Page 25 - Microsoft Word - The Future of Learning April 2017.docx

Concept frameworks are defined as an interlinked network of knowledge, ideas and concepts bound together via the interference or resonance of brainwaves.
Imagination and creativity are easily confused, but imagination differs from creativity in several ways. It is not possible to see pictures in our head21 so defining our imagination is quite challenging. Essentially, the imagination is the process that underpins creative outcomes.
Imagination is the ability of the brain to combine our knowledge, ideas, concepts and concept frameworks and recombine these in new and unique ways.
Creativity is the outcome of applying rich questioning and reflective and contemplative thinking processes in a non-conscious manner, so that we can come up with entirely new ideas, concepts and concept frameworks.
Creativity is defined as the result of consciously applying our imagination to produce new ideas, concepts, or concept frameworks that have value.
Creativity is the outcome of applying our imagination to synthesise and distil our experiences, what we know and understand, as well as interrogating others and our self, using a range of different question types. Questions help us examine and remix our knowledge, ideas, concepts and concept frameworks that we have created, allowing us to create new knowledge, ideas, concepts and concept frameworks. There is a lot of science behind the creative process, but there is also a lot of passion and desire that drives us to want to explore and create, in ways that no-one may have explored before.
The raw material (knowledge, ideas and concepts), must be in place for us to be creative. Creativity requires contemplation, the willingness to let the mind drift (daydreaming), for periods of time, from seconds to a few minutes. This allows the hippocampus and amygdala22 to check out different combinations of knowledge, ideas and concepts for possible productive outcomes. But it is our curiosity, intrigue, passion and desire to understand that draws us back to try again and again.23
It is entirely possible to come up with the imaginative idea that we can fly, and while we may consider this to be creative, the imagination deals with the unlikely and often the impossible; the things we would like to do but in a practical sense we cannot. It may appear to have no functional outcome, but it lays down foundations that creativity can build on. Our imagination is the capacity that allows us to be creative and the creative process can lead to innovation.
21 More on this later in the text. This notion will be a challenge to most of us. To take up the discussion see the notes associated with this Reith Lecture by V R Ramachandran: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/lecturer.shtml Accessed June, 2013.
22 Regions within the brain that carry out a range of complex tasks which allow us to learn.
23 Image courtesy of desktopwallpapers4me. http://www.desktopwallpapers4.me/digital-art/musical-creativity-19263/
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