Cognitive views of creativity: Creative teaching for creative learning

Abstract

What is creativity and how can we foster it in our students? According to cognitive views of creativity, creative problem solving can be defined as producing a novel method of solving a new problem. Creative teaching occurs when a teacher teaches subject matter in ways that help students to transfer what they have learned to creative problem solving. Three examples involving science, mathematics, and computing problems are presented to show how teaching with analogical models can lead to improvements in students' creativity. Creative learning occurs when students use active learning strategies for mentally representing new material in ways that lead to problem solving transfer. Three examples involving science, mathematics, and computing problems are presented to demonstrate how learning strategies for forming mental representations can lead to improvements in students' creativity. New developments in cognitive theories of transfer, mental models, and learning strategies are likely to contribute to our understanding of how to foster creativity in our students. © 1989.