Boundary Crossing Creativity in the Design of Digital Resources for Teaching and Learning about Climate Change

Abstract

We approach creativity in educational design with teachers working together in interdisciplinary communities of practice to develop resources for teaching and learning about climate change in formal school settings. We address climate change as a socio-scientific ‘wicked problem’ and discuss the notion of creativity in educational design in a context of transformative intervention in education leading away from silo academic domain paradigms. We perceived the resources as boundary objects during the process of communication and joint design by the diverse community members. Our interest focused on studying the boundary crossing processes which facilitated creative ideas to come out, selected and transcribed into the actual resources designed. Critical episode analysis showed that boundary crossing mechanisms were employed in the interactions among the educational designers aided by and in interaction with digital media supporting collaboration. These socio-technical interactions functioned as an empowered professional learning and working milieu, within which creative processes and outcomes were nurtured. In particular, educational designers, along with trying to frame climate change as a wicked problem, attempted to address the challenging issue of designing a creative educational resource on this topic. Our research suggests that boundary crossing creativity in interdisciplinary teams of educational designers can be an answer to not only how to focus learning on addressing the grand wicked problems of our times, but also how to deal with the multiple challenges arising from educational design per se.