NSF Award
1002878
Improvisational Theater for Computing Scientists is a pilot project designed to evaluate use of the performance art of improvisation to develop the creative capacity of individuals and groups in science education and research in the emerging field of computational biology. The ultimate research question for this project is whether training in improvisational theatre can provide scientists and science students with the ability to generate new inquiry spaces for their research? Scientists and science educators are rarely taught how to build creative environments that encourage open exploration and risk taking. In contrast performers in improvisational theatre are explicitly trained to develop such environments and their ability for experimentation and risk taking. Improvisational theatre (IT) training is an established approach for stimulating creativity and team collaboration in business, early education and engineering design. This emergent, collaborative idea generation and experimentation can lead to creative and transformative actions for the individual as well as the ensemble. Science education and research positioned as an improvisational, ensemble performance may give the ?actors? in the sciences the required lens for transforming their research and training into a continuous creative and innovative process. This is crucial for the field of computational biology, as it is reliant on the generation of new scientific relationships, synergies and integrative methodologies.<br/><br/>Over the course of this project, educators, scientists and students in computing and computational biology disciplines will be brought together in improvisational theater workshops led by creative artists to 1) learn the principles of improvisational theatre 2) develop their ability to build creative, social risk-taking environments 3) develop indicators of creativity specific to the field of computational biology and 4) design improvisation exercises for creativity in computational biology that can be incorporated into the computational biology curriculum. A broad dissemination of the project results to journals and conferences in biology education, computational science and computing is anticipated. Improvisational exercises for concepts and creativity in computational biology will be made available via the project website and incorporated into submitted presentations and workshops at computing science symposiums and conferences that support scientific communities in the biosciences and support broadening participation initiatives for women and underrepresented minorities in the computing sciences.
