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Creativity: What does it mean?

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Title: Creativity: What does it mean?


1
Creativity What does it mean?
2
Concept of Creativity
  • Has always intrigued humans
  • Fascinated historians, scientists educators
  • Elusive

Ford Harris, 1992
Young (1985) described creativity as a
honorific term because of the difficulty
associated with finding a universally accepted
definition.
3
Creativity Key terms
Imaginative
Interesting Ideas
Flexible
Variation
transform
Unpredictable
Improvization
altering rules
Evolutionary
Human Imagination
4
Some theories of Creativity
5
The principal goal of education is to create
people who are capable of doing new things, not
simply repeating what other generations have done
people who are creative, inventive discoverers.
- Piaget
For Piaget, an ability to evaluate a situation
from a multitude of perspectives was a necessary
factor in the creative process.
6
Piaget (1962)
  • Creative imagination is gradually reintegrated in
    intelligence as children age.
  • During the developmental process, the creative
    imagination increases.
  • Creativity Intelligence synergistically
    encourage each other to generate more productive
    activity.
  • Nature of the creative process is malleable it
    changes as the child progresses through the
    developmental stages.

7
Unless more people leave formal education with an
enhanced capacity to engage in, and make an
active contribution to, innovation, then much of
what we label creativity and inventiveness and
entrepreneurship and enterprise will remain
unexploited to the detriment of both individuals
and society. David Hargreaves, 2001
8
Torrance, 1971
  • Human beings are born with abilities that tend
    to be specific to a domain.
  • Creativity is a combination of
  • ability
  • skills
  • motivation
  • Creativity is teachable.
  • Life experiences of culturally diverse groups
    prepare them to be creative.

9
http//www.ltscotland.org.uk/creativity
Creativity Some Myths
  • Myth 1 Creativity is only important in some
    areas of human activity
  • Myth 2The creative process just happens it is
    always inspirational, effortless and comes like a
    bolt from the blue
  • Myth 3 Creative people are somehow special, a
    bit different from the rest of us and actually a
    bit strange in some way.

10
Myth 1 Creativity is only important in some
areas of human activity
  • This view is all rooted to the all common
    misconception that creativity involves artistic
    sensibility.
  • But scientists and mathematicians are no less
    creative in their fields than artists and
    creative writers

11
Myth 2 The creative process just happens it is
always inspirational, effortless and comes like
a bolt from the blue
  • This derives, in part, from the thought that
    creative thinking is somehow separate from other
    forms of thinking and that it is not possible to
    plan for creative ideas.
  • The notions that creative individuals will come
    up with ideas because they are good at that sort
    of thing and that disciplined thinking is at
    odds with creative thinking needs to be
    challenged.

12
Myth 3 Creative people are somehow special, a
bit different from the rest of us and actually a
bit strange in some way.
  • Historically this view of things is associated
    with formal educations preoccupation with
    conformity.
  • In a system where what was learned and how it was
    learned were best determined by the teacher or
    the system, any deviation from the orthodox
    approach was thought unconventional and even
    dangerous in that it challenged the status quo
    and destabilized the system with catastrophic
    consequences!

13
Initial Problem in Defining Creativity
  • Society respects creativity less than
    intelligence academic ability (a bias evident
    particularly in schools)
  • Standardized tests tend to ignore creativity
    (Ford, Harris Winborne, 1990)
  • Traditionally, society has provided a hazy yet
    rigidly defined impression of creativity
  • Creativity suffers in cultures or societies that
    do not appreciate creative people (Marl,1976
    Torrance, 1984)

14
Creative
The ability to make something that no one else
has made, to produce something novel, something
original
(Becker, M.G. 1994)
15
Describing Creativity
  • Bringing into being something that was not there
    before. (Edward de Bono, 1992)
  • Wallas (1926) described creativity as a 7-step
    process
  • Encounter was the stage of identifying a problem
    or something out of the ordinary to be addressed.
  • Preparation consisted of gathering information,
    researching the problem.
  • Concentration was the time-consuming stage that
    occurs when a child puts forth effort to solve
    the problem.

