Creative and Inventive Thinking
"If everyone thinks the same: No one thinks." This saying illustrates the application of creativity in a classroom. Rather than one right answer, creative thinking activities focus on many inventive ideas.
Creative thinking involves creating something new or original. It's the skills of flexibility, originality, fluency, elaboration, brainstorming, modification, imagery, associative thinking, attribute listing, metaphorical thinking, forced relationships. The aim of creative thinking is to stimulate curiosity and promote divergence.
Explore
Teacher Tap: Creative and Critical Thinking.
Read Inventive Thinking from NCREL's enGauge document (2003). The document identified six categories: Adaptability and Managing Complexity, Self-Direction, Curiosity, Creativity, Risk Taking, and Higher-Order Thinking and Sound Reasoning.
Read Key Word: Creative Thinking in THE BLUE BOOK by Callison and Preddy, 349-353.
Key Words
Learn More
Creativity Links by C. Osborne. This page links to great resources on creative thinking.
Creativity Pool. This is a database of creative and original ideas. Submit your own or check to see if someone else has thought of the same thing.
Introduction to Creative Thinking by R. Harris from VirtualSalt. This page compares critical and creative thinking and discusses the myths of creative thinking.