Some the of the phrases we can use as Teachers to encourage creative thinking are:
Imagine if …..?
Why not ………?
What would you do if ………?
What can we do?
There are some great tools out there to spark creativity in students. One of these is:
School Retool http://schoolretool.org/
Share your ideas and resources here including any valuable links to resources.
One of my favourite sayings as a teacher is, “Mistakes are not failures, they are growth points.” If (when) you make a mistake it is important to model to your students how you will learn from it, rise above it or say ‘sorry’ and make amends if it has caused harm.
Imagine If is great to encourage students to start thinking of ideas and rolling with these ideas which encourages creativity.
the question why not? really sticks with me. many students feel like they aren’t confident enough to take risks and tell you what their real ideas are. by posing the question why not? it helps students to break down that barrier and give them the opportunity to have a go. This question can be quite powerful in my opinion.
The question that resonates with me is What can we do? we often get stuck in what we have always done. what can we do with what we have invites creatively approaching problems/situations
exactly, giving that opportunity to think about something different rather than just relying on what we know.
Sometimes just changing up the venue really sparks creativity. Taking the class outside, or to the library, or on an “inter-campus” excursion seems to really lift spirits and bolster creativity. Also, tying in specialised interests such as history or current news also sometimes prompts quieter members of the class to share opinions or show interest where often there is none or mimimal.
yes i believe this, being stuck in the same classroom can really kill creativity. changing up the scenery or working in a more authentic environment allows for students to be more open to new ideas.
In the hospitality patisserie curriculum we teach in the higher levels, the students have to come up with their own ideas for cake ans also for artistic showpieces in both sugar and chocolate. In this scenario we always have these types of questions to challenge the status quo. As teachers we also take risks with new ideas and we problem solve together to come up with a good outcome. But as person in the VET sector, it is always a challenge to bring about a change because of the rigidity of the training packages. Cooking is creative but we tend… Read more »
To get learners to be more creative we allow them to work in groups in a flexible learning environment. I think to encourage creativity we need to give students options in how they present their learning and encourage risk.
To get the learners to be more creative we have to facilitate their environment and give them the opportunity to think for themselves . in our kitchen environment in the hospitality sector we always encourage the students thinking by answering their query to why not for an example the student would like to change the flavour from Raspberry to passion fruit my answer will be why not and that depends on availability followed by what would you do if we don’t have this ingredient? another typical and frequent question we use is what can we do if we can not… Read more »
Open ended questions allow students to use their knowledge, skills and imagination by not limiting them to one correct answer. Students start to understand there are many possibilities to solving a problem and unlimited solutions.
I agree open ended questions are essential as they allow students to think outside the box and acknowledges there can be more than 1 right answer
I agree that a skilled teacher can use the right questions to lead and guide their students to all sorts of creative outcomes and possibilities.
I think in the VET sector we can use more of this type of question in our delivery models and assessment tasks.
Yes I agree this is absolutely the perfect educational environment to ask these questions to bring about change.
Our students, once enrolled, have access to Microsoft 365. Many did not have this on their home computers as they couldn’t afford it but on enrolment they get access which has been a great success for many of my students.
Microsoft 365 is a great tool for students and teachers and offers so many applications for modern learning. Loving Forms for creating online feedback forms and polls.
This is a great tool, Google Classroom is also very effective in fostering creativity.
I love these questions and have probably used them more often than I realise. These questions are extremely effective in a kindergarten setting, and I will endeavour to use them more in the upper primary. I feel like these questions can lead to student directed lessons through ‘sparking creativity’.
I think the VET sector can also benefit from asking these creative thinking questions to improve their internal processes not just for student learning and creativity
would love to think there could be an IKEA like moment, or challenge the conventional – DYSON like philosophy. This could bring about huge shift in the VET sector
I love to do question time with my kindergarten class. I ask them a ‘would you rather question’ and they have to answer and give a reason why. We get some really creative responses. I also use a drawing journal in my class. I do not mark this, but rather allow the students to draw and create freely. I think this is a great way for them to channel a world of different emotions and feelings. It encourages them to use art to help explore how they are feeling and what they are thinking.
great idea that sounds like fun i bet they like it too
I love the idea of a drawing journal! Definitely sparking creativity!
The wi-fi on the buses was an inspiration. I am a huge IKEA fan and thank the photographer for their ‘What if?’ question. The IBM culture seems so inspiring however it was obviously not sustained as I don’t hear much about them anymore, so it illustrates that we need to constantly evolve and change. It feels so satisfying to have a great question that the students respond well to and can open up so many avenues. It must be a priority to allow the process of creativity to flourish.
