Psychology Colloquia Series: Professor Paul Sowden

We are delighted to announce that Professor Paul Sowden, Professor of Psychology, Cognition and Creativity at the University of Winchester, will be presenting at our next Psychology Colloquium. His talk is titled:

Cognition, Creativity and the Classroom

Creativity is the capacity to produce new and effective ideas and to express them in different contexts and formats such as words, technologies, social structures and artworks. Creative ideas can range from those that are new just to the individual generating them, resulting in a change in their ‘worldview’, through to those that are new to society at large, changing societal worldviews and expanding possibilities for many.

In this talk, I will consider the process of being creative. I will describe psychological research into creativity, including a range of our own work to explore cognitive processes when thinking creatively. I will discuss our approach to the translation of creativity research into the school and classroom context and report some findings from a 3-year pilot programme to introduce teaching for creativity across the curriculum in schools.

About Paul Sowden

Paul Sowden is Professor of Psychology, Cognition and Creativity at the University of Winchester, Visiting Professor at the School of Psychology, University of Surrey, Associate of the Institute of Business Creativity, Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, Switzerland and Executive Board member of the International Society for the Study of Creativity and Innovation. He is currently working with the OECD on an international project to foster creativity and critical thinking in HE and leading an Arts Council England funded ‘collaborative’ that has involved 16 schools engaged in a five-year programme to develop evidence based approaches to teaching for creativity across the school curriculum.