CREATIVE THINKING Key words: creativity, openness, curiosity, playfulness, seeing, thinking, knowledge, creative consumer Pirkko Siklander Adjunct Professor, University Researcher
CREATIVE
THINKING
Key words: creativity, openness, curiosity,
playfulness, seeing, thinking, knowledge,
creative consumer
Pirkko Siklander
Adjunct Professor, University Researcher
My windows for creativity
LUO (V) UUS
My windows for creativity
ACADEMIC
As a researcher: Playful learning, teaching and learning
environments; creative collaboration
Projects: CoCreat, Hurmos, MAKE
As a supervisor of theses: Thought-bounces as a collaborative
interaction feature for co-creation of new ideas
Thangaperumal, Pavithiran
As a teacher: Pedagogical modells, Courses: Play, games and
playfulness in teaching and learning, Creative collaboration,
Creative collaboration in media education
Work shops: Playful Lapland
INFORMAL
As a mother of four, two of them
visual artists
As a professional culinarist
”creative cooking”, kitchen
designer As a creative participant
in a family business
As a photographer
Living abroad, traveling
ORIENTATION
1 Introduction to the
topic and activation of
prior knowledge
2 Goal setting
MAIN CONTENT
What is creativity?
How creativity can be
enhanced?
Individual creative
competence
Collaborative
educational context
Creative consumer: how to
make benefit from the
education?
Triggers for creativity
ELABORATION
Creative consumer
(education)
ORIENTATION
1 Introduction to
the topic and
activation of
prior knowledge
2 Goal setting
Understanding creativity as a competence, which can be learned
In studies
Business
In working life
In life
Aim is to explore creativity from a cognitive standpoint, and relate
its meaning to education and business.
”--- childhood play is the origin of adult problem-solving and creative thoughts---” (Banaji & Burn, 2007/2010)
PLAYFULNESS & CREATIVITY?
Bernard Shaw: ”We don’t stop playing because we grow
old, we grow old because we stop playing.” Creativity
decreases with age UNLESS individual is intentionally
creative.
Many famous scientists and artists are remarkably playful
(Fleming, Feynman, Mozart, Picasso): play with ideas,
break the rules, play with physics, play with coloured balls)
(Bateson, Patrick)
Cognitive playfulness (Dunn, 2004)
Drawings: Einari Hyvönen, Photos: Pirkko Siklander
WHAT IS CREATIVITY?
… primarily a mental process with
emotional, social and physical
features, which leads to tangible or
intangible outcome, which is original,
ethical, desired, and novel, at least to
creators. (cf. Kampylis et al., 2009)
Which has social value (Ellenmayer, 1993)
We do not focus on how creative people are, but
rather how people are creative in the context, which
affords possibilities to advance their creative potential
(Glâveanu, 2013).
Every person has CREATIVE POTENTIAL, which should be nurtured.
… book finds creativity in each and every moment of our EVERYDAY LIVES.
We are creative when we move around in the streets, dance tango, fool
around with our self-images while shopping for clothes, or resist pre-
given recipes while cooking dinners. We are being creative even in our
bedrooms where we perform the difficult tasks of falling asleep or waking
up through arrays of sleep inducers and alarm clocks, not to speak of the
time we spend in the very state of sleep. All our actions at night—ranging
from what we later call nightmares--or dreams—are arenas of creativity
even if we may barely remember what we have done.
Lene Tanggaard (2014). Fooling Around: Creating Learning Pathways
(also, Andiliou & Murphy, 2010; Tanggaard, 2011)
CREATIVITY IS NOT?
It is not same as being an artist. Artists are often creative, but not every artist.
Is not same as being intelligent, although intelligence may indicate knowledge and
thinking skills.
Is not same as innovation. Creativity means coming up with new ideas, and innovation
refers to changing the ways things are done. Innovations may follow after a creative
process. Innovations are responses for problems.
Creativity is not only individual property, instead it is a collaborative process (McWilliam,
2009; McWilliam & Dawson, 2008; Tanggaard, 2011).
Collaborative activities in problem-solving: our purpose is together achieve something,
but we do not know how (Lindquist, 1989)
Creativity can be fun, but not necessary!
Individual creative
competence
Collaborative
educational context
Triggers for
creativity
Creative consumer:
how to make benefit
from the education?
HOW CREATIVITY CAN BE ENHANCED?
