Speaking of Creativity: Frameworks, Models, and Meanings

Abstract

Psychologists have had a long-running collective conversation on how to conceptualize creativity. This chapter presents the evolution of current views and their implications for education, including specific suggestions for facilitating students’ creativity. The 4P framework originated in a definition of creativity as encompassing four interconnected strands—taking place when a Person goes through a Process to produce a novel Product in the context of environmental Press. Each strand became the subject of further research-based theorizing and led to renewed understanding that the strands are in continual dynamic interaction. The 4P framework has been augmented by emphasizing that creativity involves action in interaction with material culture. Contemporary conceptualizations recognize that, though levels vary, creativity is a universal human possibility, that the socio-cultural-material environment is crucial for providing opportunities and constraints, and that the creative process has phases, each engaging different cognitive modes. The modern view explains how classroom creativity fosters students’ deep learning, their appreciation for how knowledge is created, and insights into themselves as learners. Teaching, too, has been explored as a creative process; creative teachers provide opportunities for student creativity, an example of mentoring creativity. Whether to support classroom creativity is a political decision dependent on how societies envision their educational goals and on their willingness to provide resources for deep learning across the educational spectrum.