6 Ideas to Promote Creativity in The Classroom

Here are examples that can help develop and unlock their creativity:

1. Build creativity into the classroom & the learning process: Create a classroom environment where creativity can run wild. Designate a thinking table, a drama stage, a drawing table, and a space for groups to discuss ideas.
2. Incentivize creative thinking: Design awards and hold ceremonies that recognize student innovation. Discuss how each effort came to be and why it was noteworthy. Create a bulletin board to showcase different ways of solving a problem. Post visual aids that present creative solutions to real world scenarios.
3. Use proven strategies: Successful creative thinking activities typically use media and arts to trigger cognitive functioning and emotional connections. The Osborn-Parnes training program is the oldest program for creativity training and is based on a six-step methodology:
   • Mess-finding. Identify a goal or objective.
   • Fact-finding. Gathering data.
   • Problem-finding. Clarifying the problem
   • Idea-finding. Generating ideas
   • Solution-finding. Strengthening and evaluating ideas
   • Acceptance-finding. Plan of action for Implementing ideas
4. Give Students ownership of learning process: Think of ways where students might design a project or a lesson plan complete with a problem a format for innovative thinking to find a solution.
5. Explore different cultures: In Thinking Hats & Coloured Turbans, Dr. Kirpal Singh discusses how cultural contexts are central to creative endeavors. Discuss how collaboration between cultures, such as in the space program, produces unique, novel ideas.
6. Get multidisciplinary: Geometry through art. History through film. Few problems in the real world are unidimensional, so teach children through intersecting disciplines and incorporate extracurricular tools as much as possible.