Strategies which I will use to develop Creativity

among students
Creativity requires a safe environment in which to play, exercise autonomy and take risks. As
teachers, it’s up to us to establish this kind of supportive classroom

 Foster a Question-Friendly Environment: This classroom scenario is all too common:

a student keeps asking questions, the teacher and classmates get annoyed, the student gets
cut off. Instead of dissuading him or her to stop questioning, reward the questioning and
promote an environment of openness so more students feel less afraid to speak up.
Encouraging this type of behavior might require more teaching time, but it will nurture a
childlike sense of wonder as your students learn and grow.
 Practice Generating More Ideas: Creativity is a muscle that grows stronger and more
efficient the more we exercise generating ideas. The more ideas we come up with, the
more original the ideas generated will be. The more ideas we come up with, the greater
our chances of producing a work of success.
 Encourage New Skills
 Model Creativity in the Classroom: To help students unleash more creativity, led by
example, and openly share your original ideas with the class. Model what it looks like to
be open to feedback and bounce ideas off of one another
 Use the Jigsaw Classroom Method: When assigning classroom activities, allow
students to do some work on their own. Doing individual work not only prevents
groupthink, but it also facilitates student participation and helps them value their peers’
strengths more.
 Create a compassionate, accepting environment. Since being creative requires going
out on a limb, students need to trust that they can make a mistake in front of you.
 Be present with students’ ideas. Have more off-the-cuff conversations with students.
Find out what their passion areas are, and build those into your approach.
 Encourage autonomy. Don’t let yourself be the arbiter of what “good” work is. Instead,
give feedback that encourages self-assessment and independence.
 Re-word assignments to promote creative thinking. Try adding words like “create,”
“design,” “invent,” “imagine,” “suppose,” to your assignments. Adding instructions such
as “Come up with as many solutions as possible” or “Be creative!” can increase creative
performance.
 Give students direct feedback on their creativity. Lots of students don’t realize how
creative they are, or get feedback to help them incorporate “creative” into their self-
concept. Explore the idea of “creative competence” alongside the traditional academic
competencies in literacy and mathematics. When we evaluate something, we value it!
Creating a self-concept that includes creativity.
 Help students know when it’s appropriate to be creative. For example, help them see
the contexts when creativity is more or less helpful in a low-stakes group project versus a
standardized state assessment.
 Use creative instructional strategies, models, and methods as much as possible in a
variety of domains. Model creativity for students in the way you speak and the way you
act. For example, you could say “I thought about 3 ways to introduce this lesson. I’m
 going to show you 2, then you come up with a third,” or show them a personal project
you’ve been working on.
 Make it clear to students that creativity requires effort. The creative process is not a
simple “aha” that strikes without warning. Tell students that truly creative people must
imagine, and struggle, and re-imagine while working on a project.
 Explicitly discuss creativity myths and stereotypes with your students. Help them
understand what creativity is and is not, and how to recognize it in the world around
them.
 Experiment with activities where students can practice creative thinking. Many
teachers have suggestions for creative activities they’ve tried as warm-ups or quick
breaks. “Doodles,” or visual riddles, are simple line drawings that can have a wide range
of different interpretations, and can stimulate divergent thinking. “Quick writes” and
“free writes” can help students to let go of their internal censor. As part of reviewing
material, you could have kids use concept cartooning, or draw/design/paint visual
metaphors to capture the essence of complex academic information.

As role models of people’s most formative years, teachers have a strong influence in
encouraging or suppressing creativity. This responsibility doesn’t solely fall on the
education system, but it’s worth remembering that almost 100% of students show strong
creative abilities before becoming students.
Strategies which I will use to develop team work
among students
To make group work more palatable and more successful for your students, you must first
acknowledge that group dynamics are important. Then you should provide your students with
tools to establish and improve how they work together

 Design a group project in which the students work in phases

For instance, starting with a project idea, then moving to project development, followed by
preliminary project outcomes and requiring students to “check-in” at each phase before
delivering the final project. Not only does this help ensure that the groups won’t wait until the
final deadline is upon them to work on their project, but it also enables the instructor to touch
base with every group and to offer guidance, support, or mediation, if needed, during the process.

 Develop an element of the project that allows group members to make their own
choices.

In my teaching, I usually give students the freedom to choose a topic area that interests them
within the scope of the course or that is the most relevant or meaningful to the team members.
This decision helps create a sense of ownership and enhances the students’ level of engagement,
both of which are crucial for working on large group projects, and especially for those requiring
students to carry out the work in phases throughout the term

 Within a group project, include a component requiring individual students to

submit non-onerous individual work.