Yes I agree Josh, maybe the demise of IBM speaks more to a departure from creative thinking rather than a testimony to it?
I often use ‘See Think Wonder’ as a visible thinking strategy to get students to think creatively. This strategy is great to use with pobble365.com either before creative writing or as a class discussion activity.
Pobble has been a great tool to engage students in the creativity of the writing process. See think wonder can naturally happen in so many situations. It ensures that students are heard and can take a risk as there are no wrong answers. How do I apply this to more and more areas? I try to show various mathematical images and engage them in See Think Wonder too.
I love pobble365. I also love using picture prompts in general to help inspire the writing process.
I agree pobble365.com is a very simple and effective tool to get creativity and imagination going
Pobble is great! I like that you use the see think wonder visible thinking strategy with it!
I’ve never heard of Pobble! Thanks for giving me something to go look up and think about incorporating into my classes.
I think teachers use these sentence starters and more, more often than they realise. I think all student lead activities promote creativity. A school that was recently featured on BTN, had a group of students design a virtual tour of the school using Minecraft. A huge 10 week project with amazing outcomes for all involved.
I also saw this on BTN it was fantastic.
The excitement from some of my students was amazing to witness. We obviously need to engage with them. Many were saying playing all day on Minecraft how good is that. Why not change things up and give us the technology to experiment with this. This has encouraged me to take a risk and ask for this to happen. I took a risk in my first year of teaching and came up with a design your own iPad app project for a small group of kids and found this to be excellent. I need to embrace my former risk-taking freedom.
Yes. I saw this too. It also taps into the interests of many students.
these sentences are vital to critical thinking, and I agree that we use these sentences more often than we realise.
To promote new ideas, better collaboration and understanding in our industry (culinary Arts) it is very important for educators to ask these question to encourage and spark creativity.
Why Not?
I like the rethink about creativity being more than the “arts” sector. I think the more we use those 4 questions the more people around us will be creative and this is inspiring…what a snowball effect it could have ☺. This is a great example of doing something with “small steps” that could lead to big results.
Yes agree with the snowball affect, it takes a few people to be bold and change their own language and slowly it becomes the norm.
While on a professional learning placement I had a supervisor who would always ask her kindergarten students “what makes you say that?” I found that this was a really excellent (albeit simple) question to ask to get students thinking deeply about their motivation for making certain choices. I love using a range of these sentence starters as a springboard for students to take risks or think creatively in the classroom.
I love this questions to ask students. I’m trying it next week 🙂
I like these questions. Imagine if …..?
Why not ………?
What would you do if ………?
What can we do?
I liked the story about using the buses to help the students. We need to think more about what we have and how we can use it. Get the students to take risks and have a go, we can do things
differently.
I don’t think I’m very creative but maybe I am. I need to get beyond creativity being music, art and drama.
Sharon i think everyone is creative and it takes a little courage and exposure to new ways of thinking to maybe light that spark!
I am a creative person, have a penchant for innovation and love these questions … Imagine if …..?’, ‘Why not ………?’, ‘What would you do if ………?’ and ‘What can we do?’ I think, these are very important questions that educators need to ask themselves before every new year, based on the activities of the year before. Exploring new approaches to teaching, employing new methods of instructions and encouraging students to think for themselves is vital for a growing generation which we expect to succeed in life. Unfortunately, the contemporary educational system, academic management, the teaching community and students themselves… Read more »
I am always inspired by students who are creative and seek to find new and exciting ways. this thinking is very much tolerated in my classroom
I do get inspired by the students who are creative too, it is a wonderful thing to be inspired by a student who is trying to create something new as i would love to see the result and have more discussion on imagine if ? just love it.
All the questions to build creativity can be applied in the classroom –
Imagine if?
Why not?
What would you do if?
What can we do?
Most of these I have applied and have found the focused motivated student respond and contribute. Students lacking self-confidence need assurance that risk and failure will lead to creativity.
As a teacher I remember using a model of questioning called Bloom’s Taxonomy in a 1980s classroom. Its aim was to develop higher-order thinking and creativity in students.
I am one of those adults that say I don’t have a creative bone in my body. After listening to Michael I feel differently now and realise that actually I am quite creative in my ideas and practices. In the past I had often thought of creativity more in terms of art and performance. I associated innovation with science and technology without really thinking of the creativity associated with the innovation. I believe that all four creativity starters would be used regularly in primary classes for oral and written literacy and STEM activities. As adults we need to ask ourselves… Read more »
I agree Liz, I feel many adults feel as though they are not creative. I hear many adults say they feel like children are very creative and imaginative in comparison to adults.
