10-18-11

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 * Revised 10/18/11**
 * Model:**

**1. Statement of Purpose**
In alignment with the Tredyffrin-Easttown School District Strategic Plan, and guided by the continued effort to adapt instruction to meet all students needs in an ever-changing world, T/E is committed to fostering creativity in our students through a renewed focus on the creative process and promotion of creative attributes within the learning environment, instruction, and the learner. To that end, a Creativity Committee was created in 2009 to review the research and develop a model for K-12 use in the district.

Creativity is an ever-evolving and multi-dimensional term which finds itself increasingly embedded within the learning process of our students. In the most basic sense, creativity is a process in which students utilize techniques which produce outcomes that are original and of value within a given context and to the learner.(Ken Robinson) A person who is more creative has a greater ability to recognize problems, generate greater possibilities to solve problems, and attempt successful solutions. The creative process can foster the growth of critical thought and creative thought among all learners within developmentally appropriate bounds.

Towards these goals, T/E will cultivate learning communities that continue to value participation, collaboration, appropriate risk taking, and the connection of ideas within a supportive and nurturing environment. By focusing on instructional techniques that promote creativity and focusing on the attrubutes of a creative person, T/E schools will aid students in becoming better equipt to solve problems in their academic lives, personal lives, and professional lives during, and well beyond, their studentship in T/E. It is our goal to promote the development of intellectual and personal skills that allow students to flourish in all dimentions of their lives.

**2. Beliefs**
Based on our reading of Ken Robinson's //Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative//; Frans Johansson's //The Medici Effect: What Elephants & Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation//; and Daniel H. Pink's //A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future//, members of the Creativity Committee began their work by forming the following consensus belief statements:


 * The Creative Student**
 * All students are capable of creativity and creative growth.
 * Creativity is an essential skill for students to be successful in their future.
 * Creativity results from a shift in perspective that makes new ideas achievable.
 * Creativity is a skill that can be taught to students through instructional strategies.


 * Environment**
 * Creativity should be promoted and devleoped within and across all disciplines.
 * Creativity is the intersection of multiple perspectives.
 * Teacher creativity fosters student creativity.
 * Creativity requires an intellectually safe environment of collaboration, risk taking individual resp and personal engagement.


 * Process**
 * While product and process are important, the process should be emphasized.
 * Creativity is a process that is unique to each individual.
 * Creativity can evolve from collaboration with diversity and experience.
 * Creativity should be embedded in daily instruction.
 * The creative process takes time and courage.

=**3. Overview of the T/E Creativity Model: "CREA T/E VITY"**= This model is a visual representation of one way that creativity can be generated through a process. The process is a cycle broken down into components. The process has multiple entry points and is designed to have reflection embedded throughout. Students and teachers can always move forwards or backwards through the cycle, not necessarily in one fixed path. The learning environment is the center of the cycle that fosters creativity.

Typically, a student will begin with the awareness of a problem. After recognizing and defining the problem through reflection, the student may be ready to generate possibilities. The student will use imagination to generate possibilities and subsequently reflect on and evaluate the possibilities. The student may then be ready to attempt solutions or construct a product. The student will take action and be ready to reflect upon the solution or product. At this point the student may be aware of a new problem or question and the cycle might start over.

However, teachers and students can navigate freely through the process, entering or continuing the cycle at different points. There are also instances when progressing through the complete cycle may not be possible or appropriate. For example:

Reflection is an integral and repeated component of the T/E creativity model. After recognizing a problem or opportunity, students may reflect on whether the problem is clearly defined or if any additional information or skills are needed before generating possibilities. After generating possibilities, students may reflect on which ideas require action. Reflection may also lead to the discovery more possibilities are needed before moving on to the next step. Even after attempting a solution, reflection is crucial to deciding whether the outcome was as successful as desired, or if perhaps there is a new problem which has come about which needs to be solved. It is even possible to decide at this stage new possibilities need to be generated, in which case it would be necessary to revisit the previous stage of the creative process.
 * A student may move from awareness through reflection to imagination and then recognize a new problem or opportunity and return to awareness.
 * A teacher may present an already existing problem and students enter the cycle at generate possibilities.
 * A student may generate possibilities and, through reflection, need to return to generate more possibilities. This can happen more than once.
 * A student may be attempting a solution and recognize the need to go back and generate further possibilities.
 * A student may be attempting a solution or constructing a product and through reflection may recognize an entirely new or related problem or opportunity.

//Research Support// The T/E creativity model is adapted from the Creative Problem Solving Model (version 6.1), developed by Donald J. Treffinger, Scott G. Isaksen, and K. Brian Dorval; The Center for Creative Learning, Inc., Sarasota, FL & The Creative Problem Solving Group, Inc., Orchard Park, NY. [] The Creativity Committee agreed with the overall spirit of Treffinger, Isaksen, and Dorval's Creative Problem Solving Model but did not fully adopt it in its original form for several reasons. First, the Creative Problem Solving Model does not fully align with our definition of creativity, which emphasizes both the creative process and the creation of a product that is original and of value. To align the process with our definition, we adapted "Understanding the Challenge" to become "Recognize a Problem or Opportunity," "Generating Ideas" to become "Generate Possibilities," and "Preparing for Action" to become "Attempt Solutions/Construct a Product." Second, the complexity of the Creative Problem Solving Model's text limits its applicability to the wide range of ages and abilities represented in our schools. We adopted the model to include one-word headings (awareness, imagination, action, and reflection), making it accessible for all of our students. Third, the Creative Problem Solving Model does not explicitly address the learning environment, particularly the instructional intent that defines classroom activities and daily instruction. Furthermore, it lacks presenting the attributes that we seek to develop in our students on a daily basis - intellectual outcomes and development. Since several of our consensus belief statements focus on the learning environment, we adapted the model to have learning environment at its core.

