This document discusses the need to foster creativity in higher education by transforming traditional pedagogical structures. It argues that universities should shift away from lecture-based learning and toward more collaborative learning experiences that allow students to practice problem-solving and creative thinking. The author advocates for reapportioning curriculum time to prioritize small group work, projects, and seminars that develop both content knowledge and skills like investigation, cooperation, and synthesis. This type of experiential learning paradigm could help universities better prepare students for the future workforce and address lagging support for arts education policy.

1. ARTS EDUCATION POLICY REVIEW, 111: 59–62, 2010
Copyright C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1063-2913
DOI: 10.1080/10632910903455884
Teaching Creativity in Higher Education
Larry Livingston
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA
Individual creativity is ubiquitous. New technologies both enable and urge fresh approaches
to creativity in the context of education. University-level education offers a natural place to
adjust pedagogical structures in favor of a more individual approach to learning that organizes
the intellectual community into new patters of interaction and time allocation. This direction is
made possible by the vast improvements in access to information, data, knowledge, and opinion.
College students live in this world of access, in an ever-expanding sea of material. Networking
second-by-second is central to their zeitgeist. The result is far more than social. Interaction
and collaboration are now important in most workplaces, and are expected to be even more
important in the future. Higher education needs to use its natural resources in ways that develop
content knowledge and skills in a culture infused at new levels by investigation, cooperation,
connection, integration, and synthesis. Creativity is necessary to accomplish this goal. When
central and culturally pervasive, creativity becomes exemplified and enhanced for every student.
Problem solving becomes the driving pedagogy. Problem solving is a technique that can be
advanced through practice, but practice takes time. Universities must meet the challenge of
reapportioning time if suggested changes are to occur. These matters are important to P–12
arts education, because colleges prepare teachers and citizens who then provide leadership.
Possibilities abound for changing paradigms that now hold arts education back in many policy
situations. It is important to take advantage of opportunities inherent in the coincidence of
present conditions, youthful energy, technological capabilities, and interest in creativity.
Keywords: creativity, curriculum, higher education, student learning, technological culture
Human beings are inherently creative. We confront and deal To establish a new experiential paradigm centered on cul-
with issues large and small through our capacity to produce tivating creativity requires nothing less than an institutional
and invent as a means of negotiating life. A carpenter designs intervention. As long as we cleave only to traditional peda-
a window frame of irregular shape and brings into existence gogies and courses of study that leave little or no room for
something heretofore unseen. A chef comes up with a recipe new experiences, we will not find the time or space necessary
for peach flamb´ and generates a work of culinary art. A
e for nurturing the act of creativity.
football player runs a passing route but suddenly diverges How can we find or make room for creativity? One so-
to catch a touchdown pass, and, in the process, performs an lution may lie in turning the technological expertise of our
unplanned act of striking originality. As a result, creativity is students into a greater asset. We start by fully accepting a
neither foreign nor new to our students. They come to school fact. Operating with almost organic technological facility,
with a life history of creativity, whether it is manifested in the our students traverse the ether like Evelyn Woods–trained
use of the Internet, various extracurricular pursuits, or even, virtuosos of old foraging in a library. Although the label
occasionally, the classroom. Hence, we need not fret over might seem stiff to them, college freshmen are highly pro-
how to encourage creative behavior in our schools. However, ficient “researchers” at heart, chasing down books, friends,
we do have an obligation to explore the means by which ideas, facts, clothes, experiences, and music—and the list is
we may anchor creativity in the mission of our educational much longer—on a global scale, instantaneously connected,
institutions. rarely lingering more than a few seconds on any Web site.
Across this increasingly more powerful modality of behav-
Correspondence should be sent to Larry Livingston, University of South- ior, creative thinking, being, and doing are constants. In fact,
ern California, 2438 North Altadena Drive, Altadena, CA 91001, USA. it is the play of creative interaction, dialogue, inquisition, and
E-mail: llivings@usc.edu imagination all firing concurrently, that feeds the young. It is

