Meaning, Definitions, Nature, Importance, Process and Techniques of Creativity
Creativity
Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is characterised by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. If you have ideas but don't act on them, you are imaginative but not creative.
Definition of Creativity
1. According to Torrence, "Creativity is as process of becoming sensitive to problems, deficiencies, gaps of knowledge, missing elements and so on identifying the difficulties, searching for solutions, formulating hypotheses about the deficiencies, testing and recasting them and finally communicating results."
2. According to Rollo May, "Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being. Creativity requires passion and commitment. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness: ecstasy."
What is Innovation?
Innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved product, service or process that creates value for business, government or society. Creativity is also a discipline and a crucial part of the innovation equation. There is no innovation without creativity. The key metric in both creativity and innovation is value creation.
Steps of Creativity
(1) Preparation
The key to this step is to fully immerse oneself in the material. This step usually involves a creative brief and includes things like researching a brand, the target audience, or gathering inspirations from other sources. If you're a writer, you're reading other works in the same area. If you're a musician, you're listening to other pieces of music that inspires you. The same applies for the creative class of graphic designers and digital artists.
(2) Incubation
This step is where the "magic" happens for most creatives. After w absorb all the information from the Preparation phase, the next step is to let the ideas marinate in our subconscious. This is when you step away from the problem and do something else; that could be grabbing lunch. going for a run, watching TV, taking a shower, doing laundry, or getting a good night's rest. For me, some of my best ideas come during nighttime drives through Dallas, admiring the lights of the city skyline.
(3) Illumination
This is the lightbulb moment the "Aha!" moment, The "Eureka!" - the moment when the perfect idea hits you like a bolt of lightning. As a mentor of mine once said, the best ideas come when two unrelated ideas. bounce around in your brain for a while and collide together to create something amazing. When this moment hits, a person might rush to their sketchbook or keyboard to jot it down before it escapes them.
(4) Evaluation
This is the hard part, where you look at all the ideas before you and narrow it down to which ones work and which ones don't. This is usually the phase when client feedback comes into the mix and you, your team and the client weigh different options and decide what works for the problem at hand.
(5) Implementation
You've done the work, you've narrowed it down, you've decided on a direction, now go! This is the part where the final product gets produced. where things like skill, experience, knowledge, and hours of work come in to play. This is the writer's final draft, the artist's finished piece, the musician's live performance. The satisfaction of a job well done after this stage makes all the hours of hard work worth it.
People in creative industries spend thousands of hours repeating and perfecting this process to figure out what works for them, but that doesn't mean only designers and writers can use it. I encourage you to use these 5 steps in your work to help make work that's more creative, more revolutionary and will be sure to impress your clients and yourself.
Techniques of Fostering Creativity
Creativity, as a natural endowment, needs stimulation and nourishment. Most of creative talent, if not given proper training, education and opportunities for creative expression, results in wastage. Moreover, creativity, as we have emphasized earlier, is universal. Every one of us, to a certain degree, possesses creative abilities. Others whether mediocres or below averages are also required to think constructively and creatively.
Therefore, it becomes essential for the teachers as well as parents to realize the need of providing proper environment and creating conditions for full growth and development of the creative abilities of children. It lies in the proper stimulation and nurturing of the abilities that seem related to develop creativity. Originality, flexibility, ideational fluency, divergent thinking, self confidence, persistence, sensitiveness, ability to see relationship and make associations etc. are some of the abilities that are attached to creative ut-put. The following suggestions can work satisfactorily in the stimulation and nourishment of these abilities.
1. Freedom to Respond:- Most often we, teachers and parents, xpect a routine type fixed response from our children and thus kill the very creative spark by breeding conformity and passivity. Therefore, we should allow adequate freedom to our children in responding to a situation. They should be encouraged to think about as many ideas as they may for the solution of the problem. Also we must let them have their own way when they strongly need a particular sort of novel expression.
2. Opportunity for Ego involvement:- The feelings like It is my creation'. I have solved it', give much satisfaction to children. Actually, they can only be expected to put their determined efforts in creative. activities, when their ego is involved i.e., when they feel that a particular creative work stands on account of their efforts. Therefore, we should provide opportunities for children to derive satisfaction from being a cause.
