HOW TO USE CREATIVITY IN THE CLASSROOM?

   Hi everyone! Today, I would like to mention about creativity in class. As a research topic, I decided to talk about creativity itself because all of us know that creativity is an integral part of 21st century skills. Also, exposing it in our classroom is both important and necessary to solve the problems occuring. 

   We always hear those kind of sayings like " This person is so creative. He / she knows how to use his / her mind. That's why, he / she solves the problems immediately. ". That is true, though. There are creative people around us. If we give examples that most of us know, we can say Edison was one of those creative people as you know he invented the electric bulb. Picasso was also one of those creative and smart people because you know that he was a very successful painter. He had his unique paintings. At the same time, he was a sculptor. How about Einstein? He was a very smart man as well. He was a very successful physicist. That is why, the Nobel Prize in Physics 1921 was awarded to Albert Einstein for his services to theoretical physics.

   You see we can give a lot of examples. Why were those famous people so creative? The answer is very obvious. It's because of the fact that they looked at the problems and events from a different perspective. Namely, they thought outside the box. 

   After all these examples, it's time to talk about creativity itself for our classroom life now! We, teachers, can develop creativity in class but how can we do that? As an answer to this question, Robert Fischer says in an article from the Al Temple magazine that : " What promotes creativity is a questioning classroom. If your classroom values diversity, then your classroom atmosphere will be suitable to improve creativity ". 

   As a teacher candidate, I can suggest you to ask your students " unusual and challenging questions ". You can be sure your unusual and challenging questions will make your students think for a minute. By doing like that, you can make new connections which represent ideas and opinions in different ways and evaluate those new ideas and actions critically.  In this case, a question comes to my mind once again. What are those different ways and how can we reach those different ways? They are ;

• VISUALLY
• PHYSICALLY
• VERBALLY

   Let's give an example then!

E.g. Our topic is " shapes ". 

         We can make shapes by showing, drawing or painting. ( VISUALLY )

         We can describe a shape in words. ( VERBALLY )

         We can even make shapes of our fingers, arms and hands. ( PHYSICALLY )

   I can also give some simple strategies. Let's have a look at two of them! 

• You can expand the possibilities. For example ; " Is there another way for us to do this? " Posting such an engrossing question will make your students think of the subject of your class for a minute. 
• The imagination for role plays, dialogues and other projects will be useful for your pupils. As long as your students' imagination improves with the help of role plays, short stories, dialogues and so on, you can create a creative environment in your class easily because as your students imagine, they will be able to find new ideas. They will be able to find new solutions to problems. They will even create their own stories, dialogues, poems etc.

   On the other hand, creativity means " taking risks ". If you try to correct your students all of the time, they may not try out new ideas. In this case, I suggest you not to correct your students all of the time. If you do that, they will be unwilling to create new ideas and projects after a certain period of time. So, do not correct and restrict them at all times please! 

Note : Instead of that, let them know that trying new ideas, asking questions and making mistakes are a natural part of learning!

   Let me give you some helpful suggesstions fınally!

1. Ask logical and engrossing questions as much as possible!
2. Help your students so as to see what is good about their work, what could be improved upon, how can this be even better!
3. Help your pupils to work at their highest level!
4. Our world is changing rapidly. So, " What do we need to invent in order to make our lives better? " Such a question will make them consider and figure out new ideas.
5. Ask a question like " How can you solve the problems themselves? What do you need to do if you would like to overcome a difficult situation like global warming or noise pollution? " !
6. Never forget that teaching your students how to use what they know in new ways will help them become the creative thinkers of the future!