Discusses and illustrates the difference between traditional and creative problem solving. (MKR)

Introduces design, integrated with systems thinking, as a necessary if not sufficient means for meeting the challenge of how to create or recreate organizations and institutions. The limits of problem-solving strategies when applied to complex organizational change, the designer's role, and the creative process of design are discussed. (Contains…

Presents literature-based elementary mathematics activities for the primary and intermediate grades. The activites are adapted from "Math and Literature, K-3," by the author of this article. (SM)

A model of critical thinking is developed, encompassing problem solving and creative thinking. The central role of critical thinking in adult education is explored, concluding that development of the concept and how to teach it need attention. (SK)

Researchers received 256 ideas from 141 Long Island, New York, school districts that had resulted in cost savings. From these, 75 were classified into 10 areas and printed in booklet form. Cites examples in financial management, transportation, risk management, personnel practices, facilities management, purchasing, support services, and food…

Explains how quality concepts such as customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, and defining the customer apply to education. Describes how creative problem solving can overcome such conceptual blocks as constancy, commitment to the past, compression of ideas, and complacency. (SK)

Presents a model of the relationship between the presented problem parameters of art assignments and the creative processes of students. Parameter types of instructions include incomplete, overly and inadequately restrictive, and expanding/contracting parameters. Parameters of student responses are categorized as disregarded, self-imposed, and…

This study examined the creative problem solving of 100 young children (prekindergarten to grade 2) in response to both realistic and fanciful story problems. Solutions were evaluated for fluency, elaboration, flexibility, originality, effectiveness, and realism. Although children's performance improved with age and experience, their solutions…

Explains 20 strategies that address the diverse gifts and needs students bring to the classroom and the ways teachers can help children to cultivate and celebrate their talents. These strategies emphasize creative thinking, communication, understanding, problem solving, community awareness, laughter, and joy. (MOK)

A study described machine operators' problem-solving actions at a computerized circuit-board assembly machine in a small manufacturing plant located on the West Coast. Participants were a machine operator and his supervisor, both from Vietnam, who were building large prototype boards for a major computer corporation. Over a 6.5 minute interval,…

Thinking skills and performance skills are compatible, and actors and directors should learn them both. If there are to be advances in performing arts there must be a clearer understanding of the processes of thinking and the practices of performing. Efforts to define thinking skills have tended to categorize the skills into four camps: critical…

Cognitive theories of problem solving and suggestions made by cognitive psychologists regarding how to teach problem solving are reviewed. Theories and suggestions from creativity research are also considered. The results are summarized in terms of a description of how high levels of proficiency in problem solving are acquired and how problem…

This paper describes the instructional design activities used to create ThinkAbout, a video series meant to teach fifth and sixth graders skills essential for learning, i.e., inquiring, analyzing, synthesizing, seeking alternatives, and creative problem solving. Two basic tenets or underpinning statements served as guidelines for the development…

The paper identifies some major issues in assessing creative problem solving. Four main problems are discussed: (1) no single widely accepted theory of creativity exists; (2) there is a lack of understanding of the implications of the differences in assessment procedures; (3) researchers, on the one hand, view creativity as entirely a cognitive…