(Creativity and innovation)
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” Matthew 11:28
Dear visitor,
الذى فى الاعلى
Teachers develop their creativity:
Ideas for Teaching English Creatively
Are your students creative?
Benjamin Bloom
Creativity is the most difficult thinking skill to acquire,
and also the most sought-after. We value it in our
music, entertainment, technology, and other aspects
of our existence. We appreciate and yearn for it
because it enriches our understanding and can
make life easier.
Creativity always starts with imagination, and history
shows that many things we imagine are later actually
created.
When Benjamin Bloom identified what he called the
taxonomy of the cognitive domain, he ranked
synthesis (creativity) as one of the most difficult skills
to master because a person has to use all of the
other cognitive skills in the creative process.
Since, according to Bloom, creating is the highest
order of thinking, it should be in the forefront of all
learning environments and an end goal. When
students create what they imagine, they’re in the
driver’s seat.
Another requisite in the digital world using knowledge
and new ways of thinking. This is another four-core
skill you can develop in the 21st century to generate
a variety of ideas, different approaches and to come
up with new ideas, new concepts, or thinking out of
the box techniques. This is higher-order thinking
which is necessary to tackle complications and
issues using appropriate reasoning.
An employee is always an asset to an organization. To
make a presence felt or to think creatively, he/she
needs to think, write, design, and be ready to
experiment and work with uncertainty. Such an
employee can work without judgment and can be
imaginative.
Quick decision-making ability can enable and turn
ideas into coherent communication. Organizations
will value workers who can come up with creative
solutions to solve problems and who can create new
goods or products to match the needs of the mass
and services.
Innovation is a key to the success of organizations.
This skill allows people to adapt to change and see
concepts in a different shade or light.
In addition to that, an individual develops responsibility
and improves decision-making ability. This in turn
develops the confidence of that individual which
enhances his/her ability to work.
Step one: become a knowledgeable teacher
Step two: connect with other teachers
Step three: become a collector of teaching ideas
Step four: share your learning
Step five: remove the blocks to creative thinking
Step six: practise your creativity
Step seven: start experimenting and reflecting
on your teaching
Step eight: make creativity a daily goal.
When designing learning experiences, teachers can
plan and frame curriculum and provide tools that give
students options, voice, and choice in order to
enable them to be creative. In my work in schools,
I’ve found four things that successful teachers do to
develop creativity in their students.
1. Set up learning activities that allow
students to explore their creativity
Classroom example:
Fourth-grade students are presented with a sample
of rocks. They are to devise tests to determine what
kind of rocks they have based on the definitions
they’ve studied. Students find their own ways to
determine differences in hardness, color, and shapes.
Another classroom example:
A kindergarten class creates a new illustrated book
each week that celebrates a different member of the
class or an adult at the school.Each book is full of
pages drawn by each student. They have the full
liberty of depicting what the person likes and how
they perceive him or her.
Classroom example: Third-grade students are learning
about polygons and to see if they know the concept,
the teacher takes them outside and gives each student
a sidewalk chalk. Each student is given the task.
Once the students have accomplished this, the teacher
tells the students to transform those shapes into
something they love. The students want to show
everyone their geometric-based kittens, robots, and
dragons and then, have an opportunity to explain to
the whole class why they liked them.
3. Teach students the other skills they
need to be creative.
Classroom example: A second-grade class is learning
about the concept of freezing. The teacher asks one
question to get them started, “Does only water freeze?”
The students then design an experiment to determine
what other things freeze.
The limit is that they can only use what they have in
the classroom at the time.The students come up with
a list of things that they will leave outside to see if they
freeze: water, juice, vinegar, glue, glass cleaner,
toothpaste, and paper.
Some suggestions they decide are already solids and
shouldn’t go outside: pencils, erasers, and books
(but somehow paper stays on the test list).
The next day, they discuss their findings and have
engaging conversations about why the paper is stiff
and the vinegar has not frozen.
The initial discussion among students about what might
freeze fosters skills such as advocating for one’s ideas
and compromising. The follow-up discussion
encourages deductive reasoning and active listening.
4. Remove constraints for creativity
Classroom example: A sixth-grade class produces
Halloween costume plays. In order to wear costumes
to school, the students have to write a play that
incorporates each of their characters into a plot and
then present the play.
For instance, they have to come up with how a giant
soda can and the superhero Wonder
Woman will interact. The students love the challenge.
Imagination and creativity are the traits that fuel the
future. Both serve to inspire students and should be
integrated into every part of learning. In planning and
designing learning for students, this we know:
Teaching students how to think is more important
than teaching students what to think.
1. Allow students to explore their creativity in relevant ways.
2. Value creativity and celebrate and reward it.
3. Teach students the other skills they need to be creative.
View other resources:
1-Teaching Methods for 4 stages
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