Creativity in learning has been defined variously as an act of turning imaginative and new ideas into realistic projects or events (Cremin 2016, pp99). Creativity is at the heart of all the innovations that we are proud of this day. However, as Haertel and Terkowsky (2012, pp508) suggest, the question remains on whether creativity can be applied as a crucial tool in learning. As Csikszentmihalyi and Wolfe (2014, pp163) argue, the current education system is now churning out too many people to scramble for the few job opportunities out there. According to Lin and Wu (2016, pp1677), many employers still demand that their employees devote a significant portion of their time to think creatively and explore new ideas. Additionally, Meikle (2014, pp2) asserts that there are theories that explain creativity like incubation, creative cognition approach, convergent and divergent approach, and theory of conceptual blending. Riche (2011, n.p.) summarizes creativity as a combination of innovation, ability to think outside the box, improvisation, professional growth, openness to taking risks, and ultimately passion. A proper understanding of these theories is key to ensuring creativity is incorporated in current education. This paper is an overview of creativity and how it can be incorporated into the teaching and learning of mathematics, English, and science in schools.
Having appreciated the importance of creativity in the twenty-first-century job market and the basic principles of creativity, it is time to look at the people who have a role in enhancing creativity – teachers – and their methods. Although, strictly speaking, the buck of enhancing creativity in school going children does not only rest with teachers; parents also have a major role to play (Cremin 2016, pp102). Therefore, teachers should seek to enhance creativity among the children they teach regardless of the subject they teach.
The most important way in which teachers can enhance creativity in learners is by being role models to the learners (Bolden, Harries and Newton 2010, pp143). The human mind is made to remember actions more than pure words. It takes creativity for one to demonstrate what they are talking about in a class (Lytton, 2012, pp12). It also takes creativity to enhance creativity in another person.
Second, it is the responsibility of a teacher to send a message of hope to the student; a message looking to show learners that they have a limitless capacity to be creative (Leikin, et al., 2013, pp310). By building self-efficacy of students and making students believe that they can be creative, teachers will help enhance creativity across all the subjects that are taught in school. Teachers can enhance the creativity of students by prompting them to question some universal assumptions (Leikin, et al. 2013, pp312). Questioning is to be one of the daily classroom exchanges when teaching core subjects – English, mathematics, and science.
Teachers should teach learners by demonstration how to define and redefine the problems they encounter every day (Leikin, et al. 2013, pp315). This will entail teachers leaving learners to choose their own discussion topics and to solve problems in their own ways. All the teacher has to do is approve that the topics chosen by students are within the curriculum, to give a grading rubric, and finally grade presentations grounded from scratch by learners themselves (Lytton, 2012, pp12). This should be adopted when teaching all core subjects.
An environment free of criticism is the best for idea generation (Boelskifte and Hansen 2012, pp2). Moreover, having students to think out of their boxes that are to think across disciplines or subjects will definitely enhance creativity (Lytton, 2012, pp20). It is also important for teachers to appreciate that creativity requires time; the way they plan their lessons should factor in time to allow for creative thinking from students. The scheduling and planning of classes in core subject areas should provide a good thinking environment and allow students time to think.
School assessment tests are valuable opportunities that teachers can use to try and instill creativity in the learners (Leikin, et al. 2013, pp320). This they can do by including questions that directly require the students to think creatively. This is much easier in a subject like English where creative writing can be an assessment on itself. In mathematics, problems can be worded in a way to stimulate imaginativeness (Tan, 2015, pp412). In science, learners can be asked how certain gadgets or procedures could be improved; since such information is not factual or already recorded, it will call for their creativity.
The human brain has been shown to work predominantly on a rewards and punishment basis. Rewarding creative ideas by learners can encourage more creativity (Tan, 2015, pp413). Creativity, just like entrepreneurship involves risk taking. Liu and Lin (2014, pp1551) suggested that teachers should encourage students to take sensible risks like having to defy the crowd in order to advance an idea.
Creative ideas tend to develop over a long period of time till they mature into a feasible project. Over this period of development, there is a lot of uncertainty; it is only when one allows this uncertainty or ambiguity that they can enhance their creativity (Collard and Looney 2014, pp350). Teachers should allow for a level of ambiguity in class so as to encourage creativity. In allowing ambiguity, teachers should also allow for mistakes in the learners.
Teachers can help learners to overcome this obstacles and challenges. As Byron, Madjar, and Perry-Smith (2015, pp1) outline, they can first help learners to identify obstacles to creativity and ways in which great thinkers encountered and went round obstacles. Moreover, Lytton (2012, pp17) opines that appreciating the efforts of a student trying to overcome obstacles can help them to do more to the same effect. Teachers should also encourage collaboration with other learners as it can help one to overcome challenges and be able to mature their idea.
Finally, teachers have a role of teaching their students to be self-responsible and self-regulated beings. According to Haertel and Terkowsky (2012, pp510) self-responsibility and self-regulation, two things that define creative minds were at the core of the greatest ever innovations. Teachers should also remind learners to have a special notebook for jotting down any ideas or insights (Cateni and Rocchini 2012, pp131). A good notebook can be a perfect textbook of creativity. Leikin and Pitta-Pantazi (2013, pp161) argue that when creativity is integrated into learning properly, it makes disciplines which traditionally look tough, for example, mathematics, become more interesting.