Imagine if …..?
Why not ………?
What would you do if ………?
What can we do?
Are all great ways to encourage creative thinking. Everyone can contribute as many times as they choose. I really like ‘imagine if’ a wonderful way to introduce a new topic
I think that student choice is key when it comes to being creative! There isn’t a correct answer or a right way when it comes to being creative. I remember my friends daughter completed her project for PBL (project based learning) that allowed students to demonstrate their learning in their own way. As the focus was on creativity and art, she choreographed her own dance and mixed her own music while others completed works of art, wrote a song, made something out of clay.. The level of engagement and the learning that came from this was phenomenal
I often think about this! Giving students the opportunity to be bored and have time to get creative – this is when their imagination would come into play and dances, songs, lego creations, artworks etc are born!
Totally agree – they need to be bored and get creative by their own thinking and way of doing things. Imagination time – let it happen.
Imagine if …..?
Why not ………?
What would you do if ………?
What can we do?
Are all creative concepts in teaching, i do use “what can we do” regularly and will take on board the new concepts
Sometimes I find it difficult to teach creativity when students are ‘rigid’ in their thinking.
Imagine if …..?
Why not ………?
What would you do if ………?
What can we do?
These are great sentence starters however some students often struggle to come up with ideas to answer these questions, we need to foster creativity and success is not always getting everything right first time.
We need to look at a range of ways to engage our varied students and to do this you must know your students.
Do you think many students are rigid thinkers or are they afraid to take a risk and make a mistake? I think the biggest enemy of creativity is the fear of not being perfect or the best. I liked Michael’s comment about how we need to provide risk takers with a psychological safety net so that they feel supported. This is an important role that the teacher must take on if students are to become more creative. In fact so must the executive teachers, including the Principal, in the school as they support teachers to take risks to improve the… Read more »
Hi Liz. I think that students are more afraid of taking a risk because they are afraid of making mistakes. The biggest enemy of creativity is the fear of failure and so students stay within the perimeter of ordinary or mediocre rather than trying to work towards different and vibrant or new and refreshing.
I definitely agree, Bernard. The fear of looking “silly” in front of their peers, or doing something that is “bad” is a huge decider in students’ decision making. I feel as though this is something that slowly develops over time – often the younger students are happier to have a go (hence perhaps why they are more likely to show off a new song they made, or dance routine) while older students (and I daresay adults) are more reserved.
I agree we need to engage the students to build their creativity and this will come with their self-direction to achieve.
All the phrases ‘Imagine if …..?’, ‘Why not ………?’, ‘What would you do if ………?’ and ‘What can we do?’ are very important for teachers. I always use ‘what would you do if ….?’ when I discuss with students about current affairs and after reading a story. Students always actively involve in discussion and produce interesting arguments. Imagine if students can participate in designing the teaching syllabus and outcomes.
Getting students involved in conversations , does help them to understand all aspects of the topic
I often find that my adult learners come from learning cultures that don’t give much scope for having opinions/ideas outside what is taught by the teacher. When i ask questions such as these it often takes a while for them to be comfortable enough to give their own ideas.
I use these type of questions with my students and encourage them to use these questions when working with children….. open ended questions that encourage discussion and creative thinking.
I love that he opened the door to creativity being more than just the arts sector ☺
COVID 19 definitely helped us to think outside of the box – and I suspect will continue to do so for some time. Most of the students have seemed to cope with this too.
Covid has definitely proved to make us as teachers use some creative methods of teaching
COVID did force many of us to think outside of the box- I’ve appreciated how so many places offered free services for students to use, my favourite has been the virtual tours and talks offered from places all over the world
Yes, I agree. It’s amazing to see creativity still emerge and evolve. On an episode of BTN recently, a group of students made a virtual tour of their school on Minecraft – amazing and very students lead. So much learning in all KLAs to achieve this.
Yes, the pandemic has been a game changer for both students and teachers
COVID 19 has forced to some extent the creativity of students to deal with the change. How they organise their home study environment – time, location, equipment etc The changed work environment has forced them to ask these questions of themselves.
I agree Lana. This pandemic has definitely encouraged many of us to explore new ideas, trial innovative approaches to teaching, employ novel methods of instructions and encourage ourselves to think outside the square.
