Brenda Gourley: We can all learn to be creative in the right environment: the challenge is to provide it

In this knowledge economy, creativity is at a premium. Luckily we have come to realise that creativity can be learnt and made to flourish.

Researchers in this area, Seltzer and Bentley, in their work The Creative Age, identify four qualities that creative learners must have: the ability to identify new problems and define them; the ability to transfer knowledge gained in one context to another in order to solve a problem; a belief in learning as an incremental process, in which repeated attempts will eventually lead to success; and the capacity to focus attention in the pursuit of a goal.

Their case studies and other evidence also reveal four key characteristics of learning environments that encourage creativity. Secure, trusting relationships allow people to take risks and learn from failure. A variation of context permits the transfer of knowledge from one context to another. The right balance between skills and challenge means people have the right skills to meet real challenges. Interactive exchange of knowledge and ideas allows ideas, feedback, constructive criticism and evaluation, drawing on diverse sources of information and expertise, to be constantly exchanged.

The skills and knowledge pre-requisite for the independence, self-reliance and success of the creative worker include: information management; self-organisation; interdisciplinary knowledge; personal and inter-personal skills, including emotional intelligence; reflection and self-evaluation skills; and the ability to manage risk. I pause over only three.

The first is information management. Someone described using the internet as trying to drink from a fire hydrant. I think that is an understatement. If the knowledge economy is to exploit fully the potential of ICT, workers have to become capable of handling the information it gives them access to, and turning it into knowledge.

Reflection and self-evaluation skills are fundamental to learning. Learning is supposed to be a transformative experience, at its best, and that is not something that happens unless we analyse experience, consider its importance and learn. This is not often eagerly embraced as it is difficult, and time consuming.

The ability to manage risk is essential to thriving in the new economy and the capacity to live with the inevitable stress related to that is fundamental to making a person creative.

There is a clear connection between those skills that have to do with content and knowledge and those more high-level skills and knowledge that go to make a creative worker. Some skills are more easily adapted to a computer-mediated environment than others. There are some environments where it is possible to create better conditions for learning than others.

There are some who are sceptical about what can be done via the knowledge media and they cite the centrality of the teacher-student relationship. We cannot replace that but we also cannot provide it to millions of people who for various reasons are unable to avail themselves of it. The fact is we have to find a way to extend the real benefits of education to many, many more people. Indeed this was the founding vision and mission of the Open University – a social justice mission, as valid and important now as it was 30 years ago.

The Open University was not always an e-university, but in the last decade it came to understand that combining the potential of new technology with its fundamental model of supported open learning was not only compatible with the demands of the new economy, but indeed could actively contribute to it and positively lead the way.

E-learning is something we have come to take for granted, at least in some parts of the world. Many assume we have found the Holy Grail to solve all our educational needs. We can reach many people, in many places, at any time, at relatively low cost. That is true if we want it to be. But it comes with a serious caveat. That caveat has to do with the quality of much of the material that we find on the Web, posturing as education. It would seem the learning process and how people learn is not understood at all by many purveyors of educational material and educational environments, and outcomes are often anything but conducive to fostering creativity. This risks branding millions of people as failures when the failure is by no means theirs – and in the process undermining their confidence, one of the single most important ingredients in nurturing the creative worker.

Brenda Gourley is Vice-Chancellor of The Open University