was something that was not accurate in the gathered information and resources, the deficiency or the inaccuracy of the gathered information and resources caused other problems for the participants. In the stage of illumination, these teachers either sought potential responses from formal teaching resources (e.g., text books, supplementary reading books) and informal teaching resources (e.g., colleagues’ experiences of teaching), or produced potential responses. If the gathered information and resources consisted of existing responses for their tasks or problems, their responses to the tasks or problems tended to be less creative. The process of producing potential responses was either an intentional process (logical reasoning) or an unintentional process (ideas emerged suddenly). 223

In the stage of verification, these teachers tested the possible responses by hearing the comments of their colleagues or applying the potential responses into teaching and observing students’ reflections. These teachers reported that positive colleagues’ comments or positive students’ reflections helped them to improve their practice and build upon successful teaching which they felt was creative and also effective. Conversely, these teachers had to start the process again from the stage of illumination (looking for other responses), or the stage of incubation (gathering more information and resources), or even the stage of preparation (refining tasks or problems). (2) I also found that these teachers’ creative processes were strongly influenced by their knowledge, personalities, and educational contexts. This proposition is discussed in the following subsection. 8.1.4 Which Factors Influence Teachers’ Creativity The evidence from my data suggested that the factors that influenced these teachers’ creativity actually influenced their creative processes. As mentioned before, these factors included their knowledge, their ‘teacher’ personalities, and their educational contexts. I will explain the influence of these factors in turn. The Influence of Teachers’ Knowledge The two main reasons that emerged from the data for these teachers’ creativity were the diversity of students and the diversity of contexts; therefore, understanding particular students (learning aims, needs and learning abilities) and understanding particular contexts (typical tasks and physical conditions) was essential for these teachers to be creative. Additionally, these teachers needed to have a sound knowledge of content, knowledge of general pedagogy (how students learn, how teachers teach), and knowledge of curriculum (the educational aims, content standard, and curriculum distribution) in order to be able to reset the lesson objectives, restructure and transform content knowledge, improve and create teaching tools, and teach flexibly, improvisationally, and intuitively. Besides the five categories of knowledge mentioned above, which are also considered by other researchers (Grossman, 1995, Shulman, 1987) as essential knowledge for effective teaching; I would suggest that to be more creative, teachers should have more types of knowledge than that. For example, as discussed in chapter 6, these teachers 224

needed to have knowledge of creativity in order to be creative when teaching for creativity; they needed knowledge of ICT in order to create modern teaching tools; and the more knowledge of different disciplines they had, the more opportunities they had to transform content knowledge effectively, interestingly and excitedly. However their knowledge of creativity theory in the wider context was very limited. However, teachers’ knowledge could also inhibit their creativity. The analysis of the data from this study leads me to suggest that when these teachers had a greater repertoire of effective responses (the maxims) for the tasks and problems that they often met, their need for creativity declined. Additionally, when they had a greater repertoire of effective principles (the perspectives) to generate responses, their creativity could also be reduced in situations where those principles could not be applied effectively. The Influence of Teachers’ Personalities This study revealed that these teachers’ knowledge of content and pedagogy was necessary to enable them to be more creative, but it was not the whole picture. One of the other conditions for their creativity was their ‘teacher’ personalities. Firstly, in line with other educational studies (Bramwell et al., 2011, Hong et al., 2005, Niu and Zhou, 2010) my evidence suggested that these creative teachers were intrinsically motivated; they had a passion for teaching. My study also revealed that their intrinsic motivation was driven by the need to care for their students, the need to do their best, the need to have prestige, and the need to earn a reasonable income. Secondly, these creative teachers were ‘disciplined artists’. This proposition is in line with the ideas of Csikszentmihalyi (1996a) that creative people possess complicated personalities, and antithetical traits. This study appeared to demonstrate that these creative teachers were playful; they were open to experiences, willing to overcome obstacles, willing to take sensible risks, and this gave them self-efficacy. These characteristics allowed these teachers to generate alternatives to the expected, the conventional, or the routine. Also these creative teachers were disciplined; they respected the standard curriculum content, the regulations for teaching and assessing, and other requirements issued by the minister of education and training and the departments of education and training for the cities or provinces. These characteristics seemed to guarantee the effectiveness and ethicality of these teachers’ creativity. In other words, the conflict within the personalities of these creative teachers (playfulness 225

vs. discipline) ensured that what these teachers created was original to them, effective, and ethical. The Influence of Educational Contexts In line with the ideas of researchers (Amabile, 1996, Csikszentmihalyi, 1996b, Sternberg and Lubart, 1991) that a good environment for creativity is one in which one can gain knowledge of domain and creativity, is encouraged to live and work creatively, and is precisely evaluated for what one creates; this study found evidence that an educational context that positively influenced these teachers’ creativity often contained the following similar characteristics. Firstly, it gave more opportunities to them to improve their knowledge. As discussed earlier, to be more creative these teachers needed sound understanding of their students, contexts, subject matter, general pedagogy, curriculum as well as other related subjects. Therefore, there were more creative teachers in the environments that provided teachers with opportunities to learn. Secondly, these positive environments gave more opportunities to these teachers to keep a balance between playfulness and discipline. As discussed earlier, teachers should be playful in order to generate original things and they should be disciplined in order to keep what they generate effective and ethical. Therefore, there were more creative teachers in the environments that provided them with the criteria for effective and ethical teaching while at the same time made more room for these teachers to be free in their teaching. Thirdly, the study suggested these types of environments motivated these teachers to teach creatively. As discussed earlier, their creativity was driven by the need to care for their students, the need to do their best, the need to have prestige, and the need to earn a reasonable salary. Therefore, the students’ high achievements, highly competitive tasks, and awards and/or the rewards for these teachers’ creativity became the factors that motivated these teachers to teach creatively. In Vietnam, within the context of teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in schools for gifted students and private centres for tutoring students for the university entrance exams this study suggested these were better environments for teachers’ potential to thrive than the state schools because they consisted of the characteristics discussed above. 226

8.2

The Limitations and Future Suggestions for Research

The main limitation of this study was that its findings ranged across a breadth of ideas and issues, but I was not able to explore this wide range of ideas that emerged in greater depth within the context of this small scale research project. While I have attempted to illuminate a reasonably full picture of these teachers’ creativity in teaching through an investigation of a range of issues (such as why chemistry teachers needed creativity, what chemistry teachers created, how chemistry teachers created what they created, and which factors influenced teachers’ creativity), each issue provided further opportunities for research. Consequently, the findings within some of the themes that emerged will benefit from further research. The idea of how teachers create what they create is a key area for further investigation. This idea is the one that I would wish to develop with a focus on both how teachers create (teachers’ creative process) in general and how my participants created what they created in particular. In terms of these teachers’ creative processes, the data suggested that their creative processes were multiple-phased. I tentatively suggested that the Geneplore Model (Finke et al., 1992, Ward et al., 1999, Ward and Kolomyst, 2010) was useful not only for explaining what happened in the stages of incubation and illumination, but also for using as strategies to create new things in teaching. However, this area needs development to provide further evidence. Through the data evidence about what my participants’ created, I found that transforming content knowledge (constructing pedagogical content knowledge) was absolutely crucial for these teachers to teach effectively and excitedly. The data also revealed that teachers’ knowledge of the theories of learning (including the behaviourist theory, the information processing theory, and the constructivist theory), teachers’ knowledge of chemistry for daily life, teachers’ knowledge of some other related subjects, and teachers’ humour played important roles in the construction of pedagogical content knowledge. However, the process of integrating these understandings and habits into pedagogical content knowledge still needs further investigation. Therefore, an important issue for me to explore in future research is how teachers create what they create; in particular, how they can effectively reset the lesson objectives, restructure and transform the lesson content, determine and use appropriate teaching methods, and improve and create teaching tools; and how teachers can teach flexibly, 227

improvisationally, and intuitively. These ideas emerged in my study and now they need further exploration. 8.3

Recommendations and Implications Arising from the Research

The findings of this study reinforced for me the proposition by Bramwell et al. (2011, p.228) that “it is difficult to imagine successful teaching that does not depend on teachers’ creativity ...” I believe that appropriately enhancing teachers’ creativity is an essential element and key part in order to improve the quality of teaching and to develop Vietnamese education to meet its long term goals economically and socially. I also believe that to enhance Vietnamese chemistry teachers’ creativity, there will need to be a large paradigm shift for both goverment and for the established teachers of chemistry. From the findings of this study, as well as the literature on creativity and creative teaching used to support the findings, I will make some recommendations for teachers, educational administrators, and mentors of student teachers at least in the field of teaching chemistry to secondary school students in Vietnam as the preliminary basics to developing a new paradigm of enhancing teachers’ creativity in teaching. Recommendations for Chemistry Teachers One of my conclusions from this study (summarised in section 8.1.1), in line with the thoughts of some researchers (Runco, 2007, Sawyer, 2011), was that teaching is both structured and creative. Therefore, I would recommend that teachers should be aware that rigidly following the formal guidance of teaching is not enough for successful teaching. To achieve successful teaching, they need creativity in teaching in order to meet the diversity of students, educational contexts, and to overcome the danger of teachers feeling bored because of teaching the same lessons again and again. However, in the process of their creativity, in addition to the standard criteria of creativity, novelty and effectiveness (Runco and Jaeger, 2012), teachers must consider the ethical criterion of teachers’ creativity as summarised in section 8.1.2. The findings of this study (summarised in section 8.1.2) also indicate that there is a fine line between structure and creativity in teaching. In other words, the evidence demonstrated the active moment by moment frontier that impacts upon each teacher’s creativity as they make decisions about how to engage and motivate each student in a particular lesson within a particular context. In particular, firstly, teachers may not need to change the educational aims of the programmes of their courses; instead, they need to 228

set or reset the lesson objectives so that students can achieve the educational aims. Secondly, teachers are not required to discover new content knowledge; instead, they are required to restructure and transform lesson content so that it is comprehensible to students and motivates students to learn. Thirdly, teachers may not need to create new teaching methods; instead, they need to learn as many of the existing teaching methods as possible and apply these methods appropriately in particular lessons with particular objectives to teach particular students in particular contexts. Fourthly, teachers are not required to invent new technologies and experimental equipment, but they are required to apply new technologies to create new teaching tools and to create new ways of using existing experimental equipment effectively. Finally, teachers should perform flexibly, improvisationally, and intuitively in order to make learning more interesting, exciting and effective. The findings of this study (summarised in section 8.1.4) pointed towards certain factors that influenced these teachers’ creativity. These factors show that to be more creative, teachers should improve the categories of their teachers’ knowledge as outlined above; be aware of the habits of being open to experience, willing to overcome obstacles, willing to take sensible risks, and this will produce self-efficacy while keeping respect for the formal guidance of teaching; and constructively build educational environments that are good for their creativity. Recommendations for Educational Administrators and Mentors of Chemistry Student Teachers From the findings of this study supported by the literature reviewed, I would like to recommend the following to educational administrators in Vietnam and mentors of student chemistry teachers in the universities of education in Vietnam in order to enhance chemistry teachers’ creativity in teaching. Improving social research skills. One reason that requires teachers’ creativity is the diversity of students’ learning aims, needs and abilities (summarised in section 8.1.1). How do teachers recognise students’ learning aims, needs and abilities? In addition to providing teachers with knowledge of learners and learning, from my own experience of my learning journey in conducting this research I would consider that teachers should be trained to have an ability to conduct simple social research that helps them to recognise students’ learning aims, needs and abilities. 229

