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…

Presentation at University of Zurich

Presentation at University of Zurich

I was invited by my friend Dominik Petko, Professor of Teaching and Educational Technology at the Institute for Educational Science at the University of Zurich to make a presentation to their faculty and staff. The video of my presentation (Contextualizing TPACK...

TPACK (and friends) in T.H.E. Journal.

Matt Townsley sent me an email this morning informing me about a TPACK sighting in THE journal. Well... actually it's a journal whose title is THE journal! Does that make sense? Anyway, T.H.E. Journal (Transforming Education Through Technology) has an article by Dian...

How not to conduct research

Note: This post has been edited somewhat to (a) clearly hide the url, which I had not done a good job of before; and (b) to add a few suggestions in the last paragraph for some strategies to make it easier for the participants to take part in the study.  (September...

New forms of doctorate

The Institute of Education, University of London is organizing a series of seminars on New forms of doctorate i.e. the manner in which multimodality and e-learning are influencing the nature and format of doctoral theses in Education and the social sciences. This is a...

The one rule of teaching

Pauline Kael is regarded to be one of the best film reviewers to have ever lived. Sam Sacks has a piece on Kael in which he describes her style of film review, one based less on academic nitpicking and the presence (or absence) of directorial flourishes than on her...

Ambigrams and the creative process

I received an email out of the blue from Nikita Prokhorov, a freelance graphic designer and assistant professor of graphic design from Connecticut. Nikita runs a blog devoted ambigrams, but in a different kind of way. As the email said, the blog is "devoted to the art...

Creativity in the lives of accomplished teachers

How do exemplary teachers incorporate creativity in their teaching? In this dissertation study, Danah Henriksen  interviewed National Teacher of the Year award winners (and finalists), to better understand their beliefs, interests, and practices involving creative...

Mirror, mirror

Imagine you are standing in front of a bathroom mirror; how big do you think the image of your face is on the surface? And what would happen to the size of that image if you were to step steadily backward, away from the glass? A recent article in the NYTimes (Mirrors...

SITE 2011, the fun stuff

I had posted earlier about the paper presentations I was involved with during the recently concluded SITE conference at Nashville. Matt Koehler and I were co-Program Chairs for the conference, and sadly Matt was sick and had to miss the trip. In the photo below the...

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

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Diigo links 08/28/2013 | DrAlb - […] A NEW definition of creativity: Rethinking Technology & Creativity in the 21st Century […]

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *