Teaching Creativity in High School: From an integrative perspective

1. International Conference on Creativity and Education Teaching Creativity in High School: From an integrative perspective Jiannong Shi, Xiaojun Qu Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Science shijn@psych.ac.cn http://cngifted.psych.ac.cn

2. Issues about creativity • Knowledge or experience and creativity • Intelligence and creativity • Motivation (intrinsic vs extrinsic) and creativity • Family background and creativity • Schooling and creativity • Culture and creativity • Natured or nurtured

3. What is creativity? • Creativity is the generation of ideas that are both novel and valuable. (Boden) • A creative idea is one that is both original and appropriate for the situation in which it occurs.(Martindale) • Creativity from a Western perspective can be defined as the ability to produce work that is novel and appropriate. (Lubart)

4. Two Defining Features of Creativity (Mayer, 1999)

5. Creativity is not the sole feature of a product • Person who create the product • Procedure during which the product is created • Environment which press the pressure on the person and has feedback on the product • and the product itself

6. Conception of creativity Creativity is a manifestation of one's intellectual activity. It is the ability of an individual to re-construct and combine the components of existing knowledge and experience in a special way to develop a new production. Creativity is combined with creative attitude, creative behavior, and creative production. The core is creative behavior which includes creative thinking, creative habits, and creative activities. Creativity can be influenced by the environment in which one lives. The degree of the influence mainly depends on one’s personality.

7. Intellectual potential Heredity Non-intelligence personalities Knowledge & experiences Attitudes or trends Creative thinking Creative habits Creative actions The System of Creativity Creative behavior Creative products Family economic conditions Educational level Social environment

8. Creativity and intelligence current Factors may make effects intrinsic or extrinsic Intellectual potential Control switch Attitude about task Non-target task Activities not evaluated Target task Activities evaluated

9. Power system Curiosity, Interest, Motivation, Creative attitudes, etc. Creativity in an integrative system Support system Notion & form of education, Pattern of management, Encouraging system, and opportunities, etc. Creativity development Resource system Domain knowledge, skills, Methods, Tools or equipment, etc.

10. Design of creativity education in schools (Shi, 2000) Creativity Function of product Originality Value Different from others Evaluated by society Know the old Communicate with others Try new things Comparing & finding problems Express oneself Cognitive aspects Socialization Communication collaboration Non-cognitive aspects Looking for challenge Risk taking Seeking information Do what others not dare to do Seeking helps Collaboration Enough physical energy Psychological mode Value of world, of life, & of oneself Having experience in society, in nature Medical care & nutrition Physical exercise

11. Cognitive Aspects • Breaking the set of thinking styles • Critical thinking training • Divergent thinking training • flexibility, originality, fluency etc. • example

12. Non-cognitive Aspects • Challenge oneself • task commitment, passion • motivation & motives • curiosity, drive for exploration & knowledge etc. • openness for experiences, open learning • Input & Output the information with different sense modality

13. Communication and collaboration skills • Expressing oneself • Making speech • Debating • Acting • Team-building