Having looked at how teachers can promote creativity, it is prudent to look at how teachers can teach creativity. A person’s creativity is determined by many things. Among this are their personal interests and their personality. Chamorro-Premuzic (2015, n.p) says that genetics only determine 10% of a person’s creativity. Personal interests and personality are usually determined in a person’s childhood and may never change thereafter. This means that early childhood is the most important time for enhancement of a person’s creativity (Daud, et al. 2012, pp468). This also makes primary school crucial for the development of creativity (Daud, et al. 2012, pp472). At this point, it is worth noting the influence of the teacher. Henriksen and Mishra (2015, pp275), the pedagogical approach chosen by the teacher affects a child’s creativity greatly. However, this does not mean that creativity cannot be enhanced, rather it means that the malleability of one’s creativity is largely limited by their personality traits. Indeed, creativity can be taught. As earlier seen, creativity might not be part of the curriculum but teachers have a role to enhance it. Teachers can use the main subjects taught in the curriculum to train creativity.
There are two major aspects of teaching creativity that we shall discuss here. The first of these is training people in creative thinking. As previously discussed, creative thinking is at the heart of synthesis of any creative ideas (Liu and Lin, 2014, 1555). Training people in creative thinking involves giving those challenging tasks and letting them come up with a solution to the problem, teaching learners to retrieve knowledge outside their main subject areas and to combine information from various subject areas, teaching people to be open to changing daily procedures or schedules, and encouraging meditation and relaxation (Lytton, 2012, pp19).
The second aspect of teaching creativity is training people on how to identify their talents and the topic areas that they enjoy most. Working on a topic one enjoys most enhances their creativity greatly (Wilson, 2015, pp15). However, as Lytton (2012, pp33) argues, it has been noted that many people do not even know their talents. Helping learners to appreciate their talents and abilities is very crucial to enhancing their creativity.
Different subjects have different curriculum demands. Teachers have a duty to ensure that these curriculum demands are achieved and creativity is instilled in learners at the same time. the paragraphs that follow detail how teachers can use the core subjects of science, mathematics, and English in enhancing creativity based on the principles discussed above.
Teaching English, a core subject, in the right way, can help greatly in enhancing the creativity of learners. According to Corcoran (2016, pp185), creativity cannot exist without language; therefore; language can be used effectively to enhance creativity. A study in Columbia detailed several activities that can enhance creativity in learners of English. The first activity that was proposed in the study that had good effects on the learners’ creativity was the creation of fictional stories (Corcoran 2016. Pp189). This was a good exercise which prompted the learners to be creative and to think quickly. Moreover, the exercise directly enhanced the learning of examinable English nuggets like good grammar and parts of speech. In addition, during the process of constructing these sentences that build up a paragraph, new vocabulary was learnt.
Encouraging creative writing was another activity that was aimed directly at enhancing creativity among the learners (Pereira, 2016, p1). In this activity, learners were expected to make a story beginning with a given predetermined statement. Points were then awarded for the stories based on the level of creativity, the usage of grammar, and the incorporation of new vocabulary. This activity can be enhanced greatly by teaching the learners the basic plots of fictitious stories at the beginning of the exercise (Morais and Azevedo, 2011, pp331). The basic story plots as identified by are tragedy, rebirth, comedy, voyage and return, the quest, rags to riches, and overcoming the monster (Rose, 2016, pp201).
Third, the learners were asked to write a speech on a topic of their own choice within a time span of twenty minutes (Pereira, 2016, p1). This helped the students to build creativity by giving them autonomy and also helped them to be fast thinkers. The marking rubric in this case also included creativity, use of language, and proper use of vocabulary (Wilson, 2015, pp50).
According to Cremin (2016, pp112), creativity can aid people who cannot communicate effectively verbally to communicate. In the study, learners were asked to draw pictures communicating something (Cremin 2016, pp113). Drawings can aid in effective non-verbal communication. Apart from an inherent artistic ability, creativity is also at the heart of the best and most educative drawings (Brinkman, 2010, pp48). All these activities were shown to have a great positive effect on the creative ability of the students when they were done repeatedly during the English lessons. In addition, the learners were found to enjoy these activities greatly especially the part where they had autonomy (Brinkman, 2010, pp49).
Creativity is, in fact, the whole essence of mathematics. It is, therefore, prudent that mathematics be taught in a way that enhances creativity (Gundy, 2016, n.p.). Cateni and Rocchini (2012, pp132) emphasize that enhancing creativity in mathematics classes is dependent on input from other core subjects thus it is cross-curricular. Among the chief sources of input for enhancement of creativity in mathematics classes are language, social life, and mathematics itself (Pound and Lee, 2015, pp15). Even though the current curriculum does not seem to enhance creativity in Mathematics, Piggot (2011, n.p.) argues that focusing on the experiences more than the content will definitely encourage creativity. There are many ways in which the mathematics curriculum can be used to enhance creativity as discussed below.
