Eleven professionals participated in a weekend workshop called "Planned Spontaneity." Using techniques of group mental imagery, the group focused on ways of empowering individuals in educational settings to increase their use of creative mental capacities. The group agenda, activities, process, and resulting product are described. (JW)

This article discusses characteristics of creative people (problem sensitivity, idea fluency, originality, and flexibility); the importance of managers appreciating the work styles of creative people; and seven characteristics of an organizational climate that encourages creativity. (DB)

This discussion of creativity in its educational context first considers the role of the creative product, process, personality, and environment. A proposal for teaching student teachers to teach more creatively is offered. The approach stresses development of originality, fluency, abstraction, elaboration, and openness. (DB)

Creativity can be distinguished from intelligence, but there is no consensus on how the recognized stages of the creative act can be taught. The steps to rational thinking can and should be intentionally taught and rationality may prepare a base for unexpected creative insights. (DB)

This study compared the relative effectiveness of fantasy induction, intrinsic motivation induction, and combined fantasy/intrinsic motivation induction upon creative writing performance of 100 freshmen college students. All three methods enhanced the creativity of the students' poetry writing, with the conjunctive approach exhibiting no more…

This paper describes techniques for helping business administration students to explore their creative unknowns by rewarding them for creative thinking and risk-taking in the development of a real business, even if the business failed. The role of trial and error in learning and creativity is explored, along with the importance of sustaining…

This article describes the development of a metaphorical whole brain model and its application to Applied Creative Thinking (ACT) Workshops to enhance individuals' capability for full creative functioning. The design of ACT workshops, the learning model used, and workshop components are described. (JDD)

Seven principles are presented for improving creative thinking, based on assumptions of creativity as a perceptual shift resulting from a metamorphic mental image. Principles include (1) the future initiates and pulls creative thought; (2) initial fact finding is best postponed; (3) problem redefinition is often retrospective; and (4) metaphors…

This introductory article discusses a blind-variation and selective-retention model of the creative process developed by Donald Campbell. According to Campbell, creativity contains three conditions: a mechanism for introducing variation, a consistent selection process, and a mechanism for preserving and reproducing selected variations. (Author/CR)

Describes the use of an ethnomethodological approach to track the experiences and perceptions of 18 British educators enrolled in a postgraduate course on fostering learner creativity. Among seven themes identified are: high value placed on "relationship"; the belief that self-esteem and self-confidence need to be nourished for creative…

Nineteen preservice teachers received an eight-week model training course in divergent thinking and questioning techniques for use with young children. Both knowledge of divergent thinking and use of divergent thinking questions with kindergarten children was much greater for the experimental group than for a control group. (DB)

Statistical findings based on some 200 research measurements made over a two-year period on students in a four semester program in Creative Studies at Buffalo State University College. (CB)

The essay examines trends in attitudes toward creativity in education and business, problems in studying creativity in natural situations, creativity programing for school-age children, current efforts to encourage innovation in business, and the need to nurture creativity in every individual. (DB)

A survey of 1028 teachers in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland found that nearly 75 percent thought creativity in students was rare, yet most thought it could be developed. Teachers' definitions and perceptions of creativity were examined, and differences in views based on gender, teaching style preference, and subjects taught were also…

Argues that the cognitive mechanisms in human creativity are, for the most part, sighted rather than blind. Reviews attempts to apply evolutionary ideas to psychology and argues that these ideas do not apply to the psychology of human creativity. An alternative sighted-variation framework is then proposed. (Author/CR)