PART B Creativity in the classroom.

The concept of creative teaching has been around for quite some time. Academics such as E.
Paul Torrance, dedicated an entire lifetime to the advancement of creativity in education.
Torrance faced much opposition in his day about the nature of creativity. Creativity was an
immeasurable, natural ability. It is also known as explicit teaching of creativity, skill-specific
that require intentional instruction. A 2003 TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson discussing this
subject reached over 5 million viewers. It discusses on how our current school systems
suppress creativity. He proposes that our current model leaves little room for divergent
thinking.

Innovation is an essential skill for our global economy. Talking about creativity in schools,
much of the blame for a lack of creativity, and therefore innovation, can be traced to our
traditional educational systems. Most of the creative methods are being done outside the
traditional educational institutions by consulting firms and by persons in companies who have
been trained in creative problem solving methods.
To ensure student to be creative, teachers should be the best model of the creativity. Pupils
learn from others that they like and teachers have to make sure that students love them. There
are many ways and ideas to create creativity among students. Classrooms, as their second
home, should be enhanced with ideas and creativity to arouse their interest to come and learn.
Teacher should embrace creativity as part of learning. Create a classroom that recognizes
creativity. Teachers can design awards or bulletin boards to show different ways of
appreciations, or creative solutions to a real world scenario. Students can be rewarded with
stars in a stars chart, or maybe pencils or fancy and colourful pens when they able to achieve
the learning objectives. Students will feel excited to come to school.
Teacher should use the most effective strategies. Teachers should think of creativity as a skill.
There are thousands of approaches to be chosen but the most successful approaches are to use
creative arts, or media-oriented programs. Those are much like resourcefulness and
inventiveness. It is less a trait and more a proficiency that can be taught. Therefore, our job as
educators becomes to find ways to encourage its use and break it down into smaller skill sets.

Teachers also may motivate students to participate in a competition organised by the school or
panels. Teachers may create a program to develop creative skills among students. There are
many programs to be organised such as the Mind and Think quest that bring together students
from around the world to design creative solutions and bring them to competition.
Teachers may use emotional connections to arrange a research and suggests that the best
creativity instruction ties in the emotions of the learner. Students can devise a solution to help
their local community, such as helping homeless youth. A blog post by 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.

Teachers also may use a creativity model. It is often used in education and business
improvement. Each step involves a divergent thinking pattern to challenge ideas, and then
convergent thinking to narrow down exploration. There are six steps regarding the model,
which are :

Mess-finding. Identify a goal or objective.

Fact-finding. Gathering data.
Problem-finding. Clarifying the problem
Idea-finding. Generating ideas
Solution-finding. Strengthening & evaluating ideas
Acceptance-finding. Plan of action for Implementing ideas
Teachers also may consider how classroom assignments use divergent and convergent
thinking. Teachers can carried out a standardized tests as 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 the use of association and multiplicity of thought. We should design assignments that
consider both types of thinking models.
Creative thinking needs to be shared and validated by others in a socially supportive
atmosphere. Researchers coined this term, to explain the importance of reception from others,

consider how to create communities that foster social creativity to solve problems. Teachers
have to be aware during discussion. Student who often asks the question may goes a bit
outside the lecture. Maybe, teacher should engage him and give intentionally address those
questions. Write them down on an assigned space in the board to go back to later. This is how
teachers validate their creativity.
Teachers should see creativity in a positive light. Eric Jaffe wrote in his blog, Psychology
Today, talks about research that suggests see creativity in a negative light. We as teachers need
to embrace the creativity if we are teaching towards creativity. Reward students for thinking
of problems in varied ways by recognizing their efforts. Teachers also may try the Incubation
Model which was designed by E. Paul Torrance. This model involves 3 stages:
i) Heightening Anticipation: Make connections between the classroom and students real
lives. Create the desire to know.
ii) Deepen Expectations: Engage the curriculum in new ways. Brainstorm and create
opportunities to solve a novel problem.
iii) Keeps it going: Continue the thinking beyond the lesson or classroom? Find ways to
extend learning, opportunities at home or even the community.
To delivered creative teaching and learning, teacher may use a cultural artefact.

A few

researchers from experimental social psychology finds that artefacts can enhance insight
problem solving if we consider using an ordinary object, such as a light bulb used in the study
or a historical artefact to have students think about living in a particular time period. The
classroom environment must be a place where students feel safe to share novel
ideas. Teachers should allow them for flexibility and create norms that foster creative
approaches. Therefore, teacher has to be familiar with standards by knowing the standards
inside and out to help and find creative solutions in approaching a lesson. Teachers can adapt
them and work within the current framework. Some topics allow for flexibility and use of
creative approaches.
There are some great resources to read related to creativity. Teacher may gather this outside
resources to enhance and develop creativity among the student. Teachers should allow room
for mistakes. Sir Ken Robinson said, If youre not prepared to be wrong, youll never come
up with anything original.

