- Lloyd Gutteridge has 25 years of teaching experience in business education and economics across three continents. He aims to engage students through creative teaching methods that center students in their learning. - As a business and creativity teacher, he takes risks, reflects on his practice annually, seeks feedback, and adapts his approach to develop an entrepreneurial mindset in himself and his students. - His talk at the symposium will focus on attempts to foster curiosity, experimentation, and creativity in his business students, though there is no single accepted way to do so. The goal is to develop a growth mindset to prepare students for an uncertain world.

1. Lloyd Gutteridge BIO information for Creativity Symposium April 2015
With 25 years teaching experience on three continents in secondary Business
Education and Economics, I have been looking at ways to engage and inspire
my students through creative teaching pedagogies with them at the center of
the learning. It’s not about me.
As a business and creativity teacher, I have taken risks, reflected and
reviewed my practice at the beginning of each academic year. I have sought
feedback and adapted my practice to develop an entrepreneurial and growth
mindset to my professional approach. If I wish to see these qualities in my
students, I have to model these capacities myself.
What is creativity?
I define creativity in a business context as the development and realisation of an
idea, which changes consumer or producer behaviour irrevocably. Creativity in
business can be incremental (adaptive - the IPad Mini) or disruptive (innovation such
as the IPad)
In general education, the idea of creativity is to develop a learning process that
allows students to develop exploratory and thinking skills to facilitate deep
understanding of a particular concept or topic. Creativity can occur when the deep
understanding allows for a student to become curious and be able to ask rich fertile
questions to allow them to uncover new meanings and interpretations.
The theme of the symposium is “Why does creativity matter?” Can you give us
a taste of what you will be presenting on at the symposium?
For business the arguments for creativity are based on the idea that knowledge has
now become a tradable commodity. The Internet has allowed for unparalleled access
to data available to all, anytime and anyplace. In the 21st
century, knowledge
advantages will dissipate very quickly with every business analyst benchmarking or
analysing corporate strategies. Everyone has access to the same data, tools and
talent. Creativity matters for business as it will allow firms to compete in an
increasingly, connected and complex global market. Creativity allows a business to
run in a race which it has only set itself up to win. Cue Apple and Google.
My talk at the symposium will strongly focus on my attempts as an educator to foster
curiosity, experimentation and creativity in my business students. There is no one
accepted way and no manual to follow. However, the intention is to develop a growth
mindset in my students to allow them to take their place in a changing and uncertain
world. I want to encourage students into their own creativity rather than out of it to
paraphrase Sir Ken. The challenge for me is am I on the right path?

2. Creativity has been a hot topic of discussion in education for many years. How
has your teaching/school made fitting adjustments?
Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk from 2006 ‘Do schools kill creativity’ made a very
compelling case for creativity in education. I work in a school environment, which is
driven by the intention to let creativity pour out of students.
Albany Senior High School uses open learning spaces – there are no classrooms
apart from 4 presentation rooms, which are used for language and media purposes.
Cross-curricular work between departments either built on themes or concepts is
encouraged wherever possible in these spaces.
Students are encouraged to work in groups wherever possible to facilitate discussion
and reflection as essential parts of the learning process. Teacher centred learning is
regarded only as a minor part in the learning process.
Teaching staff are encouraged to reflect and refine their practice regularly through a
process called ‘professional inquiry.’ We aim to be a new school every year.
There are no formal classes on Wednesday. Students are encouraged to create,
develop, record and manage their own ‘Impact Projects.’ An Impact
Project puts the student at the centre of their learning on a passion project journey,
which extends for 15 weeks. They will have two of these opportunities per school
year and are encouraged to model the very best practices in creativity, risk taking,
self-management and reflection in a principled manner. The very essence of the IB
learner profile and project based learning in a non-IB school.
In your experience working in schools, is creativity sought after and fostered in
education?
Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk sent a seismic shock around the education system of
NZ. Publicly many schools vowed to take up the challenge to see how creativity
could be incorporated into the curriculum. It had a profound effect on my professional
thinking
Many school’s ‘talk the talk’ about creativity. Very few however are willing to ‘walk the
walk.’ Exam results, parental expectations in the secondary pre-university era of
education have dominated teaching and learning in NZ and probably beyond. As Sir
Ken has recognised in his talk, ‘if an alien were to come down to earth and ask the
question what is education for…you would have to say that education is a protracted
process of university entrance… to create university professors.’
Many IB and non IB Schools market themselves on ‘developing the whole student’
but privately the intention is to generate the best exam results possible. Ideals of
creativity and curiosity and the essence of the IB learner profile are forgotten in the
race to have the best league table position. A few brave schools have tried to put the
focus on developing growth mindsets in their students and I have been fortunate to
teach in two such schools.
However, not only do we need to educate the students about the importance of
creativity but also in the minds of the parents. The arguments for business creativity

3. are well established. However, a much greater leap of faith by politicians and parents
is still required to move us from the not-fit-for-purpose thinking of the past into the
opportunities and challenges of preparing our students to be creative in their
unknown and uncertain futures.