Being good at generating ideas isn’t a mystical ability; using a series of prompting questions can help you look at problems in new ways.
As already discussed, students can be reluctant to be creative, even believe it is beyond them. By making room in your classroom for creativity, by giving time to allow your students to explore creative thoughts, whether that is in class discussion, group work or independent study time, you are allowing them to flex that skill.
When a course has to cover a large area of content, it can be tempting to fill all the time you have with teaching from the front, giving little room for your students to explore their own creativity in approach to the topic in class. By giving that time in class, and helping them to develop their creative thinking together, they will be able to develop their skills further out of the classroom, to build on what is already started.
Ask yourself how often you give your students a chance to share their own opinions and ideas. Do they know their thoughts are welcome? Or do you give the impression that the only answers you want to hear from them are the ‘right’ ones?
In some areas of study, STEM in particular, there are some situations where there are clear right or wrong answers. But how do you allow your students to discover those correct answers? Do you provide them? Or do you allow students to find those answers for themselves? By exploring wrong answers and discovering the why’s and how’s of why the answer is correct or incorrect, a student can deepen their knowledge, travel creative paths of discovery they may not have otherwise trodden, and understand why the correct answer is correct.
Contemplating our own creative self-beliefs, and those we foster in students, is essential to creating a classroom environment supportive of creativity.
When you create a creative environment in your classroom, you may begin to find your own creativity grows, and that can only be a good thing!