First, the simple problem-solving activities that the learners engage in can greatly enhance creativity (Piggot, 2011, n.p). As Wilson (2015, pp53) records, allowing students to pose their own problems and attempt to solve them can even have better results. All the teacher has to do is create an interactive environment that can guide the learners to posing problems which fall within the curriculum.
Second, in topics like currency, interests, and other trade-related activities, a teacher can ask learners to plan for an event and estimate costs or represent their costs on a linear programming chart (Tan, 2015, pp415). By having the learner choose an event of their choice and represent their summations, creativity is enhanced (Meyer, 2012, pp54). Moreover, use of such real life situations will greatly enhance memory.
Thirdly, teachers can encourage students to model (Piggot 2011, n.p.). In topics like geometry, latitudes and longitudes, and distances, models can really aid in enhancing memory (Piggot, 2011, n.p.). Creation of models requires utmost creativity from the choice of materials to be used to the actual design. A chance to showcase their creativity will be an exciting opportunity for those students who find arithmetic difficult.
When people think of creativity, science and innovation come to their mind. Creativity and science are not synonyms: Rather, the two complement each other. Science increases knowledge available to trigger further creativity while creativity has been at the heart of major scientific discoveries and innovations (Cutraro 2012, n.p.). In this regard, science is one of the best disciplines that can be used to enhance creativity in primary school children. Just like for mathematics and English, Cutting and Kelly (2014, pp15) note that teaching and enhancing creativity in science is cross-curricular; it requires the input of knowledge from across other disciplines. There are three major ways in which creativity can be enhanced in a science class.
First, is by creating competitions (Haines, 2011, n.p.). The competitions can test either memory or the learners’ practical ability and mastery of science theory (Ward and Roden, 2016, pp17). Regardless of the parameter being tested in the competition, creativity will be key. For memory competitions, learners will have to devise methods of memorizing scientific facts – this is in itself creativity. For mastery of practical skills, learners will be prompted to be creative enough to know what materials available in their environment will be best for use in certain practical situations.
Second, class projects can prompt learners to be more creative so as to know the way they can complete the project (Haines, 2011, n.p.). Moreover, class projects are mostly done in groups thus promoting collaboration which is key in enhancing creativity. Wellington and Ireson (2013, pp14) suggest that class projects are more likely to have a better positive influence of the learners’ creative ability if the learners are given autonomy to choose whatever scientific project they would love to embark on.
Thirdly, teachers can challenge learners to think of how to solve current and future problems facing humanity with scientific methods (Haines, 2011, n.p.). This will prompt the learners to think hard and creative ideas can be incubated in this way. In other words, creative thinking should be encouraged in a science class (Meyer, 2012, pp55). This calls for input from other areas, which will help learners understand the root of current and future problems like global warming and climate change, terrorism, and urban congestion. Teachers should commend learners who come up with brilliant ideas in this areas. Even when the idea offered by a learner may not be the solution to this problems, it aids in increasing the creative capacity of the learner. Creativity is at the heart of the future of humanity. This will ensure that teachers teach science with the ultimate goal of school science at heart – to solve the problems afflicting humanity (Annetta, et al. 2013, pp54). Integration with creativity will only make primary school science better and focused.
As earlier alluded to, autonomy is one of the key determinants of creativity. One is likely to be more creative when they are trying to be creative about a subject area of their own choice (Wilson, 2015, pp17). However, extreme autonomy can also be detrimental. Holmes, et al. (2015, pp1182) suggest that children should be allowed to contribute in yearly curriculum reviews for them to participate in the process of deciding how and what they are to be taught. Learners should direct the learning process and teachers should only provide guidance. It is important for children to also help determine their daily schedule and how much free time or playtime the schedule will afford them. Holmes, et al. (2015) show that play is extremely important for academic prowess.
Apart from enhancing creativity, student-directed learning has other advantages. First, the system motivates learning (Wilson, 2015, pp43). Secondly, the system makes learning and interaction of the learner with their environment a natural process hence a much easier process (Wilson, 2015, pp43). In fact, the system is likely to make learners love school more.
Despite its advantages, this system will also have limitations. Desailly (2015, pp59) suggests that with learners directing their own timetable, time management can be challenging. Moreover, proper organization may not be achieved in the school environment. Secondly, assessing the progression of students who direct their own learning can pose challenges to teachers (Desailly, 2012, pp61). Without proper assessment, progression cannot be achieved, hence, making the system obsolete.
In essence, creativity is not congenital; it is, therefore, something that can be enhanced. It is the responsibility of all of us to enhance creativity of our children for the sake of their future and the future of humanity. Teachers have a central role in enhancing creativity of the children they teach. The education system also needs to be flexible enough to enable creativity. However, as seen in the discussion above, the education system does not restrain teachers from teaching creativity. The teachers only need to be a little bit creative for them to teach creativity effectively within the provisions of the curriculum. Systems like child led/teacher-directed learning can help enhance creativity with minimal limitations when used well. It is up to us to make the system better for it to allow more creativity in our children.
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