Students who learn in a creative environment, are exposed to creative activities and assignments, and observe their teacher modeling creative thinking will become more creative thinkers (Sternberg & Williams, 1996). A creative learning environment that embraces students and engagement along with critical thinking and creative thinking skills is essential to student achievement (Boykin & Noguera, 2011, 2012; Marks, 2000, as cited in Jensen, 2013). To plan the instruction that matches your creativity nurturing classroom environment, first identify the nonnegotiables. The nonnegotiables consist of the curricular standards, the required content, and the skills that are the target of a lesson (Drapeau, 2004). Then, choose one of four roads on the Creativity Road Map or combine roads to intentionally integrate creative instruction with content.
Figure: The Creativity Road Map
Road 1: Targeting Creative Thinking Verbs
On Creativity Road 1, the focus is on creative thinking verbs and verb phrases. To promote creative thinking in the classroom, teachers pay attention to the verb in the questions they ask. Asking students to "describe the relationship between the heart and the circulation system and share the description in a paragraph" does not promote creative thinking; the verb describe directs students to merely recall known ideas. Utilizing creative thinking verbs, on the other hand, accesses creative thinking. On Creativity Road 1, teachers use verbs that encourage multiple answers, different kinds of answers, unusual answers, or elaborative answers (e.g., brainstorm, generate, connect, relate, design, create, produce, construct, elaborate, embellish, predict, improve).
For example, instead of asking students to describe the relationship between the heart and circulatory system, a teacher asks students to brainstorm all the many different types of relationships that exist between the heart and circulatory system. The thinking focus of this activity is on the creative thinking verb brainstorm. Students are expected not only to generate known ideas but also to stretch their thinking to include new ideas and possibilities. Creativity Road 1 is a good starting point for teachers who are just beginning to use creativity in their classrooms. However, it is just the beginning of the journey; creativity in the classroom requires more than substituting verbs or a verb phrase. Interaction, sparking of ideas, and additional strategies are needed to help students produce truly creative work.
Road 2: Focusing on Creative Strategies
The second road to creative instruction is to design (or redesign) a lesson by using an instructional strategy or tool that enhances students' creative thinking skills. Direct questioning that fosters creative thinking may be effective some of the time, but a steady diet of direct questioning and whole-class instruction does not promote interaction and engagement. Instructional strategies that promote more than one answer, different kinds of answers, or unusual answers often require group activities to spark ideas. Activities that are conducive to creative thinking include
- webbing,
- brainstorming,
- problem solving,
- visualizing,
- considering points of view,
- transforming, and
- symbolizing.
For the lesson on the circulatory system, the teacher could enhance the brainstorming activity by having students use the "What Stands for What" strategy, where students create an abstract symbol or picture that is associated with the content, to create an abstract symbol that represents circulation. The symbol is not the product of the lesson; rather, it serves as a prewriting tool for students to use before generating a paragraph about the topic (which is the product of the lesson).
Road 3: Using Creative Processes
Creativity Road 3 focuses on creative thinking in the procedures and processes that students use when they are focusing on creative problem solving and innovation. These processes follow certain steps that may or may not include creative activities but always include creative thinking. For example, in the circulation lesson, small groups of students might use the creative problem solving model (Isaksen & Treffinger, 1985) to explore the topic. They begin by thinking of the different problems people might encounter when dealing with a circulatory medical condition. Once students identify a specific underlying problem, they brainstorm different solutions and then determine the best solution for the underlying problem. This is one example of a step-by-step process that encourages creativity.
Road 4: Applying Creative Products
Creativity Road 4 focuses on creative products. Creative products can be simple or sophisticated; they allow for a variety of different responses through multiple modalities (e.g., written, kinesthetic, visual, verbal) and may incorporate technology. For example, a literature unit might include a digital storytelling component (see University of Houston Education, 2014), encouraging students to think outside the box to elaborate upon characters, settings, stories, and insights by creating multimedia presentations on websites such as StoryBird and Animoto. For the circulation lesson, students could create PowerPoint presentations, posters, or a multimedia presentation (e.g., using Glogster) to illustrate their identification of a particular problem and how they addressed it. Creative products may be shared with the class, the school, the community, or the global community. They can be small-scale projects, but they can just as easily be multifaceted, long-term projects that involve people from diverse locations.
Utilizing Multiple Roads
When trying to go from one place to another, we often take more than one road. This is also true with instruction. Teachers may decide to use one or more roads in a lesson. The teacher who decides to use a creative thinking verb (Road 1) in a prompt also engages students in a creative thinking strategy (Road 2) when they are working through the creative problem solving process (Road 3). The lesson culminates in a creative product (Road 4). The Creativity Road Map helps teachers intentionally control the type and degree of creativity that occurs in the lesson.
