Engineering Commons^™

Creativity As An Emergent Property Of Complex Educational System, Ceire Monahan, Mika Munakata, Ashwin Vaidya

Northeast Journal of Complex Systems (NEJCS)

The importance of creativity in education has been discussed often in the literature. While there remains no agreed-upon definition of creativity, the psychological literature points to traits of a creative person. These include the ability to think outside the box, make connections between seemingly disparate ideas, and question norms. The literature provides several examples of classroom experiments to help foster creativity in the classroom. In science and mathematics, we can start by getting students to recognize mathematics and the sciences as being creative endeavors. While these attempts are noteworthy, they are not necessarily aligned with instructional practices. In this article, …