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DCU study highlights power of dedicated creativity module in teacher training

St Patricks Campus
Dr Fiona Gallagher has collaborated with researchers from the DCU Institute of Education to publish a study examining how a dedicated module on creativity — built into a teacher training programme — affected student teachers' confidence and classroom practice. The module ran over twelve weeks and was compulsory for all participants.

Rather than focusing on creativity through one lens, the module took an interdisciplinary approach across three areas: digital media (making short films and digital stories), drama (role-play and improvisation), and linguistic responsiveness (language-inclusive teaching strategies). Student teachers were also asked to collaborate in groups to make a short video demonstrating creative teaching approaches across different school subjects.

Three main themes emerged from surveys and focus groups with participants. Many student teachers had assumed creativity was mainly relevant to arts subjects. The module challenged this, helping teachers of maths, science, business and others see how creativity applies to their work too.

Secondly, having the theoretical language to describe and defend creative teaching gave participants more confidence to try creative approaches in schools, even when more traditional colleagues were sceptical.

However, not everyone responded the same way. The researchers identified six broad positions, from teachers who fully embraced creativity to those who remained resistant.

The study’s key recommendation is that every teacher training programme should include a dedicated, mandatory module on creativity, combining theoretical grounding with hands-on practice, rather than assuming student teachers will simply absorb it by osmosis.