Describes some general methods of promoting creative thinking and learning that can be used to focus attention, increase depth of conceptualization, and make the curricular content relevant and enjoyable. (Author/RK)

Forty-two undergraduates were tested to determine how scores on visual and verbal divergent thinking tests would be affected by instructions to use visual imagery and by individual differences in visual imagery ability. Results indicated that such instructions may interfere with test performance, but that individual differences did not influence…

Investigates innovation and entrepreneurship and presents strategies for improving the creative abilities of child care directors. (BB)

Describes the Johari Window, a specialized questioning strategy for the study of characterization in fiction. Asserts that this method promotes classroom discussion, provides motivation to analyze a character in depth, develops students' empathy for a specific character, and encourages inferential thinking. (MM)

Despite the time, risk, frustration and frequent failures, it is the element of creativity that allows the program board to be the innovators on campus. To promote a true creative spirit, programmers need to raise students' consciousness and foster continual development, not just hold one brainstorming session. (MLW)

Studies time intervals in a list of critical ideas in physics. Infers that the rate of growth of ideas has been proportional to the totality of known ideas multiplied by the totality of people in the world. Indicates that the rate of discovery in physics has been decreasing. (CW)

Individuals who are capable of perceiving others in complex and divergent ways may be able to communicate more effectively. This proposition represents a link between several fields of inquiry that researchers rarely interrelate: higher level thinking skills, social cognition, social competency, and communications. (Author/MLW)

Focuses on the professional role of the teacher in the classroom in relation to the students being taught and the subject matter being learned. Defines and gives examples of three dimensions of the professional act of teaching: conceptual knowledge, general knowledge, and interpersonal communication and social skills. (JHZ)

Direct instruction of brainstorming, product-improvement techniques, and verbal problem solving to 19 third graders for 30 minutes per week significantly improved their performance on the flexibility and originality components of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking. No significant change occurred on the fluency component, perhaps a result of…

Partial correlation procedures were used to compare the reliability of ideational creativity in 225 academically gifted and nongifted fifth to eighth grade children. The divergent thinking interitem and intertest correlations of the gifted children were significantly larger than the nongifted. Ideational originality was reliable only in the…

Comparisons of 1976 and 1982 performances (first grade through college) on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking revealed significant gains in the areas of fluency, flexibility, and originality. Changing objectives of education are discussed in light of falling Scholastic Aptitude Test scores during the same period. (JW)

A seven-step program is described for allowing students to try their hand at solving problems of the future. Goals of the program are to encourage students to think more creatively, increase their research and communication skills, and develop problem solving skills. (TE)

Defines problem solving, discusses the use of problems developed by students that are relevant to their own lives, presents examples of practical mathematics problems that deal with local situations, discusses fringe benefits of this type of problem solving, and addresses teachers' concern that this method consumes too much time. (MBR)

Examines materials in the ERIC system offering teaching ideas and activities designed to promote critical and creative thinking and reading. Discusses the role of teacher questioning techniques and writing to structure thoughts. (HTH)

Problem-solving can be an exercise in mystification for some students. Six suggestions are given for presenting word problems in mathematics in ways that make them more accessible and comprehensible for young students. (PP)