TWhile reviewing my prior reflections to help me prepare for this final paper, I noticed that Vygotsky was at the top of my mind when we started to explore Creativity during module one. He returned during the second-to-last lesson about cognitive mechanisms of Intelligence in which we focused on scaffolding as well as the zone of proximal development. His ideas seem the most natural and appropriate to well-developed learning environments that improve students’ self-efficacy by keeping both parties of the educational experience – student and teacher – investing in appropriate levels of engagement. This fits very well with Wallas’s model of creativity as well as Palincsar’s elements of cognitive instruction in which intentional learning requires the teacher to view all students as capable of the classwork, and most importantly, communicate consistently as they work together. This class has enabled me to expand prior knowledge from a summer class about Learning, Cognition and Assessment with additional connections that clarify for me the learning relationship between creativity and intelligence. As the lecture notes stated, “Helping students learn intentionally… will empower them to become independent learners.”

I was pleasantly shocked while preparing my extra credit assignment when I encountered several achievement tests used to measure the impact of chess training on math, reading, and meta-cognitive skills. First, I was shocked because I had stopped feeling dismissive of the tests as ‘just another IQ estimate’ because of the time we used to deep dive into the intelligence tests at the midpoint of this semester. Second, I was shocked because as I looked up the tests online, they reminded me of the Digit Span module in the WCIS test as well as the Sequential Processing and Achievement subtests in the K-ABC test, and the section in Binet’s test for Quantitative Reasoning came to mind as I read more about the SPM for math assessment. It felt good to be comfortable with the content in these tests and it felt good to read them and more quickly understand what they meant, so I spent less time on that deep dive. The case studies, the scholarly article review, and the extra credit assignment provided so many opportunities to learn about the scientific study of psychology and that changed my perception of intelligence testing in general. Additionally, the exposure to the reports in the case studies helped me develop a format to organize the information in the scholarly article and the extra credit projects, prioritizing incisive brevity in the summary, being clear upfront about the mechanisms used by the study and their weaknesses, then leading with the successful results because they were most interesting to my audience.

A significant difference between creativity and intelligence that became more apparent to me while working on the material for this class will be useful as I continue my education here at UMN. Externalization is a foundational aspect of creativity – both little-c and big-C – because an idea requires more than the mind of the beholder to be creative. On the other hand, the evidence about Intelligence implies such a biogenetic causation that sharing probably is not required. Sharing is a huge part of creativity – in individualistic and collectivist societies alike despite each culture’s drastically different response to it. Intelligence is a state of being that may be recognized and measured with a test, by successfully completing a task at work or in school, or by a count of patents. That last measure is where it overlaps with Creativity but the difference is significant. While most of the course material about Intelligence can be categorized as one or both of two of Cattell’s five factors, fluid and crystallized intelligence, the multi-factorial generalized intelligence is the mechanism that overlaps with creativity and can be seen in measurements such as patents. At Amazon, where I worked for so long, patents have been an important aspect of career development at the highest levels. Many of the senior executives have at least one and some of the top leaders have twenty or more. Working as we did during the beginning of retail e-commerce era, patent ideas were a bit like fish in the barrel, but those executives have the extreme fluid intelligence (internally, named “intuition”), and a broad scope of crystallized knowledge, and they use both creatively to transfer ideas between domains and show off their consistently good judgement through high velocity decision-making every day.

Finally, I am thankful for Ritchie’s debunking of “learning styles” in the opening pages of his book because it provided good reasons for the skepticism I have always felt about the concept. Later, as we learned about more modern approaches to intelligence, the differences in intelligence that were caricatured by “learning styles” developed into the modern, more reasonable approach of multi-factor intelligence, for example Sternberg’s triarchic intelligence which I most certainly prefer. My goal is to work in the public high school system where I will encounter many different types of students and parents with different educational backgrounds. After this class, I feel more prepared to apply what I have learned in this course about scaffolding, fluid and crystallized intelligence, and the importance of externalizing creativity to my classroom, lesson plans, and assessment strategies. 

