Convergent and Divergent thinking, Logical Mindmap and Stereotypes

For this week class, students have learned about Convergent and Divergent thinking, Logical Mindmap and Stereotypes.

The meaning of each of these words (taken from the class leassons):

- Convergent thinking is a term coined by Joy Paul Guilford as the opposite of divergent thinking. It generally means the ability to give the correct answer to standard questions that do not require significant creativity, for instance in most tasks in school and on standardized multiple-choice tests for intelligence.

Personal thought: I believe it has something to do with general lesson like History lesson, where it has right or wrong. Well, that is my thought. I do not know is there anything I can think of that related with it.

- Divergent thinking is a thought process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions. It is often used in conjunction with convergent thinking, which follows a particular set of logical steps to arrive at one "correct" solution. Divergent thinking typically occurs in a spontaneous, free-flowing manner, such that many ideas are generated in a random, unorganized fashion. Many possible solutions are explored in a short amount of time, and unexpected connections are drawn. Following divergent thinking, ideas and information are organized and structured using convergent thinking

Personal thought: So, in short, randomly generated idea can be get through divergent thinking and can be applied without any right or wrong? I guess that is why people who has creativity in mind should not be worry about what have they think about.

- Mind mapping, introduced by Tony Buzan is a great tool for idea generation and brainstorming. It enhance both sides of the human brain and widely used in taking notes, research or generating new ideas. A creative Mind Map is able to stimulate and create interest to the individual and also to the viewer.

Personal thought: Mind mapping sure is the best way to organize something, just like calendar, only different is it more fun to make and easy to get. Plus, mind map only contains something that is very short and simple, but easy to remember.

- Stereotype is a commonly held public belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings. Stereotypes are standardized and simplified conceptions of groups based on some prior assumptions. Generally speaking, stereotypes are not based on objective truth but rather subjective and sometimes unverifiable content-matter.

Personal thought: I feel that stereotype is pretty much like refer to specific group. Just like people’s races. Different races have their specific thing that visualizes their own races and customs.

Between Creativity, Invention, Innovation and Novelty

"A man paints with his brains and not with his hands." - Michelangelo Buonarroti;1475-1564

Based on the quote above, now I should be able to understand how the creativity works to people who earn the creativity.

From the class lesson I learned, the creative person is the one who generates new ideas. And can create a creative process. While, the creative process is how these new ideas, solutions, and inventions are produced. So, in order to make something, a person needs to be creative and in order to be a creative person, creative person is needed. This way, the creativity will exists through somebody’s mind and be able to make something. Also, quoted from class lesson:

Creativity is the process of generating something new that has value. There are many new ideas and concepts, but some may not have value and hence may not be considered creative. A creation is something original that has value. (Haggins, 1995, p. 3)
Therefore, creativity does not happen inside people’s heads, but in the interaction between a person’s thoughts and a sociocultural context. It is a systemic rather than individual phenomenon. (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, p.23)

There are four types of creativity. Creative people fall into these 4 catagories:

1) Aesthetic Organizers.
2) Boundary Pushers — those who take an existing idea and push it a little further.
3) Inventors — those who take existing knowledge and create new ideas — the Edisons of this world.
4) The rarest group: Boundary Breakers — the Leonardos and the Copernicuses.

( A paraphrasing of Elliot Eisner (1933-), American art educator)

However, some people considering that creativity is almost has the same meaning as Innovation, which is some sort of misunderstanding concept. Innovation means to bring new ideas or making changes or improvise something, based on Oxford Dictionary. In short, innovation only existed based to something that is already existed while creativity is applied to something very new. In other words, innovation is the process of turning ideas into practical reality. Based on the class lessons as well, innovation is the process of making improvements by introducing something new, the realization of a creative idea in a social context.

How about the invention? It might be related to innovation things. Well, invention is the outcome of something that the inventor has produced or done, based on existing results or knowledge for something that has purposes. The most well known invention thing is the telephone, which was invented by Alexander Graham Bell. Before, nobody really knows how that thing works.

Moreover, it was not widely used, even some people claimed that the telephone does not serve any purposes to people. That thought was wrong. As we look today, the telephone has become common, but important thing in our daily life. The best invention in the history is still existed.

Now, let’s take a look about the novelty. Novelty is the quality of being new. It might also refer to something unusual from the current thing. The best example is the fashion apparel. We see that there are so many fashions design. Today, people have created so many fashion designs, just only based from one thing. If people gave only one piece of cloth, many people will design something with in so many different ways. Some may have a novelty in it, where it might be a fresh new thing that has been applied.

Creativity Is Everywhere!

From this post, I have a couple of pics that truly show how the creativity acts in anywhere, anytime and even anyone who done it.

1. Monalisa Painting done with Coffee Cup

There are 3,604 of coffee cups needed to set up the painting of Mona Lisa in Sydney, Australia where the Aroma Festival event happened. Every cups has different type of coffee to make a different shade of colour.


2. Street Painting


































































Julian Beever was known as 3D street painter. He has created lots of drawing on the street which make them look like 3D and pop up from the street surface. The drawings need to be look at the certain angle and direction, since the drawings he made are actually non flat. He plays with the perspective, so the drawing will appear in 3 dimesional

Source:
http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm
http://www.eatmedaily.com/2009/08/mona-lisa-made-from-3604-coffee-cups/