Assessing Creativity
November 3, 2010Ken Robinson’s 4 min. and 26 second video
Thank you to Catherine Ring for sending me the link to Sir Kenneth Robinson answering two questions sent to him via Twitter specifically about assessing creativity. The questions are:
- “Is it at all possible to grade a creative mind? What would be more suitable to do?”
- “If measurable outcomes are least important result of learning, how do we redefine accountability based on the unquantifiable?”
In this video he answers the questions. He defines creativity as “the process of having original ideas that have value.” Three components exist “process, originality, value”.
Please add your comments below to assessing creativity.
If you are not familiar with Ken Robinson’s well known TED video called Do Schools Kill Creativity? you can view it at this meartsed blog called “TED” by clicking here. TED is Technology, Entertainment and Design and has short videos of people speaking on a variety of topics.
me arts ed 
I think Ken Robinson was right on in his response to the questions by his requiring criteria, but in his description of assessing the creative “process”, he seems to drift from the idea of assessing creativity itself to assessing the creative product based on comparison. I like this because of two things; one, it values creativity as a process of “doing something”, a creative action producing a product, and two, because the comparison becomes a “standard”, either objective or subjective by which to define the intrinsic value of the object. I’m not sure that in this particular response he is actually measuring “creativity” as a process. My students can appear to be doing absolutely nothing when they are standing in front of a work in progress that is 90% complete and thinking about their next move.
I really enjoy Ken Robinson’s take on the arts. Thank you Catherine!