Mathematical Giftedness and Creativity in Primary Grades

Abstract

Creativity is often seen as a characteristic or a variety of content-specific giftedness, but also as an independent, more general kind of giftedness. In the first part of this article, we will discuss some key questions on mathematical giftedness, creativity and theoretical connections between the two constructs. Subsequently, we will specify these considerations with regard to primary students. The main question of the second part of the paper is how creativity can manifest itself in mathematical activities of gifted primary students. Generally, mathematical creativity is assumed to be closely linked to problem solving and problem posing; for mathematically experienced people both processes are embedded in theory building processes. Also primary students can vary given problems and solve problems that usually require only little mathematical knowledge. Moreover, mathematically gifted primary students are able to create new mathematical objects. We will describe types and examples of such invention processes in detail.