Ignite Your Everyday Creativity

Go to Course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/ignite-creativity

Introduction

### Course Review: Ignite Your Everyday Creativity In our fast-paced, ever-changing world, creativity stands out as a critical skill that is increasingly recognized and valued. Whether in business, the arts, or daily life, the ability to innovate and generate fresh ideas is essential for success. Coursera's course, "Ignite Your Everyday Creativity," offers a thoughtful approach to uncover and nurture this inherent talent within everyone. #### Overview "Ignite Your Everyday Creativity" is aimed at affirming the belief that creativity is not a rare gift bestowed upon a select few, but rather a skill that can be developed and cultivated by anyone. The course is structured around empowering participants to recognize their creative potential through three focal points: **be aware**, **be inspired**, and **be creative**. This comprehensive course comprises several engaging modules that present relatable exercises and insights grounded in experiential learning. Each module offers specific skills to enhance your understanding of creativity and expand your imaginative capacity. #### Course Structure and Content 1. **What is Creativity?** - Here, you explore the idea of viewing challenges and ideas from multiple perspectives. The lesson emphasizes the skill "Look at it Another Way," encouraging participants to shift their viewpoints to uncover new insights. 2. **The Creative Person** - This module is centered on the skill of "Visualize it Richly and Colorfully." By employing all five senses to visualize, students learn how rich imagery can invigorate creativity. This lesson emphasizes the profound connection between visualization and memory, enhancing personal engagement with the material. 3. **The Creative Press** - Focusing on "Enjoy and Use Fantasy," this section invites participants to reintegrate imagination into their daily lives. Participants are encouraged to embrace their inner child and use fantasy as a means of visualizing the unknown. 4. **The Creative Process** - This module emphasizes "Break Through and Extend the Boundaries," pushing learners to consider unconventional solutions and think "outside the box." It is an invitation to explore creativity beyond conventional limits. 5. **The Creative Product** - "Combine and Synthesize" is the focal skill of this module, encouraging participants to merge unrelated concepts to generate novel ideas. The emphasis on leveraging personal strengths to solve problems exemplifies practical application. 6. **Putting Ideas into Context** - As the course culminates, this module trains participants in the final skill: "Put Ideas into Context." It encourages reflection on how the lessons learned can be integrated into daily life and emphasizes that creativity is an ongoing journey. #### Course Experience The course is well-structured and builds progressively, making it easy for participants to grasp key concepts. Each module combines theoretical insights with practical exercises, ensuring that learning is impactful and applicable. The creativity exercises are not just thought-provoking; they are designed to foster self-exploration and enable participants to tap into their creative reserves. #### Recommendations "Ignite Your Everyday Creativity" is ideal for professionals seeking to boost problem-solving skills, individuals looking to break free from creative blocks, and anyone interested in harnessing creativity in personal or professional contexts. Whether you are a student, a homemaker, an entrepreneur, or a corporate leader, this course provides invaluable tools to enrich your creativity. From enhancing business innovation to deepening personal artistic pursuits, the lessons learned from this course will resonate long after completion. Participants will leave not only with improved creative skills but with a renewed sense of confidence in their ability to think creatively. In conclusion, I highly recommend "Ignite Your Everyday Creativity" for anyone keen to nurture their innate creative potential. With its engaging modules and practical frameworks, this course promises to unlock the creative thinker within you, empowering you to navigate life's challenges with a fresh and imaginative perspective. Embrace your creativity today! ### Find the Course You can enroll in "Ignite Your Everyday Creativity" on Coursera [here](https://www.coursera.org/learn/ignite-your-everyday-creativity). Happy learning!

Syllabus

What is Creativity?

In this module, we will be featuring the skill “Look at it Another Way”. This skill is about becoming aware of what ideas, challenges, and solutions feel like from multiple perspectives, views, or mindsets. These ideas may manifest as spoken words or internal thoughts. For example, take a moment to picture a tree. What does it look like? Does it have leaves? What season are you in? Did you picture the tree from straight on? If so, try picturing the tree from a birds-eye view, or from an ant's perspective. If your tree was in full bloom, picture the same tree in winter. It probably looks much different! That's what this module is all about looking at things from different perspectives in order to gain new insights! As you go through this module's lessons, we would like you to consider the following things: * What might be all of the different ways to look at these lessons and assignments? * How does changing your perspective spark your imagination? * When deliberately employing this skill, do you feel more creative? We encourage you to keep this description handy, as we will be asking you to apply this skill throughout the module. Ready? Let's get started! * Skill taken from Torrance, E.P., & Safter, H.T. (1999). Making the creative leap beyond... Hadley, MA: Creative Education Foundation Press.**