Module 7 – Teaching and the components of intelligence

1. Perkins Survey (1995): Feuerstein’s IE; deBono’s CoRT; Lipman’s Philos.4kids & Project Intel’
2. Palincsar; and Stone and Reid – improving thinking skills for LD students
3. Expertise – Perkins, Mackintosh; Domain-specific's and General Intelligence's role in expertise
4. Training to develop Cognitive Complexity
5. Brief Survey of findings regarding intelligence research

This was my favorite module for several reasons. First, I am starting to feel acquainted with the major theories of intelligence and more experienced with how they overlap and how they contrast. I read the Ritchie book on vacation last August and was totally unfamiliar with the concepts and references, but it was not until this Module’s reading that encountering the names of education enrichment programs and Luria in Chapter 5, as well the Bell Curve in Chapter 6 had meaning greater than the scope of the passage. Two weeks ago in a discussion that was focused on a single intelligence model in Anthropology class, I compared Sternberg’s triarchic approach to intelligence and the factor analytic approaches. Even though that extra context digressed the discussion further than needed for an evolutionary evaluation of differences between the Homo species and Hominins, it felt good to be comfortable with the material.

​The introduction to Instrumental Enrichment (IE) will be useful when creating lesson and assessment plans as an English teacher. Vygotsky’s approach is already my preference, but the four features of IE are excellent complements for teaching programs designed to promote self-efficacy and positive feedback loops with my students. The zone of proximal development is expanded by IE’s more challenge-focused requirements, to strengthen areas of weakness through information input, elaboration, and engaging assumptions in output through positive self-reflection, as well as through finding a starting point that requires the least prior knowledge. I imagine that scaffolding could be perceived as coddling, or not providing sufficient challenge to students, and these features of IE provide an effective counterpoint. This approach was deepened by the information presented about Cognitive Instruction and Intentional Learning, notably prolepsis and reflective abstraction. One of the test questions for this module reinforced the importance of purposeful goals that are transparent to the student. This is also an important feature of managing at scale, for example, when my direct reports were hundreds or even many thousands of miles away in another country. Actionability of a goal can be directly observed as it is created when all parties engage in a reasonable discussion of the intent of the goal.

When this module turned to a review of expertise, it provided a chance for me to return to ideas I had considered during the study of creativity, notably how eminence was most often the most objective factor used to identify judges of levels of creativity. In this module, expertise is the synthesis of reflective and experiential intelligence much like fluid and crystallized intelligence creates a measure of general intelligence. As a manager of departments about which I knew only the basics and for which I had had no formal training, I can attest that domain-specific knowledge is a strong predictor of professional competence, something sought when investing long hours trying to find the right candidate for a job. Fluid intelligence and the ability of someone to reflect on their domain knowledge so that it can be more easily applied to new scenarios is also a major factor because real-world problems always have plenty of ambiguity.

Finally, I thoroughly enjoyed the statistics and factoids presented in the summary at the end of the lecture notes. Except for the seventh point, they were meaningful reminders and additional context about prior lessons. The correlation data was most meaningful to me because it provides sound basis for the belief that intelligence is most strongly influenced by genetic factors. The data in the sixth point succinctly states the case in favor of genetics.

Module 6 – Contemporary Views of Intelligence

1. Herrnstein & Murray – Bell Curve
2. Modular Perspectives: Ceci; Kargopoulos and Demetriou
3. Triarchic – Sternberg; Tripartite – Perkins; Multiple Intel – Gardner 

Though I was generally aware of the Bell Curve due to the media coverage portraying it as controversial, after learning that low IQ correlates to crime, risk for being on welfare, and even likelihood of worker disability, I understand why the book seemed threatening to some groups. So often, narratives based on academic study become the basis for propaganda with the wrong intentions. As a manager I have advocated for budgets that included near-constant increases in well-being costs based on neuroscientific data about the benefits of enabling work-life balance, providing physical space to relieve stress, and the virtuous cycle created by consistent “waffle Fridays” and “Tuesday Night Happy Hours” for my organization. Herrnstein’s and Murray’s evidence clearly advocates for some of their propositions, such as supporting top performers, but I did not understand how school choice was beneficial unless they intended it only for the gifted. All of that said, my first finding from this module – which absolutely shocked me – is the data that in 1993, 92.2% of federal education budget was directed toward the disadvantaged and less than one-tenth of one percent was allocated to gifted students. While it is difficult to compared based on the 2020 budget information available online, of the $64B, $30.7B of just discretionary funding has been clearly allocated for disadvantaged groups, to “support high-need students through essential formula grant programs.” (US Dept of Education, 2020) 

