Last updated: 1/12/2000
Link back to course Welcome

Agenda for Creativity Class Meeting on January 12

1. Personal introductions and pictures for the course web site.
   1. Having your picture on the course web site is NOT a requirement of this course. Your picture will be publicly available, but no other information will be made publicly available because your picture is. My motivation here is to help create a community -- if you want to know who made that comment on the computer conference, go back and look them up in the photo gallery.
2. What is creativity -- words that are similar or related -- here are some thought-starters
   1. Imagination
   2. New Ideas
3. My goals for the course
   1. Theoretical
      1. Understanding of Creativity and its relatives, how the modern study of Creativity started, and how it has changed
      2. Knowledge about specific creative individuals
      3. Individual focus on an aspect of Creativity -- fourth text and term paper
      4. Having an opportunity (but not a requirement) to try something new
   2. Applications (depend on individual interests)
      1. How to be (more) creative in our individual lives
         1. at work -- being an entrepreneur or an intrapreneur
         2. outside of work
      2. How to manage or supervise for Creativity (innovation)
      3. How to encourage Creativity in our children
4. Beginning of modern aproach to Creativity
   1. Began in World War II
5. Some theoretical questions about Creativity
   1. What about Creativity is studied?
      1. The creative product or thing - a piece of music, a painting (artifact)
      2. The creative person who created the artifact
         1. Characteristics
         2. Childhood and background
         3. Motivation
      3. The creative process that the person used to create the artifact
      4. The surrounding society and/or the colleagues of the Creative individual
   2. Is Creactivity a yes/no thing, or are some products less creative and others more so - is there, say, a scale of 1 to 10?
   3. Are there measurable characteristics that are shared by all creative people, for example intelligence or being able to conceive of many ways to answer a question? If such characteristics exist, can people be trained in them, and does this increase their creativity? Do the most creative people score the highest in these characteristics?
      1. (Gardner, Chapt 2)
   4. Can Creativity exist in all fields of endeavor, or are some areas not Creative? Is Creativity the same in all fields in which it exists, or does it differ? Are there personal differences? (analytic Vs generative)
   5. Has Creativity occured at the same rate throughout history, or has it waxed and waned?
   6. Is there a dark side to Creativity? Is disease or disability associated with Creativity?
      1. ADHD or ADD
      2. Addiction
      3. Deformity
      4. Isolation
   7. Can anybody be Creative?
   8. Can Creativity exist in everyday life?
      1. Cooking or cuisine
      2. Crafts such as quilting
      3. Dealing with poverty
   9. Is there a strong or wide consensus about who is or is not Creative, or is it all just individual opinions? Can we make objective judgements about whether or not someone is/was creative? (in practice, people disagree, and also no one person has the background to make judgements across the full range of human endeavor)
   10. Does all Creativity work like Poincare's experience, or are there other modes?
6. Here is a working hypothesis about creativity. Do not treat this as authoritative.
   1. Creativity involves someone who freely chooses to focus on a situation or discipline. They continue working, dividing and subdividing the situation, analyzing it, building detail upon detail. Those around this person are likely to think him/her obsessive.
   2. This person follows through on his/her interest and is active in the area, interested in talking and comparing notes with others in that area. They innovate, although their work may be innovative only within a restricted circle. The more involved they are, the larger the circle of people for whom their work must be new.
   3. Childhood interests and "near" role models played an important part. From my readings, it seems to be important that the child have the experience that if s/he has an interest they take it seriously, pursue it in more detail, especially as a subject of imagining, that they elaborate on it, and that the have an accessible role model. Activity and work in the are of the interest need to be pursued.
7. I think you will find that Creativity is not a well-defined field with a strong consensus. In such a situation, I think the goal of the course must be for you to become aware of the range of thought, to recognize where a given opinion fits within the range. Also, there are many different types of studies, and you should try to understand their strengths and weaknesses.
8. Taking an online course (or at least this one)
9. Software
   1. World Wide Web access for the course web site and computer conferencing/chat. Either Netscape Navigator (version 2.0 or higher), Netscape Communicator (any version) or Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 3.0 or higher) will do. These are all examples of Web Browsers. During this class meeting we will use Netscape Navigator, but all Web Browsers basically work alike, especially inside the Browser window.
   2. Email. Email programs are not installed on campus because of security concerns. Consequently, it is difficult to use University laboratory computers for email attachments, so we will  not be going over that during this class meeting. Also, the different email programs are too different for a lab session to be useful. Both Netscape 3 and Netscape 4 have an "Attach" button in the email composition window, when you are typing out an email message. What email programs are you using? This can also be handled one-to-one.
      1. To find out what program you are using, in Windows:
         1. Click on the "Help" menu item up near the top of the screen. A menu or list of sub-choices will drop down.
         2. On the list of sub-choices, click on the "About ..." item at or near the bottom of the list. A box appears listing the name and version number of the software.
10. Tour of course web site at http://www.cll.wayne.edu/isp/drbowen/crtvyw00
    1. Syllabi for ISP 5500 three- and four-credit versions, and assignment schedules.
    2. Course information form -- please fill this out by next week
    3. Weekly course reports
    4. Comment groups, for commenting on the draft Term Paper topics that you are supposed to post on the computer conference by March 1. Between March 1 and Friday, March 12, members of comment groups are to post on the computer conference, comments on the draft topics of the other members of the comment groups. For example, if a comment group consists of A, B, C and D, then B, C and D should comment on A's topic, A, C and d should comment on B's topic, and so forth. Then, each (no longer draft) Term Paper topic should be turned in to me by email, along with the comments from the comment group.
       
       NOTE 1: Anyone is certainly allowed to comment on any draft Term Paper topic, whether they are in that person's comment group or not, and whether or not they are taking the four-credit version.
       
       NOTE 2: Comments on draft Term Paper topics are to be posted on the computer conference, not done privately by email.