Science Learning and the Creative Process ¹

AATC 2021 KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Due to its unique nature, creativity does not fit comfortably into any structured theory that attempts to define it or reduce it to a list of traits. For many creative artists and scientists, creativity is simply how they do their work. That mysterious yet illuminating process of thought helps them see part of their reality differently. It is a type of looking, seeing, and doing that allows them to restructure a part of their reality in new and innovative ways.

Some scholars of creativity, like Edward De Bono, reject the notion that there is any sort of transcendental mystique to creativity. De Bono believes that creativity is a high-level thinking skill that can be taught by helping people “take unorthodox leaps of imagination.” Intelligence is a potential. Creative thinking skills, in contrast, involve working out an overall design toward a general goal. “Lateral thinking,” or creative thinking, involves the “ability to change perceptions and concepts by cutting across patterns.…” “Creativity is a function of motivation—curiosity, wanting to do things differently—and talent … largely a method of thinking, style, pattern, habits, and techniques which can be internalized” (De Bono, 1985, pp. 75–76, 116–120).