16
  • 4. Incubation occurred when a child could not
    decide on a course of action. At this stage, a
    child may physically remove himself from the
    situation, hoping that a solution comes to mind.
  • 5. During illumination, the idea or solution
    becomes apparent (Eureka!)
  • 6. During verification, a child attempts to prove
    that the solution is appropriate.
  • 7. Persuasion occurs when a child attempts to
    convince someone else that his product / idea
    solves the problem.

17
What does it mean to be creative?
  • The creative person conceives something new,
    makes something real that was unreal (i.e.,
    fictitious, imaginary), actualizes what was
    formerly only potential.
  • These are the commonly held conceptions of
    creativity, but researchers have not agreed, and
    still do not agree, on what is meant by
    creativity (Glover, Ronning, Reynolds, 1989
    Krebs Shelley, 1975 Runco Albert, 1990)

18
Becker, 1994
  • His contention Current use of the label
    creativity
  • obscures the importance of discovery (Getzels
    Csikszentmihalyi, 1976) of specialized, technical
    competence (Root-Bernstein, 1988)
  • underplays the importance of asking the right
    question (Brown, 1989 Csikszentmihalyi, 1990
    Ghiselin, 1952 Henle, 1974)

19
Defining Creativity
20
Moustakas, 1961
  • Experience of expressing or actualizing which
    emerges from ones own search into oneself

Self-actualization as a creative act rather than
a cleansing or polishing of something that has
been obscured
21
Gruber Root-Bernstein (1988)
  • The word CREATIVE emphasizes the power of the
    creator to produce something new
  • rather than
  • the skill knowledge required to set the stage
    for, recognize, bring forth, show a discovery.

22
Psychological Definition(Boden, 1992)
Creativity
The ability to come up with an idea which,
relative to the pre-existing domain-space in
ones mind, one could not have done before
23
What if others have done it?
  • Whether any other person (or system) has already
    come up with it on an earlier occasion is
    irrelevant
  • That is a historical question, not a
    psychological one
  • Boden, 1992

24
Ford Harris, 1992
Creativity
  • Modifiable, deliberate process that exists to
    some degree in each of us.
  • Proceeds though an identifiable process is
    verified through the uniqueness utility of the
    product created.
  • It can be learned.

Creative people are made, not born.
25
Identifying Creativity
26
Problems inherent in identifying creativity are
as perplexing as those inherent in measuring
intelligence, achievement, and motivation.
Ford Harris, 1992
27
Additional Difficulty
  • Identifying creativity among culturally diverse
    students is difficult because what is creative in
    one culture may not be creative in another (Ford
    Harris, 1992).
  • Society determines the values criteria by which
    creative products are evaluated and opportunities
    for creative expression are unequally distributed
    within a society (Marl, 1976).
  • Distinct social cultural influences stimulate
    creativity (Gowan Olson, 1979).
  • Unfavorable economic, social political factors
    inhibit creativity (Gray, 1966).

28
Torrance, 1984
  • Buddhists used creativity tests (Koans) to select
    gifted and talented candidates for training.
  • Chinese Japanese identified geniuses by asking
    them to create poems.

29
Gays (1978) 6-step plan for assessing
creativity(for culturally diverse students)
  • 1. Use vocabulary creativity tests
  • 2. Assess the entire student body
  • 3. Rate students in leadership
  • 4. Have parents complete a checklist of creative
    behavior
  • 5. Make a commitment to including increased
    numbers of culturally diverse students in gifted
    talented programs
  • 6. Assign weight factors to various abilities

30
Understanding Creativity
31
Boden, 1990-1992
  • Creativity can be scientifically understood with
    the help of computational concepts
  • Computers and Creativity make interesting
    partners with respect to 3 rather different types
    of projects

