Abstract
The global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused significant uncertainty for students and teachers. During this time, teacher and student creative beliefs and affect play a supportive role in adaptively managing stress, finding joy, and bouncing back from inevitable setbacks with resilience. Developing an adaptive orientation to creativity is a critically important step in helping teachers deal with the challenges and stress of reaching their students through distance learning, especially the most marginalized. This study aims to understand how teacher creativity linked to well-being in the face of COVID-19-related school shutdowns and how teachers planned to adapt creatively to distance learning through the guidance of a summer creative teaching training institute. Results from this sequential mixed method study demonstrated important relationships. Creative self-efficacy in teaching related to teacher buoyancy in the face of setbacks. Creative growth mindset related to teachers’ general positive affect in teaching. Lowered creative anxiety related to reduced effects of secondary traumatic stress and general negative affect in teaching. Environmental support and encouragement for creativity in schools may be foundational for teacher well-being by enhancing teachers’ dispositional joy, general positive affect, and reducing general negative affect. Results suggested additional stress and loss of creativity for most teachers due to the COVID-19 pandemic alongside substantial capacity for creative adaptations with the support of training for creativity in teaching and learning.
Highlights
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has disrupted school communities across the globe
For adaptive creative beliefs and support, based on a 1–6 Likert scale, teachers, on average, demonstrated a high level of growth creative mindset (M = 5.24; SD = 0.67), a moderate level of creative selfefficacy in teaching (M = 4.27; SD = 0.79), and a moderate level of environmental support for creativity in school (M = 3.82; SD = 0.98), which was lowest among creative resource factors but still above the scale midpoint
Relationships Between Creativity and Positive and Negative Affect In terms of links between creative beliefs, affect, and environmental support and general psychological well-being in teaching, relationships fit within the theoretical perspective that creative resources should buffer against the stress of uncertainty and instability
Summary
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has disrupted school communities across the globe. Students and teachers have experienced high amounts of stress and mental health challenges (Jones, 2020). During this time of uncertainty, teachers have been forced to pivot and change their instruction and curriculum to distance learning and connect with students virtually. The demands for teacher resilience, creativity, stress management, and tolerance for ambiguity and anxiety are high. Due to the continuing changes from the pandemic, researchers struggle to document how teachers cope with these surmounting stressors and how they develop their capacity to teaching for creativity. Little research has investigated this issue, especially in Teachers Creativity and Well-Being schools serving high proportions of students marginalized due to socioeconomic factors, who often struggle to participate in distance learning. In the face of this global crisis, teachers’ creative beliefs and affect may play a critical role in facing uncertainty, managing stress, and maintaining overall well-being as a teacher
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