Creativity and innovation by Yolanda Figueroa

yolandafigueroa1 — 2025-09-28 15:28:10 UTC

To understand the concepts of creativity and innovation as applied to teaching.
To internalize key tools and strategies for creativity and innovation.
To provide a competency framework (roles, profiles) tied to creativity/innovation.

yolandafigueroa1 — 2025-09-28 15:31:28 UTC

Creativity and innovation have become almost buzzwords. We don't always need radical innovation; often it’s enough to improve what already works. In education, innovating requires clarity of purpose and knowledge of the techniques that help creativity emerge.

yolandafigueroa1 — 2025-09-28 15:38:19 UTC

Common misconceptions clarified:

Originality is not the same as creativity. Something may be novel but not useful.
Eccentricity is not creativity: going outside the norm without purpose isn’t innovation.
Other myths:
• Creativity is not a diagnostic trait; no test measures it fully.
• It is not the same as being funny, being witty, having artistic tastes, or being hyperactive.

yolandafigueroa1 — 2025-09-28 15:41:27 UTC

Creativity is conceived as a combination of attitude, aptitudes, methodologies, and a working style. The text underscores four partial approaches:

The creator (the individual)
The process (how ideas develop)
The product (the creative output)
The social/cultural dimension (how society judges and values it)

Mihály definition is cited: creativity is a state of awareness enabling one to generate mental connections to identify, propose, and solve problems divergently and relevantly.

yolandafigueroa1 — 2025-09-28 15:42:35 UTC

Coyne’s quote:

“Creativity is thinking new and appropriate ideas; innovation is successfully applying those ideas within an organization.”

Thus, creativity is ideation, innovation is implementation. Creativity is hard to measure; innovation often yields measurable results.

yolandafigueroa1 — 2025-09-28 15:43:43 UTC

According to the Oslo Manual (OCDE):

Research: creating new knowledge.
Development: using existing knowledge to build prototypes, designs, improvements.
Innovation: goes beyond, introducing significant changes in products, processes, organization, or marketing—emphasizing applicability and sustainability.

yolandafigueroa1 — 2025-09-28 15:45:03 UTC

Key features:

It is a concrete action, a process, a doing.
It involves meaningful change, not just small tweaks.
It must be applied in context and deliver improvements.
It must be sustainable over time.

The text also notes that “innovation” is used variably across fields and that knowledge society has shifted innovation models from closed to more open paradigms.

yolandafigueroa1 — 2025-09-28 15:46:42 UTC

Because the concept is less mature in education than in economics, the text proposes:

A meaningful purpose: what we aim for students to achieve.
Disrupt those schooling structures that stifle curiosity or learning.
Rework existing practices (methods, attitudes, conceptions) in a transformative way.
Definitions by other authors:
- Carbonell: systematic ideas, processes, strategies to provoke changes in educational practices.
- Salinas: changing actions in educational practice, intentionally and reflectively.
- Imbernón: collective attitude and process to generate proposals to solve practical problems and drive institutional change.

yolandafigueroa1 — 2025-09-28 16:44:47 UTC

What Creativity Is: Creativity is the ability to generate useful and meaningful new ideas through a dynamic interaction of people, processes, products, and context.

yolandafigueroa1 — 2025-09-28 17:34:43 UTC

Innovation is the effective and sustainable implementation of creative ideas that transform contexts, especially in education, by improving teaching practices and student learning.