Teaching WITH Creativity

As teachers become more familiar with developing creative thinking skills in their students, they begin to automatically imbed these skills into their lessons. Creativity becomes part of the daily life in the classroom.

Teachers learn to respond, to take advantage of the teaching moment when students respond “creatively” to an idea, problem, or question. They encourage and nurture the creative process. They ask questions to help their students think more deeply about their ideas. They provide opportunities for students to think about multiple answers or solutions to the things they are discussing and they ask students to add to their ideas or the ideas of their classmates. This is the ultimate goal or desire.  In essence, what we want students to know at an intrinsic level is not just what the skills are, but most importantly, how to use these skills in their daily lives.

Teaching “with” creativity then, means that both teacher and student take advantage of the opportunities to “be” creative in the responses they give, the answers they provide as well as in the types of products they produce.