Creative Thinking Unit 1 PDF

CREATIVE THINKING UNIT 1 NATURE OF CREATIVITY “The first recorded use in English of the abstract noun ‘creativity’ is as recent as 1875. Certainly, cognate forms such as ‘creation’, ‘creator’ and ‘create’ were around much ear...

CREATIVE THINKING UNIT 1 NATURE OF CREATIVITY “The first recorded use in English of the abstract noun ‘creativity’ is as recent as 1875. Certainly, cognate forms such as ‘creation’, ‘creator’ and ‘create’ were around much earlier, first with religious and then with artistic senses”. A. What is creativity? Creativity is the ability to produce original work and ideas. It concerns taking an idea and putting it into action to solve certain problems. Creativity also includes the combining of existing work, objects, and ideas in different ways for new purposes (video clip). Creativity starts with a creative person using a creative process to make a creative (new) product. Wang (2013) says creativity is the intellectual ability to make creations, inventions, and discoveries that brings novel relations, entities, and/or unexpected solutions into existence. Creativity involves being able to generate new, varied and unique ideas. Gardner (1993) defines creativity as ‘the ability to solve problems and fashion new products and to raise new questions’. But it may not be enough merely to generate ideas: creativity is often defined in terms of its importance to others. Thus Gruber & Wallace (1999) say that a creative idea ‘must be new and must be given value by some external criteria’; Robinson (2001) describes creativity as ‘imaginative processes with outcomes that are original and of value’ Creative thinking is learning the secrets to mastering your fear, stimulating your mind, freeing yourself- positioning yourself for unlimited wealth and success. Three important components of creativity are the creative person, the creative product, and the creative process 1. The creative person o A creative person is usually energetic and full of ideas. o This individual is also characterized by having a desire to grow and a capability to be puzzled, spontaneous, a divergent thinker, open to new experiences, persistent, and a hard worker. 1  o Chavez-Eakle, Lara, and Cruz found creative people to be exploratory when encountering novelty, optimistic, tolerant of uncertainty, and pursue their goals with intensity. A creative person is a productive thinker. When confronted with a problem they consider all of the different ways to solve it. They tend to come up with some unconventional and unique solutions. Characteristics of creative thinkers include: i. They value ideas: Creative thinkers never underestimate the power of ideas. And they never underestimate the value of simple ideas, either! ii. They celebrate the offbeat: Being unusual is a good way to guarantee that people will take notice of you, and being noticed is a short distance from becoming a success story. Creative thinkers prize a variety of ideas, but they are especially passionate about ideas that are new and original-things that no one has ever thought of before. iii. They explore all possible options. Letting yourself consider many different possibilities opens up your way of thinking. It challenges you to solve problems in a variety of ways. And the more options we give ourselves, the higher the likelihood that a truly original thought will occur and evolve into a winning plan. iv. They embrace the unknown. They are not afraid to explore the unknown. The people who discover new countries are the ones who decide that they want to explore uncharted territory. The people who invent new technology are the ones who believe that a better solution is out there. The people who launch a spacecraft to the moon and other planets are the ones who understand that pushing ourselves to the limit yields phenomenal results. They take the risk and uncertainty. v. They do not fear failure. Most people are afraid of looking silly, so they don’t share their ideas. For example, during brainstorming sessions these people like to hide behind others, agreeing with other plans and endeavors. Sure, this is easy, but is it rewarding? Absolutely not! Creative thinkers know that offering their ideas is a way to test potential solutions- and, inevitably, sometimes those solutions will fail. You can’t be right all the time, on the first attempt, and no one expects you to be! Fear impedes your ability to create and destroys the possibility of innovation. If you can’t talk about your ideas, how can you ever hope to put them into action? QUESTION: Where does creativity come from? Is it something we are born with? Or we acquire as a skill? Are humans naturally creative thinkers? 2 FACT: Every single person in the world has a kernel of creativity inside her/him. We all have it at birth. However, the stability and comfort in life dilutes and relaxes our creativity in life. We become our own biggest obstacle to success. 