Midterm Exam Creativity

Submitted by Sylvia Zinser

Questions answered: two, three, four, six, seven.

Both text books were used.

1 Question two

The Wallas Model. Wallas describes the creative process as the sequence of preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification.

• Preparation means to connect with an eventual problem. Informations are gathered, the problem even might be defined in this stage, the work of other people who got involved with the same thematic will be reviewed.

• Incubation is the stage in which all the gathered informations are on the “back burner”. The problem is worked at subconciously, the creative person is doing regular work or activities and does not conciously think about the problem.

• Illumination is the stage in which a sudden insight is gained. The ideas and data make sense at once and a solution suddenly is found (for example by connecting ideas in a new way or transforming them).

• Verification is the stage in which the idea is verified, checked againnt, eventually also doing different things again and out to seemingly nothing an idea would ’strike’ him. This idea then has to be verified. Poetry sometimes is written in a similar way. A poet is in a certain situation and thinks about it. He or she can then do other things for a long time until suddenly an idea for a poem about the respective situation comes into his/her mind. Writing the poem down and controlling it for formalities and content would be the verification phase.

2 Question three

Creative persons can be independent, energetic, curious, emotional, showing a sense of humour, needing alone time, taking risks and/or being original.

Strategies

Independence

Creative children often question school regulations and authority. They are likely to bend rules. They also take the risk that given answers are wrong. The thinking process in class tests often can not be easily followed by the teacher.

Creative children often are able to think independently, not caring for any learned rules. They try out things, which other children would not dare because they could be wromg.

Teachers can concentrate on the important rules and give explanations for them. They should accept results acquired by using different methods.

Energy

The high energy level causes creative children to move constantly, to show enthusiasm about topics and to be spontaneous. This can be irritating for teachers.

High energetic children can be contagiously enthusiastic learners. If the topic is right, they will explore it into surprising depth.

Teachers can encourage their energetic students by letting them do self selected projects (on thDTH=111>

Minus

Plus

Strategies

Curiosity

Curious children can give their teachers a difficult time by asking question after question after question. Creative children often show strong interest in unusual topics and hobbies but not in standard school content.

If motivated, curious children are able to work and understand difficult topics, driving themselves to more understanding. They do what they do enthusiastically, with skin and hair (image translated from German), fully immersed.

Teachers should motivate their curious students by accepting/respecting their unusual interests. Show and tell is one way, encouraging project work on special interests another. Especially if many questions are posed by the curious child, other resources can be found (library, speaker, mentor...)

	Effects in school setting
Trait	Minus	Plus	Strategies

Emotionality

Creative children can get upset fast, they are easily frustrated, they often talk very fast and feel deep feelings which not everybody else understands. They can be in tears about an seemingly unimportant fact. They might become emotionally involved in proceedings they consider unjust and feel responsible. This might result in tattling and/or social problems (See Dabrowski’s O.E.s).

Creative children often feel responsible for others, they help, if another child needs help, and feel with others.

An emotional child should know about his/her trait, that it has nothing to do with weirdness. Grouping children showing similar behaviour together could help. Listening to those children is important. The children should learn the difference between true concerns and unimportant ones (tattling).

	Effects in school setting
Trait	Minus	Plus	Strategies

Humour

This trait can lead to situations that the child sees a funny situation in something, starts giggling and after a few minutes the whole class giggles. This clearly is disturbing. Also children with a strong sense of humour might end up as the class clown.

The class learns new perceptions of presented materials.

A teacher just should open up and allow him/herself to laugh with the rest of the class - as long as he/she regains control after a short time.

	Effects in school setting
Trait	Minus	Plus	Strategies

Need f. alone time

To be creative these children need sometimes time alone. Any contact with other kids then is disturbing and they can be perceived as unsocial or act out if they do not get the opportunity to be alone. In this context they also might not perform at their best if doing group work.

If left alone these children can show their potential of creativity, new insights etc.

A teacher should not force his students to continuously work in groups or in whole class settings. Also some private place where a child can have some alone time in the classroom can help these children.