Studying and disseminating the understanding of pedagogical content knowledge development. It is clear from the findings of this study and the studies of various researchers (Berry, 2012, Grossman, 1990, Shulman, 1986b, Shulman, 1986a, Van Driel and Berry, 2010) that besides content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge is important for teachers to teach effectively and excitedly while this category of teachers’ knowledge has not been mentioned in teachers’ teaching resources in Vietnam. Therefore, I would suggest that a study of how to develop pedagogical content knowledge should be conducted and the findings should be disseminated in an accessible way to improve one of the most important aspects of chemistry teachers’ creative activities. Periodic rotation of teachers. The findings of this study (summarised in section 8.1.1) and the studies of other reserachers (Craft, 2001, Craft, 2005, Richards, 2010b) pointed out that teachers need creativity to deal with the challenges emerging from particular contexts of education; therefore, I would recommend that providing teachers with new tasks (new challenges) after a period of time is essential for teachers’ creativity. Teachers have to go beyond their routine to generate new teaching strategies appropriate to new tasks. Teachers are also positively motivated to teach because they can escape from the possible boredom of doing the same tasks for a long time. Widening the room for teachers’ creativity. As mentioned before (summarised in section 8.1.4), this study showed there was a fine line between structure and creativity in teaching. The findings of this study and the ideas of other researchers (Runco, 2007, Sawyer, 2011) pointed out that too much interference from administrators in the “creative areas” of teachers may inhibit teachers’ creativity because it narrows the room for teachers’ creativity as well as decreases teachers’ intrinsic motivation. In addtion, too much interference from administrators in the “creative areas” of teachers may also reduce the quality of teaching because administrators’ guidance may not be appropriate to particular students within particular contexts. Therefore, I would recommend that a fine line between structure and creativity in teaching in the Vietnamese context should be indentified with the aim of widening the room for chemistry teachers to be creative. Rewards and/or awards on teachers’ creativity. Amabile (1996) proposed that rewards and/or awards that support intrinsic motivation (synergistic extrinsic motivation) can be conducive to creativity. In particular, I have found that rewards and/or awards that support teachers’ need to care for their students, their need to do their best, their need to 230

have prestige, and their need to earn a reasonable income may promote teachers’ creativity. Therefore, I would recommend that rewards and/or awards that support teachers’ needs mentioned above should be considered and conducted by the educational administrators in Vietnam with the aim of improving chemistry teachers’ creativity. 8.4

Personal Lessons Learned

The experience of conducting this research gave me a wonderful chance to study various schools of philosophy and various perspectives of conducting a social research project. The understanding that I have gained from those schools of thought enabled me to make a shift in my paradigm from a more positivist to a more social constructivist and from a purely quantitative to a more qualitative approach. The experience during carrying out this research also helped me to gain a sound understanding of the basic principles of education and pedagogy both in Vietnam and within the international context, as well as a sound understanding of creativity and chemistry teaching and learning studied in various contexts. Those understandings have enabled me to construct a new understanding of teaching creatively in the field of teaching chemistry to upper secondary school students in Vietnam, and to locate my understanding within the wider international picture of creativity and pedagogy. My research findings challenge an old and inappropriate perception held by Vietnamese people concerning teachers as boatmen (or uncreative people). I consider the data affirmed that although a successful teacher is a disciplined teacher who respects successful formal and informal teaching guidance, the successful teacher is also a creative teacher who is intrinsically motivated to teach and has an ability to alter their style of teaching so that particular students in particular contexts can learn effectively and excitedly. I would now suggest that in terms of teaching, a new metaphor suggested by my participants, should be teachers as disciplined artists and that this could lead to a new perspective for upper secondary school chemistry teachers and administrators in Vietnam. This new perspective is not only a call for changing the social view of secondary school chemistry teachers, but also and more importantly, a call for these teachers to reconsider their teaching, and these administrators to reconsider their organising and managing of the Vietnamese education system. I believe that my understandings of creativity and creative teaching that I will publish in Vietnamese journals of education and my 231

teaching at the universities of education may help them to gain the research-based understandings of those fields. Additionally, to help teachers to reconsider their teaching and the administrators to reconsider their organising and managing more effectively, a fuller understanding of teachers as disciplined artists is required and further research needs to be conducted. I believe that the knowledge and skills of doing research that I have learned through this long journey will help me to contribute more to that new understanding.

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APPENDICES Appendix 1 INVITATION LETTER Dear Sir/Madam, My name is Hung Nguyen. I am the former head of the Chemistry Department at Le Quy Don High School for Gifted Students in Danang, and have recently become a full-time PhD student, funded by the Danang Government, at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle in the UK. I am currently conducting a research project named “An investigation of creativity in the field of chemistry teaching for high school students in Vietnam”. The main purpose of this research is to explore the reality of creative teaching and teaching for creativity in the field of chemistry teaching in Vietnam high schools by collecting and analysing perspectives of creative insiders who are high school chemistry teachers, program managers and authors of Vietnamese chemistry text books. I know that you are a well-known creative teacher (an experienced program manager/an experienced author of Vietnamese chemistry text books). I would like to invite you to take part in my project. I do believe that your opinion of creative teaching and teaching for creativity in the field of chemistry teaching would be very useful for my research. Thank you very much for your cooperation. Hung Nguyen Email: [email protected] Điện thoại: (0044) 0191 265 0270 (0084) 0511 811989 (0044) 07 534 262 898 (0084) 0913150971 Địa chỉ: 36 Hotspur Street K748/05 Trần Cao Vân Newcastle upon Tyne Quận Thanh Khê NE6 5BE Thành Phố Đà Nẵng UK Việt Nam THƯ MỜI Kính thưa thầy (cô)! Tôi (Em) là Nguyễn Thanh Hưng, nguyên tổ trưởng tổ Hóa Học trường THPT chuyên Lê Quý Đôn – Đà Nẵng, hiện là nghiên cứu sinh Giáo Dục tại đại học Northumbria, Vương Quốc Anh. Tên đề tài nghiên cứu của tôi (em) là “Nghiên cứu tính sáng tạo trong giảng dạy bộ môn Hóa Học, bậc THPT tại Việt Nam”. Mục đích chính của nghiên cứu này là phám phá bản chất các quá trình giảng dạy sáng tạo và giảng dạy vì mục đích sáng tạo trong giảng dạy Hóa Học, bậc THPT tại Việt Nam. Nghiên cứu được thực hiện bằng cách thu thập và phân tích quan điểm của các giáo viên Hóa Học giàu tính sáng tạo, các chuyên viên bộ môn Hóa Học và các tác giả sách giáo khoa Hóa Học bậc THPT. Thầy (cô) nổi tiếng là một giáo viên Hóa Học giàu tính sáng tạo (một chuyên viên bộ môn Hóa giàu kinh nghiệm/một tác giả sách giáo khoa giàu kinh nghiệm). Tôi (Em) trân trọng mời thầy (cô) tham gia dự án nghiên cứu này. Tôi (Em) tin tưởng chắc chắn rằng ý kiến của thầy (cô) về giảng dạy sáng tạo và giảng dạy vì mục đích sáng tạo trong quá trình giảng dạy Hóa Học bậc THPT sẽ rất hữu ích cho nghiên cứu của tôi (em). Chân thành cám ơn sự giúp đỡ của thầy (cô)! Hung Nguyen

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Appendix 2 INFORMATION FOR PARTICIPANTS An investigation of creativity in the field of chemistry teaching for Title of Research: high school students in Vietnam. PhD Student: NGUYỄN THANH HƯNG You are being invited to participate in my PhD research project. Before you decide whether you would like to take part, please take time to read this information to understand why the study is being carried out and what it will involve. Importance of the research To achieve successes in the knowledge economy and the rapid changing world, individual creativity should be powerfully stimulated. Many studies have proved that education can construct and develop individual’s creative ability. Consequently, education for creativity has become one of the key missions of schools in the 21st century in many countries. In recent decades, many studies in the field of creativity in education have been conducted in order to construct the theories which guide educational practices in this field. However, studies of creativity in education have not completely conducted on all academic disciplines and degrees. This research will be conducted with the purpose of developing knowledge and understanding for pedagogic practices in the field of chemistry teaching for high school students in the cultural, economic, political, social and educational contexts of Vietnam. Purpose of the research The title of this research is “An investigation of creativity in the field of chemistry teaching for high school students in Vietnam”. The main purposes are to explore the specialities of a creative chemistry teacher, the attributes of teaching chemistry creatively and teaching chemistry for enhancing students’ creativity. Additionally, the external factors which affect creativity in chemistry teaching, such as culture, economy, and politic are also interested. Research Methods The research methodology used for this study is phenomenology. The studies employing this methodology describe the meaning for several individuals for their lived experiences of phenomenon. In this type of study, data are collected from the individuals who have experienced the phenomenon. The phenomenon interested in this study is creativity in the field of chemistry teaching for high school students in Vietnam. The participants of this study are administrators, editors of high school chemistry curriculum, authors of high school chemistry textbooks, and high school chemistry teachers who have experienced creativity in high school chemistry teaching. Findings will be obtained by collecting and analysing participants’ lived experience. Your involvement You are invited to take part in this research because you are well known as a creative teacher (an experienced program administrator/an experienced author of high school chemistry text books/an experienced editor of high school chemistry curriculum). You have the right to accept or decline the invitation to participate in this research. In addition, you can withdraw at any time if you change your mind. If you decide to take part, you will be asked your personal opinions about some issues relating to creativity in the field of chemistry teaching for high school students. To ensure accuracy of this study, we will be able to use some different methods to gather your views, such as interview, observation, and questionnaire. When we conduct interviews or observations, we would like to video or record them if you give your consent (if not, data will be collected by note taking only). All collected data will be securely protected by transferring them into password protect electronic files (image files for hand written documents, sound files for records and movie files