Some students love to express their creativity to publics. They love to be somebody. So,
teachers should allow space for creativity. Teachers may design the classroom for exploration,
such as a thinking table, a drama stage, a drawing table, or a space for groups to discuss ideas.
Teacher should incorporate opportunities for students to ask questions. Intentionally, design
lessons that allow student for wondering and exploration. Wondering build up their critical
thinking while exploring enhanced their problem solving skills. Creativity builds confidence
as students take ownership of their own learning. Presentations, seminars and gathering
arouse them to be more creative. The students were so proud of their final work and learned
from others presentations. Parents and community members were happy to see students take
ownership of their learning.
Teachers have to encourage curiosity and consider what is important to students. Students
interest is a great place to start on what drives their own thinking tank. Encourage them to
find inspiration from their world. Creativity is intrinsic in nature, so teachers have to try to
step into their viewpoint to find what motivates them.
Creativity instruction is best with clear structure. Teacher should consider the guidelines of
the standard curriculum objectives and add these to the design. For example, reading
considers communication, comprehension, listening, writing and reading. Teacher also should
observe a working model of creativity. Teacher may bring the students to visit a creative
classroom or watch a video about how a creative classroom works. There are many excellent
video that teachers can watch to see how creativity might play out in a classroom.
Teachers also may encourage students to explore different cultures. Culture is an excellent
vehicle for inspiring creative thinking. Cultural contexts are central to creative endeavours,
collaboration between cultures, such as in the space program, produces unique, novel ideas
able to enhance creativity among the students. Creativity also can be added by incorporate and
integrate art, music and culture. Creativity is a central force that shapes our culture. With the
changing times we live in, society is enriched by cultural-based creativity.
Teachers also may use collaborative creative thinking model to solve classroom problems.
Read a paragraph and then have groups discussion on a list of questions. Collaborative
problem solving is catching on quickly. In fact, many school have implemented creative
thinking models into their curriculum. School organisation should design multidisciplinary

lessons when possible. Creativity requires us to use different parts of our brain. We often
bridge connections between seemingly unrelated areas to make new concepts emerge. Allow
students to use their strengths to find new ways of approaching a topic or solving a
problem. Tapping into multiple intelligences is the key. You might be surprised with what
they come up with.
Teacher must understand that creativity is important to students future in the job market. In
todays market, students must largely be innovative and create their own jobs. Therefore,
teachers should focus on teaching particular skills or set of behaviours, rather than preparing
students for specific careers. Teachers have to teach creative skills explicitly. Creative skills
should include 5 major areas which are, imagination, being disciplined or self-motivated,
resiliency, collaboration, giving responsibility to students and have them develop their own
projects.

Creativity can inspire students to learn new content through a creative outlet. Teachers have a
constant struggle between teaching content and incorporating creativity into daily instruction.
Often state standards limit the teachers ability to develop lessons that include creation in the
Teachers responsibility is to generate lessons and centres that encourage students to be
creative. Creativity in the classroom is encouraged so that students of varying learning styles
are exposed to different ways to learn. After generating a list of potential solutions it was
determined that there are two possible ways to incorporate creativity into the classroom. The
first option would be to designate a space in the classroom to pique the students creative
outlet. This area is dedicated to creative activities such as a thinking table, drama station,
readers theatre or group discussion. Students are able to move around the classroom
throughout the day and are not confined to stay at their desk. It also encourages students to
use their imagination through planned or spontaneous dramatic actions. A drawback would be
lack of space in a classroom which can make creative stations limited and distracting to the
students.
Collaboration of content material with specialized teachers involved in the creation and
implementation of lessons so that the student will gain a varied understanding of the material.
A disadvantage would be that specialized teachers often have their own agenda and

expectations. This may lead to a disjointed presentation of the material and lead students to
become uninterested or confused.

Teachers do not have to limit assignments to one form. Teachers also can provide them the
subject to cover, give them some freedom in how they complete it. Teachers maybe
can set time aside for creativity. Work a genius hour into the school day. The
amount of time is really up to you, but deciding to devote time to encouraging your
students to explore new ideas and be creative can pay off. Teachers can also provide
them with some tools to enable their creativity such as crayons, clay, notebooks, iPads,
or even just access to the library or internet. They can choose to create, or to do some
exploration a subject of interest to them.

Teachers can also introduce unconventional learning materials into class like the comics,
podcasts and so on. Many people creating a lot of entertaining pop culture have
embraced the gawkiness that use to shun. As a result, teachers have a ton of options to
bring more interesting and cool explorations into their classrooms. Teachers may also
encourage discussion where students involved and actively engaged with the topics
they are discussing. Debates and social activities get students think more critically,
communicate better, listen to others opinions, think critically about their contributions
and idea, and give them opportunity to challenge each other intelligently. The ability
to communicate clearly and respectfully is something that benefits students in all areas
of their life.

Obviously, getting students to be more creative requires some creativity on teachers part too.
Teachers got a lot of resources than provide us with some starter ideas. Creativity itself is
creative, in that it can manifest at many different levels and forms of pedagogy, whether we
are talking about collaboration, project-based learning, format and craft, or diversity of
contents and exercises.