	Effects in school setting
Trait	Minus	Plus	Strategies

Originality

Being original is the trait most commonly identified with creativity. Original children come up with strange new ideas which often at first are not understood by the class/teacher. Explaining these ideas can be difficult for the child.

The original ideas of a creative child are an enrichment for the class and might encourage classmates to thing ‘outside the box’, too.

A teacher could encourage original ideas in the whole class. Also he/she should inquire about these ideas. This might be done outside the lesson, but should be done to show the respect towards the child.

3 Question four

One way to assess creativity is by using questionnaires. The teacher fills in observations about his students which relates to creativity. Another way is formal testing, whereas mainly one component of creativity, divergent thinking, is assessed.

3.1 Questionnaire tests

The questionnaire can be filled in by either educators or the student. The questionnaires for educators include question aimed at creative behaviour (like being independent or productive). The questionnaires for the students to fill in can ask for biographical information or self perception. These answers can give hints towards creativity. As with any forced choice questionnaires answers might be not according to the perception of the person who answers. In self nomination forms students even could refuse to answer. The perception of the student additionally is dependent on the relation between the tester and the tested student (for teacher questionnaires) or on the self perception of the student (for student questionnaires): The common sense definition of creativity, meaning being productive, is not always given in creative persons. It also might be very difficult to create a questionnaire assessing self-actualization. A further problem with such tests is that the person filling it in can cheat. If someone wants to appear creative he/she might be able to fake it by answering to the questions accordingly. The teacher questionnaires usually are a lot of work for teachers to fill, because they usually are lists of questions, for each student one form. On the positive side a student does not need to produce new ideas every day in school to be nominated as creative, because the tests check for behaviour or self-perception instead of productivity.

3.2 Divergent thinking tests

The divergent thinking tests are a list of tasks for the student to do. They measure fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration of the student’s thinking. Also these tests are deendent on the attitude the test taker shows. Reliability tests show that the test results change with different test instructions (as ’be practical’, ’include unusual, weird ideas’ etc.) Also reflective, but yet highly creative children are disadvantaged, because their fluency will not score high. Additionally the scoring of the test is dependent of the person who scores and the background of the students: For students in one class the word ’amphibian’ might be new, while students of another class know it well, because it was in a project - a student listing this as an answer in a test question should therefore get points for originality, a student in the second class rather not. These difficulties can be diminuished by comparing class results. The test manuals are concrete about the evaluation, but it still depends on the evaluator if he/she considers drawn pictures as original or not. External or computerized evaluation can help there. For some students it also is difficult to be creative by writing on given lines or drawing into boxes.

On the plus side, a formal test is easier accepted in school settings. For the results come in comprehensive numbers administrators are likely to accept those. Administration also is easier, because these tests can be given in a group. Additionally a child scoring high on one of these tests should definitely be considered creative. Yet it is possible to miss children who are creative but no good test takers, irritated by drawing in boxes etc.

3.3 Comparison

Both kinds of tests seemingly have more negative than positive sides. One plus both have, is that creative children can be recognized by both even if they don’t seem obviously creative to the teacher’s eye. With both kinds of tests creative children can be missed, but it is likelier to wrongly identify a creative child with the questionnaire method (especially if it is a self nomination). The pressure on children is higher on the formal divergent thinking test, the dependence on teacher evaluation is higher if one uses the teacher nomination scales.

3.4 Examples

One example for questionnaires are the Renzulli-Hartmann Scales. The teacher is to answer questions about the student’s behaviour. These questions are very complex and multifaceted like ’displays a good deal of intellectual playfulness, fantasizes, imagines (I wonder what would happen if..), manipulates ideas (i.e. changes, elaborates upon them); is often concerned with adapting, improving and modifying institutions, objects and systems.’ (Textbook by Davis, p205). This one question includes so many different behaviours that it is difficult to assign only one answer. One example for the divergent thinking test is the Torrance test of divergent thinking. This test has a verbal and an image part. In the verbal part for example unusual uses for things have to be listed, causes and consequences for situations must be given, ’what would happen if’-questions must be answered. In the image part pictures (scribbles) must be completed and some named. Many details count (elaboration), many different pictures out of the same original count (fluency) and the pictures are evaluated qualitatively (flexibility and originality)

4 Question six

The objective for keeping a journal is to enhance the students’ creativity. On the basic level this means that if students practize writing they will get better and better in doing it (their fluency - as part of their creativity will increase). They will learn how to use words to express their thoughts. On higher levels, students learn to think about their own being, their creativity, their thinking. Their self awareness will increase as they write about themselves. Writing about themselves will help them to recognize who they are, what they want to be and not to be, what they want to change about themselves. They grow to be more self-actualized which is connected with being creative (Rogers, Maslow as described in Davis’ Text book).