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for films). Then these files and their backup files will be saved in separate CDs or USB sticks and keep in locked drawers. All information collected will be destroyed completely after six years when the research project finishes. You have the right to assess the accuracy of the findings before they can be use for my thesis or publications. Any information published in the thesis or papers will be used anonymously. All your personal information will be keep confidentially. Contact details If you have any questions about this study, do not hesitate to contact me or my supervisors, details below: Professor Jim Clark (44) 0191 215 6420 [email protected] Doctor Helen Taylor (44) 0191 215 6445 [email protected] Nguyễn Thanh Hưng (84) 01254515043 K748/5 Trần Cao Vân, quận Thanh Khê, thành phố Đà Nẵng [email protected] hoặc [email protected] THÔNG TIN ĐỀ TÀI NGHIÊN CỨU Tên đề tài: Nghiên cứu tính sáng tạo trong giảng dạy bộ môn Hóa Học, bậc trung học phổ thông tại Việt Nam. Nghiên cứu sinh: NGUYỄN THANH HƯNG Để thầy (cô) có cơ sở quyết định có tham gia vào nghiên cứu này hay không, chúng tôi xin được cung cấp các thông tin liên quan đến tầm quan trọng của việc thực hiện nghiên cứu, mục đích nghiên cứu, cách thực hiện nghiên cứu và vai trò của thầy (cô) trong quá trình nghiên cứu này. Tầm quan trọng của nghiên cứu Để thành công hơn trong nền kinh tế tri thức và trong một thế giới đang thay đổi nhanh chóng hiện nay, mỗi cá nhân cần phát huy mạnh mẽ khả năng sáng tạo của mình. Nhiều nghiên cứu đã chứng minh rằng giáo dục có thể giúp hình thành và phát triển khả năng sáng tạo của mỗi cá nhân. Vì vậy, nhiều quốc gia đã đưa giáo dục sáng tạo thành một mục tiêu quan trọng trong quá trình nghiên cứu và thực hành giáo dục của đất nước mình trong thế kỷ 21. Việc thực hiện các nghiên cứu về giáo dục sáng tạo được tiến hành khá mạnh mẽ trong vài thập niên gần đây, nhằm tạo cơ sở cho các thực hành sư phạm trong lãnh vực giáo dục sáng tạo. Tuy nhiên, các nghiên này chưa được thực hiện một cách đầy đủ ở tất cả các môn học và bậc học. Nghiên cứu mà chúng tôi thực hiện sẽ bổ sung cơ sở khoa học cho thực hành giáo dục sáng tạo trong lãnh vực giảng dạy môn Hóa Học, bậc trung học phổ thông, trong bối cảnh văn hóa, kinh tế, chính trị, xã hội và giáo dục Việt Nam. Mục đích nghiên cứu Nghiên cứu này mang tên “Nghiên cứu tính sáng tạo trong giảng dạy bộ môn Hóa Học, bậc trung học phổ thông tại Việt Nam”. Mục đích cụ thể của nghiên cứu là xác định các đặc trưng tính cách của một giáo viên Hóa Học sáng tạo; các thuộc tính của quá trình dạy học Hóa Học sáng tạo và của quá trình dạy học Hóa Học làm tăng cường tính sáng tạo cho học sinh. Đồng thời, nghiên cứu này quan tâm đến các yếu tố bên ngoài có thể tác động đến tính sáng tạo trong lãnh vực giảng dạy này. Phương pháp nghiên cứu Nghiên cứu này được thực hiện dựa trên cơ sở lý luận của của phương pháp luận nghiên cứu “Hiện Tượng Học”. Phương pháp luận này được sử dụng cho các nghiên cứu mô tả một hiện

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tượng thông qua việc phân tích kinh nghiệm thực tế của các đối tượng thực sự trải nghiệm với hiện tượng đó. Hiện tượng được quan tâm trong nghiên cứu này là tính sáng tạo trong giảng dạy Hóa Học bậc trung học phổ thông tại Việt Nam. Đối tượng của nghiên cứu này là các nhà quản lý, các tác giả chương trình và sách giáo khoa Hóa Học phổ thông, các giáo viên Hóa Học phổ thông có trải nghiệm sáng tạo với quá trình giảng dạy môn Hóa Học. Kết quả của nghiên cứu sẽ thu được thông việc thu thập và phân tích kinh nghiệm cá nhân của đối tượng nghiên cứu. Vai trò của thầy (cô) Chúng tôi trân trọng mời thầy (cô) tham gia nghiên cứu này vì thầy (cô) được nhiều người biết đến như một người giàu tính sáng tạo, có liên quan trực tiếp đến quá trình dạy học môn Hóa Học bậc trung học phổ thông tại Việt Nam. Thầy (cô) có thể tự nguyện chấp nhận hoặc từ chối tham gia nghiên cứu này. Trong trường hợp đã chấp thuận tham gia, thầy (cô) vẫn có thể rút lui khỏi nghiên cứu này vào bất cứ thời điểm nào thầy (cô) muốn. Để ghi nhận thông tin, chúng tôi xin phép được ghi âm các buổi phỏng vấn với thầy (cô). Trong một số trường hợp cụ thể, chúng tôi cũng có th ể xin phép được quan sát những tiết học hoặc những hoạt động giáo dục cụ thể có thể minh họa kinh nghiệm của thầy (cô). Tất cả dữ liệu thu nhận được từ các cuộc phỏng vấn và quan sát thực tế (các bản nghi chép, bản ghi âm, ghi hình) được chuyển hóa thành dữ liệu số và bảo mật một cách tốt nhất. Các tập tin sẽ đều có mật khẩu bảo vệ. Nếu cần thiết phải sao lưu các tập tin này qua thiết bị lưu trữ (USB, CD, DVD, ...) thì các thiết bị này sẽ được cất giữ bí mật và an toàn. Tất cả các thông tin gốc này sẽ bị hủy bỏ sau 6 năm kể từ khi nghiên cứu này hoàn thành. Dữ liệu sau khi phân tích, sẽ được các thầy cô thẩm định lại độ chính xác trước khi sử dụng để đưa vào luận văn hoặc các tài liệu công bố sau này. Thông tin về cá nhân các thầy cô tham gia quá trình nghiên cứu này hoàn toàn được giữ bí mật. Trong trường hợp cần đưa vào luận văn, các thông tin này xuất hiện dưới dạng nặc danh và được sự đồng ý của các thầy (cô). Thông tin liên lạc Nếu thầy (cô) cần thêm thông tin chi tiết gì về nghiên cứu này, xin lien lạc với chúng tôi theo các địa chỉ sau: Giáo sư Jim Clark Hiệu trưởng trường Sư Phạm, đại học Northumbria, vương quốc Anh (44) 0191 215 6420 [email protected] Tiến sỹ Helen Taylor (44) 0191 215 6445 [email protected] Nghiên cứu sinh Nguyễn Thanh Hưng (84) 0913.15.09.71 K748/5 Trần Cao Vân, quận Thanh Khê, thành phố Đà Nẵng [email protected] hoặc [email protected]

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Appendix 3 CONSENT FORM I agree to let Mr Hung Nguyen, a full time PhD student at University of Northumbria at Newcastle in the UK, record and process my personal opinions relating to creative teaching and teaching for creativity in the field of chemistry teaching in Vietnam high schools, in the aims of conducting his research project. I assure that  I have read and understand the purpose of the study I have had the chance to ask questions about the study and these have been answered  to my satisfaction  I am willing to be interviewed  I am happy for my comments to be tape-recorded/videoed  I understand that I can withdraw at any time if I change my mind I know that my name and detail will kept confidential and will not appear in any  printed documents. I know that the research might show some sound, image and video data at conference  presentation in the way so that my confidentiality and anonymity will be protect. Participant’s Signature Name Signature Date

Researcher’s Signature Name Signature Date

XÁC NHẬN ĐỒNG THUẬN Tôi đồng ý để ông Nguyễn Thanh Hưng, nghiên cứu sinh toàn thời gian tại Đại Học Northumbria - vương quốc Anh, ghi nhận và phân tích các ý kiến của cá nhân tôi về vấn đề sáng tạo trong giảng dạy Hóa Học, bậc trung học phổ thông tại Việt Nam, phục vụ cho yêu cầu làm luận văn Tiến Sỹ của ông Hưng. Tôi cam đoan rằng:  Tôi đã đọc và hiểu đầy đủ về mục đích nghiên cứu này. Tôi đã có cơ hội đặt câu hỏi với nghiên cứu viên để hiểu rõ nghiên cứu này và tôi hài  lòng với những câu trả lời của nghiên cứu viên.  Tôi sẵn sàng tham gia các cuộc phỏng vấn.  Tôi đồng ý để mọi ý kiến của tôi được ghi âm.  Tôi biết rằng tôi có thể rút khỏi nghiên cứu này bất cứ khi nào tôi muốn. Tôi biết rằng tên và các thông tin cá nhân của tôi sẽ được giữ bí mật, không xuất hiện  trên bất kì tài liệu nào được công bố. Tôi biết rằng trong nghiên cứu này, nếu có dữ liệu âm thanh hay hình ảnh nào cần  công bố thì sẽ được công bố theo cách thông tin cá nhân của tôi được giữ bí mật, sự an toàn của cá nhân tôi được bảo vệ.

Nghiên cứu viên

Ngày .......... tháng .......... năm .......... Người tham gia nghiên cứu

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Appendix 4 INTERVIEW SCHEDULE Starting Questions (1) Could you tell me about your significant achievements as a chemistry teacher? (2) To achieve those achievements, what have you done differently in comparison with your colleagues? Follow up Questions Creative Products and Creative Process: (1) What did you think when you did that? (2) How did your ideas arise? (3) Why did you think that your ideas and works are new and useful? (4) What does the term “creative students” mean for you? (5) Was there any relationship between what you did and students’ creativity? Creative Person: (1) What inspired you to do that? (2) How did your knowledge influence what you did? (3) Were there other factors which influence what you did? How they influenced them? (4) What do you think about the term “creative teachers”? What are the significant features of a creative teacher? Creative Environment: (1) How mandated educational objectives, teachers’ resources (e.g., curriculum, textbooks, teaching aids, and so on), and education environments (e.g., schools, classrooms, students, and colleagues) have influenced what you have done? (2) How economic, cultural, political conditions have influenced what you have done? (3) How teacher training programs (including the programs of Universities of Education, further education, and training to improve qualifications) have influenced what you have done? (4) What do you think about the movement of “each teacher is a great model of morality, self-taught, and creativity”?

