Creativity

This is an essay written while under the influence for a magazine. The topic I was asked to write about was: ' Affirmative Prayer'.
As a writing enthusiast who knows more about Roaul Moat and David Sylvian than anything else, it turned out to be alright.

This is an essay written while under the influence for a magazine. The topic I was asked to write about was: ' Affirmative Prayer'.
As a writing enthusiast who knows more about Roaul Moat and David Sylvian than anything else, it turned out to be alright.

The paper presents action research that was conducted with students of first and second grades of primary music school. The study dealt with the question of improving classroom practices by encouraging children's musical creativity in the solfeggio lessons. This paper presents part of research in which we dealt with involving students in music making activities which concerned on the melody (the creation of short melody,  complete started melody, varying melodies, creating a melody on a given text, improvising melody questions and answers).
The obtained results showed that children like to engage in music making activities. In terms of activities in the melody, we concluded that it was much better when we combined individual and group performance than when the melodic improvisations performed exclusively in the form of individual activities. This provides better connectivity improvised melodies and better focus students' attention. It is important that students develop a sense of logical movement of melody and it is therefore necessary to give priority sung melodic improvisations. These improvisations can play in overcoming any intonation problems with tasks that must be commensurate with the current capabilities of students. Improvised fragment should be as short as possible. They can be gradually extended only when students enough acquire such activities. It would be good if students often performed improvised melody because it can be much longer to deal with determining the intonation. This activity wouldn't quickly become tedious as it is in the case when the intonation practiced exclusively with reproductive activities.

Keywords:  creativity, music making activities, melody improvisation, primary school children,  solfeggio  lessons

The issue of giftedness can be approached to in various ways. A large number of authors points out the necessity of identifying giftedness in children and providing adequate education which would enable them to develop their abilities as much as possible. If musical talent is concerned, children's musical ability can be developed in either ordinary or music schools. Primary schools teachers are the first to notice exceptional musical talent in their pupils. They are the one who identify them and try to encourage them, but for the full development of their ability, it is suggest to pupils to gain additional music education in a music school.
The paper presents the action research that was conducted with the first and second graders in a primary music school. The aim was to determine what are the possibilities for improving the existing teaching practices by encouraging children's musical creativity during the solfeggio lessons. The results suggest that it is possible to include the young  musically gifted children not only in reproductive but also productive musical acitivities: the improvisation and the creation of short piano pieces.  Although the creative activities do not always include all children, they all mostly express a great interest for such activities. Children who express a desire to participate in musical and creative activities are able to successfully fulfill the tasks. The results point to the conclusion that the systematic work with gifted children can lead to significant progress in terms of their productive their musical ability.
Key words: primary education, primary education teachers, giftedness, creativity, music lessons, extra-curricular music activities, solfeggio lessons

The paper presents the action research that was conducted with the children in a primary music school. The aim was to determine what are the possibilities for improving the existing teaching practices by encouraging children's musical creativity during the solfeggio lessons. These activities make up for a third of the total number of solfeggio lessons hours. They are always a continuation  of a theme that was designed for a specific lesson. This allows the students to get more involved in mastering the rhythmic and intonation skills that will not be too monotonous for them.By insertion of musical creative activities in solfeggio lessons, they became richer and versatile. Students have expressed equal interest in all music making activities, but it turned out that there are considerable difference in students' ability to perform in various music-making activities. There are some developments in terms of students' perception of musical creation. Students are being gradually introduced to musical creation in solfeggio lessons, so it becomes better and more important to  them, even easier.Activities of musical creation should be more frequently associated with other activities which aim to develop rhythmic and intonation skills, because in this way even less preferred methods become much more interesting to students. Various activities will last longer than usually if the  solfeggio lessons do not consist only of the reproduction of given rhythmic or melodic fragments that become tiring for children after longer performace.
Key words:  musical creativity, primary education, children, solfeggio lessons, rhythm improvisation,  melody improvisation

The phenomenon of creativity is being much looked into by contemporary science, especially psychology and pedagogy. Children's creativity is often in the focus of scientific interest and much research is conducted with the attempt to illuminate this phenomenon and provide some precise answers to numerous questions.  As far as children's creativity in the area of music is concerned, it is being much discussed, but insufficiently present in the music classroom. Is it because such activities are so difficult for pupils that teachers avoid them on purpose? Some authors claim that there are not only too difficult for pupils, but teachers as well, especially teachers working with young learners whose level of musical knowledge and acquired skills is often very low.
In order to shed some light on the issue of musical creativity and to find the answers to some unanswered questions, there are several different approaches and a number of authors presented in this paper. One section is dedicated to the explanation of the term “musical creativity” and the different perceptions of the process of the creation of musical works – the so-called “romantic” and “objective” or “psychological” understanding. The paper also presents the Carl Orff system, emphasizing musical creativity. A part of the paper deals with the question of the possibility of implementation of the musical creativity in Music classroom in elementary school and Solfeggio lessons in music school.
Keywords: creativity, music creativity, children, solfeggio, Orff-Schulwerk, teaching music, solfeggio

School can be an important factor of student creativity development, if creativity is being systematically developed. In Music, it is possible to give students more opportunity for creative expression, especially through music improvisation. However, the question arises whether the teachers with the initial education are sufficiently trained to conduct such activities with students, since the majority of them did not have the opportunity to participate in that kind of teaching in their previous education. If we do not enable students to actively participate in the activities that they themselves will conduct with their own students, and if we teach them by lecturing only, as the only possible way of teaching Music, they cannot competently lead their students through such activities, regardless of the information and knowledge of other possible methods they might possess. The paper is about research on students’ active participation in musical activities and music improvisation within the course of Music theory. The results suggest that the students are very keen to take part in all the activities intended to stimulate their creativity and that they are extremely satisfied with this kind of teaching. Some students point out that their participation in all activities in Music theory will help them in their future pedagogical work.
Keywords:  creativity in teaching, future teachers, music education, creative expression of students, musical creativity

