Abstract:

If we think about creativity as the process of idea generation and problem solving (Amabile, 1983; Sternberg, 1988a; Weisberg, 1988 in Amabile et al., 2005), we can say that teaching requires a lot of creativity, since teachers are challenged every day to find solutions to cope with the needs of evolving personalities and the changes in the classroom and in the educational system. Although creativity involves an open attitude towards change, teachers seem to opose resistance, as it requires years to become efficient and refine practice, and they are not willing to give up all the work and effort they put into adapting innovative tools, methods or strategies to their teaching and ultimately, change the way they do things in class. Change is a complex process that affects teachers at personal level. They need to renounce to beliefs, routines, knowledge about the world as they know it, familiar practices and adapt to the new if they want to remain effective.

We believe that one of the reasons education systems are unable to reform is because people cannot change the way they think about education in general, about learning and teaching in particular. We can evaluate only the effects, the fact that the education children receive is useless in the contemporary society, it does not prepare them for life, it does not respond to their needs any longer, and using the patterns of what we know about education, of what worked well in the past for us or for others, using good past experiences, is only an attempt to reform based on old criteria (Robinson, 2011 ; Wagner, 2012). It is difficult to start working from the root, changing beliefs that are incremented in old practices, rethinking the ways things are done while bearing new purposes in mind (Tugui, 2011).

Part of a larger research, the study presented in this article focuses on the application of a systematic inquiry model adapted for teaching within an initial teacher education program, with the purpose of developing creative problem solving skills and a more open attitude towards change. It presents the case study of 16 student teachers who were exposed systematically to this model and proved to improve different aspects of their performance. Results encouraged us to believe that this model can be used successfully with any subject, as it encourages an attitude of ongoing exploration and investigation and creates a habit of approaching any problem encountered with questions to find a solution.

Keywords:

Creative problem solving skills, ITE, change management, systematic inquiry model.