Creativity

What is Creativity?• A process, a journey• Imagining• Different perspectives• Being playful• Provocative combinations• Part of the intellect?• Nonconformity, originality• Outside the box• Solving problems• Dynamic• Contextual

Jonah Lehrer– Imagine: How Creativity Works (link to 30 min interview)

• We need frustration to spur creativity• Creativity at Work--15% rule– 3M & Google

Focus 15% of work time on your own learning(signature aspect of highlyInnovative workplaces)

• Recipe for Creativity: Mix 2-3 seemingly unrelated items and add wait time

• “brainstorming” alone doesn’t work— debating and defending ideas does, like at Pixar

Creativity is:• not well correlated with general intelligence

(g) there is no clear threshold level (An IQ of 120 has been suggested) (Piirto, 2004)

• improvable with experiencesespecially when specific processes are taught within domains (Davis & Rimm, 1998; Erez, 2004; Sternberg, 1990; Treffinger, Isaksen, & Dorval, 2006)

Virtuallly universal with gifted learners

improvable with experiences

• creativity has been in decline in the US since 1990 (Kim, 2010; Bronson and Merryman, 2010)

• Creative and spatial abilities go hand-in-hand

Both are Undervalued in Schools!!!

• "the spatially-able are more often creative” (Liben, 2009)

Sir Ken Robinson- TED Talks 2006

• “…creativity is as important as literacy. We should treat it with the same status”

• Picasso—“all children are born artists… The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.”

• The brain and creativity are interdisciplinary• Schools educate kids out of creativity!!• Kids need the freedom to be WRONG;Opposite of standardized test/education culture

Parkway Prezi on Creativity/Curiosity

James DelisleModels of Developing Creativity in Gifted Students

1) Creative/Future Problem Solving (Osborn)

2) AUTA (Davis; awareness, understanding, technique, actualization)

3) Lateral thinking (De Bono)

4) FFOE (Torrance)

StudentsExamine a Situation or Problem fromThese 6Perspectives!

White-- researchGreen-- creativeYellow- optimisticBlack– criticalRed-- gut reactions, hunches, intuitiveBlue-- metacognitive

Picture linked to a Slideshow on using 6 thinking hats

FFOE (aspects of creativity based on Torrance’s tests for creativity)

Fluency-- generate ideasFlexibility– different

anglesOriginality- unique ideasElaboration-- adding details

• Being relaxed (alpha waves)– taking a hot shower, listening to music• Turning off your frontal cortex like a jazz

musician (ignore what ‘they’ think)• Traveling, hanging with diverse people• Acting or Thinking like a Child• Modeling Creativity, Flexible Thinking for students

Creativity is the residue of time wasted” --Albert Einstein

Van Tassel Baska-- PBL

Csikszentmihalyi (1976) “creative artists who were able to sustain careers in art were more effective at problem-finding– not problem solving—Than less successful students” (VTB, 106)

We are motivated to learn by our curiosityso we must engage authentic areas of student interest

Problem Based Learning is amazing at this!PBL learning--- Inquiring, synthesizing data, communicating, reflecting

PBL creates lifelong learners by empowering them to learn and share creatively in logical, powerful ways

Beth A. Hennessey- Environment

• Intrinsic motivation is instrumental in promoting creativity!

• Anticipated competition and evaluation diminish creativity

• CLD (cultural &linguistically diverse) learners need extra support to remove the extrinsic obstacles

“Developing Creativity in Gifted Children: The Central Importance of Motivation and Classroom Climate” (published by NAGC in 2004)

Beth A. Hennessey- Environment

• Kids need to develop an excitement about learning, the playfulness and the willingness to take risks to be creative (Amabile,1996)

• The Typical American classroom kills intrinsic motivation and creativity through: Expected Reward, Expected Evaluation, Competition, Surveillance and Time Limits (Amabile, 1983a, 1996; Hennessey, 1996)

“Developing Creativity in Gifted Children: The Central Importance of Motivation and Classroom Climate” (published by NAGC in 2004)

Allowing Creativity to Happen!• Open-ended doesn't mean formless; creating within a structure allows more creativity(like improvising off a melody in jazz)

• Provide an Exploratory Environment where it is expected to question assumptions & okay to be wrong

• Show Grit/Persistence

• Fail early, fail fast, fail often(i.e. like prototypes in Science)

• Edison– made 10,000 attempts before finding success on light bulb

Encourage questions

Slide 3- Jonah Lehrer– Imagine: How Creativity Works 30 minute interview

Slide 7- Sir Ken Robinson- TED Talks 2006– 20 minute YouTube video on Creativity and Education reform

Slide 8- Parkway Prezi on Creativity/Curiosity created by Parkway SchoolDistrict’s Project Parkway committee (Toby McQuerrey, Denise Pupillo)

Slide 10-- Picture linked to a Slideshow on using 6 thinking hats

Slide 11- FFOE (and picture) linked to an ISTE article on supporting creativity and technology integration together

Slide 13- Great Blog Post about prototyping and innovation

Slide 15– Beth Hennessey’s 2004 paper on developing Creativity in Gifted Children and the power of classroom climate

Resources linked in this presentation

Baska, J. (2011). Content-based curriculum for high-ability learners (2nd ed.). Waco, Tex.: Prufrock Press.

Coxon, Steve. (2011). Partners in Innovation: Creative and Spatial Abilities, [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://learn.maryville.edu/.

Coxon, Steve. (2012). Creativity, [PowerPoint slides]. Handed to me by Dr. Coxon.

Delisle, J. R. (2006). Once upon a mind: the stories and scholars of gifted child education (Student ed.). Mason, OH: Thomson/Wadsworth.

Hennessey, B. (2004). Developing Creativity in Gifted Children: The Central Importance of Motivation and Classroom Climate. Retrieved from University of Connecticut’s National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. Website: http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt.html

J Jackson. (2011, October 31). Wanna Create A Great Product? Fail Early, Fail Fast, Fail Often. FAST COMPANY. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663968/wanna-create-a-great-product-fail-early-fail-fast-fail-often.

Liben, L. S. (2009). Giftedness during childhood: The spatial-graphic domain. In F. D. Horowitz, R. F. Subotnik, and D. J. Matthews (Eds.), The development of giftedness and talent across the life span (pp. 59-74). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Works Cited

Works Cited (continued)

Robinson, K. (2006). Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity | Video on TED.com. TED: Ideas worth spreading. Retrieved April 22, 2012, from http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Slate. (2012, March 29). Slate's The Afterword. The Afterword: How Creativity Works. Retrieved April 22, 2012, from http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/the_afterword/2012/03/jonah_lehrer_author_of_imagine_how_creativity_works_interviewed_.html

Winebrenner, S., & Espeland, P. (2001). Teaching gifted kids in the regular classroom: strategies and techniques every teacher can use to meet the academic needs of the gifted and talented (Rev., expanded, and updated ed.). Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Pub..

Link to all Photo Citations

* All other citations– slides 5 and 6-- are research cited in Coxon’s powerpoint presentations.