Enhancing creativity is an important issue worldwide, but it is perceived and addressed differently from a population to another. Creativity is considered as an essential life skill, a major component of human intelligence, and the most important topic in the education of the gifted and talented students. Nations rely on youth to use their skills at the highest level possible to contribute to improving all life aspects including solving problems creatively, developing genuine innovations, and leading communities to productivity. Literature indicates that creativity should be nurtured in all students to become successful continued learners, and in gifted students to facilitate their talent development and extend their growth in optimal ways. This paper further discusses the nature of creativity, proposes a broad conceptualization of creativity based on the humanistic approach and positive psychology, and suggests teaching practices for fostering creativity in the general classroom.
Research on education has been focused on creativity and talent development in order to better understand underlying concepts and suggest teaching practices that lead students to a higher level for best utilization of their potentials. Giftedness in mathematics is a major focus for many researchers because of the importance of mathematics in scientific development and innovation. Creativity, on the other hand, is considered not only as a major component of giftedness, but also as the essence of mathematics that should be fostered for all students. This research study further analyzed creativity and giftedness in mathematics, and synthesized rational support of a proposed model to better understand and support creativity and mathematical talent development in general education schools; it also discussed preliminary requirements for effective use of the proposed model based on teachers' perspectives. The major purpose is to contribute to enhancing school trends toward nurturing creativity for all students and meeting the needs of gifted mathematics students, utilizing broad conceptions of creativity and giftedness, and internalizing positive beliefs about student capability for success in mathematics.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.