Fostering Creativity by Establishing the Conditions for Complex Emergence

This paper builds on the premise that classrooms are complex systems and explores how teachers might use understandings of complexity science and, in particular, conditions recognised as fostering complex emergence, to establish the kinds of mathematics classroom environments in which creative thinking is likely to occur. It is argued that creativity is a property of both the classroom environment and of the thinking of individuals and that the fostering the former promotes the latter.