The document discusses creativity and how it can be fostered within common core standards through various models and strategies. It outlines four levels of the SAMR model - substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition - and provides examples of how tasks can be adapted to each level to promote creative thinking, such as using brainstorming and constraints with substitution, experimentation and playfulness with augmentation, provocative statements with modification, and design processes with redefinition. The document advocates cultivating creative dispositions and environments that allow for mistakes, collaboration, and expressive freedom.
Creativity is not valued enough.It is not tested on the high stakes tests.It is not part of the curriculum.Creativity is seen as the purview of the genius.Many people believe that they have no creativity, but would not say they have no intelligence.Many people only see creativity as related to the arts.Belief that creative strategies and dispositions can’t be taught.There is evidence that some strategies can be taught, but there is little effort or evidence about transfer.There is little research on the efforts or evidence of influencing dispositions ( either critical or otherwise.)Some contend that creative people don’t use these strategies.-Most of the strategies were derived from observations of how creative people work.-Of course, creatives don’t use the words that the constructs have been given; they don’t use cognitive psychology terms, literary terms or art terms if they aren’t trained in these disciplines--doesn’t mean they can’t benefit.-Most are not necessary for creativity, but could help creatives with ideation, etc.There is general concern that creative activities are fluff and extras.--they need not beEnvironmental BarriersLack of cooperation and trust among colleagues (murder committees)Autocratic boss who values only his own ideas, does not reward others;Distractions—phone,easy intrusions; andLack of support to bring ideas into action. Emotional Blocks Fear to make a mistake, to fail, to riskInability to tolerate ambiguity; overriding desires for security, order; "no appetite for chaos”Preference for judging ideas, rather than generating themInability to relax, incubate and "sleep on it”Lack of challenge; problem fails to engage interestExcessive zeal; overmotivation to succeed quicklyLack of access to areas of imaginationLack of imaginative controlInability to distinguish reality from fantasyPerceptual BlocksSeeing what you expect to see--stereotyping (Act 1- reading past words)Difficulty in isolating the problemTendency to delimit the problem area too closely (Act 2- 9 dot problem)Inability to see the problem from various viewpoints, or to transfer solutions from one problem to another similar one (Act 3--Plan of Attack)Saturation (Act 4--Coin exercise)Failure to utilize all sensory inputsIntellectual and Expressive BlocksSolving the problem using an incorrect language (verbal, mathematical, visual) (Act. 6--paper folding)Inflexible or inadequate use of intellectual problem solving strategies (Act. 7--Buddhist Monk)Lack of, or incorrect, information (Act. 8--Triangles--Don’t let assumption restrict what you do.)Inadequate language skill to express and record ideas (verbally, musically, visually, etc.)