Notes on Plucker's Book Chapter about Creativity

Related AI, Jonathan Plucker, creativity

• Developmental stages are critical to consider when assessing & measuring levels of creativity (as well as sociocultural context)
• Innovation is the design process (design thinking) and sales process; part of a larger, interconnected process to capture value
• Innovation requires effective collaboration skills to navigate the system and what to change/iterate
  • A great argument for authentic audience, because students should be protyping and testing ideas out regularly
• Students may end up being less creative if they take all the constraints into account, thereby not generating ideas wildly in the brainstorm phase
• A model to evaluate creativity then must also account for self-belief and motivation
• Question: what about a rubric for what a creative teaching environment looks like? I remember walking into a classroom with no students in it to observe what evidence we saw of a student centered learning. Perhaps we could do something similar for “creative learning environments.” ^e745be
• This suppression of creative abilities pushes the more affluent students to become inventors while the less affluent students fight to become inventive despite the setbacks. In other words, they must fight to be creative.
• Creativity is a skill, not some level of natural talent. A la Seth Godin and Steven Pressfield, also perhaps touching on john cleese with his idea that "creativity is a mode of operating"
• Things to teach students include:
  • Openness to experience and tolerance to ambiguity, both of which could be supported by an arts-centric education
• Growth-focused feedback facilitates creativity, even in more analytical tasks; students feel comfortable taking risks within the confines of the task
• Perhaps one model - self-beliefs in young children, older adolescents, and domain-specific creative beliefs in adults
  • They should probably all read Linchpin and War of Art.
• Creative thinking/potential might be domain specific; therefore we can’t judge someone’s creative ability in one area over another
  • does this support creativity in conjunction with learning preferences in K-12?
• Students identify as creative in certain areas, and STEM isn’t one of them typically; makes me wonder if that is how we teach STEM, which feels very numbers/data, even though it’s more about what we use the numbers and data for. A science fair where students pick their own projects is a good start, but even better would be that they create a YouTube channel to engage with a wider audience.
• As students get older, more domain specific assessment could be used to measure their creativity-readiness
• 4 C's model
• Argues that as stuedents get older, instruction should guide them toward the production of creative outputs; I would argue this could happen at an earlier age through authentic audience. Perhaps a scaffolding of these skills could lead to adolescents building these skills in a more formal way.
• When workers find meaning in what they do, they have more motivation to be creative within an org - so this way of shaping creativity throughout the K12 and college space prepares students. One thing that’s missing is connecting them to their core values - the things that are really meaningful to them, so that when they graduate, they aren’t just looking for the highest paying job or what their parents told them they should do. If they do this, they might lack motivation which means being less creative and therefore not contributing as much as they could otherwise be.
• Creative Articulation - Perhaps this means the organizing of all the potential parts of a creative project; intended audience, collaborators, resources, etc. How good you can do this determine how successful you’ll be with the outcome.
• He argues that “selling” for younger students may be less important; I wonder why this may be. Perhaps it’s Erikson‘s industry vs. inferiority - perhaps if their idea isn’t sold, they will feel inferior which could affect their creative mindset.
• Propulsion Theory of Creativity - Ideas that push existing models forward a bit are more readily accepted than those that disrupt the status quo. Ex. web-based apps for smart phones that are built in pre-existing systems
• Again, the evidence that improvement-focused feedback leads to more creativity
• Developmentally, a 10 year old might explore general self-beliefs (core values, interests etc) while a 10th grader may be more focused on creative self-beliefs, creating self-efficacy, eventually setting them up to have strong domain specific creative beliefs in the industry

Objective: I need to use some of these details to co-author a book chapter about the future of creativity in the classroom. What would be worth talking about?

1. The importance of an environment conducive to creativity: Discuss how teachers can create a “creative learning environment” that encourages risk-taking, openness, and tolerance to ambiguity. This could also include the role of technology, such as AI, in fostering such an environment.

2. The shift from general to domain-specific creativity: Explore how educational institutions can support students in identifying their creative strengths in specific areas and nurture these talents.

3. Authentic audience and its impact on creativity: Discuss the significance of authentic audiences in promoting creativity and innovation among students. This could involve teaching students how to effectively communicate their creative ideas to others.

4. Nurturing creative self-beliefs and motivation: Elaborate on the need for growth-focused feedback that enhances students’ self-confidence and motivates them to be creative within their chosen domains.

5. The role of creative articulation in fostering creativity: Highlight how organizing different elements of a creative project can contribute to successful outcomes.

6. Sociocultural context in evaluating creativity: Discuss how sociocultural factors can influence the creativity levels of students and how these should be considered when assessing their creative abilities.

7. Connecting Creativity with Core Values: Explain the importance of helping students connect their creative pursuits with their core values for a more meaningful learning experience.

8. Creativity and STEM Education: Explore ways to make STEM education more appealing by incorporating elements of creativity into teaching methods, thus breaking away from traditional data-driven approaches.

9. Future Directions for Creativity Assessment: Discuss potential future models for assessing creativity that take into account developmental stages, domain-specific skills, self-beliefs, motivation, and sociocultural context.

10.Necessity of teaching “selling” skills as part of innovative thinking process : Discussing reasons why it is important to incorporate teaching “selling” skills from early stages.

11.Understanding Propulsion Theory’s impact on acceptance level : Analyzing why slightly improved ideas are readily accepted than disruptive ones, and what it means for creativity in the classroom.

What were we able to do in creativity assessment (qualitatively) that we could never do before?

ELGAR - publisher, handbooks, Paul @ winchester distinguished professor

Creativity measurement/assessment (could do in 5 pages, and then we play with the rest)

Want to explore conceptual models

needs to be interesting/useful

UGA/Tx is doing some research on these models

• Mark arunco - southern oregon university (SOU Creativity conference)
• Use paper and previous work to talk about first part of the outline
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