**4. Components of the Model**
According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, "many creative individuals have pointed out that in their work the formulation of a problem is more important than its solution and that real advances in science and in art tend to come when new questions are asked or old problems are viewed from a new angle" (Feldman, Csikszentmihalyi, and Garder, 1994, p. 138). Getzels' (1964, 1987) model of problem finding presents a continuum, with presented problems on one end and discovered problems on the other. Presented problems are clearly formulated, have a specific answer, and involve memory, retrieval, analysis and reasoning. In contrast, discovered problems are not clearly formultaed, require problem finding, and have no specific solution (Getzel, 1964, 1987, in Starko, 2010). Problem finding is essential to the creative process, as "great creative breakthroughs, the achievements of a Newton, a Freud, a Darwin, or an Einstein, involve this kind of cognitive approach. Similarly, great works of art, such as da Vinci's Mona Lisa or Beethoven's Seventh Symphony are creative because they could not have been predicted from knowledge of previous works in their domains - they were solutions to 'discovered' problems" (Feldman, et al., 1994, p. 139).
 * //Awareness - Recognize a Problem or Opportunity//**

Creativity "is a mode of thought which is essentially //generative//: in which we attempt to expand the possibilities of a given situation; to look at it afresh or from a new perspective" (NACCCE, 1999, p. 31). Researchers and theorists have written about the importance of generating diverse solutions or ideas. In reviewing this research, four types of thinking emerged, convergent, divergent, lateral and associative.
 * //Generate Possibilities//**

Edward DeBono (1992) describes the search for alternatives as "the most basic of all creative operations" (p. 119). According to Howard Gardner (2007), "it is advantageous to develop multiple, diverse representations of the same entity... [as] they catalyze creative questions and spawn creative solutions" (Gardner, 2007, p. 87). Frans Johansson (2006) writes in //The Medici Effect// that the strongest correlation for quality of ideas, is, in fact, quantity of ideas... The most successful innovators produce and realize an incredible number of ideas" (p. 91). Imagination is essential in this component of the creative process: "the possibilities are only limited by our imagination" (DeBono, 1992, p. 123).

Creativity is a process utilizing techniques which produce outcomes that are original and of value. This definition emphasizes not only the creative process, but also the creation of a product. According to England's National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, "creativity carries with it the idea of action and purpose. It is, in a sense, applied imagination. The imaginative activity is fashioned, and often refashioned, in pursuit of an objective. To speak of somebody being creative is to suggest that they are actively engaged in making or producing something in a deliberate way" (NACCCE, 1999, p.31). Constructing a product is not a one-step process. Ken Robinson (2001) argues in //Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative// that an idea becomes a product "in the process of working on it - through a series of successive approximations. The first idea gives way to a more refined version, or even a completely different one" (p. 135).
 * //Attempt Solutions/Construct Product//**

Reflection is an ongoing process that involves humility, honesty and fairness in evaluating one's development and implementation of ideas and/or products with the intent to inform future action. The authors of //All of Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education//, a report published by England's National Advisory Committee of Creative and Cultural Education, assert that creativity involves both a generative mode (ideas and/or products) and an evaluative mode: "Critical evaluation involves a shift in the focus of attention and mode of thinking as we attend to what is working or not working. Helping young people to understand and manage this interaction between generative and evaluative thinking is a pivotal task of creative education" (1999, p. 33). The shift between the two modes of thinking should happen often and throughout the creative process, not only at the end (NACCCE Report - All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education, 1999). Starko (2010) refers to the shift in focus of attention and mode of thinking as a "creative pause," in which "an individual stops midstream in a line of thinking, not because there is a problem but because the thinker has chosen to stop. The pause allows the thinker to pay deliberate attention to some point, opening the possibility that there could be a new idea... it is an opportunity for focus and change" (p. 141).
 * //Reflection//**

//**Learning Environment**// To foster creativity, the learning environment should be one which is free of judgment and open to multiple thinking styles; students need to feel comfortable trying something which may fail. The process of learning should be emphasized over the outcome of learning. Research has shown classrooms with the following characteristics promote creative thinking and problem solving: "open, comfortable, relaxed, challenging, safe, supportive, trusting, humorous, energized, and collaborative. Such climates rewarded creative behavior and encouraged thinking and exploring processes." (Griffin & Hamza, 2006)

**5. Instructional Strategies**
The Creativity model provides a framework for the use of instructional strategies designed to aid in the further development of creative attributes. Each stage of the model includes a corresponding list of instructional strategies. These strategies are organized by the stage that they most often apply, but they may also be applicable at other stages of the process. The lists of instructional strategies are not intended to be exhaustive and will continue to develop over time.