"The further we push out the boundaries of knowledge and innovation, the more the next great value breakthroughs... will come from putting together disparate things that you would not think of as going together... Conventionally your approach to any problem or challenge was breaking it down to manageable bits and smaller parts, but today you are trying to create value by synthesizing disparate parts together... synthesizing it all together around consumer demands is the key. So in an organization you need the dot people and the big-picture people [who can connect the dots]."
 
The World is Flat 287-288
Learning to copy, combine, and transform is essentially the root of creativity. We need to move away from the notion of creativity being original ideas, and understand that as we learn to connect what we know we become better equipped to be creative. In other words, creativity is about learning to synthesize.

Read this blog series to understand more about using Thoughtbooks to teach creativity
Start video at 5:49 - 8:05
Synthesizing is ultimately about transferring what's learned and applying it in some authentic manner. In other words, once students have consumed loads of material and built their foundation and made connections and associations between the variety of material and experiences to deepen their understanding, they're ready to do something with it. The possibilities are endless: all forms of PBL, maker ed, engineering design projects, STEM/STEAM, starting a movement, etc. Let your students decide or guide them in a specific direction. Whatever you choose, do something with their knowledge.