In this module, we will be featuring the skill, “Visualize it Richly and Colorfully”. This skill is about using the five senses to paint a vivid picture of what you're trying to explain or understand.This module will require you to use your imagination during the lessons and the subsequent assignments. We will ask you to picture the many aspects of certain objects -- such as apples -- or to remember something as vividly as possible. Let's give it a shot: picture a flower. It doesn't matter what kind of flower it is -- it doesn't even have to be one that is known to humankind! What does the flower look like? What colors make up the petals? How many petals are there? Does the stem have thorns? Do the thorns hurt? Are the petals soft? Are they damp from a recent dew? How does the flower smell? What do you hear? Is there a bee buzzing around the flower? Are you brave enough to taste the flower? I know that sounds like a lot of questions, but you should incorporate all five senses into the lessons within this module. As you go through this module's lessons, we would like you to consider the following questions: * How does visualization make your memories come alive?* How does visualization spark your imagination?* When deliberately employing this skill, do you feel more creative? We encourage you to keep this description handy, as we will be asking you to apply this skill throughout the module.Ready? Let's get started!* Skill taken from Torrance, E.P., & Safter, H.T. (1999). Making the creative leap beyond... Hadley, MA: Creative Education Foundation Press.

In this module, we will be featuring the skill Enjoy and Use Fantasy. This skill is about imagination, and it is an integral part of creativity and learning. The ability to enjoy and use fantasy is a skill that can be applied to many facets in life. Though it is often misconstrued as inconvenient or inappropriate (especially as we get older), fantasy has been shown to motivate learning while providing a non-threatening environment. The employment of the skill Enjoy and Use Fantasy improves thinking, logic, and communication skills! For example, imagine you’ve been given access to the world’s first time machine. As of right now, it only has one setting: to take you on a journey 1000 years forward in time. Just think! You will be the first person from the present to see what the future looks like: what people will be wearing, what businesses will be in place, what governments will be standing, and the effects of the human race on the entire planet. With 100% assurance that the time machine is 100% safe, you hop in and press the One Button: GO! How do you feel? Is your mind racing with ideas of what you might see? Are you excited to be a part of an unknown future? Are you nervous about running into a future relative? Good – that’s the point! As you go through this module’s lessons, we would like you to consider the following things: Are you fully experiencing the joy and child-like nature of fantasy? How does the deliberate use of fantasy spark your imagination? When deliberately employing this skill, do you feel more creative? Ready? Let’s get started!

In this module, we will be featuring the skill Break Through and Extend the Boundaries. This skill is about thinking outside of the prescribed requirements. You may know it better by the phrase “think outside the box” – but we want you to think of it as more than that. Expanding the boundaries is a skill that everyone possesses (though it can be developed and honed through practice), and is integral to creativity and problem solving. For example, have you ever had a child, student, or colleague who was perfectly content to give run-of-the-mill answers to intriguing questions? Sure, the answers were applicable and solved the problem at hand, but they lacked the innovation and excitement that you were after. Then one day, in frustration, you told that person to “think outside the box” – and he astounded you with an answer that was completely out of left field! As you go through this module’s lessons, we would like you to consider the following things: • Are you thinking beyond the prescribed requirements? • How does extending the boundaries spark your imagination? • When deliberately employing this skill, do you feel more creative? We encourage you to keep this description handy, as we will be asking you to apply this skill throughout the module. Ready? Let’s get started! *Skill taken from Torrance, E.P., & Safter, H.T. (1999). Making the creative leap beyond… Hadley, MA: Creative Education Foundation Press.

In this module, we will be featuring the skill “Combine and Synthesize”. This skill is about making new connections with what we already know, and combining relatively unrelated ideas and concepts. For example, perhaps you're having trouble keeping up with your household chores. You understand their importance, but you can never seem to find the time to get them done. You take a few minutes to generate ideas, but they're the same old ones you've tried before. So, in order to come up with more novel ideas, you decide to combine your current challenge with your strengths. Perhaps you're an engineer, or you love to paint, or you're a motivational speaker. You combine the skills and tools that you already know with the problem at hand, and you come up with brand new ideas that play to your strengths! As you go through this module's lessons, we would like you to consider the following things: * What unrelated concepts might you combine to produce more novel solutions? * How does making connections spark your imagination? * When deliberately employing this skill, do you feel more creative? We encourage you to keep this description handy, as we will be asking you to apply this skill throughout the module.Ready? Let's get started! *Skill taken from Torrance, E.P., & Safter, H.T. (1999). Making the creative leap beyond... Hadley, MA: Creative Education Foundation Press.

In this module, we will be featuring the skill "Put Ideas into Context". This skill is about putting smaller parts or experiences into a larger framework, or putting things together in meaningful ways. This is the perfect skill with which to bring our MOOC to a close. During this module, and as you continue on with your Everyday Creativity experiences, we would like you to think about everything that you have learned throughout this course. Try to apply the lessons to your everyday life. Remember, the learning doesn't end with this course! Creativity is a skill that can be constantly developed -- all you have to do is put what you've learned into context! As you go through this module's lessons, we would like you to consider the following things: * How might you apply what you have learned in this course to your everyday life?* When deliberately employing this skill, do you feel more creative? We encourage you to keep this description handy, as we will be asking you to apply this skill throughout the module.Ready? Let's get started!