We have been complacent in our educational endeavours and have been shaken out of our academic lull and, gladly, have started to think more critically and creatively. I hope this evolves into a more dynamic change to the existing system and revolutionises the prevailing practices, to give rise to a better and more constructive educational structure.
yes- I had to think differently and change how I thought and did things. need to continue this change. It was interesting to see how the younger students (with parent help) took up the challenge of online learning.
I hadn’t put the link between these two until today and you are right…..everything we’ve had to do over the last few months has required creativity.
Most certainly has but there is still that divide where some manage better than others due to what is on offer/assistance to help.
I did a teaching with technology course last year which sparked me to switch my presentation style from PowerPoint to Sway. This meant that I could update presentations in real time, provide a link to students to follow up after class rather than send an entire presentation or part of a presentation, embed up to 30 videos, include links to other sites and so on. It seemed like such a small change at the time but it’s actually been huge in terms of my ability to provide current information without having to save multiple versions of a presentation.
We all displayed lot of creativity when challenged by COVID situation to teach online. There were number of questions we asked ourselves in finding the ways to engage the class and make the learning interesting.
I could not agree with this statement more. COVID certainly made me be a more creative teacher and I liked the challenge
I also agree with your comments – yes we are looking at new tools and creativity to engage the learners in the classroom.
Love the idea of scope to be creative in what we do ! I love including TED talks and podcasts in my teaching ( instead of just handouts!)
I am keen to try a creative approach over the next term — this may just be the opportunity !
Yes, TED talks are great!
Great way to engage students in relevant media that interests them.
It is sometimes difficult to incorporate this type of creative thinking in classes with time constraints and pressure to teach to tests and assessments. Yet many of our students are in the VET sector because they like the practical but do not feel they are the creative ones, so don’t even want to try. Sad to see such rigid thinking already at this age, and hard to change.
Agree, that fixed mindset is difficult to change
Yes i agree, it’s the mindset of the student, after this training hopefully we will have the skills to adapt our method of delivery to engage them
Yes, it can take time to change a fixed mindset. Not easy
Organisational culture comes from the top. Most employees start new roles really keen to contribute. Money is not the most important reason for them to go to work. But then, they hit the brick wall of indifference. Sometimes it is that ideas always encounter push back. Sometimes it is that ideas mooted are never even responded to. And sometimes, it is simply that the organisation is not interested in using the skills of its employees to innovate or develop better processes. I have encountered this continually in my working life. I wish all organisations would read ” Creativity Inc” by… Read more »
It is very sad to see employee enthusiasm dwindle. We have staff meetings, supposedly a forum where we can brainstorm and “no idea is a bad one”, but it is evident by the end that no ideas are taken, except the manager’s (who runs these meetings). She politely listens and then explains why none of it will work. Most staff just give up and don’t offer suggestions, knowing what the end result is going to be.
I agree ….. staff meetings that you come out from and either no decisions/ actions have occurred or you feel you have not been heard.
Totally agree! Seen it and felt it.
This is definitely disheartening and it makes people give up and not think outside the box, or learn from kneelings.
I always enjoy the kids teaching kids sessions at my children’s school. A wonderful way to engage children in the learning and communication of ideas. Working in the VET sector I teach some software packages and soft skills subjects and have tried to incorporate this same concept. By combining units and assessment tasks I can get students to develop presentations that showcase their knowledge of a subject they are passionate about and at the same time address technical skills that are unknowingly absorbed during the process. The other students stay engaged and retain more information simply through the invested interest… Read more »
Having kids teaching other kids is an eye opener as to the techniques they use to get the message across! Like the teacher shadowing the student, teachers could learn from watching how kids teach.
This is such fun and so rich, Elizabeth. A great way to build on students ability. I like incorporating drama into my teaching — role plays, scenarios and such .. some students ,love it .. some not so much.. but it always creates an impact which I feel is good. All things in small and cohort specific measures !
I was thinking that this teaching staff development training course would be a good tool for my students – to assist in changing their attitude and motivation toward learning
Sometimes I find it difficult to teach creativity when students are ‘ridget’ in their thinking.
Imagine if …..?
Why not ………?
What would you do if ………?
What can we do?
These are great sentence starters however some students struggle to come up with ideas to answer these questions.
I love STEM activities link to the curriculum. I find they help students to critically think and can start to spark creativity in student.
I love the idea of using these questions in a class. I use them myself on a personal level to keep me on my toes. In the classroom, it would be a great prompt to for students, and would get them to engage with the content. No mistakes – just ideas – the brainstorm – always surprised by what comes up!