2. 60 LIVINGSTON
what we might have wished for long ago if we had only been teachers and students alike, who provide opportunities for
prescient enough to see it in the offing. We must find ways of sparking and enlarging one’s creative processes. Each human
integrating the use of the Internet not only into the mission being has a unique way of looking at the universe. As well,
statement, but into the curriculum itself. each has a distinctive imagination, the seedbed from which
Second, we must be willing to honor and live up to the true originality grows. If the academy wishes to center its
priority of the university as an institution about learning, mission on honing creativity, it can best do so by pedagogies
not teaching. Historical assumptions that these two actions that maximize opportunities for students to practice being
automatically articulate are more than ever in need of review. inventive. Although it is a normal form of human behavior,
If indeed, learning is the goal, we need to rethink the role of creativity is also a technique, a skill that can be developed
pedagogical constructs, such as the classroom lecture, that and refined over time.
have long stood as absolutes in the university catechism. The classroom lecture format is, by nature, not a natural
Although lectures can be provocative and highly personal, laboratory for interaction and collaboration. Making the cur-
the format itself presumes that requiring students to sit in a riculum about interpersonal exchange opens the experience
lecture hall and parallel-process information meted out by a for every student to express, share, and test his or her creative
“sage on the stage” is a powerful didactic strategy. In fact, instincts. Exchange turns the historical paradigm around and
much of what is presented in the typical university lecture makes the presence of other students and faculty the core
can be easily acquired on the Internet. attribute of the curriculum and the scheduled classes value
Imagine Philosophy 101 in an alternative paradigm. The added.
professor gives two lectures at the beginning of the semester In Daniel Pink’s seminal book, A Whole New Mind, he
covering the major points and concepts to be comprehended, makes the point that in the twenty-first-century workplace,
and then, fully supported by a digital syllabus, office hours for collaborative thinking and interacting will be increasingly
individual help, and the Web itself, simply gives midterm and core. Although jobs will change, diverge, and morph, em-
final exams based on the course content. In this arrangement, ployers are more and more going to seek workers who
the student is given the responsibility to do the work, but on a are adept at teamwork and capable of contributing original
schedule of his own making. Those students who wish for or thought to group assignments and tasks. As the university’s
need more personal help can find it by accessing the professor purpose lies beyond mere career preparation, it is also in-
in private tutorials. Meanwhile, the professor and students cumbent on the academy to validate the college diploma as
are now released from the constraints of a lecture-oriented relevant to the future of its graduates. Therefore, the curricula
class-meeting schedule to interact in small group settings and must be intentionally formed around courses, projects, and
creatively explore the applied and social viability aspects of seminars in which both collaboration and creativity work in
Philosophy 101. consort.
We have always learned from each other. As universi- Through such normalized routines as social networking,
ties have evolved over centuries, they have become environ- text messaging, playing interactive games on the Internet,
ments in which credit is given for enrolling in classes, with partying, or simply enjoying each other’s company, young
the community of students and faculty presumed to be value people coact as a matter of course. The road to collaboration-
added. At its nucleus, the academy has a pedagogy that en- based curricula and programs has been paved by the students
tails a highly organized means for conveying information, themselves. They have presented us with a gift that we need
ideas, and concepts. However useful traditional pedagogy only unwrap.
has been in the service of human enlightenment, the goal of Young people show up at our doorsteps as informational
a school cannot simply be the dissemination, but rather, must omnivores, which the digital domain both prompts and cul-
be the absorption, of information. In recent years, the cost tivates. If we are to challenge and stretch students’ creative
of higher education has soared, running well past the annual capacities, we need to enthusiastically celebrate the reality
consumer price index. Concurrently, the job market is fraught that each of them has long been a habitu´ in a multidiscipline
e
with rapid change and the evanescence of stable ongoing po- world. It is the university that has clung to discipline-specific
sitions. Now, only in the credential-dependent professions, study and has only recently been attracted to interdisciplinary
such as medicine or law, may a college diploma be a reli- concepts as meriting inclusion in the academy. The reason
able asset. This circumstance begs the question, “Why go to our students are technological omnivores is because they
college?” can be. The Internet does not parse information by “siloed”
The answer may be found in the university’s greatest as- characteristics, but is instead an open-ended system that the
set: human capital. Because the Web acts as an Archimedes navigator organizes based on his or her predilections. Our stu-
spiral of content, information expanding outward from each dents investigate all manner of diverse topics without being
site and link in the vast realms of the digital domain, virtu- trapped by discipline-based limitations. They do so because
ally everything can be studied at home by a student who is no one has told them otherwise.
motivated, enterprising, and technologically facile. What is The university has been invited by every entering class
not easily available at home is a community of individuals, to build experiences that flow gracefully into the stream of