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Appendix 5 BRIEF TRANSCRIPTIONS Mr Quy 01. Mr Hung: Sir, can we start to talk about my study. Mr Quy: Thank you very much, Hung, for conducting this study because in Vietnam, teaching is identified with a rowing job and the teacher is like a boatman who repeats a repetitive job day after day. However, actually, teaching needs personswho are very creative. Teaching is a creative job. For a long time, in our country, many policies, many standpoints have killed creativity in teaching … I used to be a … of the national committee of examining the teacher books. I criticised. They (teacher books) contain unreasonable requirements. In this lesson, teachers are required to do like this; in another, teachers are required to do like that. As a result, teachers’ creativity has been killed … So I think your study is very interesting. It is very useful if your findings will be disseminated to enhance teachers’ creativity. At present, in our country, there are groups of teachers who are very creative; those are teachers who privately tutor for university entrance exams, firstly. Secondly, those are teachers who teach gifted students. 02. Mr Quy: Teachers are not persons who create new science knowledge because that is not teachers’ duty. In addition, teachers haven’t been able to do; frankly, they can’t do in the condition of upper secondary schools. Teachers’ main creative products must be creating creative ability of students. It means we have to create students’ habit of creativity, gradually conduct ability of self-thinking, and then ability of self-taught, (which is) the most essential factors of creative work. I take an example. Basically, all recent successful persons in education or science are self-education persons. Professor … is an example. He had a Bachelor’s degree in Biology. Later he taught himself to build the first set of physical chemistry textbooks of our country. I have been in many countries, made a comparison with textbooks of different countries, and I realised that there are many things only thought of and solved by self-taught persons. Let me give an example, the way to choose a standard status. What are used to choose a standard status? The different ways to choose a standard status. Other authors haven’t made it clear. There is only one (Professor … did). I take one more example, Mr Quoc (another participant of this study), a great person. How long had he been for university? Only 18 months … All they have achieved caused by the self-taught … Mr Hung: May I ask you more? Have you ever think about how self-taught relates to creativity? Mr Quy: Because a self-taught process is a creative process. One must teach one’s self, and then one can be creative. Because, I take an example, an equation. In textbooks, it’s often said “after some steps, we have” … someone accept this and learn the final equation. But people who have ability to conduct researches don’t accept that … You have to prove that equation by yourself. You have to find out the steps. Mr Hung: It is possible to have some new steps Mr Quy: It is possible to have a new way … you yourself have to find out the way, you yourself have to explain what people already knew. Later, you can find out new conclusions. Mr Hung: Have you got experience of encouraging students’ self-taught? Mr Quy: … For example, when I teach radio activity,after a series of instructing, we have an equation, for example N = N0 × e−λt . I stop right there and ask my students: … “From this expression, how many possibilities, how many problems are there which are able to be asked?” … The experiences show that this is a good way to teach the teams (of gifted students) because we cannot predict completely what the exams look like. Therefore, let candidates commend what people can be asked from this basic issue …. Students themselves have to think more … Therefore, students are not astonished when they meet a strange problem because that is already existed in their mind …

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03. Mr Quy: Another point I want to talk to you. There is one thing which has been neglected by Vietnamese teachers … science teachers have forgotten the philosophy of natural science. Philosophy, of course, is not only Marxist-Leninist philosophy. For example, the dialectic, Hegel’s dialectic is a foundation of philosophy. Using philosophical thoughts to enlighten the chemistry laws can help students to understand more thoroughly. … Mr Hung: How what you are talking relates to creativity? Mr Quy: Of course, students want to be creative; they have to see that the world conforms to the laws. Due to the perception that the world conforms to the laws, students start to find out the ways to discover the laws … Mr Hung: I have conducted a social research. I have found that even Vietnamese social researchers don’t understand philosophy enough. Do you think whether it is unreasonable requirement for chemistry teachers? Mr Quy: No, in my opinion, this is a social problem. For a long time, Marxism-Leninism has been imposed. This has caused antipathy. Students don’t want to study Marxist-Leninist philosophy … Gradually; there is a blank of philosophy in our society … (Mr Quy) Mr Quoc 04. Mr Hung: So, creativity is not one of main requirements of the curriculum standard, sir? Mr Quoc: I think it has not been a main requirement, that’s my understanding. Mr Hung: Are you yourself concerned about that issue? Mr Quoc: Yes, I am, but not much … On my writing, writing what the curriculum requires, what students need, not writing what authors have ... What students need, we serve … In your mind, if you don’t grasp them yet, how can you express them surely? (If) you write a book, you must read. Besides what you already accumulated, you must read (more), this book (and) that book, this literature (and) that literature, to supplement your knowledge. But, then, it must be “kneaded” carefully in your mind. You write what is yours. That’s good … The same as teaching. All knowledge must be possessed by teachers … they say what is theirs … not borrowed knowledge … Grasping knowledge firmly to be able to put something forward, change something. If knowledge is not grasped, one is bound by some books, is not able to be flexible … 05. Mr Hung: There is a slogan issued by the ministry of education and training, “Friendly Schools, Creative Teachers”. That relates to creativity, but they haven’t defined what creativity is. If you have to define creativity, what if your definition? Mr Quoc: I haven’t thought carefully about this issue. But, basically, it could be seen that creativity means knowing how to use, apply fixed knowledge, which is presented in the books, flexibly, depending on objects. Objects, here, can be understood in broad sense (learners), or narrow sense (upper secondary students). Doing in a certain way in order to achieve the highest effectiveness. Successfully fostering students’ activeness and studiousness. Having a passion for our subject instead of internalising passively. 06. Mr Hung: What are the characteristics of teachers that you think they are creative teachers? Mr Quoc: … The common characteristic of creative teachers, first and foremost, is loving profession … second, is having sound understanding of subject knowledge. (They also) have to know many teaching methods. Grasping knowledge firmly to be able to put something forward, change something. If knowledge is not grasped, one is bound by some books, is not able to be flexible. Even worse, using teaching methods mechanically … Mr Hung: You said that if one wants to be creative, firstly one must be good at knowledge … However there is an issue which is not explained yet by me. People stated that when your knowledge reaches a certain threshold, you can still be creative, but if your knowledge is too much, you will follow formulae, creative ability will be decreased? Mr Quoc: I don’t agree with that view because when (knowledge) is presented, it depends on different objects, different users. For each object, it is necessary to create an appropriate way. Secondly, how can we have too much knowledge? It’s always insufficient. Except you

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are self-satisfied, it’s always not enough. (In addition), it is not mentioned yet that it’s necessary to be updated, renewed more and more. Sometime, the old one cannot be used. Additionally, if you have much (knowledge), it was much at period of time; at another it can be insufficient. It’s enough for this job, but insufficient for another. Therefore, it’s never redundant. It must be understood that (we have to) study forever, until (coming to) the world of the dead. Never stop. Science is developing, why can we stop? … Mr Khoa 07. Mr Hung: Sir, if we look back your influence upon the field of teaching chemistry for upper secondary students, what are your important influences on that? Mr Khoa: Important influence? Different in comparison with other countries … we considered the student books as compulsory materials. Students must follow the student books regardless of right or wrong. In my teaching, I never use the student books because they are behind the times, in comparison with my books …. The most important part (of text books) is (chemistry) problems … (Students) shouldn’t learn the whole student books by parrot-fashion (rote). Force them to apply (theoretical lessons) into (answering questions and solving problems). Specially, the strategies of solving problems shouldn’t be classical ones, but must be modern ones … These problems completely are advanced ones, the problems which ask you to have to apply creatively. Many, even theoretical questions, you have to do in certain ways which let students apply all knowledge of the curriculum, combining both inorganic chemistry and organic chemistry … 08. Mr Hung: What were main resources for your references? Actually, the content of those books were much higher than the content of the student books. Mr Khoa: Yes, that’s right. Many problems were very difficult … At that time, I mainly created. Besides, (I) referred to the National (Chemistry) Olympiad of Poland, USSR, and France. (We) have to understand (the reality) to apply, have to add or cut details, have to be creative. Mr Hung: If it is evaluated by you, how many percentages of the problems are absolutely yours, not come from theirs? Mr Khoa: Ah, maybe, 30-40% at least … Mr Hung: … Could you tell me how you could find out those things? Mr Khoa: General speaking, they come from human knowledge. It means that, I read much, somewhere. I referred to the exams of this country, that country. I looked for their strategies to solve (chemistry problem), then I realised that their strategies are complicated and too lengthy. Then I thought “are there other strategies?” … Mr Hung: Is “the graph method” yours? Mr Khoa: Yes, it is. Long time ago. In year 80 or 81. Mr Hung: Are there others which are yours? Mr Khoa: They are used without any reference now. For example, “the electron conservation method”, “the diagonal method”. In 1990s, I introduced these methods in “Chemistry and the Life” (journal). You can’t find these phrases in other countries … Mr Hung: … Could you tell me when those ideas often come into your mind? Mr Khoa: The time that I have created something is firstly before sleeping time, lying and thinking of whether there is a different strategy to solve that problem. Secondly, walking. I do love walking. For example, walking to school … walking and thinking of some new (chemistry) problems … sometime, It took a month to create an interesting thing. Now, I have been thinking about how to teach chromatography for upper secondary school students … 09. Mr Hung: Sir, may I ask a question? In your opinion, what is creativity? Mr Khoa: Creativity means … there are something that are different from the convention … it means you have to create something new … For example, I have suggested integrating the modern methods of analytical chemistry into upper secondary chemistry … For example, I

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have been supervised a master student who investigates some ways to use (these methods) in Vietnamese condition, at any upper secondary schools. For example, chromatography; It must be used anywhere, without asking for complex devices or something else. Mr Hung: Sir, in terms of a chemistry teacher, a creative teacher, what does creativity mean for a chemistry teacher? Mr Khoa: In terms of theoretical lessons, you have to summary so that it helps students understand the lesson easily, understand naturally, and be able to solve advanced, difficult problems … in terms of practical lessons; you have to find out something different. Following the textbooks is not creative … you have to attract students … Mr Hoa 10. Mr Hung: You told me that you have learned a lot from your colleagues. Can you give me some examples? Mr Hoa: Examples? Mrs … I learned from her this thing … She taught her students this point: “this part of the lesson will be used when you are 11th graders or 12th graders. You can forget many things, but you have to remember this point to use later”. I have found that idea is very interesting. You are a teacher, you have to grasp the curriculum, and you have to know this part relates to another … After I learned from Mrs … that point, when I have taught, always, “Studying this lesson, you have to remember this section. At grade 11 or 12, you will study something relating to”. I myself evaluate that I have done this issue very good because of grasping the curriculum. Uh, I have done that issue very good … A second person is Mrs … I have learned from Mrs … this stuff. There are two important (chemical) properties of nitric acid, strong acidity and strong oxidising. “The thing is which type of reaction you will write, acid-base or redox, when nitric acid reacts with a compound A”. At the beginning of the lesson, she said like that … then, she concluded that “if A is a reducing agent, if we predict that A is a reducing agent, then nitric acid shows strong oxidising property. If A is not a reducing agent” … then, she gave an example, FeO reacts with HNO3 and Fe2O3 reacts with HNO3 … In one lesson, find out the core of the lesson, talking that thing first, posing and solving that problem first, that’s all. Because of that, students never make a mistake when they write reaction equations … 11. Mr Hung: What is the typical difference between you and other teachers? Mr Hoa: … Among those who I know, the typical difference is that I have a really concern on learning from my colleagues … In teaching, do you know what I feel sorry about? To achieve sound knowledge, I haven’t, haven’t known all as you. If I know everything like you, I will teach very well. Honestly, my knowledge is limit; therefore I don’t dare to talk too much about knowledge. To some extent, I have to stop, don’t dare to talk more. Therefore, I have an experience. I often talk to the young teachers just graduated: “If you know surely that it is right, you will be able to talk about”. Because young teachers often base on this thing, they reason deductively other thing. I have often seen that. “Know surely, you can reason. If not, don’t, because I met this. I had reason like that. When the students posed a question, I was in quandary” … 12. Mr Hung: Do you think whether some teachers are more creative than others? Mr Hoa: There are persons who can thinks of many new things but the number is very few, very few, while persons who mostly are not creative is very many, very many. I have had many classroom observations; I know … People teach, now, in Vietnam, following a common way is being loyal to the textbooks. They summary the textbooks and write down on board, writing down on the blackboard or making a projection on the board. There are few people who think about how to have an interesting and effective class … Mr Hung: Now, we talk about creative teachers. In your view, what are their common characteristics? Mr Hoa: The common characteristics of them (the creative teachers), quite a bit seriously, is that they love their career … Because of loving career, caring students; teachers start to

