Dr. James C. Kaufman is Professor of Educational Psychology in the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut and a highly-renowned creativity researcher. He is also a writer and playwright, having recently written the book and lyrics to the musical Discovering Magenta, which had its New York City premiere in 2015.

We interviewed Dr. Kaufman for our latest article in the series we write for TechTrends  (under the broad rubric of Rethinking Technology & Creativity in the 21st Century). In this wide-ranging interview Dr. Kaufman describes his research and perspective on creativity. In seeking to describing creativity he says:

Most people aren’t good at knowing what creativity is—you see that a lot with teachers. They want to nurture it, but most education programs don’t have any classes on it. So teachers aren’t really sure what it is, or how to improve it, or what would nurture it or what would stifle it. And how could they, if they haven’t been taught it?

You can read the complete article below.

Keenan-Lechel, S., Henriksen, D., Mishra, P., & the Deep-Play Research Group (2018). Creativity as a Sliding Maze: an Interview with Dr. James C. Kaufman. Tech Trends. DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-018-0279-4