Weekly journal starters give additional ideas for topics to write on. Reflecting about daily encounters and happenings also can clarify these for the students. By thinking again about what happened they might adopt a new point of view. In this respect journal writing increases flexibility (another component of creativity), because they can learn how to re-evaluate ideas and happenings and see them from different perspectives.

Another benefit of journal writing is that students have an outlet. Many students are shy to directly address a topic to a teacher. Knowing, the journal will be read they might write things they never would say. Additionally they know that their teacher keeps their journal a secret, unless he/she has a strong reason to call for help. This builds a relation of trust between teacher and students, the students learn to acknowledge their safe environment. In this safe ’forum’ they can find the courage to tell ideas and thoughts, for which they would fear being laughed at otherwise. This safety nurtures their creativity.

Students can and should retreat for writing, taking some alone time which is necessary for developing their creativity.

5 Question seven

One pre-step of the CPS model is finding a mess. Either this happens automatically, one is in a situation one is uncomfortable with and something has to be done about it (this is the mess, then). Or one looks actively out for a mess asking questions about oneself and looking for problematic situations, situations one is not completely happy with. Once this mess is located the CPS model can be used to handle the mess. The steps of the CPS model are

1. Fact finding: This is like a brainstorming process, asking the question: what do I know. All important and unimportant facts, questions, observations and feelings are listed in this stage.

2. Problem finding: This is the step when the real problem is located, the problem what is most urgently to be solved. This is to be formulated in an IWWMI or IWWMW question. (In what ways might I/we....? )

3. Idea finding: In this step every idea, even the craziest are listed. Everything that might help for the solution of the one and most urgent problem.

4. Solution finding: The one preferred solution is to be found in this step. This is done using a matrix: On one axis some preferred ideas and on the other axis goals are listed. The ideas are ranked from 1 to 5 for each criterion. For each idea the total scores are added and the idea showint the highest number of points is the solution.

5. Acceptance finding: In this step the solution is elaborated into a plan of action.

The process is going from step 1 to step 5, but if need be one can return to a previous step and re-evaluate.

For example: I am feeling that the kids don’t see me enough (that’s the mess).

Facts to be listed is when am I out of the house, when are the children at school, at the piano lesson, etc. Other facts are who else can help me doing things (Spouse, babysitter, household aid...) etc.

Now, to the problem: One possible would be: In what ways can I spend one extra half hour per child per week as one-on-one time.

I would have to find as many ideas as possible to solve this problem.

The best five ideas to be used in the solution finding step would be (and it is important to have more than this to select from):

Sit two of them at the computer/TV/... for having time for number three.

Pick up each child once a week for lunch (skip school lunch and recess).

Take one of them to a restaurant in the evening, leave the other two at their dad.

Leave two kids with the babysitter after school or in after school care and take number three to the mall.

Take some one-on-one time while the other two are playing in the house.

The evaluation matrix would look as follows:

After this I would put numbers 1 to 5 to the ideas according to each of the criteria: 1 means this idea does not fit the criterion, 5 means it fits very well. The matrix would then look like:

The solution with the highest number of points, taking each guy out for lunch in school lunch/recess time would be the one to consider as solution. Now I only have to complete step five, acceptance finding. I would do this by talking to the school if I could do as planned and ask the kids if they wanted to proceed. In case the school would not agree I would have to go back to the solution finding again, mark the feasibility down or put other ideas into the matrix and find another solution.

lunch

dinner

babysitter

in house

good for other kids

good for spouse

babysitter