Creativity and Innovation
The importance of creativity and creative thinking is being recognized as essential to human progress, in that creativity is the source of all innovation and the catalyst for cultural evolution. Creativity helps individuals discover alternative views, visualize new approaches, manifest flexibility and adaptability when problem-solving, and generate original ideas.
The Durham Commission (2019) defines creativity as "the capacity to imagine, conceive, express, or make something that was not there before." (Cohu et al., 2019, p. 7) Creativity is the aspect of human imagination that allows us to find solutions that transform our lives in small or epic ways. Gardiner (2020) writes about the importance of equipping new generations with the ability to think flexibly and creatively to be able to solve major global challenges. He believes that the ability to think creatively can be nurtured and enhanced. He describes creativity as a phenomenon that helps individuals discover new ways to transform 'what is' into 'what could be' and that being able to appreciate diverse points of view, being open to new ideas, and connections with other people is something educators should promote. He emphasizes Vygotsky's and Csikszentmihalyi's perspective that all creative contributions add to humanity's "collective creativity", (Gardiner, 2020, p. 3) the engine that pushes us forward. Csikszentmihalyi (1988) determines that creative thinking is more than problem-solving, it is something unique to humans, in that we first identify something that must be solved or discovered. “The creative process consists exactly in this separation of what is relevant from what is not, in terms of a conceptual model that did not exist before.”( Csikszentmihalyi, 1988, p. 161) The Durham commission views creativity as a "vital contribution to success in all aspects of our existence." (Cohu et al., 2019, p. 7) Norris and Tisdale write: "creativity is likely to emerge as one of the defining trends of the twenty-first century, not just for museums but across our society." (Norris and Tisdale, 2019, p. 12) They see it as “a powerful tool in helping us respond quickly and effectively to change." (Norris and Tisdale, 2019, p. 13) Creativity has a multi-faceted transformative role in society and is humanity’s greatest tool.
This is an excerpt from my Dissertation: Opris, T. (2021) Innovative technology leads to innovative experiences: a study of the benefits that digital interactives offer museums. University of Leicester.
References
Cohu, W., Daniels, S., Houston, A., James, S., Lucas, B., Morgan, N., Newton, L. and Ruck, A. (2019) Durham Commission On Creativity and Education. Available at: https://www.dur.ac.uk/resources/creativitycommission/DurhamReport.pdf (Accessed: 29 April 2021).
Czikszentmihali, M. (1988) ‘Motivation and Creativity: Toward a Synthesis of Structural and Energistic Approaches to Cognition’, New Ideas in Psychology, 6 (2), pp.159-176.
Gardiner, P. (2020) ‘Learning to think together: Creativity, interdisciplinary collaboration and epistemic control’, Thinking Skills and Creativity 38 (2), 100749.
Norris, L. and Tisdale, R. (2016) Creativity in Museum Practice. New York, NY; Oxon, OX: Routledge.