One important matter to keep in mind when implementing the reflection component is the need
to ensure that we, as instructors, clarify what we mean by “reflection” in order to minimize a
potential mismatch between our expectations about reflective learning and our students’
understanding of what it entails. What we’d like our students to do is to engage in critical
reflection – that is, thinking that involves different levels of reflection, rather than simply
restating or describing what they did, or what I have called “non-transformative” reflection. The
goal is to encourage students to move beyond simply recalling what they did either individually
or together within the group and instead to reflect on their personal discoveries about their own
learning and the process of working collaboratively. The project could include a personal
reflection piece, in which each member individually reflects on the process and product of his or
her own portion of the group work. Apart from the pedagogical benefits of learners engaging in
individual reflection, this task or component will inevitably provide insights about the division-
of-labor issue commonly raised by instructors and students alike. Both learners and the instructor
can glean a great many insights from those individual reflection pieces, which instructors can
take into account when assigning either project or final grades, depending on their individual
approach to assessment. This process also enables students to gain greater understanding about
what worked well and what could be improved.
  Prepare students to expect the unexpected.

Rather than directing their every concern to you, students should be encouraged to become
problem solvers not only by identifying problems, but also by developing solutions and choosing
and evaluating the best ones so as to balance personal learning with the group’s project goals. At
the same time, you’ll want to create and maintain a culture of openness that lets your students
know you are readily available to provide guidance when groups reach an impasse. In any group
work situation, it is always possible that compatibility issues will arise between or among team
members, as well as conflicts or problems with unequal distribution of work. The pre-group-
project considerations described above, however, can easily be implemented to help minimize
the likelihood that conflicts will develop that could negatively affect learning and outcomes.
They may also help instructors and students in dealing with the specific common challenge of
students who are not pulling their own weight in group collaborations, while maximizing the
benefits of a group project not only in terms of content, but more, if not most, importantly, in
learning how to work with others a valuable life lesson that’s best learned through experience.

 Devote a segment (30 minutes or so) during class before all group projects begin to
implement two important steps.

Step 1: Get to know each other. The first 10 minutes can be a period for all students to find and
meet with the group members they have either been assigned or have self-selected. They should
then spend some time exploring each other’s communication styles, which may arise from
personal or culture-related differences, to help them better anticipate different communication
preferences and approaches to group work. This time can be spent sharing responses to guiding
questions or statements, such as “I would describe my communication style/personality as …,”
“I tend/prefer to deal with conflict by …,” and “I would appreciate my team members doing/not
doing ….” Guiding questions are especially helpful for groups that are culturally and
linguistically diverse.

Step 2: Establish group norms. During the next 20 minutes, encourage each group to negotiate
its own group norms derived from Step 1 and ground rules. During this time, members of each
team should elucidate, negotiate, and establish roles, responsibilities, and expectations. This
process makes explicit the specific contributions and ownership of responsibilities that each team
member negotiates and agrees to.

 Call them teams, not groups. A group consists of people who coordinate their
individual efforts. A team, however, has a common purpose and a shared responsibility
for success. And although it may sound corny, having a team name is the first step to
thinking as a team.
 Nurture team relationships from the start. Asking students to come up with a team
name is a simple team-building activity. By creating a name for themselves, they will
start developing a group identity. It’s also easy to ask new student teams to answer
 several questions about themselves. To assist students who may not be comfortable
speaking up among new friends, teams can gather around a whiteboard or flip chart and
write out their answers.
 Provide opportunities for teams to reflect on their dynamics and decide on ways to
improve. A midterm “learning cycle” requires students to ponder the success of the team
and its individual members thus far in the course and to consider changes that may
improve their outcomes. Students may be reluctant to complete this assignment. After all,
in a matter of weeks, the course will be over and team members will move on. But why
should they just wait it out when it could be better? Ask teams to answer three questions:
What does your team do well? What could your team improve upon? What changes will
you implement to improve your team processes? One team in my class realized that if
they didn't immediately recognize how to solve a problem, they tended to sit and stare at
it, losing valuable class time. They decided to have the team leader for that assignment
ask each member what they were thinking while reading the question and why they were
confused. The goal was to determine if everyone had the same difficulty, if team
members had different interpretations of the question or if one person remembered
something from the notes that others didn’t.
 Require teams to set expectations for their own behavior .Don’t tell teams what type
of behavior is expected let them decide for themselves. When teams establish their own
ground rules and processes for conflict resolution they address key components of
successful teamwork such as positive interdependence, individual accountability and
interpersonal skills. Ground rules are an important tool for helping people function
together as a team by recognizing that, in addition to getting the work done, how the
work gets done is key. Ground rules reflect what is important to the members of the team
about how they work together and show respect for each other. They help teams hold
members accountable for their actions -- after all, each team member agreed to the rules
at the start of the term.