Investing in creativity: many happy returns

(SITE-BASED MANAGEMENT: MAKING IT WORK)

Through 12 strategies grounded in the psychology of creativity, teachers can awaken the creative impulse in their students - and in themselves.

Alice is brilliant, but she doesn't have a drop of creative talent in her. Barbara is wonderfully creative, but she does terribly on stardardized ability tests.

How many times have we, as teachers, administrators, or parents, heard remarks like And how many times concluded mat abilities, like hieroglyphics, are etched in stone, as inexplicable and immutable as those peculiar markings?

Although there is considerable research literature on the development of critical thinking (for example, Baron and Sternberg 1987, Costa 1985, Nickerson 1994, Nickerson et al. 1985), much less has been written about creative thinking potentials. Yet creative thinking is every bit as malleable as critical thinking.

From my own experience, I know that the overwhelming majority of teachers want to encourage creativity in their students (and in themselves), but often are not sure how to go about it. To help, I will offer a dozen' strategies that teachers and administrators may use to encourage creativity. These strategies follow from a psychological theory of creativity – the investment theory (Sternberg and Lubart 1995).

This theory holds that creatively gifted people share a number of characteristics, including certain styles of thinking, motivation, and the right environment. It is consistent, however, with many theories of creativity that teachers would do well to read (for example, Amabile 1983, Boden 1992, Gardner 1994, Ghiselin 1985, Gruber 1981, John-Steiner 1987, Schank 1988, Sternberg 1988a).

Buying Low and Selling High

Like good investors, creative thinkers buy low and sell high. That is, they propose ideas that are like undervalued stocks, ideas that are often summarily rejected by the public at large, and viewed by others as odd, counterproductive, or even foolish. Many people simply do not realize – and often do not want to realize – that these ideas may be valid and perhaps superior to the way they think. They may realize, however, that creative people tend to be somewhat oppositional in nature, and they may find this tendency annoying or even downright offensive.

At any rate, the innovators “invest” in these ideas, bring them to fruition, and attempt to convince others of their worth. Once they succeed in this, they sell high-that is, they leave the idea to others and move on to the next unpopular idea.

In this view, then, creativity is as much an attitude toward life as it is a particular ability. And it is just this kind of creativity that we often see in young children. It is only in older children and adults that it so often is absent, not because they lack the potential, but because creativity has been suppressed by socialization that encourages conformity.

A Three-way Balance

Viewed another way, creativity requires the application and balancing of three types of abilities – the synthetic, the analytic, and the practical – all of which can be developed (Sternberg, 1985. 1988b; Sternberg an Lubert 1995). As educators, we need to promote the attitude that all three o these skills are important.

• Synthetic ability is what we typically think of as creativity: the ability to go beyond the given to generate novel and interesting ideas. Good synthetic thinkers see connections others don't see - they synthesize.

• Analytic ability is what we typically think of as critical thinking: the ability to analyze and evaluate ideas, recognizing the good ones, working out their implications. and perhaps testing them.

• Practical ability is the ability to translate theory into practice, to abstract ideas into practical accomplishments. In any organization – schools included – there are entrenched ideas about how things should be done. The investment theory implies that good ideas do not just sell themselves, but that we must convince others of their worth. A practical thinker also recognizes which of his or her ideas may or may not have an audience at that school.

Strategies by the Dozen

Now to apply our theory to the classroom. Here are 12 strategies that teachers and administrators may use to make students, staff – and themselves – more creative.

1. Serve as a role model for creativity. This is the single most powerful way of developing creativity in your students or staff. Children develop creativity not when you tell them to do so, but when you show them how. Just ask yourself: What teachers do I remember best and which ones most influenced me? You will probably not name those who crammed the most content into their lectures. But instead, those whose ways of thinking, and acting you have emulated in your own life. Most likely, they are teachers who balanced content with how to think with and about that content.

2. Encourage questioning of assumptions. We all tend to have assumptions about the way things are or must be. Often, we do not even realize we hold these notions because many of the people we know share them. Creative people not only question assumptions but also lead others to question them as well. (When Copernicus said the Earth revolves around the sun, the statement was viewed as preposterous.)

Teachers can be role models in this respect. Years ago, my 7th grade social Studies teacher, Mr. Ast, asked whether there was anyone in the class who did not know what social studies was. When his question was met by silence, he asked LIS to figure out what social studies really meant. We spent two days examining, questioning, and, in some cases, changing our assumptions about something, we thought we knew for sure. The discussion went far beyond mere definition, however, forcing us to question what social phenomena are and how people might go about studying such phenomena.

