Creativity Crisis

In Creativity Crisis Robert Nelson argues that university education is systematically uncreative and suggests how this might be changed. Constructive alignment, the centrepiece of today’s university pedagogy, promotes mechanistic thinking and the anxious gathering of manipulative skills. Learning happens more effectively when students take their study in new directions derived from their intimate, imagined relations with the new material they are encountering. Richly steeped in the history of ideas, from ancient Greece to the present, this book radically revises the concept of student-centredness, explores the language that encourages creativity, and helps teachers cultivate imaginative enthusiasm. Creativity Crisis is essential reading for those concerned with the nature and quality of instruction at university level.


‘This book is one of a kind. Robert’s purpose is to arrive at a creative new vision, where education is less constrained, less instrumentalist, more encouraging and open to the imagination.’ - Professor David Boud, Director, Centre For Research In Assessment And Digital Learning, Deakin University, Melbourne.