What should it mean to be creative in our classrooms?

If you have read more than one of my previous blog posts, first, thank you.  Second, you may have noticed that my focus has been to break down each of the four “Cs” in a way that might help us connect it to our classrooms.  This blog will be about creativity, which I believe is the most misunderstood of all the 4Cs.  So often I hear the word “creativity” used to describe students and adults who engage in artistic endeavors.  Of course, this is one definition.  But it is so limited.  In an effort to better understand the confusion, I went to look at a few of the definitions for creativity:

• Google’s pop-up definition:  
• the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.
• Dictionary.com definition:
• the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination
• Webster’s Dictionary definition:
• the ability to make new things or think of new ideas

Oh, Google, I love you.  But in your effort to be helpful, your additional information in the definition created a limitation and a distraction from one of the most important components.  Notice in the other two definitions, highlighted is the idea of creating new ideas or new things and absent is the highlight of artwork.

EdLeader21, drawing from the P21 definition, includes the following basic domains for creativity:  Think Creatively, Work Creatively with Others, Demonstrate Courage to Explore, and Implement Innovations.  Further guidance shows even more emphasis on the connection between creativity and critical thinking.  

• Takes an original, unique, and imaginative approach to idea generation; offers ideas that are broad in their diversity.
• Sorts, arranges, categorizes, and prioritizes ideas in ways that turn options into creatively productive outcomes.
• Uses convergent thinking skills and/or design thinking strategies as appropriate to develop creative ideas into tangible solutions or contributions.

A few years ago I converted my classroom to a project-based classroom.  As a quick recap, in a project-based classroom students are presented with a problem and are asked to create a solution.  Through the process, information is discovered by the students or content is presented by the teacher as needed.  I believed this was a much more authentic style of teaching and learning.  However, my students did not appreciate it in the beginning.  I heard the statement, “I don’t understand.  Just tell me what you want me to do,” on a nearly daily basis.  I believed I was freeing them to do what they wanted.  I didn’t have a template for the “right” answer and my logic was that there were now 100 different solutions to the problem presented.  This should be easier and/or more fun.

This was not how my students saw this.  Because I hadn’t spent enough time helping them develop their ability to engage in creative thought, they felt lost and reverted back to the comfort of seeking the one right answer.  This video by Fable Vision is a great illustration of the difference between following directions and engaging in creative thought.

In our classrooms, we need to start by giving our students permission to explore new ideas.  Yes, there is a destination, or learning target, in mind.  However, there are so many pathways to that learning target.  But we cannot stop there.  We must also intentionally develop the skill of creativity in our students.  But how?

Let’s start with our feedback and formative assessment strategies.  If we continually engage in a conversation with our students as they work through problems and solutions, we will slowly remove the idea that there is one right answer.  Instead of a single opportunity to stamp a student product with a final grade, build in a feedback loop of present, reflect, and adjust.  By the end of the process, the grading process is a much more manageable task because you already know exactly what each student created and what they were thinking along the way.

As teachers and school leaders, this clarification of the creativity component of the 4Cs starts with us.  We must strive to understand, model, and focus on the creative thought of our own process.  Then we can model and focus on the creative thought of our students.