3. Encouraging Originality and Flexibility:- Originality on the part of children in any form should be encouraged. Constant submission to the facts, unadulterated copying, passive reception, rote-memorization discourage creative expression and therefore, it should be checked as far as possible. In solving a problem or learning a task if they need to change their methods of learning or solving the problem, they should essentially, be encouraged to do it. Adequate training can also be given by making them give answer of the problems.
4. Removal of Hesitation and Fear:- Most of the time there is a great hesitation mixed with a sense of inferiority and fear in taking initiative for a creative expression. We, generally, listen to the commenics like "I know what I mean, but cannot write (or speak) before others." The causes of such hesitation and fear should be discovered and removed as far as possible. The teachers and parents should persuade such children to say or write something or anything, no matter how crude it may be.
5. Providing Appropriate Opportunities and Atmosphere for Creative Expression:- A healthy favourable atmosphere for creative thinking, and expression is an essential condition for the stimulation and nourishment of creativity among children. There is a need of sympathetic atmosphere prevailing in school as well as at home. For the purpose of providing opportunities for creative expression, we can make use of the co-curricular activities in schools, Our social festivals, religious and social get-together, exhibitions etc. can also provide the opportunity for creative expression. A regular class work can be arranged in such a way as to stimulate and develop creative thinking among children.
6. Developing Healthy Habits among Children:- Industriousness, persistence, self-reliance and self confidence are some of the qualities that are helpful in creative out-put. Therefore, children should be helped to imbibe these qualities. Moreover, they should be made to stand against the criticism of their creative expression. They should be made to feel that whatever they create is unique and it expresses what they desire to the expressed.
7. Using the Creative Resources of the Community:- Children should be made to visit the centres of creative art or scientific and industrial creative work. It should stimulate and inspire them for doing some creative work. Occasionally, the creative artists, scientists and creative persons from other fields may also be invited to the school. It can be helpful in enhancing the span of the knowledge of our children and kindle the spark of creativity among them.
8. Avoidance of Blocks to Creative Thinking:- The factors like conservatism, faulty methods of teaching, unsympathetic treatment, fixed and rigid habits of work, anxiety and frustration, high standards of achievement for low levels of work, over emphasis on school marks, authoritarian attitudes of teachers and parents etc. are known as detrimental towards fostering creativity among children. Therefore, as far as possible parents and teachers should try to avoid such factors in upbringing and educating the children.
9. Proper Organisation of the Curriculum:- Learning experiences in the form or curriculum should be so designed as to foster creativity among children. For this purpose we should organise the school curriculum primarily on the basis of concepts rather than facts. It should also cater to the individual need of the students rather than to the generalized needs of every student. It should also follow the general philosophy that truth is something to be sought for rather than some thing to be revealed. It should be quite flexible and have provision for studying and doing something without the threat of evaluation.
Characteristics of Creative Children
Characteristics of creative children very at different stages of development and growth:
1. Early Childhood:- Grivin (1933) has identified the characteristics of children of 3 to 7 years age group. The children of this age group can repeat alone memory images and can organized several memory images, possess emotional realization and feeling of appreciation, can write short-stories and essay and can modify.
2. Elementary School Years:- The creative children of this stage possess, the following characteristics:
- Keen interest drawing,
- Creative writing and expressions,
- Manifestation of creativity in participation of games and sports, laboratory work, field work and Library work.
Their creative behaviours and acts are easily observable. The creativity is manifested at elementary stage.
3. High School Education:- The purpose of teaching at this stage is to impart the knowledge of different courses or subjects but the following characteristics are noticed. Skill of expression and writing an essay of original nature effective presentation in the debate and discussion. Expression is highly logical and unique, investigate some new technique or device.
4. Higher Education or Adults:- At higher stage of education, reflective method of teaching should be employed which is known creative method of teaching which provides the situation for original and independent thinking. Teaching is most thoughtful the purpose of higher education is to develop creativity. The main emphasis on problem solving activities. Research work, essay writing and developing projects, participation in cultural activities and effective organization and educational programmes. Participation in seminar conferences and group discussion.