Chapter : Creative Thinking

B.A. Sem : 3 : Life Skils - III

Unit : 2

Chapter : Creative Thinking

"Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will."  — George Bernard Shaw

"Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while."  — Steve Jobs

11.1 Creative Thinking – Concept

Creative thinking means looking at a problem or a situation in a fresh, new way, so that we come up with solutions that are different from the usual ones (these solutions may feel a bit unusual or uncomfortable at first). We can spark creative thinking either through a free, unstructured process like brainstorming, or through a structured process like lateral thinking.

•     A simple definition is that creativity is the ability to imagine or invent something new. As we will see below, creativity is not the ability to create out of nothing but the ability to generate new ideas by combining, changing, or reapplying existing ideas. Some creative ideas are astonishing and brilliant, while others are just simple, good, practical ideas that no one seems to have thought of yet.

11.1.1 Why do we Need to Develop Creative Thinking Ability?

Creativity plays a big role in solving problems, in other advanced thinking skills, in feeling good socially and emotionally, and in doing well at school and later in life (Slavkin, 2004). Our children need to build their creative thinking because it helps them:

✓ To expand their abilities beyond the boundaries of intelligence.

✓ In coping up with rapid growth of competition in all walks of life.

✓ In effective use of human resources.

✓ In discovering new and better ways of solving problems.

✓ In the formulation of intellectual members of a society, leading to an intellectual society.

✓ To use their natural creative talents.

✓ To develop effective leadership.

✓ To remain mentally alert and healthy, leading to self-growth and self-actualisation.

11.2 Characteristics of Creative Individuals

Creative individuals possess the following characteristics.

Unconventional: Creative people do not feel any need to follow society's usual standards. They often go against the flow and think and live in their own way.

Individualistic: Creative people want to find out what the truth really is, and they feel a strong need to decide for themselves what works and what does not.

Inventive: Creative people live in a world full of ideas, and they don't always have the best people skills.

Driven: Creative people almost cannot rest until they bring their inner vision to life. They have a "fire in their belly" — a passion to add to the beauty and the betterment of the world.

Visionary: Creative people carry a guiding vision in their mind, heart, and soul, which they often feel called to bring to life.

Intuitive: Creative people stay closely connected to their inner selves. They notice signs, coincidences, and symbols around them, and they use this information in their work.

Curiosity: They show a lot of curiosity about many things; they keep asking questions about anything and everything. They may have wide interests in many unrelated areas, and may even build collections based on unusual things and interests.

Fluency: They can generate a large number of ideas or solutions to problems and questions; they often give unusual ("way out"), unique, clever responses.

Uninhibited: They are often free and open in expressing their opinions; are sometimes bold and spirited when they disagree; and are unusually persistent — sticking firmly to an idea or a project.

Risk taking: They are willing to take risks, and are often described as a "high risk taker," or adventurous, or speculative.

Imaginative: They show a lot of intellectual playfulness; they may often be found fantasising, daydreaming, or imagining things.

Sense of Humour: They show a sharp sense of humour and can find humour in situations that may not seem funny to others. Sometimes their humour may seem strange, inappropriate, or disrespectful to others.

Sensitive: They show heightened emotional sensitivity. They may be very sensitive to beauty, and may be visibly moved by beautiful experiences.

Non conformity: They are often seen as people who do not follow the crowd; they accept messy or chaotic environments or situations; they are often not bothered about small details, are described as individualistic, or do not mind being called "different."

11.3 Components of Creative Thinking

The components of creative thinking are explained below.

i)        Divergent Thinking: is the ability to think in different ways on one issue.

ii)      Innovativeness: is the ability to think in new ways of doing things, different from the routine ways, which is cost effective if implemented, and worthy of emulation.

iii)    Novelty: is the ability to generate new ways of thinking which the individual/group had not used in the past.

iv)    Fluency: is the ability to generate fluently many ideas about a situation without any discontinuity of thoughts.

v)      Flexibility: is the ability to shift perspectives while thinking and generate as many ideas as possible.

vi)    Originality: is the ability to think very differently from the large majority of people on different social situations, disregard of their social approval.

vii)  Elaboration: is the ability to think in such a way where one is capable of expanding different issues to different proportions in a connected manner.

viii)  Unconventionality: is the ability to think very differently from the practiced conventional ways of thinking by the group on any issue of social life.

ix)    Independence: is the ability to think without being influenced by the views of others.

