How do you teach creativity in your classroom?

To get you thinking, Robert Sternberg and Wendy M. Williams have created ‘Two Dozen Tips For Teaching Creativity‘. The list can help you to assess your pedagogical practice and generate ideas for teaching and learning in your classroom.

1. Model Creativity
2. Build Self-Efficacy
3. Question Assumptions
4. How to Define and Redefine Problems
5. Encourage Idea Generation
6. Cross-Fertilize Ideas
7. Allow Time for Creative Thinking
8. Instruct and Assess Creatively
9. Reward Creative Ideas and Products
10. Encourage Sensible Risks
11. Tolerate Ambiguity
12. Allow Mistakes
13. Identify and Surmount Obstacles
14. Teach Self-Responsibility
15. Promote Self-Regulation
16. Delay Gratification
17. Encourage Creative Collaboration
18. Imagine Other Viewpoints
19. Recognize Person-Environmental Fit
20. Find Excitement
21. Seek Stimulating Environments
22. Play to Strengths
23. Grow Creatively
24. Proselytize for Creativity

The full article is well worth a read as each of the following points are expanded upon. In upcoming posts, I’ll be using some of these great ideas to explore practical examples of teaching and learning in a Visual Arts context.

And now for a little collection of clips to use for thinking about how we teach creativity…great lessons for teachers here.

Creativity takes time.

Be careful what you ask for…

If it’s not a box, what is it? Thinking outside the square.

‘Creativity in Education’, a clip from Sir Ken Robinson, a world leader in this area.

Sir Ken again on his hopes for the future of creativity and some thoughts on technology as tools.

If you liked this post, check out our creativity infographics for more resources.