The Creativity Collective 

The Creativity Collective comprises of Carina, Dominic, Val and I. This module marks the first time working with students in the MA in Higher Education.

After being introduced to each other our first task was to decide what we wanted to base our Infographic on i.e. Critical Thinking or Creativity.

We decided on creativity, I always being intrigued by creativity , what sparks the creative thought process? Are people born creative or is it a something one can develop? The next few weeks should prove to be interesting as we delve more into this area. 

Our main form of communication for the course of this module will be via the Creativity and Critical Thinking Wiki . Each team in the module has been provided a working space to work collaboratively, share knowledge, capture our learning journey and brainstorm ideas. These wiki pages are accessible by clicking on the wiki logo above or simply click here.

The module marks my first experience of using Projeqts. This is an excellent application for creating digital storyboards . I used this application during the module to digitally capture our learning experience and progression throughout the module.It captures video, text, blog entries,youtube clips and sketches relating to our learning experience during the module.

Reflection on Creativity and Critical Thinking Module

The Creativity and Critical Thinking was an interesting module.I have always been intrigued by the concept of Creativity. I recall the first day of this module being asked what creativity means to you.

For me creativity has close ties innovation, developing something new or even taking an existing idea, design or product and adding a new element to it.
I've always been fascinated by what constitutes creativity, are we born creative or is something we can develop over time?Why are some people more creative than others. Lehrer claim that creativity can occur when a person has a sudden moment of insight or "epiphany" is something that resonates with me (2012) . I often find myself in this situation whereby I'm struggling to resolve a particular issue and all of a sudden, at the least expected time ,I have an "aha” moment or what Lehrer claims as "moment of insight".Everything suddenly becomes clear and I have a clear idea or vision as to how I might be able to resolve a particular issue.

On account of the success I experienced during the I.D module with using a collaborative blog, I was eager to use this tool again to enable us to share our thoughts, ideas with one another. Unfortunately and despite my best efforts, the blog never quite took off, the other team members preferred email of the main form of communication. This highlights a difficult with using web 2.0 technologies, despite their obvious benefits (creating online communities, sharing knowledge, working collaboratively), some individuals have a natural preference for other forms of communication. It can be challenging to get people to engage with these technologies.

In the end we went with the concept of creativity as being a social event. The idea is that creativity occurs when a person makes a change in a domain that is accepted by a field.

Members of the field are seen as the gatekeepers to the domain. Its members decide on what change or idea can be included or excluded in the domain. Theses gatekeepers are experts in their field and evaluate ideas submitted by the individuals to determine if it can be adopted by the domain.  Most ideas don’t change the status quo of a domain and are therefore rejected by the field.

Henry makes an interesting point regarding validation of a creative idea or product “as long as the idea or product has not been validated, we might have originality, but not creativity” (Henry, 2006, p. 7). This raises the question as to who can validate or recognise a new idea or product as being creative, “Without a group of experts who are involved in the practice of a domain, the do­main might just as well not exist” (Sawyer, et al., 2003). In order to be recognised as creative, a new idea must be socially valued and this is the primary role of the field.

Overall this module was a lot of fun but it was frustrating at time. There were certain members, including myself, that were more actively involved and responsible for driving the project forward than others, certainly in the early stages. As the project progressed and we developed a concept for our infographic we delegated tasks to each other and the project participation and effort became more of a collective effort.