2. The creative product o The creative product is one that never existed before like a new book, song, or invention. o It could be a child’s creative game to play with friends or a housewife’s innovative recipe for cookies, plays, publications, works of art, and musical compositions etc o Remember: a creative product also includes the combination of existing work, objects, and ideas in different ways for new purposes. 3. The creative process o The creative process starts with the creative person and results in a creative product. o It includes the thinking and the acts that take place to produce an original item o Various models have been developed to explain the creative thinking process. Most of them include a set of steps that provide helpful guidance. o A popular model was proposed by Graham Wallas in 1926. Wallas believed that creative thinking involved four phases: preparation (defining an issue), incubation (setting the issue aside for a period of time), illumination (the moment the new idea arrives), and verification (checking out the new idea) B Measuring Creativity Here are four different ways to assess creativity, each designed for different settings: 1. Measuring How Creative a Person Is - The Guilford Model 2. Measuring How Creative a Work Is - The Taxonomy of Creative Design 3. Measuring Creative Work Against a Program - The Requirements Model 4. Measuring the Social Value of Creative Work - Csikszentmihalyi’s Model 1. The Guilford Measures: measuring a person's creativity Psychologist J. P. Guilford devised four measures of a person's divergent production. Each of the measures can be practiced and improved, and each focuses on creative output in the context of a prompt (any prompt) that asks for a quantity of responses. Here’s an overview of the measures: Fluency: how many responses Flexibility: how many types of responses 3 Originality: the unusualness of the responses Elaboration: the detail of the responses ASK FIVE PEOPLE TO TAKE TWO MINUTES TO USE CIRCLES AS A STARTING POINT FOR DRAWINGS PICTURE 2. The Taxonomy of Creative Design: measuring how creative a work is The Taxonomy of Creative Design refers to changes in form and content, and it can be used to analyze or assess the novelty or the derivation of a creative work. It looks at a creative work as a product. It classifies creative work as an imitation of another work, a variation on a single work, a combination of two or more works, a transformation of a work into a completely new form, or a creation that is previously unrecognizable. It takes the scientific approach of reduction to a creative work in order to understand its component parts. PICTURE The Taxonomy enables the analysis of a work in the context of its antecedents. How far does it step away from previous works? How great a leap in form or content has the creator taken? Let's imagine, for example, that a group is tasked with solving a water transportation challenge: how can people in a remote village transport water by foot from a town well to their homes several miles away? The more novel the work is in form and/or content, the more creative it is, and this classification can be clarified with several questions:  Imitation: Is the creation the same or virtually the same as something that already exists?  Variation: Is it a slight change to an existing object, such that it is different, but still retains the identity of the original object?  Combination: Is it a mixture of two or more things, such that it can be said to be both or all?  Transformation: Is it a re-creation of something in a new context, such that it has some characteristics of the original object, but it cannot be said to still be that kind of object?  Original Creation: Does it appear to have no discernible qualities of pre-existing objects or ideas? With these questions, the Taxonomy of Creative Design becomes an analytical tool for assessing the originality of an object. It does not measure difficulty, but instead how far 4 an object reaches beyond what has come before, and some of the mechanics for how it achieved those gains. Strengths: Measures creative work in relation to other works. Assesses novelty and influence. Weaknesses: Tells nothing of the relevance, value, or effectiveness of the work. Note: For teachers, the Taxonomy of Creative Design functions primarily as a planning tool, suggesting the various kinds of creative activities or assignments that students might engage in. For assessment, these kinds of activities are best partnered with detailed program requirements. See the following. 