Guru Project By: Stephanie Bratton DR. E. PAUL TORRANCE “THEY LOVE THE WORK THAT THEY DO AND DO IT WELL”

 Torrance was born on October 8, 1915 at the family farm in Georgia.  Since his father was a sharecropper, Torrance was expected to help farm.  However, he couldn’t even plow a straight line.  Due to these “inadequacies”, he didn’t start school till age 7.  His 3 rd and 4 th grade teachers encouraged his imagination in reading and writing, where he flourished.  He won many academic prizes and his family supported him.  He quoted his father saying, "It's plain now that you'll never be able to make a living on the farm. You'll have to go to town and you'll have to get an education. It's time you learned to eat peas with a fork!" (Torrance, 1969b, p. 332) EARLY YEARS

 Torrance graduated high school and shortly after attended 2 years at Georgia Military College.  In 1936, he took a teaching job and continued teaching till he graduated with his Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in English.  He graduated with his Master of Arts degree in August 1944 with a major in educational psychology and a minor in psychology.  1945 – Drafted by the Army.  Because he didn’t fair well in the field, he was assigned to be a psychiatric social worker, where he deepened his knowledge of psychology. EDUCATION/MILITARY

 After the military, he was appointed Dean of Men at Kansas State College.  In 1951, he earned his doctorate from the University of Michigan.  While teaching and studying, he created the Mother Goose Test which measured the creativity at the elementary level.  WWII interrupted his plans, but he continued to research veteran creativity as a research psychologist.  “Wild colts” EDUCATION

 1958 – Appointed Director of the Bureau of Educational Research at the University of Minnesota  1961 – Nationally recognized for the creativity publication in Look Magazine.  1962 – Published first book on creativity, Guiding Creative Talent, and listed in Who’s who in America.  Published Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking.  Founded the Future Problem Solving Program.  Published book, Search for Satori and Creativity.  Inducted into the Hall of Fame by National Association for Creative Children and Adults  Publishes book On the Edge and Keeping on the Edge at age of 85. ACCOMPLISHMENTS

SO……..

 Creativity is “…the process of sensing gaps or disturbing, missing elements; forming ideas or hypotheses concerning them; testing these hypotheses; and communicating the results, possibly modifying and retesting the hypotheses” DR. TORRANCE’S CREATIVITY DEFINITION

 Used these components to create TTCT, which is the most widely used creativity test in the US.  The components work together but any one of the four can dominate during creative thought. 4 COMPONENTS

 Fluency- Generating new ideas or solutions to problems.  How many uses can you think of for a coat hanger?  List 15 things that are commonly red or contain red.  Flexibility- the ability to create different categories of ideas, and to perceive an idea from different points of view.  How is _________ like __________.  How would you group the ideas about "red" into categories? COMPONENTS

 Elaboration- the ability to expand on an idea by embellishing it with details or the ability to create an intricate plan.  Tell your neighbor about your last family trip using as many details as possible.  Describe all the possible characteristics of the red quality in a wagon.  Originality- the ability to generate new, different, and unique ideas that others are not likely to generate.  Design a new___________ that is better than the one you have.  Write an unusual title for the ideas about red. COMPONENTS

 In a general sample, there will be a positive correlation between low creativity and intelligence scores, but a correlation will not be found with higher scores.  Say What!?  Lower creativity is usually linked with low intelligence scores.  HOWEVER, high intelligence scores could have a range of creativity. THRESHOLD HYPOTHESIS

 Practicing the 4 components can help students become more confident in their abilities, aka more self-actualized.  FLUENCY  Hello Yellow – Have a box of crayons handy? Stack of colored paper? Have students close their eyes and randomly select a color. Then, students can thinks of as many things of that color. Make it a contest to see who can get the most things. Or make it more challenging and use printed paper.  This strategy can be applied to any grade level. Instead of colors, you could use cell parts, odd numbers, wars, etc. HOW DO I GET SOME OF THIS?

 FLEXIBILITY  Wheel-eez - Students can name all the things they can think of that have wheels. Then, try to think of things that are not vehicles, as well. For added fun, name things that would work better or be more fun if they had wheels.  Again, this prompt can be altered to include other things besides wheels.  ELABORATION  Have students pick one response and generate as detailed a paragraph as possible in a minute. Perhaps a student picks “cress” and develops an elaborate story. Encourage students to go deep into details despite their limited time.  This can help with engagement of introverted students as well! GOOD STUFF

 ORIGINALITY  What if… you discovered a mysterious ancient world under your house? What would you do? Would you tell anyone? What would this strange world be like? For added fun, draw a picture of your discovery. This activity prompts elaboration by the participant also.  Basically, anything that can get their minds flowing with out of the box thinking is beneficial.. Like when we had to make up our own ridiculous creativity theory! LAST BUT NOT LEAST

THANK YOU!