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think how to help students to understand. Therefore, creativity will appear. If not, they just follow a rut; rigidly follow the student books … Mr Hung: How about their knowledge (content knowledge of creative teachers)? Mr Hoa: Of course, as least, they are good at knowledge so that they can create. If they are not good, they can’t. Mr Hung: It means it is not necessary to be excellent at knowledge? Mr Hoa: Yes, that’s right. It is not necessary to be excellent at knowledge, but they must have some personal abilities that, without those abilities, a person who is excellent at knowledge still can’t do. That (teaching) is an art. One must be artist, has bit artistry, in order to do that. Right? If one is a bookworm, one cannot create something new. Mr Hung: What do mean by artistry? Mr Hoa: I mean, I said in a school meeting. “What is a teacher? A teacher is a disciplined artist”. An artist often does not obey any order. If you are both artistic and disciplined, you will be a good teacher. Mr Hung: What do mean by artist? Mr Hoa: Artist means that teaching in class, one does not talk dryly exactly the same as the content of the student books … I do not boast, but when all my colleagues observed what I taught, they said that although Mr Hoa teach chemistry, but it looks like he teach literature … when I was teaching, I could naturally talk very interesting sentences, I could talk interestingly for a long time. When I had thought back, I saw it very interesting. But that was not prepared, without any lesson plan … I have no idea why I can talk like that … I think like this, a singer sings a song, a singer is considered as an artist, she sing right on lyrics, tone, rhythm, and melody, we still feel trivial. But if she understands spirit of a song, we could be moved when she sings. That’s a real artist. In comparison, a teacher is the same. A teacher who can summary a textbook and solve (chemistry) problems very well is just like a singer who sings only right on lyrics, tone, rhythm, and melody, but not … Using “spirit of a lesson” is quite serious, but it is similar what Hung used to say: “for what purpose do we have to teach pH, for what purpose do we have to teach the concentration?” 13. Mr Hung: Let’s come back to the point that you could “naturally talk very interesting sentences”. Mr Hoa: It is maybe that I am artistic. How can I say? Told me to think and write it down, I can’t, right? I can’t. Moreover, in the past, I think I am influenced by Mr …, he is writer. He taught me literature; he used to do like that. I really like to learn his literature so that I become impregnated with. Then I speak it naturally … Mr Hung: Have you some teaching ideas that require your careful thought instead of naturally emerged? Mr Hoa: Of course, very many. For example, that day, I came to classroom and taught that lesson. I saw how bad it was. I imaged that students didn’t grasp that point yet. That night, arrived home and I thought immediately. Actually, I thought right after getting out of the class. That night I thought. The next morning I thought. The day after, when I taught the same lesson in another class, surely, I changed. I found a way I thought (it’s good). Therefore, surely, for one lesson, (what) I teach at the third class, second class is much better than at the first class. Surely. The lesson which I teach in three different classes is never the same. Next class always benefit more than previous class. Often, the third class is the most perfect … It likes this, Hung. When I was teaching, I suddenly realised I can create an interesting multiple choice question. While I was saying that you saw this knowledge when you was the 10th graders; you will see it again when you will be 12th graders. Often, they will combine three of them into one question. Uh, unexpectedly I said like that. Then I already created a question. If I am sitting here and think, I cannot figure it out. But in teaching process, I can, because I am inspired by the relation between different lessons; I always talk to students about that … 14. Mr Hung: Is there something that motivates or pressures you to teach?

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Mr Hoa: I just have one thought … If I do something, I will do for the best … I am a teacher, I have to study and do anything with the intention of my teaching is good, that’s it … nobody can put pressure on me, I am not under any pressure, just my own motive as I said. However, open a bracket, in my view, if our teaching in classroom is interesting, easy to understand, there will be more students coming to our extra classes … 15. Mr Hung: Looking back to your many years of teaching, you think, when was there the most change of your teaching? Mr Hoa: The milestone that both my experiences and knowledge was improved very much is the time when I attended marking the papers of gifted students, teaching gifted students … what I internalised improves my teaching in classrooms very much … Mr Nguyen 16. Mr Hung: … I would like to ask you two questions, could you tell me about your significant achievements as a chemistry teacher when you was in … city? And to achieve those achievements, what have you done differently in comparison with your colleagues? Mr Nguyen: In 1992 (actually, in 1989), the Minister of Education and Training published the collections of exams for university entrance. That set of books, in my view, is highly valuable. However, the thing is, knowledge in “the collection of exams” includes (chemistry) knowledge from grade 8 to grade 12 … With more than 140 exams, students don’t know how to study to achieve success. Therefore I rearranged all. I classified all questions and problems by group, all theoretical questions of general and inorganic chemistry, and all theoretical questions of organic chemistry, all strategies of solving general and inorganic chemistry problems, and then all strategies of solving organic chemistry problems. During one year, I both taught and rearranged in accordance with those headlines. After that, I published a four-volume book … All books are composed based on a norm like this: for each lesson, I summary the theories of the lesson, following the order of the textbooks; present all different types of problems and appropriate solving problem techniques which are easiest and the most concise to understand and apply; and use the techniques presented to solve a series of samples which are belong to the types mentioned. It can be said that the four-volume book are fellow-travellers of students who learn to the university entrance exam. It can reduce effort which costs for studying because it is systematic. Students study each lesson systematically. Therefore, it is very successful. Students who are not living in urban area, in where there is not condition for studying with private tutors, also write me to say thank you very much because they can teach themselves based on my books. I always think about the strategies to solve problems, the strategies that are easy for students to understand. If they are very complicated for us, they will be more complicated for students … When the collection of exams was published … I didn’t know how to teach, day and night, spending sleepless to solve (the problems), looking for all possible ways to solve because there was not any (supplementary reading) material. One year later, the instruction manual was published, but its instructions were not good, frankly. However, I had to rely on that instruction to find out new solutions … For the first several years, it was very painstaking … I have had new ideas when I didn’t satisfy with my task. For example, I taught a problem. I saw it was right. The answer was right. However, coming home, I dissatisfied with it. I looked for a better way. I had to search for anything that related to that issue … I looked for all books, everywhere, all my friends’ lectures. I searched every nook and cranny for books. I collected them all … Then I produced a formula, “if you want to solve that problem, you have to follow the following steps” … I have improved my ideas by composing books ... I had written the drafts. I followed the drafts to teach and observed students’ reflections. Then I came to conclude what is good and what is not good … 17. Mr Hung: Sir, long time ago, I found I your book an expression of the degree of an organic compound. I haven’t seen that expression in English books, so where did you find that? Mr Nguyen: I don’t remember where I learned that expression. However, surely, it doesn’t come from foreign books; it is products of teachers who tutor students for university

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entrance exams. Because one wants to prove that one is better than others; one must have something really striking. The strikingness might be formulas; the strikingness might be the way that one uses to solve that problem which people solve by this way, but one use different way, which is more interesting, naturally (one becomes) striking. 18. Mr Hung: Sir, I have a concern on the term that you just mentioned, strikingness. What are your strikingnesses? Mr Nguyen: My strikingnesses include some points. The first is … I had more successes when the questions (of the university entrance exams) were long-answers questions. I gave students very detail lessons, step by step … Honestly, my style is one’s who holds others’ hand and carefully shows them how to do. Therefore, the poor and fair students like me very much because I taught very slowly, not hurry, not hurry at all. Later, when the questions have been multiple-choice questions; because the number of questions is too many and because of the heavy pressure of the curriculum, we have to teach all issues, so I have to be hurry. But when I was hurry, I have found that my teaching was not effective. If I teach slower, I teach more effective. If I am more hurry, I teach more ineffective. I still think that my best method is the method including many steps, very detail … 19. Mr Hung: Sir, we come back to the issue of what you have done differently to achieve success. Mr Nguyen: … Because of the family circumstances, when I came out into society I have tried to have success in order to raise my family. During the process of trying to have success to raise my family, I had some initiatives. Those initiatives appropriated to that time and benefited my students; therefore, I have had prestige. That is it. That is my logic. To consolidate my prestige, I have written the referent books … Due to this way (writing the referent books), my name became well known and because my name is well known, I have more students … I didn’t work for any (upper secondary school), left them behind, I have taught privately. When I started to teach, I realised my decision is right. My decision is right because I wasn’t bound any more, wasn’t bound by any administrative structure of education (system). Therefore, I have wholeheartedly been teaching. At that time, I had to look for anyway to earn money; therefore, I had to use my brain to think of how to teach well. Because in Saigon, he says you must stand firm in the first class. Ah, the manager of the centre introduces you. If you can’t, you are fired … If you damage his business, you are fired. He can invite you to drink month after month, but for teaching, he will invite another … 20. Mr Hung: Sir, now we are talking about another term, as I mentioned before, creative teachers. Mr Nguyen: In my opinion, knowledge in the student books will sleep in that if teachers’ presentation doesn’t catch students’ attention. If (teachers) want to have students’ attention and inspire them, teachers must think of the different ways of presentation depending on their creative ability … It’s clear that students can read (understand) the textbooks. Presenting the textbooks is not teaching, explaining each word in the textbooks is not teaching … Mr Hung: How do you define creativity? Mr Nguyen: In my opinion, creativity is initiative … how to apply knowledge effectively into daily life. Mr Hung: Could you please explain more about teachers’ initiative in teaching? Mr Nguyen: In terms of teaching, initiative means by using all resources you have to help students to understand lessons easier and deeper. As I said, knowledge in the student books will sleep in that if teachers’ presentation doesn’t catch students’ attention. It’s clear that students can read (understand) the textbooks. Presenting the textbooks is not teaching, explaining each word in the textbooks is not teaching … In each section, teachers must have something different that is more helpful for students. For example, to solve a problem, what tools do students need to have? How to teach so that students can grasp all they need? For