Perhaps rather than making it so confronting, there are other ways of having them answer these questions themselves. Try small group work, think – pear – share, setting it as a homework task where they can submit electronically through Google classroom or Microsoft forms or a Moodle where there might be a degree of anonymity to the rest of the class. Often students are embarrassed to share their ideas with the class, particularly teenagers (early school leavers) for fear of being laughed at by others or being seen as “too smart.”
STEM is fantastic! I like how it allows students to problem solve and take risks in something they are creating. I used to run a STEM group that was multi aged- it was fantastic to see how well the mixed aged group worked well and that older students were learning from the younger ones!
It’s important to acknowledge that we are all creative in different ways, so how can we value the creativity of all children in our classrooms? Maybe we could ask the students? the questions above would be great prompters for children…Imagine if….why not …what would you do if? ,,,what can we do?..
Totally agreed.
I love the ideas and resources to promote critical and creative thinking from Project Zero http://www.pz.harvard.edu. Many of the tools and strategies can be modified for any age group or learning content.
Thanks Sarah I love these too.
Project Zero is great resource
I’ve never considered myself as particularly creative because I’m not naturally gifted nor I have I been taught in the arts or music. Although I do believe we’re all creative, I see my son now feels the same, unimaginative, easily bored etc. I do think a lot of it has to do with our various temparements though. Definitely moving away from the traditional classroom setting as much as possible would definitely help.
Hey Carinya, I thought I wasn’t creative as well. However, one lecturer at uni said something that has always stuck in my head. “Intelligence is field specific” as is creativeness.
Creativity is restricted by syllabus. There have been so many mornings when my class and I gone off on a tangent about something which is interesting and important, but I’ve had to rein it back in because we are ‘wasting time’ on getting through the curriculum content.
Sometimes I find it hard to program in a creative way especially if the content doesn’t lend itself to be creative.
Hey Elizabeth, I will guarantee some student or students will have taken something valuable and remember that ‘Wasting time’ session to this day.
Agree, every learning opportunity provides something valuable.
That’s true, time is scarce.
I think it’s important to think about What can we do…….? – What resources do we have – how can we better use them. I liked the idea of a leader/manager/teacher be a student in the organisation. I believe many of our managers would be shocked at the frustration our students have with accessing information and being able to complete any forms ‘themselves’ online – interesting????
Absolutely, so much could be changed if we just took a moment to stop and think, what can we do/change with what we have. Often it doesn’t need to be anything drastic to have significant impact.
I often tell my students to be problem solvers not part of the problem. This question is a great way to start this line of thinking.
This is a fab idea! It gives the student ownership and accountability. And the satisfaction of achievement.
What if all content in VET training could be contextualised to meet the specific needs of your cohort of students, instead of a ‘one size fits all’ approach. Students would feel that they had more ownership of their course and it would better meet the needs of local industry.
Contextualisation is key….why do i want to know how to build a kitchen in a house North Sydney when i live in a caravan in Bourke???
What if…. once a month, I gather my immediate colleagues and we have a brainstorming session about what is working for them right now and what are they doing that is new?
Great idea – the staff would be surprised at one they can come up with ‘that’s out of the box’ for their usual work day to day tasks – it could be exciting times ahead.
Love this idea.. and the possible exponential growth and support possible through it !
What if on Thursday, I facilitated my whole WHS unit outdoors!
Yes that would be great – it would be realistic and real life related – activities would be more actively participated in as students could see what can go wrong and how to avoid the hazard.
Yes! That’s what I said, get out of the traditional classroom setting as much as possible/practical!
Changing the physical classroom can have a big impact on motivation and engagement
Would be fabulous, but could you do it everyday?,
Imagine if….we changed the outcomes to be ones to directly rewarded creativity.
This is so true. Critical and creative thinking are part of the general capabilities in the Australian Curriculum, but it’s hard to see them in the curriculum outcomes
At my level of teaching at vocational level there does not seem to any room for creativity. In fact we are instructed from time to time that this is the standardised assessments with time frames and the marking scheme. There are lots teachers out there who would like to introduce new ideas, new ways of learning but the psychological encourage from the top seems to be missing.
Yes, I agree! In vocational teaching, students must meet the outcomes to be deemed competent, and to meet those outcomes they must adhere to the training package, so no room for creativity.
I use philosophical thinking in speaking and listening lessons, usually based on a children’s picture book: eg Miss Lily’s Fabulous Pink Feather Boa. Generates questions from students very effectively. Is it okay to lie?