Are You Creative and Imaginative?

What is creativity?

Bernadette Duffy (2006) defines creativity as:

• Ability to see things in fresh ways;• Learning from past experiences and relating this

learning to new situation;• Thinking along unorthodox lines and breaking

barriers;• Using non-traditional approaches to solving

problems;• Going further than information given; and• Creating something unique

According to (NACCCE 1999) creativity is an imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value.

There are five key concepts:

• Using imagination • A fashioning process• Pursuing purposes• Being original

NACCCE distinguishes categories of originality:

• Historic• Relative• Judging value

Creativity and imagination maybe hard to define, but they are part of what make teachers and students uniquely human beings.

Duffy (2006) said that creativity is about connecting the previously unconnected in ways that are new and meaningful to the individual and imagination is about internalizing perceptions and ascribing objects and even with new meanings.

Through creative and imaginative endeavors, the learners can:

• Communicate their feelings in non-verbal and pre-verbal ways

• Express their thoughts• Comprehend, respond and represent their perceptions

and understanding of the world• Experience beauty and lasting value• Express their cultural heritage and increase their

understanding of other cultures• Solve problems and give mastery• Gain self esteem

A learner-centered creativity is characterized as: (LUCAS 2001)

• Being respectful rather than dismissive• Encouraging active not passive learning• Engaging many learning styles • Encouraging and exploring emotional

responses• Posing questions not statements• Offering ambiguity rather than certainties • Being open-ended, rather than closing down

• Being known as surprising, rather than predictable• Offering many patterns to varied environments• Recognizing multiple intelligences • Including visual representations as well as auditory

ones• Including tactile and experience based activity• Stimulating social as well as private learning

Fostering teachers as those who:• Encourage students to learn independently • Have a co-operative socially integrative style of

teaching• Do not neglect the mastery of factual knowledge• Promote self evaluation • Takes questions seriously• Offer opportunities to work with varied materials

under different conditions• Help students to cope with frustrations and failures• Reward courage as much as being right

Creativity is an indispensable tool of the teacher to create an enjoyable, productive and fun-learning environment. It is an instrument for the learners to digest and go beyond to what has been taught. Albert Einstein stated that imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited while imagination embraces the whole world.

Presented by:Daisy NavalesGlorifel Nuñez

Shondra PagalanEd Charles Pasia