Chapter 6 Creativity and the Design of Music-Mathematics Activities in a Virtual Simulation Learning Environment Trina Davis, Glenn Phillips, and Gerald Kulm Abstract Defined by digital age learning, the current education landscape offers unparalleled opportunities for creative and transformative experiences for students of all ages. Navigating the complexity of this new landscape means that students must be equipped with skills that foster creativity, and are poised to develop unique and innovative solutions. This requires educators to rethink what instructional design should look like and how students should be engaged. Mathematics classrooms, in particular, are fertile places for activities that integrate creativity. This chapter explores the role of creativity in mathematics learning and examines the intersection of mathematics, music, and virtual spaces. Built on Koestler’s (1981) work on creation and creativity, the chapter suggests how environmental (technology) and conceptual (music) frameworks can be juxtaposed to mathematics teaching to create more engaged and productive learning. It is in these unique collisions that new knowledge and new ways of knowing come to pass. A classroom simulation example involving practice teaching experiences in a virtual setting exhibits how technology and music can be incorporated into preservice teacher education. Implications of this work include an expanded idea of what contributes to feelings of efficacy and student success in the mathematics classroom as well as how music may help with challenging mathematical concepts like fractions and patterns. 6.1 Introduction We are now in a century that has been defined by digital age learning that offers unparalleled possibilities for creative and transformative learning experiences for students of all ages. Navigating the complexity of this new landscape means that students must be equipped with skills that foster creativity and problem solving and are poised to develop unique and innovative solutions (Mishra, Fahnoe, Henriksen, & The Deep Play Research Group, 2013; International Society for Technology in Education, 2007, 2016). Research suggests that these skill sets must be deeply ingrained and digital age learners must have strong disciplinary content knowledge, but also be able to see seamless connections across disciplines (Mishra, Fahnoe, Henriksen, & The Deep Play Research Group, 2013). This project, part of a larger National Science Foundation- funded grant created to examine the intersection of technology, equity, and math content knowledge for preservice mathematics teachers, examines how technology can be used to link creativity and mathematics learning. As student avatars were placed into a virtual environment containing “musical play,” researchers sought to understand what meaning these preservice teachers made of connections between technology, mathematics, and creativity. In short, this project seeks to understand what the experiences of preservice mathematics teachers in musical play environments tells us about creativity as pedagogy, and creativity as product. This piece uses