“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken the joy in creative expression and knowledge.” – Albert Einstein.
We have begun our present discussion on encouraging creative spurt in students with the famous saying of Albert Einstein, the prodigious scientist whose path breaking contribution to modern science remained unequaled to this day. Yes, quotation says the quintessential aspect concerning fostering creativity in education. From the saying it is apparent that creativity just cannot be taught, but it can only be awakened, allowed to grow, encouraged and lastly wherever it is expressed it deserves to be recognized and rewarded.
The work of the teacher in this respect is crucial. It is his responsibility to awaken the spirit of creativity in students and banish all those negative elements that obstruct the natural bloom of creative spurt in his or her students. It is more like nourishing a tree to let it bear its fragrant flower and fruits. It is never like producing anything mechanically with a formulated approach. That is the first and foremost thing to understand about boosting creativity.
It is also important to consider that creativity do not just grow on its own except a few exceptional cases. In most cases without nourishment and encouragement, creative spirit dries down. Especially for young minds, proper look after and cultivation are the crucial criterion for letting their creative faculty grow. In day to day classroom scenario, students need continuous engagement and a diversified approach to think, perceive and execute things in a different manner and that remains central to the process of creative boost. It is never a separate skill set, but it is rather a mind-set or thinking pattern that with continuous and diverse engagement and encouragement from all around to get a push.
Let us offer below some of the most time tested approaches to boost creativity in the classroom.
1. Incorporating creativity in the learning process
For an educator the biggest challenge lies in creating a classroom that is all set to recognize creativity. The first principle to achieve this is to exercise utmost freedom of expression in solving problems and perceiving things in a diverse multifaceted manner. As a teacher, you can announce some awarding system or create bulletin boards to recognize the diverse out of the box thinking patterns and solutions.
• In incorporating creativity in the learning process always use engaging strategies that are effective. A specific strategy cannot deliver great results for all learning programs and so considering the right engagement strategy for the befitting project is crucial.
• Know that creativity in some ways is expressed as skills and in some cases it is only expressed as a differential thinking. Some students may think in terms of handy skills that offers a solution to a real life problem and there can be others who will have bigger social or political ideas. Both of these refer to different planes of creative thinking and the teaching should accommodate and engage both in a classroom environment.
• Making students participate in a creative course is the best way to let them grow with the habit of thinking out of the box while solving a problem. Organizing competitions with reward and recognition for each innovative idea is a great way to encourage them.
2. Connecting minds emotionally
Most educational thinkers and researchers agree that if the instructions of the teacher fail to connect or appeal emotionally, there would be little chances of flourishing creative thinking among learners. Connecting learners emotionally is not a technique, but a committed approach that makes them engaged in an enthusiastic manner.
• First of all, one must know that creative skills and thought process only flourishes in a supportive and congenial environment rather than places brimming with negative competition, cold hatred and anger. Reception and recognition from others is the foremost important thing in this regard.
• Giving a student the absolute freedom to express his ideas and thoughts is another important aspect. However weird the idea seems to be, it must be allowed to express and never ever should be suppressed without a proper hearing and words of encouragement.
• A student may ask a question or raise a point that goes a bit outside the present topic of discussion or lecture, but the teacher should not intimidate him discouraging him in a negative way. Rather, you can take note of the question and address it sometime later. This is one way to engage and encourage creative thinking.
• Curiosity when expressed from a student should be taken as an opportunity to engage the student and encourage him rather than considering it as a distraction. Often stepping into the viewpoints of the learners or by attending courses for professional development for educators, a teacher can find ways to help them and come out with novel innovative ideas.
3. Using creativity models and tools
There are lots of creativity models and tools that are proven as effective in various educational environments and classroom scenarios.
The Osborne-Parnes model is worth considering which is widely used in educational environments and in business training. The model consists of a total of 6 steps and each of them involves a different thinking pattern challenging ideas followed by convergent thinking to bring those ideas down to exploration. The steps are as followed:
• Mess finding: This step is about identifying a goal or objective.
• Fact finding: This step pertaining to the process of gathering data.
• Problem finding: It undertakes the clarification of the problem.
• Idea finding: This step is all about generating new ideas to solve the problem.
• Solution finding: This step is about evaluating the new ideas and further strengthening them.
• Acceptance finding: This is the step that finally considers the plan of action for implementing the new ideas.
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