Creativity is often characterized by the capacity to generate novel ideas, explore unconventional approaches, and solve problems through intuition, curiosity, and innovative thinking. Assessing this multifaceted skill is both essential and challenging, especially in educational and game-based environments where creativity drives engagement and…

To solve a new problem, people spontaneously engage multiple cognitive processes. Previous work has identified a diverse set of oscillatory components critical at different stages of creative problem solving. In this project, we use hidden state modeling to untangle the roles of oscillation processes over time as people solve puzzles. Building on…

While the development of creativity, or creative thinking, in mathematics is considered important by many researchers, there are several difficulties in implementing creative tasks, especially before secondary school. Within the original context of a mathematical escape game, this paper reports two episodes exemplifying the difficulties met by…

Completing a jigsaw puzzle can be a fun activity, but it can also be a learning experience. Here an exercise is presented that involves student teams completing a simple puzzle while at least one of the members is blindfolded. The blindfolded member is the only member allowed to touch the puzzle pieces, and the other team members have to…

A central question in creativity concerns how insightful ideas emerge. Anecdotal examples of insightful scientific and technical discoveries include Goodyear's discovery of the vulcanization of rubber, and Mendeleev's realization that there may be gaps as he tried to arrange the elements into the Periodic Table. Although most people would regard…

The need to promote mathematical creativity and suggestions for developing it are discussed in this document. The largest portion of this document consists of a collection of problem sheets, arranged according to 26 content areas. Puzzles, activities, and a variety of problems are included, with an answer key. An annotated bibliography of selected…

Presents a student project that requires students to create a puzzle involving some form of manipulative and present it to the class with an advertisement. Uses writing to have students report on their progress. (MDH)