This paper starts with a discussion of the conceptual difficulties around defining, understanding and assessing creativity and subsequently refines this discussion within the context of education. It directly addresses some of the key limitations to the manifestation of creativity specifically in schools and examines key areas of debate in educational policy and practice, pointing to increasing and, in some cases, renewed in the creativity in education agenda. These areas include: the curriculum, the arts and external (that is, out-of-school) partnerships. This paper ultimately argues – and concludes – that there is a place for creativity in education and there is evidence of good creative practice.

This paper was submitted as a final assignment of my Bachelor's Degree in Education.

In this issue we examine the characteristics of the Social Age and the new culture of learning emerging and consider implications for our formal institutions of education, guided by the insightful writing and illustrations of our Guest Editor & Illustrator Julian Stodd.

Using a dual neurocognitive systems framework, Piaget’s ideas are elaborated to allow for executive processes and post formal thinking. Developing imagination, emotional expression, and creativity through the ‘arts’ should not be seen as educational luxuries that are to be argued for in terms of philosophical ideals, rather, they should be seen as important for mental health, and essential aspects of nurturing the psyche in accordance with its evolving biological nature.

This chapter examines group drumming as a creative arts intervention
strategy that reduces stress and promotes healing, connection, and empowerment for diverse populations of clients and/or as a self-care strategy for professionals. The chapter is organized as follows: an overview of the benefits of group drumming is provided as well as the rationale for and description of the group drumming method. Next, a discussion of group drumming as an evidence informed practice model, including a review of the relevant literature and the benefits and challenges when using group drumming as an intervention strategy
are provided. We also provide an overview of our group drumming protocol called the I-We Rhythm program, which based on participants’ feedback, was found to have had a curative effect as a type of “psychosocial spiritual” medicine. Ethical considerations are explored and tips for practitioners are detailed. Lastly, we provide recommended readings and resources for practitioners who want to further explore how to incorporate group drumming as a part of their practice
toolkit.

Ph.D. Dissertation (With Distinction), Drew University, Madison, NJ (May 1996).  Awarded The Helen LePage and William Hale Chamberlain Prize of The Graduate School of Drew University for the Ph.D. dissertation that is "singularly distinguished by creative thought and excellent prose style." 

Metaphorical and metonymical compounds – novel and lexicalised ones alike – are remarkably abundant in language. Yet how can we be sure that when using an expression such as land fishing in order to speak about metal detecting, the referent will be immediately understood even if the hearer had not been previously familiar with the compound? Accordingly, this book sets out to explore whether the semantics of metaphorical and metonymical noun–noun combinations can be systematically analysed within a theoretical framework, where systematicity pertains to regularities in both the cognitive processes and the products of these processes, that is, the compounds themselves. Backed up by recent psycholinguistic evidence, the book convincingly demonstrates that such compounds are not semantically opaque as it has been formerly claimed: they can in fact be analysed and accounted for within a cognitive linguistic framework, by the combined application of metaphor, metonymy, blending, profile determinacy and schema theory; and represent the creative and associative word formation processes that we regularly apply in everyday language.

This paper lists all of author Rick Doble's experimental digital photographs that are available for public use. Doble's book, "Experimental Digital Photography" (Sterling Publishing, New York/London, 2010), is now being used as a text book in high schools and college courses. This book was the first to discuss digital experimental photographic effects, such as motion blur, rather than software effects created in a photo editing program such as PhotoShop. As a result Doble wanted many of his photographs to be accessible to students, teachers, artists, experimenters, scientists and others, and so he has made many of the photographs in that book available online. This paper is a complete listing of these works. Clicking on a thumbnail in this PDF document will take the reader to the full sized image on Wikimedia.org, photographs which can then be downloaded in a variety of sizes.

Openness has been identified as one of the personality traits with stronger association to creativity into the Five-Factor-model of personality. But what are the psychological mechanisms that relate Openness and creative performance? The present paper aims at responding to this question, exploring in particular whether the attentional processing of apparently irrelevant information (irrelevance processing) can act as a moderator within the relation between Openness and creativity. To this aim, a visual version of the Unusual Uses Task was developed and, using an eye-tracker methodology, the attentional processing of both information that is central to the task and information that is “apparently” irrelevant for its execution was measured. The results showed a moderating effect of irrelevance processing on the role of Openness in both creative achievement and originality of the uses produced by the participants, with creativity reaching higher levels in individuals who gave attention to irrelevant information and were characterized by a high level of Openness. These findings establish attentive processing as a central psychological mechanism to explain the relationship between Openness and creativity.

This paper presents the structure and the composition of a newly developed multi-sided test battery for the measurement of creativity within scientific and artistic domains. By evolving and integrating some of the existing procedures for evaluating creativity, this test battery promises to become a full-rounded and comprehensive assessment of creative abilities, encompassing both domain-general and domain-specific components. More specifically, the test battery is designed for the measurement of the two main stages of the creative thinking process: ideation and assessment. The test battery also includes two measures of creative achievement, testing for Pro-C or Big-C Creativity. Both are tuned to represent measures of achievement in the artistic, scientific and everyday creativity domains. Moreover, since creative thinking is not an isolated phenomenon in human behavior, the battery includes the measurement of two constructs, intelligence and personality, both of which are highly relevant for creativity.