Mathematical Connection is at the Heart of Mathematical Creativity

Abstract

Although teaching mathematics for creativity has been advocated by many researchers, it has not been widely adopted by many teachers because of two reasons: 1) researchers emphasized and investigated mathematical creativity in terms of product dimension by looking at what students have at the end of problem-solving or -posing activities, but they neglected the creative processes students use during mathematics classrooms, and 2) creativity is an abstract construct and it is hard for teachers to interpret what it means for students to be creative in mathematics without further guidance. These can be eliminated by employing techniques of mathematical connections as tools because using mathematical connections can help teachers make sense of how to promote the creative processes of students in mathematics. Because making mathematical connections is a process of linking ideas in mathematics to other ideas and this is a creative act for students to take to achieve creative ideas in mathematics, using the strategies of making mathematical connections has the potential for teachers to understand what it means for students to be creative in mathematics and what it means to teach mathematics for creativity. This paper has two aims to 1) illustrate strategies for making mathematical connections that can also help students’ creative processes in mathematics, and 2) investigate the relationship among general mathematical ability, mathematical creative ability, and mathematical connection ability by reviewing theoretical explanations of these constructs and several predictors (e.g., inductive/deductive ability, quantitative ability) that are important for these constructs. This paper does not only provide examples and techniques of mathematical connection that can be used to foster creative processes of students in mathematics, but also suggests a potential model depicting the relationship among mathematical creativity, mathematical ability, and mathematical connection considering previously suggested theoretical models. It is important to note that the hypothesized model (see Figure 4) suggested in the present paper is not tested through statistical analyses and it is suggested that future research be conducted to show the relationship among the constructs (mathematical connection, mathematical creativity, mathematical ability, and spatial reasoning ability).