Encouraging CreativityEncouraging creativity - One of the 'buzz' terms around education. Linking strongly to motivating students, we can see the need to not only encourage students to be creative but also design and implement creative pedagogies and learning plans. Creativity does not just happen, we as educators need to encourage students to be creative and think outside the box (Bharti, 2014).
This idea starts with our educators and is made up of multiple aspects in order to encourage creativity.
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Teach Creatively
Encouraging creativity is a great theory, but it starts with the educators and role models of the classroom. Every student has a different learning style (Gardner, 1983) and an educator needs to recognise this (Cachie, Ferrari and Punie, 2010). Educators do this by individualising teaching and learning programs to encourage creativity. We recognise that its the students who are learning, so we need to engage them, their creativity and curiosity in order to get them to learn (Robinson, 2013).
This idea was further researched by Yi-Sien Lin (2011) where se formulated the framework seen to the right. The three areas seen in this image formulate creative pedagogy. An educator needs to implement creative teaching, such as imaginative and dynamic approaches like the use of ICT. This often inspires students new and fresh ideas that lead directly to teaching for creativity. This area of the framework facilitates the student's engagement as it identifies student creativity and encourages it to grow. We see this done by expert teachers as the encourage class discussions. The final aspect of the framework is creative learning - Lin (2011) explained, that too many times students only learned when they were told to. This process sees students learn through questioning, manipulation and inquiry. This is often initiated as the educator encourages mistakes and shows there to be no negative effects in taking a risk.
In showing students making mistakes will not have negative effects, a teacher encourages students to take risks and try new things. Along with encouraging class discussions, students need to feel comfortable in order to take a chance. The society we have grown up in shows mistakes in a negative light, so students struggle to overcome the fear of a mistake, as they believe they will be seen as a fool (Balkin, 1990). Ken Robinson (2013) firmly believes this as he states "If you're not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original'". This simple quote simply confirms that we need to encourage students to take risks in the classroom.