CREATIVITY
NEW
EXPERIENCES
OPENNESS
KNOWLEDGE
CURIOSITY
PERCEIVING
SEEING
THINKING SKILLS
(cognitive)
TRIGGERS
POSITIVE
EMOTIONS
CONSCIOUS
EXPECTATIONS
As a personal feature, the most evident is
openness for predicting and indicating divergent
thinking and creativity.
Openness to experiences and new knowledge is
characterized by flexible and inclusive cognition.
Openness is associated with curiosity.
Openness as a personal feature is adaptable, that
is, individuals can consciously practice and learn
openness and increase their creative competences.
HOW CREATIVITY CAN BE ENHANCED?
Individual creative competence: OPENNESS
Individuals high in openness compared to low in openness
PERCEIVING AND SEEING
They see more, seeing is different
and it is conscious
They can perceive and see what is
unseen. They want to see also
hidden meanings, they gather
data by seeing. By seeing they
associate facts, phenomena,
episodes or features, which
usually are not associated, and
probe something new.
Expectations direct seeing, open and creative individuals
want to see more than expected.
Seeing provides different seeing experiences, seeing is
cognitive, not just an act done by eyes, it comprises also
understanding and learning..
Learnable eyes
Individuals high in openness
compared to low in openness
PERCEIVING AND SEEING: how to improve?
Living and studying abroad
Participating in new experiences
Going beyond one’s limits
Being active in participating and thinking
KNOWLEDGE AND THINKING SKILLS
Creativity is basically thinking, and thinking
needs resources.
Knowledge base
Thinking: factual, procedural, divergent,
analytical, reflective, declarative, logical
reasoning, playful and imaginary, and
associative thinking
HOW CREATIVITY CAN BE ENHANCED?
Individual creative competence Decision-
making,
predicting
Taking risks,
crossing
boundaries,
breaking rules
HOW CREATIVITY CAN BE ENHANCED? Collaborative educational context
1) Emotionally safe athmosphere and low power relations; failure-acceptance (Eteläpelto & Lahti, 2008)
2) Emphasis on grades and competition as an external motivation can hinder creativity.
3) Resources: knowledge, hands-on tools
4) Creative and student-centred methods
Discovery learning, problem-solving (Pitri, 2013)
- Open problem ”what if?” Problem definition is challenging than solving it (Csikszentmihalyi, 2008)
- Investigation
- Planning
- Commitment
- Imagination
- Flexibility
- collaboration
HOW CREATIVITY-and playfulness CAN BE SUPPORTED?
Free up time for engaging curiosity and looking for surprices
Avoid time-wasting distractions, such as aimlessly watching television
Finding spaces and places that enhance reflective thoughts and creativity
Cultivate humour and playfulness: reciprocal encouragement can result greated creativity; social signals that are associated with positive moods
Rely on generating novel combinations of thoughts
Diminish boundaries and hierarchies, and create a emotionally safe athmosphere
Allow failures and see them as learning opportunities
Break away from established actions, patterns of thoughts, and behavior, and combine them differently. Find new relations between thoughts and connect the seemingly unconnected
Play fulfills a probing role: Look for adaptable ideas and strategies from play, particularly for problems. Move away from what might look like the solutionand get somewhere that is better.
Open-ended creative problem-solving (Milbrand & Milbrand, 2011)
Creative consumer: how to make benefit from the education?
Creative consumers are end-users, who invent a product or service for their own use, and then start business.
Examples of user innovations: Gary Fisher Mountain Bikes and Marc Gregoire Tefal
End users: “frustrated” users, face a problem or
have a personal need in their day-to-day or
everyday activities. They develop a solution or a
prototype that addresses their needs, and share
it openly before starting for-profit business
- Windsurfing, skateboarding, snowboarding
Hamdi-Kidar & Vellera, 2018
Professional users: use a product and identify
for need for it in their professional life, and
develop own solutions to improve it (previous
professional experience)
HOW INTEREST FOR creative thinking DEVELOPES?
Triggered cognitively! Instrinsic motivation (curiosity, personal interest, positive reactions to the task, positive challeng
Catalyst, trigger, stimulus,
teaser, activator, promt,
cause, spark
Phase 1
Triggered situational
interest
Phase 2
Maintained situational
interest
Phase 3
Emerging individual
interest
Phase 4
Well-developed
Individual interest
Short-term changes in affective and cognitive processing.
What is the trigger? How and why do you perceive it?
Personal relevance
Hidi & Renninger, 2006
Psychological state of interest, focused attention and persistence.
Which factors keep you triggered?