A second significant finding based on my plan to teach was the triarchic model of Sternberg. Intuitively, my understanding of intelligence is based on Analytic, Creative, and Practical components – closely aligned to his model. Having read his scholarly paper about the application of his triarchic model in the classroom, my understanding of Successful Intelligence seems complimentary to the Vygotsky model of scaffolding that enables the student with an emphasis on self-efficacy and appropriate support. While I agree that the cladistic view of the triarchic model presented in the lecture notes does not differentiate inductive and deductive reasoning, I strongly favor his triarchic model of intelligence. Further, based on the data presented in his paper that showed achievement benefit in both performance assessments and objective assessments, the theory will be useful when identifying how to structure a classroom activity or a test so that all of the students will have an opportunity to learn, and to apply their knowledge based on the component ability in which they are strongest.

Finally, the positive correlation between political engagement and intelligence was another finding. It gives me hope for a progressive future for this world to see that r = 0.45 for IQ and social liberalism, which is much higher than I would have guessed. For example, Ritchie’s data that shows higher-IQ correlates to increased interested in politics in general, being more likely to vote in elections. Furthermore, Ritchie’s information relating the physical aspects of the brain to intelligence corresponds well with the Anthropology class I’m taking as we focus our study to the Homo genus after several weeks of studying the endocranial capacities of species that are the bridge between apes and humans.

Module 5 – Developmental and Environmental

1. Piaget and Vygotsky – cognitive development models (enviro. crucial)
2. Aging – Horn study and Shimamura et al Study – what changes, what protects?
3. Cultural influences – Luria (formal ed.), Kearin (spatial reasoning), Bart (proportional reasoning)
4. ​Home Influences – Dave, and also Wolf (at-home enrichment); Rauscher (musical)

I appreciated that our lecture notes started with the example of Piaget applying his cross-domain knowledge – a critical component of successful, creative teams – using a principle of biology to address a concern of educational psychology. My first finding was the clear evidence from the Luria study that clearly illustrated the relationship between categorical knowledge and education. It was a surprise to see that the responses to her questions in the study were as literal and functionally oriented as his hypothesis expected. Responses such as “plate” when being asked about a flat round object, declining to answer the question about Socrates due to a lack of direct knowledge of the person, and the avoidance of such an open-ended invitation to ask about any subject, made it clear to me that their mental models were the formed by their environment – just as those with greater education were clearly affected by their time in the school environment. My path to becoming a language arts and technology teacher has been strongly influenced by a desire to strengthen abstract thinking skills in young people, to help them synthesize their domain knowledge and apply it effectively in new situations, and this study is a great example of the potential long-term impact of education on cognitive skills, notably the abstract.

Dave’s study in particular, but also Wolf’s study, was personally meaningful to me, my second finding. I grew up as the only child of a single mother – an English teacher who was underpaid – and we struggled through financial and social disadvantages in the upper-middle class neighborhood she insisted had to be our home. Many weekend mornings, we would take the bus into New York City to spend the day in the museum. We would see the second half of Broadway shows, ballet, or the symphony because admission was free if you waited until intermission to enter. She would say that half-a-show was still plenty of enrichment time. Time at home was often oriented toward similar activities and reading. Wolf’s discovery of the high correlation between his rating of their home environment and their score on the Henmon-Nelson IQ test provides some explanation for why I was a successful student at an early age even though I had not participated in the same pre-school enrichment programs as my peers. Dave’s secondary finding about reading and word knowledge were also true for me as a young boy.
​
Reading about the cognitive epidemiology data that showed a significant mortality risk difference based on intelligence was another finding. The overall difference was not surprising, but the more than 200% higher mortality rate when comparing the highest to the lowest ends of the index was striking. In this module more than the others, I noticed that I was considering the influence of external factors while reading about the findings of studies, or the points being made by Ritchie. Social class and genetics, the influence of family, must be relevant; successful parents share their lessons of success with their children. Ritchie’s addressed this well in the summary at the end of the chapter by reminding us that while intelligence is one aspect of being human that has a strong psychological impact, it’s not the only explanation for the results of the studies. Finally, I had always suspected that intelligence and near-sightedness were related and he provided evidence that that was true.