3. TEACHING CREATIVITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION 61
learning behaviors by which students have grown up. The universities have also been highly adaptive, able to re-valence
multidiscipline river is ours to use as we wish, to swim and themselves in the face of large cultural changes. We now con-
wade in rather than dam up or portage around. By what front a challenge of perhaps greater import than ever before
means could this task be best accomplished? By carving as a result of rising costs and the availability of increasingly
out time in the curriculum to work in collaborative, small- competitive and easily accessed alternative forms of learn-
group formats, addressing issues both relevant and timely. ing centering on the Internet. It is precisely at such a tipping
By seeking creative solutions to problems that cut across a point that curricular transformation, or, more to the point, ex-
battery of subjects or disciplines. By using human capital as periential transformation, is ours for the taking. We have the
a credit-bearing framework for shared quests. By providing critical mass of equipment, buildings, staff, and, most signif-
time and space for students to mentor each other. By letting go icantly, the human capital to once again adapt. It is simply a
of the need to replicate old pedagogical models as educational matter of will.
anchors and instead crafting new formats that tether students Although universities are optimally positioned to address
to each other and to joint enterprises that can only be realized the place of creativity in the collegiate experience, their
through cooperation. By importing into the daily business of preparation of K–12 arts teachers is a natural subset of that
the university the all-night informal dialogues, sometimes initiative. Taking action is important for P–12 arts education
known as “bull sessions,” which have been for decades the in a number of ways. Colleges prepare P–12 teachers in the
sine qua non of dormitory life. arts and other disciplines, and, as well, educate a significant
Our graduates face a world of ever more perplexing proportion of the citizenry. What colleges teach and the ways
change. The stable days are gone, perhaps forever. The crux they teach impact the future of arts education and public un-
of creative behavior is all about change, or at least changing derstanding, not only about specific knowledge and skills
something. If we can transform our educational institutions required for graduation, but also about the content and na-
to make change part of every topic we study rather than the ture of knowledge and skill development. P–12 arts education
daunting future we face, creativity becomes our most pow- suffers in the policy arena, partly because there is no common
erful tool. Inventive people relish challenges, surprises, and understanding among a critical mass of people, including the
even impediments. I remember the parting comments of Nor- college educated, about connections across arts study and
man Hackerman when he retired from his role as President of the development of individual capacities and capabilities to
Rice University. Citing the many things he would rue losing, work creatively with content. There seems to be a disinclina-
Hackerman said, “I will miss most the problems, for it is the tion to find solutions that work when more than one solution
problems which inspire our best selves, our most rewarding is possible. The arts are thus seen either as a nonintellec-
days, our most creative acts.” tual realm, or as an intellectual realm that is unconnected to
Practicing problem solving as a team game should be part more serious pursuits like science, technology, engineering,
of every student’s experience. The problems can be specific and math, a realm that encompasses and nurtures a glam-
or general, big or small. The question is how to develop orous playground for the talented and their patrons. In this
facility in responding to problems. This, like any technique, benighted paradigm, serious arts study is viewed as perfectly
can be practiced. Tackling a problem by oneself is useful fine for the interested and talented, but not necessary or par-
and can help build skill. Practicing problem solving as a ticularly useful for anyone else; artistic creativity is placed in
group initiative, however, opens doors to new approaches a jeweler’s box and admired as something beautiful but unre-
and devices for coping. The university is a perfect beta-site lated to other kinds of work. Over time, the kind of curricular
for working at acquiring a bigger repertoire of strategies. transformation recommended here can counter the thrust of
Creativity is often referred to as a panacea, as part of this paradigm, particularly if university professors who teach
the new “must be good” jargon in education. It is important the arts and prepare arts teachers seize the opportunities of
to remember that creativity absent a meritorious goal is not the present time. Such transformation can address perennial
automatically a good thing. Hitler was very creative. So were problematic conditions and current needs by establishing a
Osama Bin Laden and Bernie Madoff. Creativity becomes a new, experiential strategy that centers on cultivating creativ-
force of great value when it is applied to causes that benefit ity. If we work purposefully within higher education, P–12
humankind and the world at large. The study and application arts education can be brought into a new relationship with
of creative behavior, then, should also be designed around P–12 education in general without losing the essences of the
social justice and objectives that promote the general welfare. arts disciplines or the rigor and goals for excellence that they
The motto, “It is not enough to do well. One must also do exemplify.
good,” should pertain to every curricular experience, in every The ultimate question, then, is not how to teach creativity,
forum in which creativity is being nurtured. but rather how to understand, harvest, and build up the very
Universities are among the oldest institutions on the creativity that every student already possesses and uses. The
planet. They have survived for many centuries by contribut- answers may be multiple and diverse, but, inevitably, we must
ing not only to the education of their students, but also by summon the courage to reexamine the typical university cur-
enriching the commonweal. As part of their vaunted history, riculum. By “reexamine,” I do not mean simply yet another

4. 62 LIVINGSTON
exercise in curricular revision culminating in a “new” design advantage of their instinctual imaginings, which may begin
that is little more than an ornamental version of the old one. with the fantasy palaces of youth, but which can be shep-
I mean a fundamental commitment to transform the univer- herded into the magical corridors of adult purpose. I mean
sity experience based on the unprecedented opportunity that centering school on helping students become agile brokers
the modern information age makes possible. I mean looking of their own destinies, determined to spread goodness in the
afresh at how four years can be structured to place the quest culture at large. I mean focusing our efforts on how we want
for enlightenment at the center of the institutional mission, the graduates of our universities to be, and not just on what
and to focus on the development of the whole human as an we want them to know. I mean growing the Ninja citizens of
emerging societal adept. I mean making the sacred asset of the future.
human capital core to the educational purpose and curricu-
lum of the academy. I mean placing collaborative fora in the
heart of the curriculum. I mean helping to forge decision REFERENCE
makers who see creativity as an art form, as the instrument
by which one becomes not only an able responder to, but Pink, D. H. 2005. A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to
also an agent for change. I mean helping young people take the Conceptual Age. New York: Penguin.
Articles in this symposium are derived from several presen-
tations held at the Teaching Creativity conference at University
of Wyoming, February 24–26, 2009. This conference was part
of a four-conference series titled Creativity, Curiosity, Col-
laboration, led by Richard E. Miller, Chair and Professor of
English at Rutgers University, and Mark Sheridan-Rabideau,
Professor of Music at University of Wyoming.

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