Creativity in Postsecondary Settings: Multiple Paths Are the Rule Not the Exception
Ayman Aljarrah (PhD Candidate)
Educational Research/ Curriculum and Learning
Supervisor: Dr. Jo Towers
Why Creativity?
Researchers in creativity and education agree on the
importance of creativity, and the need to reconceptualize
pedagogy for purposes like:
 teaching for creativity,
 learning creatively, and
 promoting creativity in classroom settings.
Overcoming Obstacles (Creative Desperation): this metaphor
suggests that the spark of creativity glimmers when we are
addressed by a worthwhile problematic situation.
Divergent Thinking (Thinking Outside The Box): According to
Webster’s online dictionary, divergent thinking is a creative
thinking that may follow many lines of thought and tends to
generate new original solutions to problems.
Assembling (Things In New Ways): Creativity includes using what
we have creatively, which, in turn, may require finding
connections, combining ideas and information, and assembling
things in new ways.
Route-Finding: Koestler (1964) argued that “the creative act is
not an act of creation in the sense of the old Testament. It does
not create something out of nothing: it uncovers, selects, reshuffles, combines and synthesizes already exciting facts, ideas,
faculties, skills” (p. 120).
What Is Creativity?
Creativity In Postsecondary Settings
 A brief tracking of the origins and uses of the word
“creativity” in different cultures indicates that the word in its
beginning reflects a kind of biological fruitfulness, which
means to bring something new into being. This is why most
scholars in the field of creativity suggest newness and
fruitfulness as two criteria for judging creativity.
 Tardif and Sternberg (1988) suggested that creativity in real
life exists in many different forms. In addition, Torrance
(1988) claimed that, although there have been many
attempts to define creativity, it still defies precise definition.
So even after long decades of research in creativity the
problem of articulating and sustaining an acceptable and
applicable description of creativity is still unresolved.
Metaphors Of Creativity
Data Sources: I conducted a thoughtful review of the
literature on creativity in the field of education in order to
understand the nature of creativity as it applies to classroom
settings. I developed a number of themes, which I then
combined and recombined over successive iterations until I
had seven themes in the form of metaphors that
encompassed all of the literature I reviewed. I suggest that
these metaphors can be used to describe creativity as it
applies to classroom settings.
The current
paper
addresses the
need to
consider
creativity in
postsecondary
settings in
different
forms and at
different
levels.
Conclusion
It can be
considered as
an invitation
for educators
to think about
how to create
and offer
many genuine
learning
opportunities
for students
to exercise
creativity.
Creativity is “now considered good for economies, good
for society, good for communities and good for education”
(Burnard & White, 2008, p. 669). Based on such claims,
the current paper addresses two important questions
regarding recognizing, and promoting creativity in
postsecondary settings that are:
 What does creativity look like in postsecondary
settings? And
 How can creativity be fostered within such settings?
Expanding Possibilities: Being Imaginative, Asking Questions,
And Playing: Craft (2000) argued that one of the engines for
little-c creativity is the idea of “possibility”. She conceived of the
idea of “possibility” as using imagination, asking questions, and
playing.
Collaborative Emergence: Sawyer (1999) conceived of creativity
as an emergent phenomenon that results “from the collective
activity of social groups. Although collaborative emergence
results from the interactions of individuals, these phenomena
cannot be understood by simply analysing the members of the
group individually” (p. 449).
Birthing (Producing, Originating, or Making Something New):
The word “creativity”, both in its origins and in most of its
different uses, reflects a kind of newness; originality; or novelty.
It indicates bringing something new into being. In addition, and
based on the belief that acts of creation are matters of divine
inspiration, the creation; i.e., the new thing that is brought into
being was seen, also, as something valuable, fruitful, effective,
appropriate, etc.
Word cloud. Retrieved from:
http://dumbanenguebyceleste.blogspot.ca/2015_03_01_archive.html
Bibliography
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Burna rd, P., & White , J. (2008). C re ativ ity a nd pe rfo rm ativ ity : co unte r po ints in Br itis h a nd Austra lia n e ducatio n. Britis h Ed uca tiona l Res ea rch Journa l, 34 (5), 667 — 682.
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Ko e stle r, A . (1964). The Act of C rea tion. L o ndo n: Hutc hins o n & C o .
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