Module 4 – Intelligence Introduction and Testing

1. Pioneers (Galton, Spearman, Binet, Guilford, Thurstone)
2. Thurstone compared to Gardner’s multiple intelligence model, and Cattell’s model
3. Intelligence tests: Stanford-Binet, Wechsler’s Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) & Children (WCIS), Kaufman’s Brief Intel Test (K-BIT), Adolescent & Adults Intel Test (KAIT), Assessment Batter for Children (K-ABC) and Raven’s Progressive Matrices
4. What is being measured by each, and what is the scale

Having grown up in an era during which “learning styles” were the new fad in education, I remember hearing about different kinds of intelligence without understanding what that meant, exactly. This was an approach to student management in the classroom that would influence the types of groups that were created by teachers for shared assignments – mixing sometimes, while other times grouping by similar type. In my experience, the types discussed were applied inconsistently between classrooms, not applicable in all classrooms, and different teachers had different opinions about a student’s type. While this concept had always seemed ambiguous, there was a reasonableness to the idea that minimized skepticism. The brief section called “Multiple Intelligences” in the book by Stuart Ritchie helped me understand the concept, as well as doubt the authenticity of the idea. Intuitively, my experience has been that individuals with high intelligence tended to be top performers in most subjects, if not all of them.  The contrary was also true. Based on this first finding, the concept is truly an educational fad that has not been supported with reliable evidence.

This module’s deep dive into the components of intelligence testing provided many insights into the mental models used to evaluate intelligence based on multi-part sub-tests that analyze and measure specific skills that contribute to that broad definition provided at the start of the book – our understanding is currently strong enough to identify differences in learned knowledge and innate ability to problem solve. Like Aristotle’s Five Wits, the sub-divisions of intelligence being measured by tests tends to group into 5-7 categories that can be allocated to one of those two groups in the definition; Gc and Gf for learned and innate mental ability that can be measured, my second finding. The Positive Manifold’s high correlation was impressive. Having studied correlation in a prior Educational Psychology class focused on statistics, during which I learned the challenge with finding strong correlation, the high correlation between multiple samples provides strong evidence to support the data produced by general intelligence testing. This may be the result of the measurements relying too heavily on the same competencies being tested (generally 5-7 in any test, and often rolling up to two primary categories) or it may be what was suggested: that IQ testing is reliable over time. As we explore the types of testing in more detail during the upcoming modules, I will be paying close attention to this question. In this module, Guilford was the one example of a different approach with many more categories being tested (up to 120 factors!) though without information about his approach’s correlation to other tests.
​
In the past, I have worked on “cohort analysis” for business needs – generally to segment groups of employees, customers, or vendors – so I was somewhat skeptical of a scoring system that factored test result by age to create the useful result. Another finding was Wechsler’s test, the most widely used according to the lecture notes, which made a sensible adjustment to that scoring factor. By dividing the score by the expected score based on the test-taker’s age, the chronological element within the grading scale becomes embedded neatly in the result, simplifying comparisons over time and across cohorts; an ingenious solution to reduce effort and waste in the scoring process.  

Module 3 – Creativity and Personality, Knowledge, Alternative viewpoints

1. Societal & Interpersonal factors for creativity (focus on 8 dimensions)
2. Bloom’s 3 markers in lives of creative people – comparing creativity & outstanding talent
3. Insight skills in creative people, and role of knowledge.
4. Correlation’s effect, does klg inhibit creativity?
5. Social & non-social personality traits of creative people
6. Mental illness, learning disabilities, and creativity (focus: Georg Cantor as example)
7. Cross-cultural views of creativity (Western and Eastern)

During the first few modules, I felt skeptical about the value of eminence assigned to the opinions of judges, though it was easy to overlook while exploring the individualist version of creativity.  In this module, the counterpoint to that approach was exemplified by the point of view of collectivist cultures that value accommodation of precedent and deny the measurable differences that individualists would have emphasized as representational of the depth of their creativity.  The historical oral tradition of poetry was the starting point for my studies in that domain.  Reading about the Serbo-Croatians who refused to acknowledge “that they represented significant differences” (Sawyer, 2021, p 275) when presented with measurable differences in their presentations of the same traditional material illustrated the contrast between individualism and collectivist cultures.  Another great example was how the value of patents may be the same across the world, but the attribution of the success will be shared by more contributors in a collectivist culture, whereas a more individualist culture would reclassify those contributors as participants, allocating the recognition to a smaller group of people.  In short, a first finding was that eminence is understood so differently by cultures that prioritize adherence to tradition, valuing age and experience such as Asmat the wood carvers (Sawyer, 2021, p 276) and the example of markets for creative facades that spread south along the Nile, measurably, during the 20th century.
​
This mental model of creativity through sharing and repetition, still original but differently understood than the “originality” being measured by the standardized tests in Module 2, was well described by the evolution of the PC – as email processor and through the development of the mouse.  Today, we may not have any equally valuable creative products as the mouse and email, but neither require eminence to judge.  Both are so widely adopted, frequently used, and required by so many people.  Because “tracing sole authorship is nearly impossible” (Sawyer, 2021, p 251) these extremely creative solutions to communication challenges (interpersonal and technological) are ontologically valuable creative artifacts of the 20th century, though not in the same was as the decorative facades. 