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example, how many cases are there for the reaction between ethanol and sodium? How pure ethanol reacts? How about aqueous ethanol solutions? … Mr Hung: In your experience, what are the common characteristics of teachers who have many initiatives? Mr Nguyen: Creative persons who create many initiatives are very confident about their works, very confident. And when you are confident, you will have many initiatives … these initiative must be your own, when you present them, you will convince them … Mr Hung: How can we become more confident? Mr Nguyen: If one wants to be confident, one must perfect oneself before coming out to the society. Because I think the river of knowledge is very vast. What you internalise in schools, even university, is not able to compare with what the upper secondary school lessons carry because there are many surprising problems, many surprising solving techniques … For example, you hold a problem which hasn’t been prepared at home. Suddenly you solve it. There are two situations. Either it’s very simple or it’s very complicated. (If it’s very complicated), you solve it recklessly, you will get stuck immediately … Mr Hung: How’s about their knowledge? Mr Nguyen: About knowledge, of course, I think you are an upper secondary teacher. It is stipulated that you have to be a university graduate. That’s enough. You have all kinds of knowledge. Sometime, it is not sure that a PhD can do. Because he thinks why they (upper secondary students) cannot do the things that are very simple … I saw this clearly. My former teacher, professor …, after some words he teaches, students no longer follow him because he thinks that everything is easy … while, sometime, students don’t know what 1/3 plus 1/5 equal; there is someone who say it equals 2/8, that’s terrible … 21. Mr Hung: Sir, have you thought of students’ creativity? Mr Nguyen: I don’t have a concern about students’ creativity because my students are those who did not pass the university entrance exams. They are studying to take the exams again. These students prefer to listen (to teachers) than to do themselves … my students only want to follow what I teach … Mr Hung: It means you don’t require their creativity? Mr Nguyen: Yes, that’s right Mr Hung: Do you think that the way we often follow to train students for the university entrance exams can kill students’ creativity? Mr Nguyen: Actually, creativity is rooted in intelligence, it cannot be killed … Mr Gon 22. Mr Hung: What are the typical characteristics of your students? Mr Gon: My students? There are also some more able students, but the majority of my students are less able students … Mr Hung: Have you got any personal teaching methods for less able students? Mr Gon: For less able students, we have to have very detail reading material … For example, I have just composed a supplementary reading text for the leaving exam … mainly for poor students … Firstly, basic knowledge, I selected very carefully, then I have the bold sections, the italicized sections … The second part, I have prepared a set of questions relating closely to the basic knowledge, but more detail. For example, is fat an ester? How many functions does that ester have? … There are 19 to 20 small questions like that in the chapter of lipid and ester … The third part will include the types of theoretical questions, the types of problems, and some common strategies of solving problems … The part four will be multiple choices tests … 23. Mr Hung: I think you love to teach very much? Mr Gon: I do love to teach

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Mr Hung: Why do you love to teach? Mr Gon: Why do I love to teach? I think like this, when I create something new, students see them interesting, students feel cheery, I am suddenly moved … Mr Hung: Do you think whether there are many teachers who love to teach like you? Mr Gon: Not many, sometime, I feel sorry about some young teachers, even some old teachers, about their lack of ideas for teaching, teaching without ideas for teaching. For example, you have to think of how to introduce the lesson interestingly, how to express knowledge in understandable ways … 24. Mr Hung: May I ask you a question? Do you think if a good teacher is one who has aptitude? Mr Gon: Of course, I think a teacher is like an artist. It means that you are like an MC (a master of ceremonies) Mr Hung: May I interrupt you for a while? How do you define the term artist? Mr Gon: Artist? Firstly, it means talking. We should talk gracefully and attractively; both humorously and seriously … when we talk fluently, argue closely and logically … students are convinced immediately. Secondly, similar to a MC, we have to prepare before. It does not mean we can talk interestingly and fluently like that (without preparation). Although I have experience, if I have to teach an issue which is wee bit difficult to express, that night, I have to think of the way to express. For example, do you, Hung, remember the corrosion lesson? … I have prepared it for ten times, back and forth. I think, in classroom, a teacher is like both a juggler and a MC, and has domain knowledge. General speaking, we have to be graceful, as well as talk interestingly, humorously. Our knowledge must be steady, certainly. The more careful we prepare, the more interesting we teach. If not, talking confusedly, without logic, that class is not successful; students don’t open their mouth … when I teach interestingly, students open their mouth to listen to, I feel excited … I really like, for coherence, to integrate chemistry for daily life to be more plentiful. Students really like that … For example, when we teach starch, what should we talk more about starch in order to make the lesson more interesting … When we have not had the internet, I looked for the books relating to applications, or relating to biochemistry, for example … Mr Hai 25. Mr Hung: In your view, creativity means making some changes that benefit students. So look back to your experience, what are the changes that you have made? Mr Hai: I have some experiences, for example, when I prepare a lesson, I firstly put that lesson in the curriculum, my first step, the curriculum. The former lesson was taught like this, so how about the latter? Secondly, the text books are composed in an unchanged way. I determine what its cores are and, sometime, I have to turn it upside down to fight (teach), not follow it, as long as we can get our target … The second is that I have change, more or less, almost all experiments and practical lessons in comparison with the textbooks … I take an example, teaching acetylene, all by experiments. However, how to do both fast and efficiency? Often, people add water, forming this, then … But that way forms bad-smelling. In addition, precipitate with silver nitrate is not yellow, but black, because of extraneous matter. Therefore, I have created a continuous system. The gas formed is plunged into an alkaline filter, to process, then passed into bromine, then passed KMnO4, finally silver nitrate … I have set up on a ring stand as a helix. One can bring by one one’s hand 26. Mr Hung: Sir, let’s come back to your creativity. What is the next? Mr Hai: My other creativity is a set of chemistry problems … I don’t satisfy with “paper” chemistry problems. They are not real. I eliminated (them) immediately, eliminated. I take an example, there are problems like this, but exist for a long time. They still exist. “A metal react with a sufficient acid”. It could not be … It means our problems must be close to reality. Excess acid must be used, more reality. Or I met a problem like this. I don’t accept a problem like this. Mg and Fe react with a solution of copper salt. The reactions are very

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complicated, particularly with Mg. I observed … Mg reacts with water clearly … I had to correct. Zn and Fe are acceptable … 27. Mr Hung: In your views, in terms of creativity, do you think whether there are many creative teachers? Mr Hai: In my opinion, not many, it doesn’t mean that there is a few, but not many. Specially, with that curriculum, that student books, and that content standard, they just need to follow them to teach. Mr Hung: You mean there are many factors that limit teachers’ creativity? Mr Hai: Yes, that’s right, many factors … Mr Hung: Among not many teachers who are creative, in you view, what do they have in common? Mr Hai: If one wants to be creative, one must have love and passion … Loving career, having a passion for career, having love and passion for students. That’s necessary condition … I have often said that “we have to respect students, admit their critics, and then we have creativity”. When I have passion, after a class I always think: “Was my teaching effective today? How about this section?” And, sometime, moving from this class to another, I have changed immediately. Because of some sections which are not OK, some sections which are not interesting. Moving to another class, we change a bit. Actually, there is nothing perfect. If we have a soul of career loving and student caring, we should do so. There are some people who become creative because of some external factors. That type of creativity doesn’t last long, isn’t sustainable. Mr Hung: It means, in your view, creativity needs to be based on real passion? Mr Hai: Yes, to me, I don’t care how others evaluate me, but students. I don’t care the titles. Good Teacher? No … I am a bit cracked and risky … artistic, but risky … Mr Hung: May I interrupt you for a while. I have a really concern on the term artistic. Mr Hai: Ah, right, I used the term artistic … I used to say: a teacher is both a director and an actor/actress. We direct and act as well. That is an art … I often talk to my colleagues: you need to have a script for each class, and who is an actor/actress? And this role is very complicated because of dealing with changing situations. It is different from a film script Mr Hung: It means we also play a role, but an interactive role? Mr Hai: That’s right. Mr Phan 28. Mr Phan: Actually, I cannot change this book because of these things Mr Hung: What does it mean in particular? Mr Phan: It means this, while I am teaching, what expression I feel the best, it means there are many ways to express a lesson, the way of expression that help students internalise the best, I will write down that one. It means that instead of preparing a normal lesson plan, now, I see, if I teach this content and I express like this, students will understand better. Then I will write down on a paper, general speaking, on a note. I will transfer them into my lesson plan later … Mr Hung: That’s a first thing. Mr Phan: The second thing is reading carefully and studying carefully the contents needed to present to students to select essential points. Then, trying to present completely these points … Mr Hung: Are those the lessons’ objectives (presented in the student books) Mr Phan: Actually, those (the lesson’s objectives presented in the student books) are not my objectives. The objectives in the student books are presented for form’s sake. They are impratical … For example, the lesson’s objectives include ten points, that are the points needed to present, but I just present some points … Mr Hung: Can you give me a particular example?