3. PRAGMATIC / EDUCATIONAL Using computers to aid
ones own creativity
  • PSYCHOLOGICAL
  • Understanding human creativity

2. TECHNOLOGICAL Producing computer creativity
32
Intriguing relationships between creativity
machines
  • Computers can help us to do creative things
  • Computational approaches can clarify many
    questions about our own creative powers
  • Computers can give psychologists a way of seeing
    more clearly into the rich subtleties of the
    human mind

Boden (1992)
33
Computational Methods
Concepts
Describe conceptual spaces
Draw from artificial intelligence
Generative system
Complex set of rules
Define relevant dimensions
Specify ways in which a range of structures
(ideas) can be generated
34
Boden, 1992
  • Human creativity is something of a mystery.
  • Artists and scientists rarely know how their
    original leads come about.
  • Artists and scientists allude to intuition but
    cannot say how it works or how creativity can be
    recognized.

How is creativity possible?
35
Non-Combinational Creativity
  • Involves exploration / transformation of
    conceptual spaces (styles of thought) in
    peoples minds, for example
  • - writing prose or poetry, genres of sculpture,
    painting or music, theories in the math
    sciences (any reasonably disciplined way of
    thinking)

Boden, 1992
36
Why Mozart is different from the rest of us!
  • His mind contained
  • more richly-detailed maps of musical structures
  • more ways of negotiating them fruitfully
  • than other people

Creative processes occur when there is an
integration of the characteristics of both
critical and creative thinking.
37
Creative Thinkers
  • Creative thinkers are highly skilled in using
    the kind of thinking that is generally associated
    with the right hemisphere, such as
  • making remote or uncommon associations
  • constructing unusual categories
  • finding new starting points
  • going beyond the information given
  • building broad networks
  • producing novel configurations
  • trusting personal intuition

38
Some facets of creativity
  • include various ways of thinking, doing and
    communicating
  • involve combinations of imaginative, intuitive,
    and logical thinking
  • is always about originality, the forming and
    making of something new, whether it is an
    artifact or a system or a procedure

Gruber, Pinker, Myers, Howe, Cropley
39
Characteristics of Creative People
  • Prescience
  • Curiosity
  • Non-conformity
  • Persistence
  • Sensitivity to beauty
  • Self-awareness
  • Independence
  • Intuition
  • Altruism
  • Temperament
  • A proclivity to make mistakes
  • Sense of Humor
  • Risk taking

Creative individuals see what everybody else has
seen but think what nobody has thought.
Ford Harris, 1992
40
Creativity Basic Assumptions
  • 1. Creativity involves a discontinuous shift in
    perception only when habitual methods are not
    successful in solving a problem or overcoming a
    challenge.
  • 2. This perceptual shift is initiated by a highly
    motivating provocative mental image that
    behaves as a metaphoric precursor to an ultimate
    workable solution or new insight. The answers to
    the problem are somehow imbedded within the
    metaphor.

41
Creativity Basic Assumptions (continued)
  • 3. The probability and rate of occurrences of
    this metaphoric image increases significantly
    when we can relinquish all connections to our
    present mental state in the early stages of the
    creative problem solving process.

42
Seven Operating Principles to Improve Creative
Output
  • 1. The future initiates and pulls creative
    thought.
  • 2. Initial fact finding is best postponed.
  • 3. Problem redefinition is often a retrospective
    event.
  • 4. Metaphors and analogies fuel the creative
    process.
  • 5. Forcing relationships is a key process factor.
  • 6. Convergence is a highly creative process whose
    potential is often neglected.
  • 7. One should work only on participants real
    problems.

43
  • When the creative potential abilities of
    children are nurtured, they become empowered as
    free and independent individuals.
  • Instilling creativity in children creates
    possibilities for solving future problems that
    educators may not have even begun to envision.

Ford Harris, 1992
44
Take a moment to enjoy the following performance
  • http//mail.lynms.edu.hk/cwk/sand.wmv 
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