When I was an undergraduate physics major, I would often stay up late with my physics major roommate as we would digest the physics content we were learning in our courses and explore our respective imaginations armed with our new knowledge. Such activity during my undergraduate years was confined to informal settings, and the first formal creativity assignment in my physics education did not come until well into my graduate years when my graduate advisor demanded that I write a prospectus for my dissertation. I have often lamented the fact that the first formal assignment in which I was required to be creative, take responsibility for my own learning and research objectives, and see them to completion during my physics education came so late, considering the degree to which creative attributes are celebrated in the personalities of great physicists. In this essay I will apply some of the basic concepts as defined by creativity-related psychology literature to physics pedagogy, relate these concepts to the exchanges in this journal concerning Michael Sobel's paper1 “Physics for the Non-Scientist: A Middle Way,” and provide the framework for a low-overhead creativity assignment that can easily be implemented at all levels of physics education.

1.
Michael
Sobel
, “
Physics for the non-scientist: A middle way
,”
Phys. Teach.
47
,
346
349
(
Sept. 2009
).
2.
John S.
Rigden
, “
Editorial: Creativity lost
,”
Am. J. Phys.
46
,
24
(
Dec. 1978
).
3.
Owen
Gingerich
, “
Circumventing Newton: A study in scientific creativity
,”
Am. J. Phys.
46
,
202
(
March 1978
).
4.
Edward M.
Little
, “
Creativity should be emphasized less in mature sciences like physics
,”
Am. J. Phys.
33
,
853
(
Oct. 1965
).
5.
J. P.
Guilford
, “
Creativity
,”
Am. Psychol.
5
,
444
454
(
1950
).
6.
For a review of creativity-related psychology literature in the modern era, please see
Arthur J.
Cropley
,
Creativity in Education & Learning
(
RoutledgeFalmer
,
New York
,
2006
).
7.
Nathaniel
Lasry
,
Noah
Finkelstein
, and
Eric
Mazur
, “
Are most people too dumb for physics?
Phys. Teach.
47
,
418
422
(
Oct. 2009
).
8.
Kenneth W.
Ford
, “
Depth and math in Conceptual Physics
,” letter to the editor,
Phys. Teach.
47
,
566
(
Dec. 2009
).
9.
Evan
Jones
, “
Conceptual Physics has traction
,” letter to the editor,
Phys. Teach.
47
,
566
567
(
Dec. 2009
).
10.
Paul
Hewitt
,
Conceptual Physics
, 10th ed. (
Pearson Addison-Wesley
,
San Francisco
,
2006
).
11.
M. A.
Runco
and
R. E.
Charles
, “
The threshold hypothesis regarding creativity and intelligence: An empirical test with gifted and nongifted children
,”
Creative Child and Adult Quarterly
11
,
212
218
(
1986
).
12.
J. G.
Nichols
, “
Creativity in the person who will never produce anything original and useful: The concept of creativity as a normally distributed trait
,”
Am. Psychol.
27
,
717
727
(
1972
).
13.
Mansoor
Niaz
, “
Are we teaching science as practiced by scientists?
” letter to the editor,
Am. J. Phys.
78
,
5
6
(
Jan. 2010
).
14.
D.
Hestenes
,
M.
Wells
, and
G.
Swackhamer
, “
Force concept inventory
,”
Phys. Teach.
30
,
141
158
(
March 1992
).
15.
W. K.
Adams
,
K. K.
Perkins
,
N. S.
Podolefsky
,
M.
Dubson
,
N. D.
Finkelstein
, and
C. E.
Wieman
, “
New instrument for measuring student beliefs about physics and learning physics: The Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey
,”
Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Rev.
2
,
010101
(
2006
).
16.
Ref. 6, Chap. 2.
17.
Ibid., Chap. 3.
18.
Ibid., pp.
57
, 64–67, 130.
19.
A.
Morgan
, “
Theoretical aspects of project-based learning in higher education
,”
Brit. J. Educ. Technol.
1
,
68
78
(
1983
).
20.
Ref. 6, p.
l51
.
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