Creativity Tools• Creativity is about forming new associations or

connections between your existing long term memories

• The “art” of making these associations can be learned and honed

• Conceptual tools exist to help us improve our creative abilities and strengthen our creative muscles

Creativity Tools• The number-one Creativity Tool?

Live and experience life to its fullest!

Worksheet IVa: Creativity• Observing:Take a few moments and look at the space

around you. Make note of the interesting, but mundane objects in this public space. See things you haven’t seen before. (2 min.)

Creativity Tools• Imaging:

Listen to the following passage and allow yourself to imagine the scene as vibrantly as you can. Focus on the visuals, the colors, the sounds, the textures and the smells.

Worksheet IVa: Creativity• Abstracting:The possibility of considering an object under one

viewpoint while disregarding all other properties of the object. The essence of abstraction consists in singling out one feature, which, in contrast to other properties, is considered to be particularly important.

Take a few minutes and study the following images. What aspects are essential to meaning? Create simple abstracted sketches of each. (4 min)

Worksheet IVa: Creativity

Creativity Tools• Pattern Recognition:

Recognizing a pattern requires both sensory input and conceptual analysis. It is the discover if an existing association or structure.

Look at the following image to see if any patterns reveal themselves to you.

Worksheet IVb: Creativity• Analogizing:An analogy illuminates a functional resemblance

between two things that are otherwise unlike

Take a few minutes and study the two lists on your sheet. Write a two-three sentence analogy between an item on the left and one on the right. (4 min)

Worksheet IVb: Creativity• Empathizing:Allow yourself to “enter” another person, animal

or object, and experience the world from a new viewpoint.

Take a few minutes and study the image on the following slide. Imagine you are this person. Who are they? How do they experience the world? How do they act? Write out short answers to the questions on your worksheet.

Creativity Tools• Modeling:Modeling is the ability to create a representation

(physical, functional, theoretical) of an object or situation based on the results of abstracting and or analogizing.

• Playing:Playing is an enjoyable “non serious, non

functional” activity in which we interact with others and the world, often within a framework of a created ruleset, to “see what will happen.”

Creativity Tools• Transforming:Transforming your own personal, internal insights and

observations, often earned using the above tools (and often very you-specific), into a format that is communicable and understandable to others is a vital creative and communicative skill.

• Synthesizing:Synthesizing is creating a complex whole by combining

disparate parts. Synthesizing perceptions with impressions garnered using the above tools can leader to a deeper and fuller understanding of an object.