11.4 Steps of Creative Thinking

The five steps of creative thinking are:

1.     Deferring judgment when looking for ideas

2.     Generate as many ideas as possible

3.     List ideas as they occur and keep a written record

4.     Constantly elaborate or improve on ideas

5.     Allowing your subconscious to generate ideas by incubating their subject

Deferring judgment keeps the creative ideas flowing. The moment we tell ourselves or our team that something is a "dumb idea," our mind — or our team — will stop coming up with those so-called dumb ideas. So wait to decide which ideas are worth pursuing until we have generated lots of ideas, no matter how silly or unrelated to the problem they may seem at first.

Generate as many ideas as possible, because this fills up your pool of ideas. The more ideas you have, the better your chances of finding something new that actually works. Most of our ideas will not be used in the end, but all it takes is one or two good ones.

List ideas as they come to mind, and keep a written record. Creative ideas are easy to lose — they can slip away the moment you get distracted by your daily routine. More importantly, creative ideas often don't look creative on their own, until you combine them with other, often very different, ideas. By writing down your ideas and thoughts, you won't lose them. Later, you can mix, match, reshuffle, and combine them, and see what comes out at the end.

Constantly elaborating or improving on the ideas that you or your team generate helps you discover new combinations, changes, and surprises. Creative people keep looking for other ways to think about a subject, even when the old way is already working fine. Keep looking for and trying out different perspectives and different ways of doing things.

Allowing your subconscious to generate ideas by simply letting the subject sit in your mind for a while. Einstein is often quoted as saying, "Why is it my best ideas come to me while taking my morning shower?" Your subconscious mind keeps working on its own, even though you cannot force it to produce results on demand. Good ideas need time to develop. So work on a problem, come up with some ideas, and then step away and do something completely different — take a walk, watch a show, sculpt, paint, sing, visit an art gallery, play a sport, play with your kids — mix it up. Stop thinking about the problem for a while. Then come back to it and try the earlier four steps again, and see what new ideas come up.

11.5 Stages of Creative Thinking

The Five Stages of Creativity by James Taylor

(These five stages — Preparation, Incubation, Insight, Evaluation, and Elaboration — together form the diagram "Five Stages of Creativity" shown in the original chapter.)

1. Preparation

•     The first stage is preparation — the idea that you fully immerse yourself in the subject or field you are working in.

2. Incubation

•     The second stage is called incubation. This is when all the information you gathered during the preparation stage goes back into your mind and starts working quietly in the background, in your subconscious.

•     This stage is very important because sometimes it can take days, weeks, months, or even years. For example, you may think about writing a book or a piece of music, work on it for a while, then set it aside, and later come back to it.

•     What is interesting about the incubation stage is that, to some extent, it is not really in your control how long this stage will take. You cannot really rush it, because it is what eventually leads to the third stage.

3. Insight

•     The third stage is what most people think of as the classic sign of a creative person.

•     This is called the insight stage or the insight step. Insight is really the "Aha" moment — the "Eureka" moment.

•     Although it is probably the smallest part of the five stages, it may be one of the most important parts.

4. Evaluation

•     The fourth stage is evaluation. Many creative people find this stage difficult because they often have so many ideas but only a limited amount of time. So the evaluation stage matters a lot, because it calls for self-criticism and reflection. It involves asking yourself questions like:

"Is this a novel or new idea, or is it one that is just re-hashed and has been done before?"

•     It also involves going out to a small group of trusted friends and saying:

"I've had this idea, what do you think about this?"

•     This is a very important part, because we only have a limited amount of time to do certain things.

•     Often, the people who are called the most "creative people" are actually very good at this stage — the evaluation stage. They have many ideas, but they can use self-criticism and reflection to say, "These are the ones that have the most merit, and these are the ones I am going to work on."

5. Elaboration

•     Finally, we come to the last stage, called elaboration. This is where Edison's famous saying applies — that creativity is "1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." The elaboration stage is really that 99% perspiration stage.

•     This is where you actually do the hard work. Many people believe that the creative process is just about that insight, that "Aha" moment, or the preparation part. But a creative effort isn't really complete — and cannot truly last — unless a person also goes through this stage and puts in the hard work.

•     Elaboration means testing the idea, working on the idea — those late nights in the studio, working at your desk, those hours in the laboratory if you are a scientist, those days spent testing and fine-tuning products. This is the elaboration stage.

11.6 Developing Creative Thinking

•     Many people think that a person is either creative or not creative at all. While it is true that some people may be a little more naturally inclined towards creative thinking than others, creativity is really like a muscle — it can be exercised and improved with practice.