Meaningfulness
Psychological state of intrest as well as for enduring and re-engagement
Positive feelings, knowledge and value, generation of curiosity
Which factors make interest more intrinsic?
Triggers for creativity: business
Hamdi-Kidar & Vellera, 2018
In business is more likely to occur when the rational search for profit and economic benefit does not dominate.
Instrinsic motivations
Dissatisfaction
Passion or challenge, self-fulfilment, desire
Personal belief in the success of the project
The role of social relations
Financial benefits
Triggers for creativity: education
Berbera, 2018; Catala, Theune, Gijlers, & Heylen, 2017; Siklander et al., 2017
Story-telling (digital), children
Films (architecture)
Weak signals in visual form for future thinking
Problems, challenges
Another person equipped with knowledge / expert
Collaboration, peer feedback
New knowledge
Digital technologies
Novelty
ELABORATION
Aim was to explore creativity from a cognitive
standpoint, and relate its meaning to education and
business.
Where is your future as a creative consumer,
professional users?
What is your next step to enhance your creativity?
READ & WATCH & LISTEN
Andiliou, A. & Murphy, P. K. (2010). Examining variations among researchers' and teachers' conceptualizations of creativity:
a review and synthesis of contemporary research. Educational Research Review, 5(3). 201–219.
Antinori, A., Carter, O. L., & Smillie, L- D. (2017). Seeing it both ways: Openness to experience and binocular rivalry
suppression. Journal of Research in Personality 68, 15–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2017.03.005
Bateson. P. (2015). Playfulness and creativity. Current Biology, 25,12–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.09.009
Donnellon, A., Oll9isa, S., & Middleton, K. W. (2014). Constructing entrepreneurial identity in entrepreneurship
Education. The International Journal of Management Education, 12, 490–499. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2014.05.004
Eteläpelto, A. & Lahti, J. (2008). The resources and obstacles of creative collaboration in a long-term learning community.
Thinking Skills and Creativity 3(3), 226–240.
Glâveanu, V. P. (2013).
Hamdi-Kidar, L. & Vellera, C. (2018). Triggers entrepreneurship among creative consumers. Journal of Business Research, 92,
465–473. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.07.018
Hidi, S & Renninger, A. (2006). The four-phase model of interest development. Educational Psychologist, 41(2), 111–127.
Jaquith, D.B. (2011). When is creativity? Intrinsic motivation and autonomy in children’s artmaking. Art Education, 64(1), 14–
19. DOI: 10.1080/00043125.2011.11519106
READ & WATCH & LISTEN
Milbrand, M. & Milbrand, M. (2011). Creativity: What are we talking about? Art Education, 64(1), 8–13.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00043125.2011.11519105
Pitri, E. (2013). Skills and dispositions for creative problem solving during artmaking process. Art Education, 66(2), 41–46.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00043125.2013.11519215
Plucker Beghetto & Dow (2004). Why isn’t creativity more important to educational psychologists? Potential, pitfalls, and future
directions in creativity research. Educational Psychologist, 39, 83–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep3902_1
Renninger, K. A. & Bachrach, J. (2015) Studying triggers for interest and engagement using observational methods. Educational
Psychologist, 50(1), 58–69. DOI: 10.1080/00461520.2014.999920
Robinson, K. (2007). Do schools kill creativity? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY (Use critical eyes glasses, when
watching this. Tanggaard has posed counter arguments in her book, 2017)
Siklander, P. Kangas, M., Ruhalahti, S., & Korva. S. (2017). Exploring triggers for arousing interest in the online learning. In L.
Gómez Chova, A. López Martínez, I. Candel Torres (Eds.) INTED2017 Proceedings (pp. 9081–9089). 11th International Technology,
Education and Development Conference, March 6th-8th, 2017 — Valencia, Spain.
READ & WATCH & LISTEN
Tanggaard, L. (2011). Stories about creative teaching and productive learning. European Journal of Teacher Education, 34(2), 219 –
232, DOI:10.1080/02619768.2011.558078
Tanggaard, L. (2014). Fooling Around: Creating Learning Pathways. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Retrieved from
http://pc124152.oulu.fi:8080/login?url=
Tanggaard, L. (2017). Rethink creativity. The Learning Teacher Network. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13-1aWPZTYc
Zimmermann, J. & Neyer, F. J. (2013). Do we become a different person when hitting the road? Personality development of
sojourners. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105(3), 515–530. DOI: 10.1037/a0033019