Creativity is a cornerstone of complex, unconventional thinking, and developing creativity begins at a young age. With this book, early childhood teachers will discover how to tap into and scaffold children's natural curiosity and creative abilities. / https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1154/thumbnail.jpg

abstract: An old proverb claims that “two heads are better than one”. Crowdsourcing research and practice have taken this to heart, attempting to show that thousands of heads can be even better. This is not limited to leveraging a crowd’s knowledge, but also their creativity—the ability to generate something not only useful, but also novel. In practice, there are initiatives such as Free and Open Source Software communities developing innovative software. In research, the field of crowdsourced creativity, which attempts to design scalable support mechanisms, is blooming. However, both contexts still present many opportunities for advancement. In this dissertation, I seek to advance both the knowledge of limitations in current technologies used in practice as well as the mechanisms that can be used for large-scale support. The overall research question I explore is: “How can we support large-scale creative collaboration in distributed online communities?” I first advance existing support techniques by evaluating the impact of active support in brainstorming performance. Furthermore, I leverage existing theoretical models of individual idea generation as well as recommender system techniques to design CrowdMuse, a novel adaptive large-scale idea generation system. CrowdMuse models users in order to adapt itself to each individual. I evaluate the system’s efficacy through two large-scale studies. I also advance knowledge of current large-scale practices by examining common communication channels under the lens of Creativity Support Tools, yielding a list of creativity bottlenecks brought about by the affordances of these channels. Finally, I connect both ends of this dissertation by deploying CrowdMuse in an Open Source online community for two weeks. I evaluate their usage of the system as well as its perceived benefits and issues compared to traditional communication tools. This dissertation makes the following contributions to the field of large-scale creativity: 1) the design and evaluation of a first-of-its-kind adaptive brainstorming system; 2) the evaluation of the effects of active inspirations compared to simple idea exposure; 3) the development and application of a set of creativity support design heuristics to uncover creativity bottlenecks; and 4) an exploration of large-scale brainstorming systems’ usefulness to online communities. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Computer Science 2019

abstract: 航天产业属于技术密集型行业，现阶段中国航天的发展需要巨额资金和科研人力资本。传统航天企业内员工相较商业航天企业缺乏创新精神，“搭便车”现象严重，缺乏以创新为内在增长动力的传统航天产业，其发展持续性终究得不到满足。相比而言，国内外的商业航天企业却展现出较强的创新能力。遗憾的是，虽然航天产业的高科技属性决定了科研人员的关键角色，但目前的研究几乎没有系统地研究过不同的体制对航天产业创新的影响机制，而有限的研究也集中在讨论宏观环境对行业创新的影响。本研究将弥补这方面研究的不足，分析传统航天模式与新兴商业航天模式下科研人员创新力差别的内在动因，力求给传统航天产业的发展提供有实际意义的参考和建议。 作者自2008年加入传统航天院所从事科研工作，2014年创立中国第一家商业卫星公司，在实践中充分利用面试知识型员工的机会，并深入访谈了不同职级的科研人员，覆盖了30家商业航天公司（截至2016年上市公司54家），包括来自中国传统航天的科研院所、直属航天企业及新兴商业航天公司300余人。通过多次沟通、邮件往来等方式进一步调查研究，发现不同所有制公司的员工在组织认同度方面存在较为明显的差异。为了系统科学地理解组织认同度在航天行业内如何影响不同体制下的科研人员的创新，本研究采用问卷调查的形式收集了1200份问卷，研究在传统航天及商业航天这两种不同所有制的航天企业中，组织认同度与科研人员创新能力的关系。从实证结果来看，航天产业员工组织认同度会显著影响员工的创新绩效，组织认同度越高的员工其创新能力往往更强，员工创新绩效越高。与此同时，通过进一步研究分析发现，航天产业公司所有权属性的差异在组织认同影响员工创新能力的过程中起着调节作用。具体而言，传统航天企业中的员工，其组织认同度对其员工创新能力影响更小，商业航天公司员工创新能力受到其组织认同度的影响相对较大。 研究结果从某种程度上反映了航天领域不同所有权属性企业所具有的不同的组织文化、组织价值观与组织结构会导致其员工个体组织认同度对其创新行为的影响产生差异。从组织文化的角度出发，商业航天企业其组织文化相对于传统航天企业而言更加自由，对员工创意、创新行为限制更少，这种自由的文化刺激并提高了员工的组织认同度，使得个体创新行为的效果更加显著。另外，从组织价值观的角度而言，商业航天企业员工相对于传统航天企业员工来讲更加看重创新行为的意义，其对员工创新行为的重视使其员工组织认同度对员工取得创新绩效产生了催化作用。最后，从组织结构的角度来看，商业航天企业其管理层相对而言往往更愿意接受企业中员工的创意与创新行为，给员工留下了相当大的创新空间，这种灵活的管理方式从某种程度上也会促进组织认同度对员工创新行为产生影响。 / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2019

abstract: This quasi-experimental, concurrent, mixed method, action research study sought to evaluate how an elective 1-credit course informed by mindfulness and culturally sustaining pedagogy influenced honors students’ academic self-efficacy, self-compassion, and their meaning-making about what it means to be an honors student. Theoretical perspectives and research guiding the study included: academic self-efficacy, culturally sustaining pedagogy, mindfulness, and third space. Drawing from these perspectives, the 9-week Creative Compassion course utilized poetry and rap as a way to enact culturally sustaining pedagogy and also as a vehicle for students to practice mindfulness. Findings from quantitative data from pre- and post- surveys of a treatment and control population, as well as qualitative data (open-ended survey questions, focus groups, and student artifacts) from the treatment population are presented here. This study revealed the following: practices informed by culturally sustaining pedagogy positively impacted students’ mindfulness, these same practices allowed for the creation of a third space within the classroom, and improving student self-compassion should be an increased priority. Additional implications for research and practice are also presented. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2019

