Creativity

 

The Topic: Development of Creativity

 

INTRODUCTION

            There is an ample need to understand and analyze the process of creativity among people in applying the needed information that helps integrate the importance of creativity within the development of the problem solving skills amicably. This means that the creative process is an essential tool that describes the application of such creative information that could be a part of the cognitive skills that entails the process for enhancing certain problem solving skills. Moreover, creativity and problem solving (CPS) skills cultivate whole brain thinking that helps in their search for ideas for efficiencies in procedures and coping with changes in the environment. Thus, nurturing creativity in individuals can come up with creative ideas as needed. Many people think creativity is soft and fuzzy used as an excuse for wasting time and believe creativity is not practical since it only involves with fine arts such as music and dance. Creativity needs to be encouraged within the appropriate intelligence in order for the individuals and groups to be creative and intelligent within to act freely and right in the views of other people. Creativity is arguably the most important element in achieving success in life goals as it is argued that, to encourage and enhance creativity people involved in every aspect should address the effects of fear of taking risks and criticism. (1991)

The Importance of Creativity

            Creativity is at once the least scientific aspect of advertising and the most important (1998). To be successful, it must have impact, quality, style and relevance. Ideas must be unique and relevant to the product and to the target audience in order to be useful as solutions to communications problems (1998). This is because a “winning creative idea,” one that stands out from the crowd and is memorable, can have enormous impact (1992;  1997). Academic researchers (1982;1999) have found creativity to be among the most complex of human behaviors to describe. It has even been suggested that creativity cannot be defined or measured (1991;  1982). The importance of creativity is acknowledged by the scale and scope of the research activity that has been conducted both to understand it and to examine its application in diverse fields. (2000)

 

 

 

 

 

 

            Then, creativity is important because in a way creativity lead to different understandings of a situation within the process of generating new ideas for the benefit of something useful such as in organizations. Thus, creativity involves the foundation the development of technology and helps promote and discover useful solutions to practical problems and ways of doing things. Creativity provides the impetus to develop new technologies and new products to satisfy the needs and wants of society. Thus, such excitement is experienced in the challenge of a quest to find a better way as (1999),  (1999), (1995)  (1987) identified certain attributes that are important to the development of creativity.

Challenge: students are inspired and motivated to be creative.

Resources: sufficient resources such as time, tools and materials are available.

Environment: the physical facility is attractive, and examples of creative work are present.

Atmosphere: the affective environment is supportive, trusting, free and open.

Technology of Creativity: tools and techniques associated with creativity are utilized

Educational Environment: the administration, school and community support creativity.

 

Challenge

            The excitement of a challenge is at the heart of a creative classroom in technology education. Competition through Technology Student Association (TSA) provides open-ended problems that encourage creativity and motivate students to do their best. The essence of the problem in the Structural Challenge event is to design and build a balsawood structure that will carry a maximum load. Students who are motivated will not be stopped. They are enthusiastic and will do whatever it takes to solve a problem. A challenge brings out the best in people and stimulates an individual’s motivation to succeed. A strong sense of passion and individual commitment is necessary to sustain the effort required to achieve a creative solution to a technological problem. “Task motivation makes the difference between what a person can do and what a person will do” (1987). Teachers need to provide challenging problems that motivate students to be creative.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Resources

            It takes resources to be able to solve a problem creatively. Relevant information and knowledge must be gathered and applied to a problem. Tools and materials must be available to try out and test ideas. Sufficient time is also important to elaborate upon ideas and develop creative solutions. Having a sufficient variety of information available provides the critical fuel for a creative solution. Factors related to information resources were ranked as the most important factors for technological problem solving in secondary technology education programs (1991) and that creativity doesn’t just happen by chance as the prepared environment nourishes it.

Environment

            The technology education classroom environment can have a positive effect and inspire the creativity of students. Models and examples of creative work can be displayed. The facility should be attractive and well-organized to enable students to efficiently try out their ideas. “Scores on tests of divergent thinking are affected by both the physical objects in the room and the activities that precede the test. Students are more likely to generate fluent responses in a stimulus-rich than stimulus-poor environment” (1995). “The total creative process requires a drive to action and the implementation of ideas. We must do more than simply imagine new things; we must work to make them concrete realities” (1996).

