How to engage imagination in the classroom: Issues of educational design
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1970-2221/15976Keywords:
creativity, imagination, Imaginative Education, educational design, teacher educationAbstract
Critical reflection on Piagetian ideas in education has had significant consequences on the understanding of imagination. Within the post-Piagetian shift, Imaginative Education Theory (IE) has provided a cultural-historical perspective on teaching and learning in school contexts. The theory clarifies the benefits of teaching activities that can stimulate imagination and link it to curricular themes. From these premises, it also provides educational principles for organizing teacher training programs.
However, this article argues that IE still needs to be articulated from an instructional design perspective. Activity Theory, particularly its applications to Constructivist Learning Environments, is identified as a framework for organizing the classroom as a system in which imaginative activities enhance and support the co-construction of knowledge. This approach to IE can also show how several aspects of contemporary debates on teacher education can be enriched or critically reconsidered when approaching them with the goal of engaging imagination in the classroom.
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