A NEW definition of creativity: Next article in series

by | Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Creativity AmbigramThe latest in our series Rethinking Technology and Creativity in the 21st Century is now available. The article was co-authored with Danah Henriksen (and the Deep-Play Research Group) and it titled: A NEW approach to defining and measuring creativity. In this article we seek to provide a definition of creativity, and in turn offer an example of an ongoing research project in which this definition is being used to develop rubrics for evaluating the products of the creative process. Here is a link to the full article

Mishra, P., Henriksen, D., & the Deep-Play Research Group (2013). A NEW approach to defining and measuring creativity. Tech Trends (57) 5, p. 5-13. 

Here is a key quote from the article:

In this paper, we provided a NEW (Novel, Effective, Whole) definition of creativity as well as introducing a possible way of using this definition to create a contextual, flexible rubric for evaluating creative products. While this is clearly a work in progress, it is through the use of such emergent and flexible structures for evaluating creativity that we hope to provide a way of measuring creative work in the classroom. We understand that there always will be an element of subjectivity in this process; just as there is subjectivity in any open-ended, complex, artistic or problem-solving work or thinking (Mishra & the Deep-Play Research Group, 2012). It is, however, important to have a structure to guide judgment and give each project or artifact a fair, systematic, consistent and comprehensive assessment. This examination of the meaning and definitional components of creativity, along with our current work in the evaluation of the products of the creative process, is meant to further the broad understanding of the topic and its role in teaching and learning.

This article continues the series of papers that the group has been writing. Here is a complete list

  1. Creativity, TPACK & Trans-disciplinary learning for the 21st century  (With Mishra, Koehler, & Henriksen)
  2. Crayons are the future  (Mishra)
  3. On being (in)disciplined  (Mishra, Fahnoe & Henriksen).
  4. Creativity, self-directed learning, and the architecture of technology rich environments. (Mishra, Laura Terry, Henriksen)
  5. Square peg, round hole, good engineering (Mishra, Colin Terry, Henriksen)
  6. Of Art and Algorithms. (Mishra, Yadav)
  7. A Room of their own (Mishra, Cain, Sawaya, Henriksen)

 

A few randomly selected blog posts…

Design for age, design for all

The NYTimes has a story (For the Advanced in Age, Easy-to-Use Technology) about companies that are creating tools that are "helping those in their 60s maintain their youthful self-images." What is interesting is that these technologies are typically not directly aimed...

Txting develops spelling skills, how gr8

Scott Graden is Superintendent of Saline Area Schools and a blogger. He recently posted about a study that indicated that texting helps students develop vocabulary skills. Though he was skeptical of the finding, I am not sure I was as surprised. He cited a news story...

Math & Visual Wordplay: New video

Math & Visual Wordplay: New video

The word "math" written such that it has rotational symmetryi.e. it reads the same even when rotated by 180-degrees. The relationship between mathematics and visual wordplay is one I have played with and writing about for a while (More here). I just discovered...

The medium is the massage

Nicholas Carr has an interesting post (titled Rewiring the mind) on the findings of a recent study into the information seeking behaviors of scholars. (The full study in pdf format can be downloaded here.) Carr seems to suggest that these results indicate a...

Microblogging in the classroom II

I had blogged earlier about my attempts at using micro-blogging in my face to face classroom. As I had said after the experiment At the end of the class, upon being quizzed, the students seemed to feel that this experiment had been a success and would like to do it...

The future will not be a multiple choice test

From Chris Sloan, teacher at Judge Memorial Catholic High School and a student in our hybrid PhD program, comes a link to a TED talk. The description is as follows: Creative genius Drew Davies and forward-thinking educator Jaime McGrath propose a new approach to...

Avani Amol Pavangadkar…

... was born on the 7th of October, to Amol and Kanchan. [Amol was my partner in crime in the making of Hari Puttar!] We went to visit her yesterday and I took some pictures. Enjoy. View all the pictures

2 Comments

  1. ABDELAZIZ BOUMAHDI

    Punya Mishra, I’m following you on the Arizona webinar, it’s interesting, thank you

    Reply
  2. Mithun Ranjan Dey

    Very nice and informative

    Reply

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