Thinking Outside the Box

This article, written by Julia Marshall, explores the role of creativity in the classroom, and analyzes how the creative process helps provide students with critical thinking skills. Marshall lists the creative process as a four step system, able to re-cycled through, and also explores three different types of creative thinking in proving her point.

This article was written in response to growing interest in creativity in the practice of education. Starting it, the author, Julia Marshall notes that “many art educators believe that creativity is fundamental to artistic practice and, therefore, the art classroom is one of the best places for its cultivation.” The article explores this topic and investigate the methods based on sources which support the process of creativity as being a form of learning. Marshall defines it as “Experiential Learning,” basing the term off experience and reflection. According to her, creative thinking is a key factor in understanding how we can learn through art-making.

In understanding the Creative Theory, Marshall quotes a source in stating four stages of the creative process: preparation, where materials are gathered; incubation, where the gathered material is incubated; illumination, where ideas are formed; and verification, where the idea is evaluated before further execution. It is noted that this process is not linear and is often cyclical, sending the individual have around, re-evaluating ideas and gathering further research. To further explore this, Marshall includes the different ways of thinking and conceptual strategies included in creativity. The first of the three is analytical thinking, where something is examined and the individual tries for form an abstract concept. The second type is connective or associative thinking, where associates are formed betweens and possibly construct metaphors. The third is transformative thinking, which entails of elaborating, revising, constructing, or translating something into another medium.

Is is from here that the paper goes on to give an example project. The project was created in accordance the previously listed methods and strategies concerning the creative process though somewhat modified. The project was performed on a high school art class where the students were led to identify the problem of an investigation and locate the cause of the problem. In preparation, they were then to gather source material on the subject and analyze this information. As a part of Incubation, the students were then to recombine ideas in order to create new concepts  in the hopes of being able to find a new perspective, where those ideas would then be extended into the next application. Then came the steps of construction. After the students created their projects, they were told to analyze and reflect on their process.

The exercise was intended to promote creativity in the students. In concluding the article, Marshall uses the example to confirm the the expectations of the process mentioned from her sources, in saying that it does, “describe in general terms the steps learner-artists go through when they make art.” She goes on to say that creative theories make sense and help her to understand this process. She concludes, agreeing that creative think can “supply critical wisdom” that would be seen as beneficial to students through creative education.