Recording: Three Initial Research Questions

The essay below is a transcript of this recording, which outlines three initial research questions that, at the moment, seem like good choices moving forward. It will be interesting to revisit these topics at the end of each semester to see if these questions are still intriguing.

My research interests lie in the study of creativity. In a recent survey, less than 10% of students felt like they were creative, a stance that was echoed by a teacher survey at a conference months later. Creative problem solving is what the next generation will need to solve global problems such as food security and global warming. I feel that exploring methods for increasing creative responses in school is one way I can contribute to a sustainable future.

Multimodality relates to the ways in which information is processed and disseminated, including visual, linguistic, aural, spatial, and gestural. New literacies and educational technology applications are capable of representing all of these modes. Student motivation and engagement improves when students are given autonomy, when they feel competent and able to do required work, and when they feel a sense of belonging to the group in which work is done. Multimodality offers opportunities for choice, for scaffolding of multimodal practices to enhance competence, and for collaborative work that has the potential to create a sense of belonging. Finally, multimodality presents opportunities to challenge students creatively. Sense-making using multimodal, new literacies, requires repurposing of information that is, in the words of one researcher, “pluralized, hybridized, intertextual, immediate, spontaneous, abbreviated, informal, collaborative, productive, and interactive.” Therefore, my current research questions synthesize these concepts. 

My first question is:

How can instructors design and implement multimodal strategies that leverage the creative process as a way to increase student engagement?

My second question is:

How can instructors design and implement multimodal strategies that leverage the creative process to increase the depth and complexity of student learning? 

My third question is:

How could a strategic planning framework be structured  that would support the implementation of multimodal strategies that leverage the creative process?

Because we will be writing three separate papers as our dissertation, I have structured these early questions to represent three aspects of the same topic, in hopes that each subsequent paper can build on the knowledge gained from the previous one.