3. Allow mistakes. Every once in a while, a great thinker comes along – a Freud, a Piaget, a Chomsky, or even an Einstein – and shows us a new way to think. These people were able to make the contributions they made only because they allowed themselves and their collaborators to make mistakes.

Schools, though, tend to be unforgiving of mistakes. When children hand in workbooks with errors, their errors are often marked with a large and pronounced X. When they answer a question incorrectly, some teachers pounce on them for not having read or understood the material, and their classmates often snicker. In hundreds of ways, children learn that it's not all right to make mistakes. As a result, they become afraid to err, and thus to risk the kind of independent and sometimes flawed thinking-that can lead to creativity. They begin to suppress their natural creativity when, both literally and figuratively, they increasingly are asked to draw within tic, lines of the coloring book.

4. Encourage sensible risk-taking. When you buy low and sell high, you take a risk. Creative people are sensible risk-takers, but in taking risks, they sometimes make mistakes. Schools, for the most part, discourage risk-taking, and children learn early how the system works: To succeed, you must get high grades, and to get high grades, you've got to stay on the straight and narrow.

When my daughter, Sara, was in 3rd grade, her class was studying the planets. The children were to dress up as astronauts and pretend to fly to Mars. Sara wanted to dress up as a Martian and meet the astronauts when they arrived. The teacher, however, told her she couldn't do that because space probes had shown there were no Martians. Lesson: Don't take the risk.

5. Design creative assignments and assessments. If a teacher gives only multiple-choice tests, children will learn quickly enough what is valued no matter what you say to the contrary To encourage creativity, you need to include in your assignments and tests at least some opportunities for creative thought. On a psychology test, for example, I may ask students to recognize the basic tenets of theories of depression. But in addition, I will ask them to synthesize these existing theories and produce a new theory by integrating the others with their own ideas. I don't expect perfection, just a serious creative effort.

The same principle can be applied in any course:

• English – students write short stories, poems, or alternative endings to existing stories.

• Social studies – students put themselves in the shoes of great historical figures and explain what decisions they would have made, and why. Or, they might speculate on aspects of the future history of the world.

• Science – students propose their own intuitive theories of phenomena, then design simple experiments or do independent research to support those theories.

• Mathematics – students invent their own word problems or systems of enumeration or measurement.

• Foreign languages – students create skits about events in a foreign country, simulating not just the language but the customs.

6. Let students define problems themselves. Allow students to choose their own topics for papers or presentations, and their own ways of solving problems. And sometimes, when they learn they have made the wrong choice, let them choose again. In my courses, I often require several brief papers, and for at least three of these I allow students to choose their own topics, subject to my approval. My only reason for requesting approval is to make sure the topic is in some way relevant to what we are teaching, and that it has at least some chance of leading to a successful product.

7. Reward creative ideas and products. It's not enough to talk about the value of creativity; students are used to teachers and others who say one thing and do another. When I assign papers, I tell my students up front that I will look for the usual things, namely, knowledge, analytical skills, and good writing. But I also tell them that I will look for and reward creativity. The question is not whether I agree with what they say, but whether they go beyond what they have heard or read and come up with new ideas that synthesize others' ideas and their own ways of thinking.

Some teachers complain that they cannot as objectively grade creative responses as they can multiple-choice or short-answer tests. And at one level, they are correct; there is some sacrifice of objectivity. But our research and that of others (for example, Amabile 1983) shows that evaluators are remarkably consistent in assessing creativity. Moreover, our main goal in assessment ought to be instruction another opportunity for students to learn.

8. Allow time to think creatively. We are a society in a hurry. We love fast-food; we rush from one place to another. To say that someone is quick is one way of saying that person is smart (see Sternberg 1985) – a sure indication of our values.

In school, our standardized tests tend to present large numbers of problems (usually multiple-choice) to complete in a very short time. Even if someone were allowed to think creatively, how would they find the time? If you stuff questions into exams, or give children so many homework assignments that they scarcely have time to complete any of them, you'll preclude any creative thinking. Contrary to popular myth, most creative insights do not come in a flash; people require time to understand a problem and to toss it around in their heads.

9. Encourage tolerance of ambiguity. Historically in. the United States, we have tended to cast matters in black and white. A given country is all good or all bad; an education idea works or doesn't work. But creative ideas, even when worked out, may have their pluses and minuses. Further, the creative process takes time and tends to be uncomfortable: you want the solution now, but have only half of it. Without the time or ability to tolerate ambiguity, you may jump to a less than optimal solution.

10. Point out that creative thinkers invariably face obstacles. Because they have defied the crowd, they are often viewed with suspicion and perhaps disdain and derision. The question is, will that person persevere in the face of resistance? As a new assistant professor, I gave one of my first colloquiums at an organization that valued – and had a vested interest in – conventional ideals about intelligence. I foolishly believed that they would welcome new ideas. Wrong! The point was not whether my ideas were correct or incorrect – they were different, and my audience simply was not willing to listen.

