10th Global Conference: Creative Engagements: Thinking With Children

10th Global Conference: Creative Engagements: Thinking With Children Sunday 22nd March - Tuesday 24th March 2015 Lisbon, Portugal Call for Presentations: This interdisciplinary and global research project seeks explore the concept of genuine 'engagement' in regard to areas such as learning, development and meaning making within the overarching framework of 'creativity'. Recognizing that these facets of 'creative engagement' and the ideals and ideas associated with children, childhood and learning are developing exponentially, this project is grounded in more than presenting research but making authentic inter-disciplinary connections during the course of the conference. Some of the broader areas of reference and connectivity in past projects have been, and continue to be historical and contemporary representations of childhood, the complex issues surrounding the notion and practices of creative engagement in the context of pedagogy and the curriculum, changing technologies and frequently instrumental institutional imperatives and changes. In a rapidly changing world this project will also seek to address the role of creativity in social interaction, with particular reference to children's development of life skills, autonomy and independence in an increasingly complex and demanding world. Please note that the following are only suggested foci, and papers can be submitted on any area dealing with creativity and children. Papers, presentations, reports and workshops are invited, but not limited any of the following focus areas; 1. Brain Research and Creativity - What does current brain/cognitive research tells us about childhood and creativity? - How does current understanding of brain plasticity impact on other disciplines dealing with children and creativity engagements? 2. The Creative Environmental Space - What spaces engender or inhibit creativity? - What is the nature of the architecture of a creative space? - From Theory to Practice: Case studies of creative spaces in action - What will the creative spaces of the future look like? - Children's views on creative spaces 3. The Creative 'Inner' Space - What is the role of memory in creativity? - How is the concept of creativity 'framed' in various disciplines? - What are the origins of these forces and forms of thinking, and links to creative thinking? - What is the relationship between creativity and divergent thinking? - How are these developed and nurtured? - How do various disciplines understand these forms of thought, and praxis? - What are the similarities/differences in understanding between the related research disciplines? - How can these be fostered in a world dominated by measurement, outcomes and benchmarks? - Children's views on creativity. 4. Creativity, Engagement and Education? - How do various disciplines define the concept of engagement? - What is the nature of genuine learning, genuine engagement with learning and their relationship to creativity? - What is creativity in theory and practice? What is creative education? Can creative engagement be taught? - Engaging with, engagement for, and for whom? - What does engagement mean for teachers, children and classroom practice? - How does genuine engagement and creative learning relate to the architecture and physicality of the classroom environment? - Creative engagement in the areas of planning, resourcing, organization, management and assessment. - Good practice, classroom examples, and effective strategies for promoting creativity within and across curriculum subjects. 5. Creativity, Pedagogy and Curriculum - Inter-disciplinary approaches to creative engagement in teaching and curricula. - Historical and contemporary representations of childhood and adolescence: art, film and literature. - The future role of text, the visual media as form of critical appraisal, developing creativity and children's engagement. - Children, creativity and visual literacy. - Traditional literacies and creativity: what are they and how do they fit in the visual age? - Assessing Cziksentmihaly's work, and in particular, the notion of 'flow'; how this is understood by different disciplines. - The role and nature multiple intelligences (re: Howard Gardner) in developing creativity. - Are there more intelligences than Gardner's 7.5 – e.g. spiritual/existential intelligence, and how do these 'fit' with creativity? - Pedagogy, curricular and extra-curricula approaches. - Integrative case studies and examples of team based teaching. - Creativity in a crowded curriculum. - Education, entertainment or edutainment, and the 'fit' with creativity? - Teachers, creativity and professional development. - How to assess, analyze and describe creative practice? - Institutions, education and designing systems to develop children's learning in the 21st century 6. Critical and Cultural Thinking and Children - What is the optimal macro and micro-culture for developing creativity? - What are the limits of cultural development for creativity? - What are the enablers and inhibitors of creativity? - What is critical thinking? Is it the same as critical literacy? - What is the nature of engagement with critical thinking before school? - Facilitating creativity: With what, who and when? - What is the role of the 'significant other' in developing critical engagement at home and in school? - What are the conditions that foster critical thinking at home and then in the school years? - The rise of the far right Christian education movement and the effect on critical thinking and engagement. - Types of critical thinking and their relationship to creativity. - Cultural contexts of critical thinking. - What are the links between self-esteem and creativity? - What is the nature of, and links between teaching creatively and teaching for creativity? 7.Engagement, Skills and Life Issues - Emotion and links to creativity. - Engaging in intercultural and human development education with children. - The role of parents in developing or fostering creativity and engagement with life and learning. - Engaging in intercultural and human development education with children. - The nature of school as an enabler or inhibitor of creativity or engagement with learning as a whole. - The idea of moral, values and spiritual, education as creative experiences. - The role of play (in all forms) and the concept of creativity. - Children creatively engaging each other: communication and cooperation; problem solving; play and social issues - ethnicity, immigration etc. - Creatively engaging the disabled. - Exploring children's needs, wants, wishes, desires and hopes. - The nature of natural learning theories. - Developing antinomy and independence. - Developing life skills, social issues and education for citizenship. The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme. What to Send: 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 31st October 2014. All submissions are minimally double blind peer reviewed where appropriate. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 23rd January 2015. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word or RTF formats with the following information and in this order: a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords. E-mails should be entitled: CE10 Abstract Submission. Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend. Organising Chairs: Phil Fitzsimmons and Edie Lanphar: phil.fitzsimmons@avondale.edu.au Rob Fisher: ce10@inter-disciplinary.net The conference is part of the 'At the Interface' series of research projects run by ID.Net. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference must be in English and will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s). All publications from the conference will require editors, to be chosen from interested delegates from the conference. Inter-Disciplinary.Net believes it is a mark of personal courtesy and professional respect to your colleagues that all delegates should attend for the full duration of the meeting. If you are unable to make this commitment, please do not submit an abstract for presentation. For further details of the conference, please visit: http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/education/creative-engagements-thinking-with-children/call-for-papers/ Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.