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Mr Phan: For example, this morning, when I was teaching chemical bond lesson, I just asked them to focus on three words … the first one is atom, the second one is molecular, the third one is crystal, uh, and the fourth one is stable. Then, I asked them to make a link between those words so that you can understand the lesson. Later, if you are asked about chemical bond, you can recall all from those words … Mr Hung: That’s second experience. What is the next? Mr Phan: Selecting very complicated contents, dividing them into small parts, and then explaining each part … For example, the periodic law is very long. I let students to write it down into a long line on the blackboard, just one line. Then I underline this. What are element’s properties? Because when students read the whole sentence, they don’t know what an element is and what elements’ properties are, therefore, I ask them to underline these phrases, elements’ properties, and an elementary substance. Now, elements’ properties, what should we talk …. Mr Hung: Then? Mr Phan: Transferring the content that is difficult to remember and understand to funny stories that help students feel excited. Mr Hung: Can you give some examples? Mr Phan: For examples, when I teach about hybridization (of atomic orbitals), I teach the concept of hybridization by saying: “a girl makes lemon juice for four boys”. Because carbon has three p-orbitals and one s-orbital. If I ask student to make the overlaps, there will be two types of overlaps, s-s overlap and s-p overlaps. Therefore, there are three C-H bonds which are different from the last one. (Similarly), “the first three cups of lemon juice are good, but the fourth one is bad because of lack of lemon or sugar. How can we make four good cups of lemon juice?” I suggest them to pour all into a mug, mix evenly, and then pour into four cups again. “It was proved by experiment that the four C-H bonds are the same, so the four orbitals must be hybridized before making the bonds” … Mr Hung: Let’s come back to the notes attached in your book, can you tell me the meanings of each note? Mr Hoa: … For example, this lesson, I taught. Actually, the structure of this lesson in the student book is not quite appropriate because everything is included in this figure … Therefore, I asked students, form the figure 1.1, asked students to comment. We guide them to have the comments like this: each electron has a certain energy level, then … This lesson, for example, I asked students to learn by rote (at home), without understanding … Then, at classroom, call a student, then start to develop, “please present the aims of the examples 1, 2, 3”. When students are successful to present the aims of these examples, we start to develop new knowledge … Mr Hung: Can you tell me another reason that let you successful than other teachers? Mr Phan: I have many things to talk for cheering students up … Sometime, the buffers in between like that can both help students to both remember lessons and being cheerful. For example, when I started to teach acid rain, I laughed and talked to them like this: “Formerly, when I was young, it was possible to walk under the rain together with my lover. But now, you can’t. Why? Because you can’t walk and scratch at the same time. Dropping acid rain makes you itch” Mr Hung: In your view, creative teachers are those who have personal ways to help their students to understand lessons easily. So, could you introduce me some teachers who are creative teachers in your criteria? Mr Phan: Mrs … Mr Nguyen is also very creative teacher. But that’s when he was young, not now. Now he got so much experience … Additionally, I have observed many young teachers’ classrooms. I have found what’s interesting the lesson they designed, what’s interesting the lessons they presented … Mr Hung: Do you think whether teachers’ success is directly proportional to amount of knowledge that teachers have.

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Mr Phan: No, I don’t think so … I understand what I need for teaching. Of course, I don’t need to understand all … but enough to analyse them (chemistry knowledge) so that students can understand them … 33. Mr Hung: My study is about a term that is easy to say, but difficult to understand, creative teaching. I don’t know why I can’t find out the literature in our country about this issue? Mr Phan: There are some reasons that can skill teachers’ creativity … for example, the curriculum. There are some content we don’t need to teach, students can read and understand easily, but we have to teach and have to teach in 45 minutes … there are some lessons that through that lessons we can improve students’ thinking skills, but we don’t dare to teach by that way, we have to focus on how to help students to remember the content … Miss Chuyen 34. Mr Hung: … What makes you love to teach? Miss Chuyen: For me, the motive forcing me to work firstly is my feeling of happiness of working … of students’ achievement … secondly is increasing income. It’s also important … Mr Hung: Let’s return to your previous opinion. What do you mean by students’ achievement? Miss Chuyen: What I meant is the aim of students often is learning to the test. Commonly, they study to the test. Passing university entrance exam, only that thing Therefore, first of all, students’ achievement is passing the university entrance exams … Mr Hung: Could you tell me about the structure of your lessons? Miss Chuyen: General speaking, my structure is systematic. Mr Hung: What does that exactly mean? Miss Chuyen: It means I only focus on the important contents. I don’t do the same way as the textbooks. I don’t repeat the information in the textbooks. The importance is what students should learn within that information. Mr Hung: When you have taught the chapter of atomic structure, what have you done differently in comparison with the textbooks? Miss Chuyen: Actually, it is not right that I don’t follow the textbooks because we have to follow the content knowledge. However, I only stress on what is necessary for the exam. Something like discovering electron, discovering this particle, that particle, I don’t … 35. Mr Hung: You have been very successful in teaching gifted students. In you school, many teachers tried in that field, but they didn’t achieve success. So, what have you done differently in comparison with your colleagues to achieve that success? Miss Chuyen: To be honest, the training (gifted students) in my school was so gloomy. At the time I just came, it was so gloomy. There is nothing (good) relating to natural science subjects … My students are rural students. Their abilities of approaching different resources of information are very limited, very limited, but they are studious, very studious … Therefore I have to investigate effectively all information resources … by individuals, the individuals who have had experiences of teaching (for gifted students). Secondly, I studied the tendencies of the exams … I collected all the previous exams … Then I built a plan, my own plan. The first is about curriculum and content, the second issue is time … You already know about my students. Two classes per week are not enough. I have had increased the length of time. Additionally, preparing more homework … After studying relating things, I made a plan and asked the school manage board to allow me to teach … I had to ask them because they think it is impossible to win for this subject, therefore, they had not put it in the school plan … After my achievement, they changed their mind … … I want to teach gifted students because I want to improve my knowledge … when people talked about advanced knowledge, I was like a fish out of water. But I can’t learn without an aim, I must have an aim …

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36. Mr Hung: Your main methods are providing appropriate and advanced chemistry problems, using compliments, and making friendly environments. Besides those things, have you done something that is different from other? For example, in teaching particular lessons? Miss Chuyen: … I teach for many classes, different levels. In some classes, I use this way; in others, I use another way. It’s not imitated servilely, not imitated servilely. Depend on students I teach. Sometime, this section or another is not (necessary to be taught), but main content knowledge must be achieved. How do we teach? Requirements for different students are different. Try to adapt to that thing … For example, in classes of gifted students, we use a type of few words. Actually, I talk less and stimulate their thinking more, by questions or something else. Moving to the classes of poor students, explanation is more concerned; giving a lecture. It forces us to work harder. Because of students, we have to do like that … 37. Mr Hung: May I ask you a last question? Do you think whether the environment of Vietnam is good for creativity? Miss Chuyen: Vietnamese people are creativity, but I think we haven’t got the environment that improves students’ creativity and teachers’ creativity … the main reason is egalitarianism … everything is equal, for example, salary. The good teachers are the same as not good teachers. You are creative; you earn that amount of money. They are not creative, they earn the same amount. This leads to sluggish. Why do we need to be creative? Creative teachers are not encouraged. Some teachers can improve teaching tools very well. That is creativity … However, who care? … Miss Le 38. Mr Hung: We have success in teaching because we can help students understand lessons. Have you got some personal ways to help students to understand easier? Miss Le: The most difficult lessons for students are those in which there are abstract concepts. For those lessons, firstly, searching for illustrated images, secondly searching the examples of daily life. For example, to describe fast movement undetermined position of electrons, we suggest students to observe the movement of fan propellers … 39. Mr Hung: Now we talk about other successful teachers in our city, can you see the common characteristics of those? Miss Le: The first is that they are very professional. The second is that they love their job. The third is that each teacher has personal ways to help students to understand lessons … For example, Mr Hoa, he often teaches very concisely and tries to help his students remember the lesson at classroom. In fact, almost all of them can remember … he talks briefly and give them the ways to remember, by a line of poetry, a funny phrase … Mr Hung: May I come back to what you just mentioned, content knowledge. Do you think whether a successful teacher needs to be a wise man or only needs to have an appropriate level of content knowledge? Miss Le: We don’t need to be a wise man, but we have to be an expert in what we teach in classes … If not, we will land in an embarrassing situation when we are asked by students 40. Mr Hung: In your experience, what can teachers create in experimental classes? Miss Le: In the level of secondary education in Vietnam, equipment and others haven’t been sufficient. However, creativity in terms of experiments is like that, in the deficient conditions, people have been able to alter this equipment by another to conduct experiments quite safely … Mr Hung: Do you think whether there is a relationship between ICT and teachers’ creativity? Miss Le: Making animations is teachers’ creativity. Right? Many teachers themselves made simulations of the furnace; of chemical reactions … some made video clips of chemical experiments …

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Mr Hung: In the competitive festival of making teaching tools, have you found out some creative ideas? Mr Le: … Making models for teaching is also teachers’ creativity. For example, Mrs … made models of electrons and “quantum boxes”. Students drew the electron configurations by attach the models of electron on the quantum boxes. It was visual and easy to understand … 41. Mr Hung: In the interview with other participants, they often mention the term artist as a metaphor for creative teacher. I haven’t fully understood this metaphor … How’s about your opinion? Miss Le: I don’t think about the term artistic literally. I think like that, that are free persons, who think independently, are confident, and are not bound, are not restrained … because when they works for profession, they are not retained by promotion or anything else. Artistic means not to favour (promotion or anything else), they only have a passion for their job … Mrs Hue 42. Mr Hung: Obviously, you are a successful teacher. To become a successful teacher, do you think whether you have done something differently in comparison with other teachers? Mrs Hue: … It may be my teaching style. Students can easily understand what I teach ... I love freedom. I teach what I like to teach in order to achieve the best. I never prepare what I will say, like A in this part and B in another. I feel, I am, flexible, very flexible. For example, when I express an issue, I look at students’ eyes, I feel students don’t catch my meaning, and then I look for new language to express … Mr Hung: Your teaching is also very effective? Mrs Hue: Yes, absolutely … I have advantage, I and my husband have same job. We often discuss about our work as colleagues … Many times when I come back from the schools; I talk to Mr … (her husband, also her colleague): “Today I taught very well”. I praised myself. I felt very happy. Sometime, I have felt dissatisfactory because of many factors, like the noises outside or students’ disregard … I am very emotional when I teach. When I teach, I am very concentrated. If there is just only one (negative) factor, like the room is not cool enough or I wear a too tight shirt, I cannot teach, I feel sultry, I cannot teach. General speaking, I am like a singer. It means that I must be inspired. If there is only one (negative) factor, I cannot teach. I will be very sad that day … Mr Hung: Helping students to understand new knowledge is the need of all teachers, how can you help your students understand new knowledge easily? Mrs Hue: How can I say? It happens naturally; I don’t know how I have done … However, I have a special ability; I can recognise whether students understand what I say or not, even in very crowded classless. Additionally, I am very patient. I love to teach and what I want, I try to achieve. There must be more than 80% students who understand what I say. If (students) don’t accept yet, I will look for new language; a new way until I can solve that problem. Mr Hung: Do you often “looking for new language” before classes or during teaching? Mrs Hue: During teaching … I love freedom. I teach what I like to teach in order to achieve the best. I cannot teach if I am forced to follow 5 steps of teaching. If I attend the exams for good teachers, examiners may strongly criticize my teaching style. But if I am asked to teach students so that they surely pass the university entrance exam, I will take that task immediately. That’s two different stories 43. Mr Hung: How can you make a lesson become easier to understand? Mrs Hue: I don’t know. Maybe, it’s my personal ability? … I don’t want to teach by a stream of saying … Even I don’t want to prepare the way to solve a (chemistry) problem, instead, in classroom, I and my students together look for a method. Sometime in classroom, another (chemistry problem solving) method or idea arose in my mind and I felt excited. If not, I probably quit my job because of repeating the same issues day after day …