Atmosphere

            The climate of the classroom is critical to the development of creativity. Creative ideas are easily extinguished with ridicule and a lack of acceptance of unusual ideas. Creativity must be encouraged, recognized and rewarded. Students need to be open to new ideas and help each other to be creative. Miller observed that “creativity is a group phenomenon as much or more than an individual one” (1999,). Each person is unique and this is an important characteristic of creativity. Diversity must be encouraged in the quest for broad thinking and the consideration of all possibilities. The diversity of the group contributes to the dynamics and richness of a creative solution. Hence, in his study of creative organizations concluded that debate and critique in the spirit of improving and developing better ideas are important positive qualities of a creative group. On the negative side, he also concluded that conflict in the environment of an organization is counterproductive, lf conflict permeates the environment and then new ideas will be squashed (1999). If conflict is present among students and between students and the teacher, the production of creative ideas will be diminished. (1999) The challenge is to apply such findings to individual technology education classrooms and establish an environment that supports and encourages the development of creativity.

 

 

Technology of Creativity

            The technology of creativity includes the tools and processes that enable a person or group of people to develop a problem solution that is original and purposeful.  defined technology as “the organization of knowledge for the achievement of practical purposes” (1970). When creativity is applied to a problem, the result is new technology, product, or system so; creativity involves the development of a better solution. The technology of creativity involves the use of proven tools, like brainstorming, within the context of a creative problem-solving model to develop effective solutions to practical problems. When creativity is present in a technology classroom, an important element of technology is represented, and an element of reality and excitement is added to the development and education of students (1987). There are specific processes and tools that are likely to improve the creativity of a solution. Awareness of these tools and how to use them appropriately is essential to an individual’s creative performance (1987, ). Brainstorming is perhaps the most well-known process ( 1957), but many people have developed other effective tools to enhance creativity (1974 ,1970,).

 

 

 

            Creativity can be encouraged and developed through the use of the steps in the creative problem-solving process (1987). When people “apply these processes deliberately, they speed up their creative processes and experience greater creative productivity” (1996). reviewed several studies related to the development of creativity. “The general conclusions are the same: creative abilities can be developed by deliberate programs and methods” (1987).

Educational Environment

            It is important that the educational environment beyond the technology education classroom is supportive of creativity. Other teachers and the school administration need to encourage, recognize, and reward the creative efforts of technology education teachers and students. Parents and the community can provide role models. “The accumulated body of research on climate and organizations undoubtedly indicates that climate makes a difference in creativity” (1999). The challenge is to apply this research to individual technology education classrooms. Technology education teachers who are interested in maximizing the potential of their environment to support creativity can use the questionnaire as an assessment tool. The questionnaire identifies key elements that will encourage creative behavior. It is intended to be used by teachers to identify strong and weak areas to help assess and improve the climate for creativity in the technology education classroom.

 

CONCLUSION

            Nowadays, many people have negative ideas and preconceptions about creativity, their own abilities and about the value of the process with an understanding of a thorough problem solving process and why creativity is vital to the process for the determination of intelligence by looking at certain creativity and problem solving habits and that in order to encourage creativity,  a person may open the door to a wide range of business benefits and give employees the chance to make business look great. Taking into consideration the skills to address the tasks required for problem solving and development and be able to produce their solutions in an environment that does not restrict creativity and intelligence respectively. In reflection, when people identify individuals, as gifted in such domain they often concentrate on what they know about the domain and their ability to learn about that domain thoroughly than other individuals. But gifted adults are identified as such by the creative roles they take in their fields, not by how quickly they learned about their fields. Instead, one attains fame by leading the field with one’s ideas. If one thinks of some of the most eminent people in the field of gifted education, one knows they got to their positions not by demonstrating high scores on tests of knowledge but by being leaders with their ideas about how to educate the gifted. Therefore, creativity is thought of as it pertains to the arts but it does occur in almost any kind of activity and within various groups of people such as originality and imagination, its identification can sometimes be easy since, creativity has to involve divergent thinking the ability to come up with unusual answers.

 

 

 

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