This is the thorough examination of Allyson Malandra's process of becoming a character, and the many different challenges and triumphs she has faced throughout the past three years of developing her craft. It also aims to bring into focus where the work will be headed throughout the many years to come. The goal of this process paper is to examine the many different details and intricacies that go into a role, and also how to troubleshoot problems that may arise throughout the journey. Our process is how we, as actors, attempt to create life on stage, and discover and unfold the underlying truth that connects all human beings. It is understood that each role for an actor will present a different set of chges, and therefore it is important to understand a baseline process that gets at the core of the actor's work. Through examination of this process, previous and current chges in the work will be discussed, as well as ways to move through these issues. Ideas on what is valuable in acting will be discussed, as a way of staying centered and focused, and also retaining quality in the craft. The examination will also explore three main pillars of the work--breathe, listen, and play--and how these anchor Allyson's artistry. The ultimate goals of this examination are to create a support for the process, to chge her work in the future, and to help her continue to grow and expand, both as an artist and as a person.

This research explores the relationship between mindsets and divergent thinking skills. Specifically, the research questions sought to answer whether there was a positive association between a higher presence of divergent thinking skills and a creative growth mindset, as well as the impact environment has on creative growth. A total of 184 second and sixth grade students from a larger urban school district were surveyed. Data collection included: student surveys, two divergent thinking assessments, direct observation of the students and teacher notes. Results indicate most students identify with a creative growth mindset, but are lacking specific strategies to demonstrate creative growth. In addition, reflective survey results revealed the impact environment can have in helping students recognize and apply the specific strategies and characteristics highly creative people possess.

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Previous investigators have indicated that low socio-economic students have difficulty experiencing success on tests heavily loaded with verbal material. Differences in personality characteristics between students of high and low creativity have also been found. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence of manifest needs and anxiety on creative thinking. The Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, which determines anxiety level, the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule, which measures manifest needs, and the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, which provides an index of creativity were administered to Spanish-American, Anglo-American, Negro, and Navaho high school students, who constituted the 1967 Upward Bound population at Utah State University. The total sample, composed of the four ethnic backgrounds, was administered the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. The students were ranked on the basis of their total creativity score, and high and low creativity groups were extracted at the median. The results indicate that Upward Bound students are significantly higher in figural than in verbal creativity. No significant differences between high and low creativity students were found on anxiety or manifest needs, although a negative trend between anxiety and creativity was suggested.

This study explores the relationship between music and creativity. Prior research has conflicting results with some finding that music does influence creativity and some reporting no relationship and others finding that music is harmful to creativity. All of these studies, however, have largely focused on the presence vs. absence of music without consideration for the characteristics (i.e., musical key, tempo, etc.) that make up the sound we identify as music and their unique effects on us emotionally, physically, and cognitively. This dissertation contends that different characteristics of music influence different components of creativity (i.e., novelty and usefulness) through their effects on executive functions—working memory and inhibitory control. The hypotheses presented in this dissertation were tested in a 2x2 between-subject lab experiment with two different control groups (i.e., nature sounds and no audio) using 436 undergraduate students. The results provide support for the physiological and affective consequences of musical key and tempo. However, measures of creativity were unrelated with the proposed mediating mechanisms, making any conclusions about the effects of music characteristics on creativity difficult to draw. Reasons for this are discussed. It can be said, however, that it does appear that music is not harmful creativity as reported by previous studies. Directions for future research are also discussed.

When high school art teachers do not understand how their students experience creativity, studio art programs are less effective in fostering student learning than they would otherwise be. Nevertheless, extant research does not reveal a consistent or comprehensive understanding of how adolescents experience creativity in art education. Drawing on Csikszentmihalyi's theory of creativity and flow, this study explored students' perceptions of creativity and its relationship to flow, or the state of consciousness associated with optimal pleasure. This phenomenological study investigated students' perceptions of creativity and flow by interviewing nine high school advanced placement students in a public high school in southwest Florida. Data were drawn from three structured interviews with each subject and a field journal kept by the researcher. The Think Aloud technique used for the second interview provided rich descriptions while participants were in the midst of doing art. Field journal entries were organized according to Bailey's guide to field note classification. Moustakas's interpretation and modifications of the Van Kaam method of analysis provided a systematic approach to transcript reduction. The results of the investigation revealed four themes in the ways students perceive their own creativity, namely, influences, mindset, self-efficacy, and emotions. As they reflected on their perceptions of creativity and flow, students gained a greater awareness of their experience while creating art. Among the study's implications for social change, as art educators elicit these understandings, they foster creativity and transform students' lives in school and potentially, the wider society.