•     Every child is born with the potential to be creative. Creativity is an important part of every personality. It helps us look at things in a varied and uncommon way. Creativity does not just happen on its own — it needs to be nurtured, and this nurturing of creativity in every child should begin right from the classroom.

Creativity can be encouraged and nurtured, and here is a list of strategies that can help teachers promote or build creativity in the classroom.

Emotional Connection

✓ Many research studies show that creativity is best nurtured through emotional connections. For example, if teachers give students a project related to community problems such as domestic violence, it can add a human touch and, in this way, an emotional connection that helps creativity grow.

Classroom Environment

✓ The classroom environment plays a very important role in building creativity and confidence among students. Teachers can create a classroom environment where every student's voice matters a great deal. Getting students involved with the community is one of the best ways to encourage their creativity.

✓ Here is how teachers can make the classroom environment more effective for their students.

■   Permit frequent discussion and interaction amid students in the classroom.

■   Make time for informal class opportunity for the students.

■   Memorize each student's name meanwhile ensure every student knows everyone's name.

Use of Different Models

➤ A teacher can use various models to encourage creativity in students. A good model can help in:

✓ Establishing connection amid the students' real lives and classroom.

✓ Inspire innovation and create chances to resolve novel issues.

✓ Lookout ways to spread learning prospects at classroom and home.

Risk-Taking

➤ The ability or habit of taking risks in thinking naturally encourages creativity. So, teachers must encourage a risk-taking approach among students. Here are some strategies teachers can follow to build this risk-taking ability in their students.

✓ Offer safe environment that permits risk-taking.

✓ Arouse willingness in the students to try new ideas.

✓ Accept the mistakes made by students while trying new things.

✓ Talk to other teachers and discuss what worked and what not.

Active Learning

➤ Active learning means using creative tools like games, concept maps, and study materials. Active learning can only work when students actually enjoy the learning environment. Here are some ideas through which teachers can build creative thinking through active learning.

✓ Create interactions that provide students a lot problem-solving opportunity.

✓ Give them a lot of opportunities for hands-on field work.

✓ Organize round-table discussion time to time on interesting topics.

✓ Permit students to create some of the question for their upcoming exam.

11.7 Techniques to Enhance Creativity

The following techniques are discussed below.

Brainstorming: Brainstorming is a technique used to generate ideas. It has two main goals — (1) to break us free from our habit-bound thinking, and (2) to produce a set of ideas from which we can choose. After all, nobody wants only one choice of product when buying a detergent or a car, so why settle for only one solution while working on a problem?

Suspend judgment: This is the most important rule. When ideas are being put forward, no critical comments are allowed. All ideas are simply written down, and judging them is kept for later. We have been trained to be so quick to analyse, to be practical, and to narrow our thinking down that this step can feel very hard to follow — but it is essential. Creating ideas and criticising them at the same time is a bit like watering the seedlings and pouring weed killer on them at the same time.

Think freely: Wild thoughts, impossible and unthinkable ideas are perfectly fine. In fact, in every session, there should be a few ideas so unusual that they make the whole group laugh. Remember that practical ideas very often grow out of silly, impractical, or seemingly impossible ones. By allowing yourself to think beyond the limits of ordinary, everyday thought, brilliant new solutions can come up. Some "wild" ideas even turn out to be quite practical.

Tag on: Improve, modify, and build on the ideas of others. Ask yourself — what is good about the idea that was just suggested? How can it be made to work? What changes would make it better, or even wilder? Use someone else's idea as a starting point for your own improvement or variation. As mentioned earlier, changing just one part of a solution that doesn't seem to work can sometimes turn it into a great solution.

Quantity of ideas is important: Focus on building up a large collection of ideas, so that you can sort through them later. There are two reasons for wanting a large quantity. First, the obvious, usual, stale, unworkable ideas tend to come to mind first, so the first 20 or 25 ideas are probably not going to be fresh or very creative. Second, the larger your list of possibilities, the more choices you will have — to adapt from, or to combine. Some brainstormers even aim for a fixed number, like 50 or 100 ideas, before ending the session.

QUESTIONS

6.     Define creativity and explain its components.

7.     What are the steps of creative thinking? Discuss.

8.     Explain the stages of creative thinking with examples.

9.     How do you foster creativity among children?

References : 

Bhatt, Rajeshkumar I. Life Skill Education. Notion Press, 2017.