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I often use the examples of daily life. For example, I teach chemical equilibrium, if I say “if we lower the temperature, the equilibrium will shift to counteract the imposed change”, students look half believe. But I say “the weather likes this, if it is cold tomorrow, you all will wear jacket spontaneously. Why?” Then, students realise, ah, we have to find a way to increase temperature when it is decreased. Those examples don’t bring the nature of chemistry, and are not quite right, but students can accept … 44. Mr Hung: So, your strength point is flexibility in teaching? Mrs Hue, Yes, teachers should be free to use their strengths to teach effectively. They shouldn’t be forced to follow this method, that method. For example, reforming teaching methods, asking teachers to generate group activities. I observed the class of my colleague, she generated the group activities, but expected outcomes weren’t achieved. Recently, it is very difficult to follow the requirements of reforming teaching methods, using studentcentred methods. You see, students have to learn five different subjects in five periods each day, and then go to extra-classes to prepare for university entrance exams. In this education system, what students’ parents take interested in is “passing university entrance exam”, that’s it. Then, students don’t need self-taught. Actually, they don’t have time for selftaught. See, the curriculum is too heavy; students have to study more than ten subjects; in each subject, each day, they have a huge amount of homework. So? Reforming teaching methods in order to let students be more active? It is impossible. Moreover, students focus more on the theoretical lessons than chemistry experiments. Why? Because chemistry experiments are not asked in university entrance exams … 45. Mr Hung: I haven’t understood much about the teaching style of “non-preparation” as you have often done, but I have heard about what people call intuitive teaching … Mrs Hue: If we said “non-preparation”, it is not right … (It) just means non-preparation of words, non-preparation of language. Actually, I have lot of concerns, try to find out … For example, physical and chemical properties are easy, but the issues of the theories of chemistry, how to help students to grasp, to understand, for learning lessons of the substances later are concerned very much … In classroom, although I am very severe (strict?), but there are my words, they (her colleagues) think I already prepared to say at appropriate sections in order to interest students or make laugh for breaking the ice. But, honestly, never, never (prepare to) say that words at that time. I just look at my students and say inspirationally, so it is very graceful. They said that my talking is gracefully. Later, some young teachers wanted to copy. They thought they should make a joke in classroom, wee bit artistry, but they became ridiculous because what they had prepared were not suitable to the contexts … For example; today I teach … I use that example. If I reuse it tomorrow, I myself feel very ashamed although that are two different classes. I don’t like that. That is my character … For example, orbital, when I teach, I can use example of a goal keeper, but next year I won’t use that example again, instead, I will talk about where students can be found more in the breaking-time, classroom or canteen? You (student) have a right to sit in the classroom or even go to coffee shop, but probability of finding in those positions are little … I teach class A, class B, totally different, but I always feel ashamed of myself. I talk like a machine. I feel the job is boring. For example, today I was going to school; I talk to myself, if there was not any interesting thing I would take the example of a football stadium. But, suddenly, while I was teaching, I imagined another. Then I talked and I felt it was more interesting. Then, keep improving. Mr Su 46. Mr Hung: Your typical contribution to teaching chemistry in the level of secondary education is your books. May I ask you a question? Did you think about creativity when you composed those books? Mr Su: When I accepted this job (writing the student books), surely, I had the primary intention, but I didn’t concern much on creativity. The first is the preciseness of the content knowledge, the second is to let students become those who can do, not parrots … Mr Hung: What do you mean by “those who can do”?

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Mr Su: It means … Majority previous books followed the way like this: Describing a theorem, then here are examples or here are pictures (for demonstration). I have always done conversely. I firstly present pictures or data then draw a conclusion … Mr Hung: Is that the heuristic method, sir? Mr Su: It might be. Yes, that also is research … I didn’t think of creativity (when he composed the text books), but that is creativity. Why? What is creativity? Creativity means that you have to base yourself on events, phenomena, (and) facts to draw something new. You have to train, train students how to create later. Mr Hung: It means that training students what a scientist do? Mr Su: That’s right. And what a scientist does is creativity. 47. Mr Hung: We temporally stop discussing about your books … I have a concern about what you have done differently in comparison with your colleagues in order to achieve what you have achieved? Mr Su: … In my view, firstly, to achieve the success, we have to have personal abilities, ability of scientific thinking, ability of creative thinking … improved during learning and working … secondly, we must have a passionate motive, a passion. Mr Hung: Passion? Mr Su: A passion of how to do well, how to do creatively. Therefore, for example, this illustrative picture. I drew it, but I didn’t see it beautiful. I drew it again and again until I felt satisfactory. It is not because of money, it is not because of something else, it is not because of compliments. I did for my own satisfaction. Satisfying my passion … passion towards science, towards a goal … Mrs Thi 48. Mr Hung: Could you tell me about the possible shortcomings of teaching chemistry experiments? Mrs Thi: … For the lessons in classrooms, teachers conduct experiments as well. However, teachers bring equipment to conduct several demonstrative experiments in the classrooms just for some lessons. Mostly letting students watch the clips because they don’t cause pollution … Preparing hydrogen sulphide, it is bad-smelling, poisonous, pollution. Mr … conducted (that experiment) one time; all class couldn’t stand … (because there is not any fume hood). According to the textbook, all groups have to conduct that experiment. I see it’s much polluted … I have bought, for example, sets of equipment used to put together … glass tubes and rubber corks often doesn’t fit together. Moreover, the rubber corks made in Vietnam are melted before used … Even pre-assembled sets are not fitted and are only able to be used for one time … Mr Hung: Could you tell me about what you have changed in order to improve the quality of experimental classes? Mrs Thi: … For example, preparing chlorine. I don’t do the exactly the same as the textbook because … amount of chlorine formed is too much, not needed … I have used a Vshaped test tube … In this branch I will add potassium permanganate or potassium chlorate. I prepare already a rubber cork. In other branch, I will add sodium hydroxide … When it is ready to observe the experiment, I will drop hydrochloric acid into (the former branch), and then cover immediately. When the tube turns on yellow and the litmus paper is discoloured, students observe the phenomenon clearly … then I let sodium hydroxide run into (other branch) to neutralize hydrochloric acid and absorb chlorine, it’s not poisonous any more … Mr Vu 49. Mr Hung: What did you do creatively when you were an upper secondary school teacher? Mr Vu: Teaching gifted students … At the beginning I even didn’t understand what I taught, different from teaching “normal” upper secondary school students. For example, tutor privately for university entrance exams, teaching so wonderfully that students praise me: “he never needs any lesson plan; put his hand in his pocket, he can teach sunrise to

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sunset”. You used to be a private tutor; you know that the types of problems for university entrance exams are limited, right? (Chemistry) problems relating two equations with two unknowns already have a form. The remained issue is data. Use calculator, think of some data and give them to students. We can teach like that from sunrise to sunset Mr Tran 50. Mr Hung: In the view of a leader, how do you evaluate teachers’ creativity? Do you think whether there are many creative teachers? Mr Tran: Actually, generally evaluating current chemistry teachers, I do not feel secure. Creative ability is very low, except teachers who work in upper secondary schools for gifted students or teach gifted students ... To become creative, teachers must love their career … Mr Hung: You just mentioned about loving career. You and Mr … definitely love teaching. In your view, what causes teachers’ loving career? Mr Tran: There are several reasons. Loving career starts at responsibility. Responsibility firstly for ourselves, for students, and for their family and the society … I teach a student, I always think that behind oneself, one’s parents, other members of one’s family are looking at me …

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Appendix 6 Redefine Problems

Question and Analyse Assumptions Do Not Assume that Creative Ideas Sell Themselves Encourage Idea Generation

Recognize that Knowledge Is a Double-Edged Sword and Act Accordingly Encourage Students to Identify and Surmount Obstacles

Encourage Sensible RiskTaking

Encourage Tolerance of Ambiguity

Help Students Build Selfefficacy Help Students Find What They Love to Do Teach Students the Importance of Delaying Gratification

Provide an Environment that Fosters Creativity

Let students define and/or redefine problems themselves. This fosters both the synthetic ability and the analytical ability Guide students to question assumptions effectively. This fosters the analytical ability Guide students to persuade others of the value of their idea. This fosters the practicalcontextual ability. Criticise constructively students’ poor ideas and praise students’ good ideas. This fosters the legislative thinking style Encourage students to internalise more domain knowledge, but prevent them from the belief that they know everything there is to know. Let students being aware of possible obstacles and praise them when they overcome obstacles. This fosters the personality of willingness to overcome obstacles Encourage students to practice with some intellectual risks of learning activities. This fosters the personality of willingness to take sensible risks. Encourage students to accept and value ambiguous and formless ideas, and keep extending them. This fosters the personality of willingness to tolerate ambiguity. Help students to believe in their own creative potential. Determine the resources which intrinsically or extrinsically motivate students. Use long-term activities to help students to recognise that the more hard-working time spend, the more value of reward received at the end. A good environment for students’ creativity may be the one in which teachers as role models of creative people; students are encouraged to think across subjects and disciplines, given enough time to think creatively; students’ creativity is assessed and rewarded; and creative collaboration is encouraged.

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Appendix 7 General Factors Skills to Providing environments that are perceptually and cognitively teach stimulating, and should teach children to scan the environment, while working on problems, for cues that might be relevant to problem-solution. Teaching Teachers should not only train students' critical facilities; but methods more importantly, teachers must train students' abilities to identify and use the positive aspects of their own work and the work of others Teacher Teachers at all levels of education who wish to encourage behaviours creativity should be enthusiastic, professional, encouraging, and available to students outside of class Peer It may benefit highly talented children to be taught separately influences from their more average peers. In addition, it may increase the creativity of all children if they can be taught to resist peer pressure toward conformity Dangers of Although formal education is essential for high levels of education creativity in most domains, an excessively extended formal education might be detrimental Social Factors Socialization Parents wishing to foster creativity in their children should display low levels of authoritarianism and, at the same time, should try to avoid an overly close affectional bond that the child might find smothering; attempt to achieve the equivalent of "special family position" for each child; expose models of creative achievement; and expose cultural diversity. Work Parents and teachers should frequently comment upon the attitudes enjoyable aspects of such activities, the inherent satisfaction of engaging in them, and the pleasure of watching one's own work unfold. In addition, when possible, attempts should be made to eliminate the strict dichotomy between work and play. Control Children should be allowed as much freedom as possible in deciding on specific problems to attack, materials to use, methods of approach, and sub-goals; It might be beneficial to teach children self-observation and self-evaluation, in order to avoid a concentration and dependence upon the external evaluation that can undermine creativity; creativity may best be maintained and enhanced by classroom teachers who encourage independence and self-direction in their children; Classrooms that include some relatively unstructured instructional time, with individualized and self-directed learning in an informal atmosphere, are more likely to promote creativity than strictly traditional classrooms Reward Rewards that are unusually high, can be seen as bonuses for performance, or clearly convey positive performance information rather than controlling information, might not be damaging to children's creativity. In fact, such rewards might enhance it under some conditions Individual It is important to tailor the use of social control to the differences individual child's level of interest and ability

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