Talks about Creativity by Professor David Cropley

This presentation will cover the following key points:

• What is Creativity; what is it not?
• Creativity as a multifaceted competency.
• Teaching for Creativity.
• Why the renewed focus on Creativity in education?
• The impact of Industry 4 and Digital Transformation on work.
• Why Creativity is becoming a core aspect of the Future of Work.
• How are we responding to these changes?

As the world moves deeper and deeper into the era of Industry 4 and digital transformation – an era in which automation, robots, AI and Big Data are becoming increasingly common – how is this changing the kind of work that people do? Now that “machines” can, increasingly, take on tasks once performed by humans – and do so much more efficiently and effectively – where does that leave humans? Are we facing a future in which humans compete for a shrinking pool of jobs, or a future in which unskilled or semi-skilled humans can no longer find work? Or, are we entering a period in which we will see a fundamental shift in the kind of work people do – a shift away from routine, manual, predictable work, and a shift towards work that increasingly utilises high-level soft skills? In the presentation I will discuss all of these factors and explain why creativity is becoming an essential 21^st century competency. I will address why creativity is so important among these soft skills and why it will become central to the shift in the Future of Work. Finally, I will discuss what we need to do to ensure that people – especially children – are prepared for this future with highly-developed skills in creativity.

This presentation will cover the following key points:

• What is Creativity, and what myths and misconceptions hold back this topic?
• How is Creativity defined in the psychological field of Creativity research?
• What is the 4Ps Model of Creativity, and how does that inform and guide research?
• How is Creativity measured across the 4Ps?
• Why do we need Creativity research?
• What are some of the hot topics in Creativity research?
• Other approaches to Creativity research (Computational Creativity)
• My own focus areas of creativity research.

Creativity rose to prominence as a topic of research in the field of Educational Psychology, in 1950. The initial impetus was driven by dissatisfaction with the prevailing view of intelligence, focused principally on logic, reasoning and “critical” thinking. Researchers in the early 1950s began to speculate that there was also a “divergent” aspect to human intellectual ability – the ability to find/explore many possible solutions to an open-ended question – and the modern creativity era was born. Since then, educational psychology has been an important driver of creativity research, addressing many questions important to education: how do we think creatively; who is creative; what do creative people produce; how does an environment impact on creativity? Typically, these questions have sat in a context of education: how do we teach for and with creativity?

Over the last 70 years, psychological creativity has grown significantly, providing many important and valuable answers to the questions posed. Creativity research has also branched out from education into related field of human ability: organisational innovation, for example, can be explored through a lens of individual creativity. This presentation will discuss psychological creativity research, discussing the key concepts and drivers. Additionally, the presentation will discuss where creativity research is heading in the 21st century, and how current contexts are shaping where the discipline needs to move and focus. We will close by looking at some current hot topics, especially the application of computational methods such as machine learning to issues like creativity assessment.