The Sawyer reading began with a quote about Edison’s 14-man team who helped him realize his inventions.  It reminded me of the artist Andy Warhol, and the evolution of “fine arts” in the last few hundred years because they are additional examples of creative collectives – even though they existed in an individualistic culture and sometimes to the much greater benefit of one person.  I have been deeply concerned with the need “to organize groups so that they’ll be maximally creative” (Sawyer, 2021, p 232) in my work life for the last twenty years.  Both effects described in Chapter 12 – Input/Output and Process – elaborate mechanisms to inspect the work being done by groups and the larger organization.  A balanced approach to diversity leads to better results.  Superstars are a necessary challenge that require transparency across the group, an awareness that I have tried to establish by sharing with my management teams a wonderful TED Talk by Margaret Heffernan about a “Super Chickens” experiment.  I have extensive first-hand experience of the benefit of the nominal group prior to larger brainstorming sessions.  Individual inputs to the group activity are greater and more independently developed, which create intuitive gaps that are filled when the group shares their ideas.  The approach to group design and to brainstorming described by Sawyer are familiar tools that I plan to transplant to my new toolbox when I am a teacher; a solid second finding among many in this module.
 
References

• Heffernan, Margaret (2015) Forget the pecking order at work. TED.  https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_forget_the_pecking_order_at_work?language=en

Module 2 – Creativity Models and Research

1. Wallas’s four-stage model of creative process (most widely used)
2. Research methods to study creativity: psychometric, historiometric, neurometric, case studies and generalization
3. Neurology of Creativity. Also, 3 studies of brain during creativity: musical, spatial, verbal

Incubation effect, first described by the Sawyer reading as “unguided and unconscious” (Sawyer, 2012, p.97) quickly developed in a more active process when observed through a focus on good creators.  The dual process theory of cognitive psychologists indicate that it is a combination of the unconscious and conscious that incubates the creative idea, which was shown to be well supported by the evidence.  This approach is a good fit for my plans to create a social-cognitive classroom after university.  The six theories of incubation, especially the second and third concepts called Rest and Selective Forgetting, were well supported by the experimental evidence reported by the teams that created the opportunistic assimilation theory.  I plan to explore the idea that “being interrupted and forced to work on an unrelated task” may be disruptive but may lead to an “increase[d] solution rate for creativity-related problems” (Sawyer, 2012, p 100) in my classroom.

Externalization – the second finding – is one of the most exciting and productive stages of the individualistic creative process.  As a leader of software development teams for the last 15 years, I learned first-hand the importance of working in 2- and 4-week Sprints, during which programmers would be assigned to multiple problems.  We met briefly each day to discuss challenges then again at the end of the Sprint for to the most important, large review discussion, during which each individual presented their results.  Often, we invited external stakeholders to this review so they could observe and provide feedback.  Many of my teams identified a snowball effect during review meetings, described in this reading as “an idea often results in other ideas and follow-on ideas” (Sawyer, 2012, p. 134).  After individuals on my teams collaborated for a while, they developed the shared “inner short-hand” as a team and used it, along with visualizations of their results, to simplify follow-up iterations on projects, much like Einstein’s approach.  Also, being assigned to multiple projects produced better results, as noted by Simonton’s evidence showing that for great creators “the most productive periods were the times when a creator was most likely to have generated a significant work,” (Sawyer, 2112, p.131) i.e., any multiple assignment burden was offset by cross-domain creativity 
​
This relates to a third finding, the structure mapping concept that utilizes domain knowledge in a different domain to solve or restructure a concept or problem at hand (Sawyer, 2112, p.119).  In my first response last week, I mentioned that when hiring onto my team, we prioritized talents that were outside the scope of the role as a positive indicator for a candidate.  The “conceptual combination” and “enhancing creatively of combinations” sections provided strong evidence that that was a strong hiring approach because we were likely to find better, and more creative, problem solvers.  Just like Externalization provides the opportunity for feedback from others that will improve the result, “emergence” (Sawyer, 2021, p 117) during the sixth stage when creative ideas are being combined strengthens an individual’s creative solution.  The outcome of the emergence can be enhanced in individuals with knowledge of an outside domain.  Interestingly though, it is not the trait of being the outsider, but the outsider with external domain knowledge, that improves creative problem solving.  Both my second finding with Externalization, and this sixth stage named Combine Ideas builds on Wallas’s model’s final stage, Verification.  Over time, it seems that Wallas’s end state was further defined to include an individual’s end state (emergence) as well as a more social or public end state (externalization).

