Copyright 2023 © All rights Reserved. World Council for Gifted and Talented Children
Below is a list of upcoming gifted education events around the globe. To see more information about an event, click the title. If you have events you would like added to the calendar or updates that need to be made to existing events, click here or complete the form at https://www.world-gifted.org/calendar-update/.
(Times are in Central European Time)
Research on creativity is an interdisciplinary topic spreading across multiple fields, including psychology and gifted education. Several theorists proposed several “facets of creativity” over the past decades. Yet, the concept of creativity is still far from a straightforward construct. Creativity can be viewed from different perspectives and forms. Divergent thinking, however, remains the most frequently used indicator of creativity in both creativity research and educational practice, and divergent thinking theory has the domination of the creativity conceptions and the practice of what it means to be a creative person. Recent research has suggested that creativity can be an effective resource for learners encountering everyday crises.
Sergio Agnoli, Ph. D., is an assistant professor at the Life Sciences Department of the University of Trieste and currently holds the charge of Senior Scientist at the Marconi Institute for Creativity (MIC, Italy).
His research interests are centered on: cognitive, emotional, and neurophysiological substrates of creative thinking and creative achievement; theoretical definition of the creative thinking process; emotional development and emotional intelligence. In these fields, Sergio Agnoli has published many contributions in top-ranked peer reviewed international journals (e.g., NeuroImage, European Psychologist, Thinking & Reasoning, Neuropsychologia, Personality and Individual Difference) and books and he established collaborations with several research groups and universities. His research has received national and international media coverage (e.g., La Repubblica, Airone, PsyPost, The Guardian, Pacific Standard).
He was awarded the Gabriele Di Stefano award (Italian Association of Psychology), and his research was featured with the cover of the journal NeuroImage (Elsevier, Vol. 207). He is one of the originators and organizers of the MIC Conference, the international conference devoted to the science of creative thinking, acting as Conference Co-Chair. Sergio Agnoli is Invited Full Member of the International Society for the Study of Creativity and Innovation (ISSCI), member of the Scientific Committee of the Fondazione Guglielmo Marconi, as well as he was elected member of the Organizing Committee of the Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity (SfNC).
He serves as Associate Editor for Possibility Studies & Society (SAGE Publishing) and as Academic editor of PLoS ONE (for the “Creativity” topic). He is member of the Editorial Board of the Creativity Research Journal, Journal of Creative Behavior, Journal of Creativity, and PLoS ONE.
Exploring and fostering creative potential during childhood: the role of trait emotional intelligence
Creative potential is a complex ensemble of multidimensional resources, which can explain the latent ability to produce potential original and valuable ideas. How this set of resources interacts during the human development in the expression of creative behaviors is still an open question in the creativity research. In this talk, I focus on the interactive dynamics predicting the expression of the creative potential during childhood, pointing in particular my attention on the role of children’s trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) as a central explicatory mechanism driving these dynamics. Reviewing the results emerging in a series of recent studies, I indent to show how individual differences in trait EI can interact with the effects of children’s cognitive resources and of contextual-environmental factors in the expression of their creative potential, as well as how EI can modulate the efficacy of a training intervention specifically designed to increase children’s potential.
Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Dr. Ivcevic studies the role of emotion and emotional intelligence in creativity and well-being, as well as how to use the arts (and art-related institutions) to promote emotion and creativity skills. She has previously served as Associate Editor of Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts and International Journal of Creativity and Problem Solving, and is currently Associate Editor at Creativity Research Journal. She has edited the Cambridge Handbook of Creativity and Emotions and is co-editor of Crisis, Creativity, and Innovation. She collaborated with colleagues from Denmark, Spain, China, France, Germany, Poland, and Croatia and published her research in journals such as Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Journal of Personality, Applied Cognitive Psychology, Creativity Research Journal, Journal of Creative Behavior and others. Her work has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, ArtNet, US News, Education Week, Science Daily, El Pais, and others, and she is a regular contributor to Psychology Today and Creativity Post. Dr. Ivcevic received the Award for Excellence in Research from the Mensa Education and Research Foundation, the Berlyne Award for Outstanding Early Career Achievement from the Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, and has been elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association.
Self-Regulation of Creativity: Bridging the Gap Between Ideas and Products or Achievements
Decades of research provide rich knowledge about the nature of creative potential (e.g., personality, motivation, and cognitive abilities predicting creative behavior and achievement). We also know much about the nature of creative products. However, the process between generating creative ideas and actualizing these ideas in creative products and achievements is less well understood. In this talk, I present a model and research supporting the proposition that self-regulation processes are key to transforming creative ideas into accomplishments. I adapt and extend social psychological research on self-regulation and define two broad groups of self-regulation processes in creativity: (1) revising and re-strategizing (regulating process expectations, adjusting approach, and embracing risk), and (2) sustaining effort (planning, persistence in the face of obstacles, and managing emotions).
Dr. James C. Kaufman is a Professor of Educational Psychology at the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut. He has written or edited more than 50 books including two books coming out in 2023: The Creativity Advantage (Cambridge) and Lessons in creativity from musical theatre characters (Routledge; with award-winning composer Dana P. Rowe). Kaufman has won awards from Mensa, the American Psychological Association (Berlyne, Arnheim, and Farnsworth awards), the National Association for Gifted Children (Torrance award), and many others. He has edited books on pseudoscience and animal cognition with his wife, Allison, tested Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s creativity on CNN, written a book on bad baseball pitchers with his father, and written a musical, Discovering Magenta, which premiered in NYC a few years ago.
He is also a playwright and lyricist whose work has been performed all over the world; his musical Discovering Magentaplayed NYC and its cast album is available on CD and most streaming services. Kaufman has blended his theatre and creativity interests in a forthcoming book with composer Dana Rowe, Creating Your Spotlight Lessons in Creativity from Hamilton, Gypsy Rose Lee, and more!
Kaufman has proposed a number of well-known creativity theories with his colleagues. Perhaps the best-known is the Four C Model of Creativity, which outlines a developmental trajectory of creativity that moves from mini-c (personal) to little-c (everyday) to Pro-c (expert) to Big-C (genius). He has won many awards, including Mensa’s research award, the Torrance Award from the National Association for Gifted Children, and APA’s Berlyne, Arnheim, and Farnsworth awards. He co-founded two major journals, Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts and Psychology of Popular Media Culture, and has tested Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s creativity on CNN.
The Creativity Advantage
Scholars tend to focus on how creativity can be improved, but spend less time talking about how creativity can predict other variables. Yet a solid understanding of creativity’s connection to positive outcomes can help articulate creativity’s continued and growing importance. The existing work is more likely to focus either on the benefit of Big-C or how creativity is associated with grades or work performance. This risks overlooking a number of other ways that creativity provides specific positive benefits, regardless of a creator’s level of ability or acclaim. This talk will highlight some specific areas that creativity can improve, such as healing and mood improvement, meaning and legacy, and equity.
Copyright 2023 © All rights Reserved. World Council for Gifted and Talented Children