An evaluative study of teacher creativity, use of the heuristic diagnostic teaching process and student mathematics performance

In classroom settings, teachers often do not identify creative children, which may in turn prevent them from fostering students' creative strengths (Dawson, 1997; Reisman & Bach, 2002). Student creative strengths, such as elaboration, originality, fluency, flexibility, and resistance to premature closure (Torrance, 1962) are problem-solving skills that can be used in mathematics. This study explored additional factors that may affect mathematics learning such as teachers' use of Heuristic Diagnostic Teaching principles. Student mathematics scores, though slowly rising in the School District of Philadelphia, are still dramatically low (School District of Philadelphia, 2006). With the purpose of addressing these issues, this exploratory study examined the relationship between teachers who use Heuristic Diagnostic Teaching (HDT) principles in their teaching and their ability to identify student creativity characteristics, the generic influences on learning, as well as their students' mathematics performance. Additionally, the study focused on the relationship between the teachers' own creativity shown by drawings and their ability to identify student creativity characteristics.; Teachers from three Philadelphia schools (Central, Northwest and West regions) participated in this study. There was a significant relationship between the teachers who self-reported using the HDT principles and those who identified students' generic influences on learning such as cognitive, social, and emotional learning influences. However, there was not a significant relationship between the same teachers who self-reported using HDT principles and their ability to identify students' creativity characteristics. Accordingly, the relationship between teachers' figural creativity, as measured by the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT figural), and their identification of creative characteristics as measured by the Teacher Self-Report was not a significant factor when identifying student creativity characteristics. Findings in this study seem to indicate that teachers need professional development in identifying creative characteristics of their students. Further, the relationship with students' mathematics content and teachers' use of HDT principles was examined for ten teachers. A positive relationship was discovered for teachers who used HDT principles and their students' mathematics content knowledge. Students' content was measured by TerraNova and PSSA class-test data.