Fostering young children's creativity in online learning environments: A systematic literature review

•Overview of the method, results and themes from systematic literature review.•Creativity has not been a research focus for young children learning online.•Opportunities were identified for fostering young children's creativity online .•Opportunities relate to increased agency, challenge, experimentation and play.•Challenges relate to reduced educator responsiveness and children's age/abilities.•Further research is needed to explore these opportunities and challenges. Recent research has highlighted that fostering children's creativity is a significant goal of early childhood education. While there is a strong body of research identifying strategies within face-to-face learning settings, little is known about fostering creativity within an online learning environment. Over the past three decades, most research into K-12 online learning practices has centered around secondary school students, rather than children in early childhood years. However, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic saw millions of children around the world rapidly transitioned into online learning environments, many for the first time. Much of the research during this period focused on the experiences of educators, with little attention given to pedagogical strategies they employed, especially relating to fostering of creativity. With the pandemic experience normalising online learning, it is important to understand how children of all ages can learn effectively within this environment. The purpose of this paper is to identify challenges and opportunities for educators in fostering young children's creativity in online learning environments. The process involved analysing articles investigating young children learning online for references to creativity using the A-E of Children's Creativity Framework. The findings highlight both the paucity and infancy of this research field and identified several challenges and opportunities for fostering creativity in online environments as well as the need for further research to develop evidence-based approaches for best practice. Doing so will assist educators adapt to an ever-changing education landscape, to continue fostering creativity as an essential 21st century competency. [Display omitted]