Module 1 – Creativity Introduction

1. Aristotle’s Four causes: Efficient, Material, Formal, Final
2. Approaches to studying creativity: mystical, pragmatic, psychodynamic, psychometric, cognitive, social-personality, confluence
3. Edward deBono’s Six Hats exercise (pragmatic approach to creativity) What is it; how to apply?

Because Creativity and Intelligence have been primary benchmarks that I have used to hire and develop the managers needed to deliver on my responsibilities at work for the last decade, I chose this class.  In addition to core competencies for the job, we hired for “talent” with the rule of thumb being a “software developer who is also a spelling bee champion” (Bezos, 1998, #3).  Despite relying on it to hire, I have never studied Creativity beyond reflecting on my experiences.  With many preconceived ideas about Creativity to test and disconfirm, I hope to build a foundation that will be useful as I transition to teach high school English, Technology, and Gifted programs in the future. 

As a poet, I have many other ideas about Creativity that do not align to what I needed to accomplish in the business world.  The chiasmus of both concepts of Creativity – the artistic vs. the pragmatic, utilitarian, corporate – overlap in my belief that consistent effort applied to problems, inspiration, and ambiguity leads to individual experiences of creativity that lead to solutions, artistic objects, and mechanisms that minimize or eliminate ambiguity; big-C and little-c “C/creativity” in the text.

My first finding was that an historical definition of creativity aligned with my intuitions and experiences described above.  “In the 18th century, the term genius was first used to describe creative individuals… associated with rational, conscious processes (Gerard, 1774/1966; Tonelli, 1973)” (Sawyer, 2012, p. 23).  Gerard’s pragmatic definition of creativity was overwhelmingly influenced by the Enlightenment concept of imagination.  To his simple, “rational” definition of creativity the element of “generating novelty” (Sawyer, 2012, p. 23) was added by imagination.  In my opinion, despite the intent of many of tests for creativity detailed in chapter three, “novelty” may be a red herring.  Evidence for this was provided by Sawyer’s example of photography.

Photography existed for decades before it was recognized as a creative art form.  Even though photography did not change, the social “valuation of originality… the system of galleries… supporting network of experts” elevated the media to creative art form status.  Prior to that recognition, photography had been perceived as the equivalent of a legal process, like birth records and property deeds. “[P]hotographers themselves did not change at all; rather, the sociocultural system around them changed” (Sawyer, 2012, p. 28).  In chapter four, Darwin represents another example of “extended activity” leading to a creative breakthrough (Sawyer, 2012, p. 75) which may have been the result of him being in a flow state, my second finding.

In my final reflection paper for another EPSY class (Learning and Cognition), I wrote that Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development was a paradigm that most aligned to my aspirations for the classroom.  Characteristics of flow state such as “balance between level of ability… sense of personal control” (Sawyer, 2012, p. 78) closely parallel Vygotsky’s methodology of cognitive development.  In the lecture notes, the Geneplore model and Sternberg’s triangulation of analytic effort, synthetic ability and practical contextual awareness, also complement Vygotsky’s model in which teachers present a task then observe an individual’s progress, engaging only when they struggle or are not being challenged.  Self-efficacy is the desired outcome.

Sawyer’s section about self-efficacy ends with Gist & Mitchell’s idea that “self-efficacy can be enhanced through training” and I agree that those findings are interesting and look forward to exploring “the potential role of creative self-efficacy in creative performance” (Sawyer, 2012, p. 82) to apply what I learn here to help my students reach a flow state while doing their schoolwork.