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.

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In this study we explored students’ perspectives and experiences engaging in an arts integration learning model during middle school through a pluralistic lens of creative engagement in learning. The sample included N = 86 students in Grades 6–7 attending schools in fringe rural and urban locales from small and mid‐sized cities in the Pacific Northwest. We used a grounded theory approach to explore how creative engagement takes shape for the early adolescent learner. Our conceptual framework integrated intrapsychological (inward) processes with interpsychological (outward) exchange in the social environment of an arts integrated classroom. Schools involved in the study were part of a larger mixed‐methods research investigation and received intensive support for school‐wide arts integration development. We found that students valued opportunities in arts integration for (a) choice, (b) the expression of their unique interpretations, (c) taking risks and making mistakes, (d) recognizing and applying their Studio Habits of Mind, and (e) enhancement of motivation and engagement in learning. The need for competency, belonging, and autonomy were important conditions of the learning environment and the need for meaning‐making was paramount in the process of creative engagement.

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Executive functions (EF) are domain-general cognitive skills that predict school success. However, less is known about the relation between EFs and science achievement. The present study examined the bidirectional associations between science achievement and children's cognitive flexibility and working memory in a nationally representative sample of children in the United States (ECLS-K: 2011; N = 18,174). Using random intercepts cross-lagged panel modeling, results revealed a heterogeneous pattern of associations between EF and science achievement. Trait-like and construct stability emerged in the between-person and within-person estimates of EF and science. Cognitive flexibility and working memory in kindergarten each predicted science achievement in first grade. Science achievement in the fall of first grade predicted cognitive flexibility in the spring of first grade. There were also bidirectional associations between working memory and science achievement in the fall and spring of first grade. Findings from the current study reveal the complex interplay between EF and science achievement during early childhood and highlight the potential of boosting science competencies to promote growth in cognitive skills important for goal-directed activity during early schooling.

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What makes impactful online professional development for rural teachers learning creativity and arts integration? In this paper, we describe the results of a mixed method-study that tested a new hybrid online and in-person teacher training experience with K-12 teachers in the Northwestern region of the United States of America in 2019–2020. The study focused on the creative development of rural educators and their preparation to integrate creativity and the arts across the curriculum. Rural schools face challenges in providing ongoing professional learning opportunities to teachers, especially in complex areas, such as creativity and arts integration. However, professional learning opportunities in this area are either lacking or minimally available for many teachers due to a variety of barriers. The results reveal innovations about networked learning approaches to teaching complex topics and practices, such as creativity, which make online learning more experiential and connected for relevance and engagement. As others have found, networked learning can offer transformative experiences. In addition to detailed findings, this paper presents several expanded design principles and specific techniques to make online learning experiences creative and expansive. Implications for practice or policy: Networked learning for educators should be interactive, self-reflective and creative using diverse media and modalities. Professional development developers should focus on instructional routines to help teachers build confidence in their skill building. Professional development developers should consider the creative engagement framework as a guide for the design of teacher training. Teacher outcomes in online professional development should be cohort-based to build peer-to-peer connection and encourage creative risk-taking and collaboration.

Research suggests that teachers’ creative development may materialize in more resilience and joy and less stress, but these connections have received little attention. This mixed methods study analyzes the effectiveness of a hybrid professional development model focused on teachers’ creative agency during the COVID-19 pandemic, a period of intensified stress, anxiety, and disconnect. Results indicated the PD experience supported (a) an increase in teachers’ creative agency, empathy, joy, buoyancy, and support in teaching during the pandemic and (b) a reduction in their secondary traumatic stress. Qualitative analyses illustrated a variety of personalized pathways for this development. The evidence suggests teachers’ creative agency and wellbeing can develop through a complementary process, rooted in creativity and the arts.