11. Be willing to grow. Once a person has a major creative idea, it is easy to spend the rest of a career following up on that one idea. It is frightening to contemplate that the next idea may not be as good as this one, or that the success to which you have become accustomed may fade with the next idea. So we stop being creative and become complacent.

Complacency also comes with expertise: we think we know all there is to know, but often are the last to see that the world has passed us by. As teachers and administrators, we are all susceptible to becoming victims of our own expertise – to becoming entrenched in ways of thinking that may have worked for us in the past, but that will not necessarily work for us in the future. Being creative involves a willingness to step outside the boxes that we and others have created for ourselves.

12. Recognize that creative thinkers need to find nurturing environments (See especially Csikszentmihalyi 1988, Gardner 1994). This is as important to the teacher as it is to the student: we all need to find a setting in which our unique creative contributions are rewarded instead of punished. The same lesson, student product, or idea for school reform that is praised in one place may be devalued in another.

This last point goes back to the need to translate ideas into accomplishments. We need to help our students and ourselves – find a balance among the three components of creativity the ability to synthesize or see connections among ideas, to analyze ideas, and also to put ideas into practice. This creative attitude is at least as important as any creative thinking skills (Schank 1988).

(By Robert J. Sternberg // Educational Leadership, Dec 1995 v53 n4 p80(5).)

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ESTABLISHING THE CREATIVE ENVIRONMENT IN TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION:

CREATIVITY DOESN'T JUST HAPPEN BY CHANCE;

THE PREPARED ENVIRONMENT NOURISHED IT

Creativity is closely associated with advances in technology, and it is logical that an important objective of technology education is the development of creative abilities. To be successful in developing the creative abilities of students, it's important to be able to establish a supportive classroom environment. Technology educators must be familiar with the essential characteristics that define creativity and be able to identify the variables that contribute to a classroom environment that will support the development of creative abilities.

Creativity

Two essential conditions that creativity must satisfy are originality and purpose (Glover, 1980). The degree to which a product satisfies these two conditions determines how creative the product will be judged. If a product is very original but serves no useful purpose, then it will have no value. A unique product that has no value or purpose is merely an aberration or deviation. Likewise, if a product is very useful but lacks originality, then it is not necessarily creative. A product must be both original and purposeful to be recognized as creative (Cropley, 1999). A concise way to define creativity is purposeful novelty.

Creativity and Technology

Creativity and technology are very closely connected. Technology is by its very nature practical and purposeful. Technology advances by finding a better way to solve the practical needs and wants of society. People have basic needs and wants that are satisfied by technology.

The first inventions are always recognized as creative. Students can gain insight into the creative dimension of technology by developing a timeline of inventions and looking at the first of a lineage of inventions to determine the creative contributions and impacts of inventions. The first successful photograph, airplane, skyscraper, and computer were all recognized as creative. Additional insight about the degree of creativity can be gained by asking the questions, why and how is it creative? Answers to these questions can help to provide important insights about the relationship between creativity and technology. Since creativity and technology are so closely associated, it is natural that creativity is an important part of technology education.

Creativity and Technology Education

Creativity related to technology education implies that students will be actively engaged in creating novel products and solutions to technological problems. However, assessing the creativity can sometimes be difficult. Glover recognized that creativity exists at several levels – the individual, peer, and society levels (Glover, 1980). Creativity at the society level can be studied in technology education through timelines, inventions, and case studies of inventors and the impact of their products. Students probably will never develop products that are considered to be creative at the society level. A product or an idea developed by a student probably has been done before. Most developing adults will probably not create an invention that has significant social impact. However, given encouragement, support, and stimulation, who knows what the possibilities could be?

At the peer group level, some class members may be considered to be creative. However, it is at the personal level, where creativity should be assessed for technology education students. The first time a person has an original and novel solution to a problem, he or she is being creative. The professional skill of the teacher is important in sustaining this creative effort, because creativity is easily extinguished. Creativity is an ability that is present within everyone, but the proper conditions are required for creativity to be expressed.

Creativity and the Technology Education Environment

Since creativity is fundamental to the study of technology, it is important to understand how to develop a classroom environment that will stimulate and encourage creativity. In his classical study, Wallas (1926) identified several stages that are essential to the development of creativity – preparation (obtaining information), incubation (processing it internally), inspiration (hitting on a solution), and verification (evaluating the solution). Others such as Cropley (1997) and Runco (1997) have added elements such as “communication and validation” to Wallas' Phase Theory.