3. The Requirements Model: measuring creative work against criteria In the Requirements Model creative work is assessed based on criteria (requirements) established before the work is made. In architecture for example, the design of a house begins with the program requirements: How many bedrooms? What style kitchen? Cost limits? A feeling of openness or coziness? Efficient use of space? These are intentional requirements, restrictions, boundaries, within which the architect creates a new plan. When the project is done, some assessments are straightforward: Are there the right number of rooms? Is the kitchen the right style? Did the project end up at the expected cost? So if we set careful requirements for creative work, we can straightforwardly assess it. We often feel that creative work falls in the realm of noticeable subjectivity, but most subjective responses come from discrete pieces of information that we can measure. The requirements model suggests that identifying these discrete pieces of information is the key to objectively measuring creative work. Strengths: Measures relevance, value, or effectiveness against clearly set requirements. Weaknesses: Works only when comparing a work against itself, not another. Note: The particular challenge for doing this well, especially in education, lies in setting clear program requirements. This means that the lower an assignment is on the Taxonomy of Creative Design, the more the model for imitation or variation must be clearly defined. So if an assignment calls for a student to create a variation on an epic simile, the elements of an epic simile must be spelled out. The higher an assignment is on the Taxonomy, the more external requirements ought to be applied in order to make assessment straightforward. The architecture example above suits this well. If I ask a 5 student to “design a house” I will have difficulty assessing the result. But if I ask a student to “design a house for a family of four on a small suburban plot that takes advantage of year-round sunny weather and offers easy handicap access to all rooms”, then I can more easily assess the result. 4. Csikszentmihalyi’s Systems Model: measuring the social value of creative work Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (MC). MC suggests that the value of a work lies in the relationship between three parties: the person (or his or her work), the category to which the work belongs, and the other people who engage the work. These parties broadly go under three names: the person, the domain, and the field. Person: the artist, an individual work, or a body of work. Domain: the genre, the area of knowledge (e.g. painting, rock music, classical music, etc, building etc.) Field: the authorities or gatekeepers of the domain (e.g. other artists, critics, consumers, etc.) In MC’s model, creativity is what happens when a Person creates a work, the Field embraces it, and the Domain changes as a result. This model measures value by the social or cultural response to the work. In this way, being creative means more than simply offering up any old divergent production as acceptance by the Field is key. When an Artist creates a work, the Field determines whether the work is held highly in the Domain or whether it sinks into anonymity. Strengths: Measures relevance or value in the context of a community. Weaknesses: Can be highly subjective. Note: As a social or cultural tool, this model is built on shifting grounds. The Field changes over time, and works rise out of and disappear into obscurity. Assessments of works, therefore, are not absolute values, but are gauged by the appearance of the work in the Domain's consciousness. 6  How to Improve Ones Creative Abilities o Keep track of your ideas at all times. Many times ideas come at unexpected times. If an idea is not written down within 24 hours it will usually be forgotten. o Pose new questions to yourself every day. An inquiring mind is a creatively active one that enlarges its area of awareness. o Keep abreast of your field. Read the magazines, trade journals, and other literature in your field to make sure you are not using yesterday's technology to solve toady's problems. o Engage in creative hobbies. Hobbies can also help you relax. An active mind is necessary for creative growth. o Have courage and self-confidence. Be a paradigm pioneer. Assume that you can and will indeed solve the problem Persist and have the tenacity to overcome obstacles that block the solution pathway. o Learn to know and understand yourself. Deepen your self-knowledge by learning your real strengths, skills, weaknesses, dislike, biases, expectations, fears and prejudices. o Learn about things outside your specialty. Use cross-fertilization to bring ideas and concepts from one field or specialty to another. o Avoid rigid, set patterns of doing things. Overcome biases and preconceived notions by looking at the problem from a fresh view point, always developing at least two or more alternative solutions to your problem. o Be open and receptive to ideas (yours and others). New ideas are fragile; keep them from breaking by seizing on the tentative, half formed concepts and possibilities and developing them. o Be alert in your observations. Look for similarities, differences, as well as unique and distinguishing features in situations and problems. o Adopt a risk taking attitude. Fear of failure is the major impediment to generating solutions which are risky (i.e., small chance of succeeding) but would have a major impact if they are successful. Outlining the ways you could fail and how you would deal with these failures will reduce this obstacle to creativity. o Keep your sense of humor. You are more creative when you are relaxed. Humor aids in putting your problems (and yourself) in perspective. Many times it relieves tension and makes you more relaxed. 7