Session 4 – What are we doing to promote creativity in the classroom?

–Topic of Discussion

What are we doing to promote creativity in the classroom?

Summary of Discussion

The discussion covered a lot of different thoughts on creativity. This included trying to define it, discussing if we could assess it and wondering whether it was possible to be creative when given constraints such as timetabling or impending Ofsted visits.

We also talked a lot about ways to get teachers to be more creative and to take risks as well as providing a culture for children to do the same. Some people talked about taking a whole-school approach to creativity and this seemed to work well. The general consensus is that creativity needs to be embraced by the head teacher and by management before it can be fully embedded into the school. There needs to be an element of risk from teachers and this needs to be modelled for the children. Once they see how we deal with risks and failure, they can become better at it themselves. Providing children with the opportunity to try different tools and to have these to hand will help to develop their creativity.

We discussed whether it was possible to assess creativity and with this it was decided that our assessment also needs to be creative.

Eye-Catching Tweets from the Session

@primarypete: to allow creativity to flourish, you need to allow children to risk and fail with grace
@dughall: I think we can only have creativity with a high degree of pupil choice, involvement and personalisation of the curriculum
@sport_ed: open ended tasks are important- however it is vital students have skills to be able to select creative ways of completing tasks.
@carolrainbow: creativity involves two processes, thinking then producing
ecce1: we have to look at giving multilpe options for how students demonstrate their knowledge
@dughall: teacher confidence is crucial in promoting and maintaining creativity in the classroom
@chrisfullerisms: not just taking risks but encourage an environment in which errors are accepted/embraced. by erring, we often learn more
@josepicardo: failure is just an opportunity to be better
@vikh46: with all lessons, it’s the ability to act when things aren’t going well and children are lost that makes a good or outstanding teacher
@cgeo28: to be creative, pupils need to be inspired, this can only come about thorugh a relevant curriculum delivered by motivated staff
@mynictle: use their imaginations, give the children a germ of an idea and let them think about it
@daviderogers: one aspect would be to allow choice e.g. you can write, sing, dance, draw etc as long as you tackle the issue
@malcolmbellamy: creativity is about options e.g. how many ways can we use this piece of string
@natty08: people have to realise that there is noise and there is active noise. Both sound the same but are TOTALLY different

Tweet of the Week

@cgeo28: to be creative, pupils need to be inspired, this can only come about through a relevant curriculum delivered by motivated staff

Relevant links highlighted during the Discussion

https://www.creativityatwork.com/articlesContent/whatis.htm
https://gg.tigweb.org/PTPIGYM
https://kn.open.ac.uk/public/document.cfm?docid=12916

Bio Details of the Host Moderator

I’m a primary school teacher that has spent the past two years working with the local authority to help train and prepare schools for the use of the VLE, Studywiz. This has also included opening their eyes to other possibilities with web 2.0 and working together. In September 2010 I return to the classroom.