Creativity also directly enhances learning by increasing motivation, deepening understanding, and promoting joy. Intrinsic motivation is essential to the creative process and relies on students pursuing meaningful goals. Creativity requires a safe environment in which to play, exercise autonomy, and take risks. As teachers, it’s up to us to establish this kind of supportive classroom. Here are some suggestions from psychologists and educators for how to develop and nurture your students’ creativity: Create a compassionate, accepting environment. Since being creative requires going out on a limb, students need to trust that they can make a mistake in front of you. Be present with students’ ideas. Have more off-the-cuff conversations with students. Find out what their passion areas are, and build those into your approach. Encourage autonomy. Don’t let yourself be the arbiter of what “good” work is. Instead, give feedback that encourages self-assessment and independence. Re-word assignments to promote creative thinking. Try adding words like “create,” “design,” “invent,” “imagine,” “suppose,” to your assignments. Adding instructions such as “Come up with as many solutions as possible” or “Be creative!” can increase creative performance. Give students direct feedback on their creativity. Lots of students don’t realize how creative they are, or get feedback to help them incorporate “creative” into their self-concept. Explore the idea of “creative competence” alongside the traditional academic competencies in literacy and mathematics. When we evaluate something, we value it! Creating a self-concept that includes creativity. Help students know when it’s appropriate to be creative. For example, help them see the contexts when creativity is more or less helpful—in a low-stakes group project versus a standardized state assessment. Use creative instructional strategies, models, and methods as much as possible in a variety of domains. Model creativity for students in the way you speak and the way you act. For example, you could say “I thought about 3 ways to introduce this lesson. I’m going to show you 2, then you come up with a third,” or show them a personal project you’ve been working on. Channel the creativity impulses in “misbehavior.” For students who are often disturbances, see if you notice any creativity in their behavior. Perhaps that originality could be channeled in other ways? Protect and support your students’ intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation fuels creativity. Several studies have shown that relying on rewards and incentives in the classroom can undermine intrinsic motivation to complete a task—an effect called “overjustification.” To avoid this, Beth Hennessey, a professor of Psychology at Wellesley College, suggests that educators try to limit competitions and comparison with others, focusing instead on self-improvement. Experiment with monitoring students less as they work, and provide opportunities for them to pursue their passion when you can. Make it clear to students that creativity requires effort. The creative process is not a simple “aha” that strikes without warning. Tell students that truly creative people must imagine, and struggle, and re-imagine while working on a project. Explicitly discuss creativity myths and stereotypes with your students. Help them understand what creativity is and is not, and how to recognize it in the world around them. Experiment with activities where students can practice creative thinking. Many teachers have suggestions for creative activities they’ve tried as warm-ups or quick breaks. “Droodles,” or visual riddles, are simple line drawings that can have a wide range of different interpretations, and can stimulate divergent thinking. “Quickwrites” and “freewrites” can help students to let go of their internal censor. As part of reviewing material, you could have kids use concept cartooning, or draw/design/paint visual metaphors to capture the essence of complex academic information.

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Yasmeen Shah

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Yasmeen Shah

Great idea ma'am. I'll follow your strategy in my classroom to encourage the students for showing their creativity among the class.

29 Nov 2019

Embrace creativity as part of learning. ... Use the most effective strategies. ... Think of creativity as a skill. ... Participate in or create a program to develop creative skills. ... Use emotional connections. ... Use a creativity model. ... Consider how classroom assignments use divergent and convergent thinking.

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Hello Samta, The concept of teaching creativity has been around for quite some time, 1. Embrace creativity as part of learning. Create a classroom that recognizes creativity. You may want to design awards or bulletin boards to showcase different ways of solving a problem, or creative solutions to a real world scenario. 2. Think of creativity as a skill. Much like resourcefulness and inventiveness it is less a trait and more a proficiency that can be taught. If we see it this way, our job as educators becomes to find ways to encourage its use and break it down into smaller skill sets. Psychologists tend to think of creativity as Big-C and Little C. Big C drives big societal ideas, like the Civil Rights movement or a new literary style. Little C is more of a working model of creativity that solves everyday problems. Both concepts can be included in our classrooms to promote creativity in general 3. Use emotional connections. Research suggests that the best creativity instruction ties in the emotions of the learner. In the “Odyssey angels” program students can devise a solution to help their local community, such as helping homeless youth. This topic is worthy of more discussion by itself. A blog postby fellow blogger Julie DeNeen gives some valuable information about this type of teaching. Research suggests that the best creativity instruction ties in the emotions of the learner. 4. Consider how classroom assignments use divergent and convergent thinking. Standardized tests do a great job of measuring convergent thinking that includes analytical thinking or logical answers with one correct response. Divergent thinking considers how a learner can use different ways to approach a problem. It requires using association and multiplicity of thought. We should design assignments that consider both types of thinking models.

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Create a compassionate, accepting environment. ... Be present with students' ideas. ... Encourage autonomy. ... Re-word assignments to promote creative thinking. ... Give students direct feedback on their creativity. ... Help students know when it's appropriate to be creative.

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I will increase my students' creativity by using following methods: 1. Taking competition 2. Making models 3. Discussion 4. Activities 5. Projects 6. Diagrams 7. Speech 8. Handwriting competition 9. Types of various arts competition 10. Essay writing

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