Photo/Image Credit: Punya Mishra

Dr. Jonathon Plucker is an educational psychologist at Johns Hopkins University where he is the Julian C. Stanley Professor of Talent Development in the School of Education. He has received numerous recognitions for his work, including the 2007 E. Paul Torrance Award for his research on creativity. 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 interview Dr. Plucker discussed a range of thoughts regarding creativity, education and technology. Describing a course on innovation that he teaches, he said:

No grade is final in any of my classes until the day that I have to turn my grades in. Students have until that last day to convince me that their work is more creative than I thought it was. One semester two students designed a new makeup brush. It made no sense to me and I thought at best it was an incremental improvement. But, almost every [feedback] slip I got from the other students had them as most creative or the invention to buy tomorrow. I thought, ‘hmm…I am clearly wrong!’ They sat down with me and they convinced me by the end that I didn’t get it. There’s no reason we can’t be doing that for all our students. That is how creativity works in the world. It is not turning in something and getting a grade. And yet we do it to students every single day. That models something that they will never experience in the real world. So, as educators we need to ask ourselves how do we model this better for them?

This and lot more in the complete article. Citation and link below:

Richardson, C.,  Henriksen, D. & the Deep-Play Research Group (2018). It’s Not ‘Hippies Running Barefoot Through a Field of Daisies’ and Other Contemplations on Creativity with Dr. Jonathan Plucker. Tech Trends. DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-018-0323-4