This research explores the concept of grounded imagination where creativity is grounded in knowledge and informed by experience. How might one nurture and cultivate such grounded imagination in K-12 students? To address this question, this project will develop and deploy a storytelling system for authoring and interacting with hyper-dramas. It incorporates the theory advanced by Lev Vygotsky, that creativity involves a process of combinatory imagination by which an individual creates new things for herself from elements of prior experience encoded in everyday concepts and new culturally transmitted information. This situates creativity within two developmental streams: intellectual development (acquiring grounding in the form of knowledge and experience), and the process of flexible re-combination. The aspect of social-cultural engagement suggests that creativity is a discourse with the larger culture and society. Drawing from this theoretical foundation, this project explores whether the creativity trough (decline in creativity from the 4th grade through middle school) may occur because social-cultural awareness precedes intellectual development so that the student judges herself an inadequate contributor. Facilitating hyper-drama authoring will allow students to draw on their experience in hyper-media and dramatic presentation, and thus nurture the combinatory creativity process.
In this research, students will construct non-linear hyper-narratives in which each path through the narrative tree represents an individual narrative arc. Each node represents an occurrence along the narrative timeline, called a story fragment, that may happen in one or more places. The occurrence in each place takes the form of an animated dramatic scene. Storytelling, then, becomes a process of authoring the story along with the hyper-narrative, and the content and goings on within each scene (including the characters, activities, animation, scenes, and dialogue). This project will test the system and address two scientific questions by deploying different versions of the authoring system in classes at the elementary, middle, and high school levels within the Roanoke County School District. The complexity of stories constructed and the kinds of content will be graduated to match the learning goals within each level. This research will follow cohorts of these students over a period of two years as they transition between elementary, middle, and high school. Two key questions are: 1. How does a situated process of storytelling employing a hyperdrama model support creative imagination? 2. How does one engage a generation of students in a media-saturated world to become creative participants, rather than passive consumers of digital media?
The immediate research aim, to enhance and nurture creative processes in K-12 students, has significant implications for society. A more innovative workforce is critical to the success both of the nation and of the individual worker. Furthermore, creativity is necessary for all learning, including mathematics and science. By addressing the fundamental process of creativity, this project can positively impact learning of all domains including STEM. More directly, the explicit construction of hyper-narratives, and the assembly of resources (graphics, animation, characters, etc.) for each hyper-drama node make explicit the algorithmic and flow-of-control mechanisms necessary for mathematics, science, and engineering. Second, the will develop interest in scientific research among elementary, middle, and high school students. Third, the software and intellectual product of this research will be disseminated broadly through publications and open source mechanisms.
