What is creativity?
When talking about creativity in teaching we can have as a starting point four main features: imagination, purpose, originality and value.
Creativity means thinking and behaving using imagination. As teachers we can plan lessons where we encourage our students to question what is presented to them, to come up with new ideas, to use their background knowledge in order to make connections, to interpret the tasks in ways the teacher may not have thought about it. At this stage, students’ imagination is so rich, today’s world provides them so much information that we, as planners, will be surprised by the turns the lessons take through their answers. An important aspect is building up their confidence, and not to fear of giving “a wrong answer”. We should encourage them throughout the task and praise their work. They should feel comfortable during the activity and this is achieved by explaining well the tasks before they know what to expect, and they understand what they have to do.
Teaching creatively must take into consideration the purpose, directed to achieve an objective. In a creative environment, students are involved in purposeful activities. The material presented to them is relevant and challenging. The stories told, the information they search and present have a wider audience than the teacher. Creative teachers do not just share the learning objectives but they involve the students in creating them. This method of delegating tasks to students has a great impact on the little ones. The responsibility given makes them eager to finish the tasks to be praised by the teacher and be proud of their own results.
What do we mean by originality regarding the work that students produce in English class? When we encourage them to use freely their imagination, when they let go of their fears, they produce the original material that in fact represents ideas new to them. This is the point where we can say they behave creatively.
The fourth feature of creativity is the value. We should get our students used to critically evaluating the responses they give and the work they produce in connection to what they set out to achieve. It should be taken into consideration what they and others should value. Both the final product and the effort they put in creating it are important to the children.
Some Indicators of Creative Thinking
At the end of the activity students will be able:
- to produce original ideas in response to stimuli;
- to discover and make connections between new and previous information by playing and experimenting;
- to explore and experiment with resources and materials;
- to feel free to ask usual or unexpected questions in order to have answers to all their questions related to the material presented;
- to try alternative or different approaches;
- to look at and think about things differently and from other points of view;
- to respond to ideas, tasks and problems in surprising ways;
- to apply imaginative thinking to achieve an objective;
- to make connections and see relationships;
- to reflect critically on ideas, actions and outcomes.
Problem Solving and Critical Thinking
When the respected testing body PISA decided to explore collaborative problem solving in 2015, this aspect of creative thinking received significant boos (OECD, 2013). After years of research, they discovered the same problem in different countries throughout the world: employers valued the capacity to solve problems and this is the reason why we should try to assess these capabilities. In the past, teaching was taught in a rigorous, strict manner, following certain lesson phases: presenting the new material, the rules through examples, follow up exercises where the students should put into practice the new rules and some more activities, mostly worksheets, depending on the feedback they had received in the practice stage.
Today’s world is constantly changing and the methods presented above proved to no longer be useful. When students graduate and enter the competitive market as employees they are not able to cope up with the tasks they must complete. What they learnt at school cannot be applied because is either out of date or they lack practice. They accumulate, they detain a lot of information but they did not have the chance to experiment, to try it in challenging ways, close to real life situations.
Bibliography:
1. Horner, Chris, Vicki Ryf. (2007). Creative Teaching: English In The Early Years And Primary Classroom. London and New York: Routledge.
2. Castro, Raquel. (2021). “The Importance of Storytelling for Young Learners in the ESLClassroom.” in BridgeUniverse – TEFL Blog, News, Tips & Resources, URL: https://bridge.edu/tefl/blog/storytelling-for-young-learners-in-esl-classroom/.
3. Lucas, Bill, Ellen Spencer. (2017). Teaching Creative Thinking: Developing learners who generate ideas and can think critically (Pedagogy for a Changing World series), Chapter 7, Everand, URL: https://shorturl.at/W6Kdm.
Autor: prof. Patricia Mălăeru, Liceul Tehnologic Voinești, județul Dâmbovița.
*Acest articol a apărut în numărul 64 al Revistei EduȘcoală, care poate fi citită integral aici.
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