1 Mgr. Martina Malášková, Ph.D. malaskom@gmail.com CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit A Cookbook of Creative recipes for the Classroom CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit2 Give and take I'd like to know what you're coming with to this workshop and what you'd like to take away from it. Take as many post-its as you want and write what you would like to take away from the workshop (e.g. some practical tips, fun 🙂) and what you are bringing here (e.g. professional expertize, good mood). Place your post-its on the dedicated posters. CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit3 What are we going to cover? •revision of some ideas on creativity •inspiration to create a classroom environment that fosters creativity •practical activities that can help develop your students' creative thinking CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit4 Creativity as a process Task 1 Share at least one thing about creativity and teaching and learning that you have learnt so far. CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit5 Creativity as a process Creativity (based on Fautley & Savage, 2007): •involves mental processes •can involve action •is within a domain •is purposeful •is novel (to the individual, other people or the whole society, depending on the level creativity) CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit6 Your classroom Task 2 Discuss in small groups: How important is creativity in the subject(s) you teach? Considering everything you know about creativity in the classroom, to what extent do you nurture creativity in your classes? CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit7 Fostering creativity Some ways to create a creativity-supporting environment based on Sternberg (2019 in Kaufmann & Sternberg, 2019) and other sources: •role model creativity – students (SS) need to be shown how to be creative •create a compassionate, accepting environment •encourage creativity across disciplines – help SS transfer and apply their interests and strong points to the academic areas where they have difficulties •give SS enough time to think creatively – do not rush or pack your tests with too many tasks/questions CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit8 Fostering creativity •give direct feedback on and reward creativity •let your SS make mistakes – being creative involves taking risks and making mistakes, so be forgiving and focus on reflection, analysis and finding value rather than reprimand •teach your SS to take responsibility for their successes & failures •encourage autonomy •encourage creative collaboration •teach SS to consider things from different perspectives CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit9 Fostering creativity •help your SS find their niche – the person-environment fit is important; the same creation may be ascribed different levels of creativity in different environments •explicitly discuss creativity myths and stereotypes with your students •protect and support your students’ intrinsic motivation •channel the creativity impulses in 'misbehaviour' CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit10 Example activities Task 4 Step 1 In groups, try to come up with as many ideas as you can about how to teach LESS creatively. Make a list. Step 2 When you have your list ready, try to identify as many reasons why teachers teach in ways that are NOT creative and do NOT encourage creativity in their students. Step 3 Now come up with ways of preventing these reasons and inspire teachers to support creative thinking in their students. CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit11 Example activities Reverse/negative brainstorming 1. Reverse the problem to 'how to cause it' Change the wording of the problem on which you are working from how to solve it to how to cause it. 2. Identify ways of causing the problem Use brainstorming or any other method (or a combination of methods) to identify different ways of causing the problem. You can use creative approaches or analytic methods. An analytic approach would list all of the available things or steps of a process and then break these down further. 3. Find ways of preventing the problem being caused Advantages: • being analytical or judgmental is often easier for people • reversal allows students to adopt a different point of view; a new perspective can lead to creative ideas CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit12 Example activities Task 5 Step 1 Step 2 Image source: http://creatingminds.org/tools/tools_all.htm CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit13 Example activities Lotus blossom - great for developing ideas, when you need to generate more ideas or when you’re stuck 1. Describe the problem 2. Surround it with ideas 3. Unfold the lotus blossom 4. Look for practical solutions to the original problem Advantages: • may stretch your mind far away from the original problem • can be very productive • individual or group activity • not very time consuming CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit14 Developing creativity in students According to Sternberg (2013), students are creative when they: 1. create 2. write 3. discover 4. imagine 5. suppose that... CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit15 Example activities • create an alternative ending to a text (story) you have recently read that presents a different outcome of the situation [Literature] • rewrite a story through the eyes of different characters in it [Literature] • write a dialogue between an American tourist and a local man/woman in Paris/Madrid/Rome [Languages] • discover a mathematical formula that will help to solve all of the following mathematical word problems [Mathematics] CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit16 Example activities • imagine if the government of your country keeps changing and advancing over the course of the next thirty years in more or less the same way it has been changing in recent years. What do you believe the government of the country will be like in thirty years? [Political science] • suppose you were to add a new musical instrument to a symphony orchestra. What might that instrument look like and sound like, and why? [Music] CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit17 Over to you Task 4 Think of the five categories and your own teaching context. Try to come up with one task/activity for each category that you could use with your students. Be ready to present your ideas. Create Write Discover Imagine Suppose that... CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit18 Thank you so much for your attention! CJV MUNI/Faculty of Education Unit19 Sources Fautley, M. & Savage, J. (2007). Creativity in Secondary Education. Exeter: Learning Matters. Kaufman, J. C.& Sternberg, R. J. (2019). The Cambridge handbook of creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press. https://www.celt.iastate.edu/instructional-strategies/teaching-format/14-creative- ways-to-engage-students/ Accessed on July 7, 2022. http://psychlearningcurve.org/creative-teaching-and-teaching-creativity-how-tofoster-creativity-in-the classroom/ Accessed on July 4, 2022. http://creatingminds.org/tools/tools_all.htm Accessed on July 4, 2022.