Introduction to Interdisciplinary Perspectives to Creativity and Giftedness

Abstract

Invention, innovation, originality, insight, illumination and imagination are core elements of the individual and societal progress along human history from ancient times till the modern society. While these phenomena are often considered as indicators of creativity and talent in science, technology, business, arts, and music; they are also basic mechanisms of learning. Till the past decade mathematical creativity and giftedness were overlooked in the educational research. Luckily lately more attention is paid to their nature and nature. For example, in 2010 International Group of Mathematical Creativity and Giftedness (http://igmcg.org/) was established following five international conferences of the community of research mathematicians, mathematics educators and educational researchers. During the last decade several books and edited volumes were devoted to the constructs of mathematical creativity and mathematical talent, their identification and development (see commentary for references). Still there are many open questions remain and researches debate the question of inborn character of creative talents vs. possibility of developing creativity and ability in all students. The current volume presents international panorama of the research of creativity and giftedness, reflects the state of the art in the field and provides a broad range of views on the phenomena of creativity and giftedness with special attention to creativity and giftedness in mathematical.