Creativity

Definition

Creativity is a more complex issue. It sometimes has been linked to "Optimal experience" which enhances productivity but does not necessarily entail creativity. According to Feldman (1994), creativity should be studied and therefore facilitated by the teacher at three different levels:

1. the social field,
2. the domain (symbol systems of knowledge) and
3. the individual.

The table below inspired by Feldman (1994) lists some important variables that could be beneficial for creativity.

Creativity variables

Level of analysis		Some important variables that correlate with creativity
Individual	Intellectual traits	existence of ideas complexity of thought complexity of conceptual structures augmented reflexivity
	Personal traits	sensitivity for the environment preference for complexity intrinsic motivation for getting a job done capacity to produce sustained efforts and control over the process capacity to transformer subconscious material capacity to find a balance between the desire to transform and the desire to preserve important elements
	Cognitive structures	domain expertise existence of "networks of enterprise" (goals, projects, etc.), i.e. some sort of general "purposefulness"
Symbolic environment (domain		presence of a symbol system that authorizes and generates new possibilities
Social environment ("field")		a network of people who provide support, instruction, evaluation, recognition, etc. cognitive and affective support system "faustian deals"

Creativity in instructional design

Creativity is a very complex issue and its relation to flow is not obvious. « Optimal experience » has been described by gamers or programmers and it enhances without doubt productivity, but does not necessarily entail creativity. According to Feldman, Csikszentmihalyi and Gardner (1994), creativity should be studied and therefore facilitated by the teacher at three different levels : (1) the social field, e.g. a network of people who provide cognitive and affective support, instruction, evaluation, recognition, etc. ; (2) the domain (symbol systems of knowledge) ; and (3) the individual, i.e. intellectual traits, personal traits and cognitive structures. It is clear that education cannot influence all variables, but pedagogical design certainly can have a positive influence on individual dispositions that already exist. It can act upon conditions, i.e. on educational tasks and the general learning environment like the « class spirit » with the help of specially designed technology that we will introduce later on. By exposing students to open-ended, challenging, authentic and partly self-defined projects on one hand and by providing scaffolding and support on the other hand, the teacher does create situations where individual traits can be exposed and developed.

References

• Feldman, D.H., Csikszentmihalyi, M. Gardner, H., (1994) Changing the world, A Framework for the Study of Creativity, Westport: Praeger

• John-Steiner, V. (1985) Notebooks of the mind : Exploration of thinking, NY : Harper & Row

• John-Steiner, V. & Moran, S. (2002). Creativity in the making. Creativity and Development Counterpoint Series., Oxford University Press.

• Smolucha, F. (1992). A reconstruction of Vygotsky's theory of creativity. Creativity Research Journal 5 (1), 49-67.

• Thikomirov, O.K. (1999) Theory of activity and information technology. In Y. Engeström, R. Miettinen & R.-L-. Punamäki (Eds.), Perspectives on activity theory, (pp. 377-404). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.