written by Patrick B. Kohl , H. Vincent Kuo, Susan Kowalski, and Frank Kowalski

Creative thought and the ability to innovate are critical skills in industrial and academic careers alike. There exist attempts to foster creative skills in the business world, but little such work has been documented in a physics context. In particular, there are few tools available for those who want to assess the creativity of their physics students, making it difficult to tell whether instruction is having any effect. In this paper, we outline a new elective course at the Colorado School of Mines in the physics department designed to develop creativity and innovation in physics majors. We present our efforts to assess this course formatively, using tablet PCs and InkSurvey software, and summatively using the discipline-independent Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. We also describe early work towards developing a physics-specific instrument for measuring creativity.

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Published February 6, 2012
Last Modified April 23, 2012

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