Sparking Creativity

Book Review: Sparking Student Creativity

by Patti Drapeau

Concerned that creativity is lacking in many classrooms, Patti Drapeau offers Sparking Student Creativity as a practical resource guide for teachers to promote its use. 

She begins by outlining her Creativity Road Map, which is a useful framework for teachers wishing to spark creativity in their students.  Its foundation is a safe classroom environment in which “The teacher supports creativity by encouraging unusual ideas and provides positive feedback”. (15)   The framework consists of 4 parts:

• Use of verbs and phrases that spark creative thinking( ie. brainstorm, predict, create, improve);
• Focus on creative teaching strategies such as brainstorming, visualizing, and symbolizing;
• Use of the step-by-step problem solving process; and,
• Development of a variety of responses and products (ie. written, oral, visual, kinesthetic).

Chapter 2 focuses on the teacher’s role in nurturing student creativity.  A teacher should use novel approaches, such as games, props, music, etc., to intrigue and engage students.  As well, students should be provided with choice in their learning opportunities and a sense of community in the classroom.  A teacher should also set realistic goals and timelines for students and scaffold supports (including coaching) when required.

Chapter 2 also outlines Paul Torrance’s four creative thinking skills:

• Fluency – The ability to generate many ideas;
• Flexibility - The ability to generate different kinds of ideas;
• Originality – The ability to generate unusual, one-of-a-kind ideas;
• Elaboration – The ability to extend ideas.

Fluency can be promoted through brainstorming.  A strategy for developing flexibility in students is categorization.  Elaboration can be introduced by “encouraging students to piggyback on each other’s ideas”. (24)  As well, real-world examples of elaboration can be used, such as building additions, movie sequels, and scientific theories.

Torrance’s four creative thinking skills

A great feature of this book is that many Grab and Go teaching strategies for developing student creativity are provided.  For instance, a Starter Phrase such as “New ways to do something” will spark fluency, while originality can be targeted with Starter Phrases like “Invent a …” and “Devise your own way to …”. (28-29)  Reverse Brainstorming is a strategy that promotes fluency and flexibility. Students are instructed to come up with as many ideas as they can about the opposite of what they want.  For example, “Increase pollution instead of reducing pollution.” (31)  My favourite Grab and Go idea from Chapter 2 is Lost & Found, whereby students pretend to discover lost information, such as a missing chapter from a novel they are studying, that provides elaboration.

In Chapter 3, the author looks at the intersection between learning goals and creativity.  A “back door” way she recommends of using creativity to aid students in meeting standards is to alter the standard by either replacing the verb with a creative thinking verb or modifying or adding adjectives and adverbs that describe the degree to which the student is required to respond. 

Thinking Verbs

Four conditions that allow imagination to flourish are identified in Chapter 4:

•       Provide challenges – especially real-world ones;
•       Provide foundational knowledge;
•       Create a safe risk taking environment; and,
•     Provide motivation by attaching value to learning opportunities, giving the right level of challenge, and ensuring students have the necessary learning tools.

Several Grab and Go strategies for stimulating students’ imaginations are provided. One is the KWW chart in which students list what the know, what they want to know, and what they wonder about.  Another fun strategy is for students to write Back to The Future letters, whereby they respond to a letter from the past (ie. during the Industrial Revolution) and “write individual responses about what was, what is now, and what they think will be.” (85)  Avatars, as the term suggests, has students create a character of themselves and put themselves in the subject they are studying.

Chapter 5 outlines strategies for encouraging innovation.  First, students need to be made aware of the steps in the innovation process – brainstorm, evaluate ideas and needs, identify enablers and disablers, and reflect.  Students should also be given a physical space to innovate – a think tank area. (97)  Another strategy is for the teacher to provide real examples of how someone took an idea and turned it into an innovation.

Heinz History Center Innovation Station

Nervous Nellie is an interesting Grab and Go strategy for promoting innovation.  Students brainstorm several different worries about a situation and then come up with a variety of ways to alleviate these worries.  Creating Consensus involves folding a sheet of paper into 8 squares and having a student draw a picture of his/her innovation in the first square.  In the second square, after discussion and questions from other students, the student writes the first step that is needed to enable the innovation.  Then, in turn, other students add what each of them thinks should be the next steps to complete the innovation process.

Chapter 6 explores strategies for helping students be successful in creative problem solving. To be effective in problem solving, students must be encouraged to suspend judgement and must be able to detect bias.  The classroom environment should expose them to the steps in the problem solving process and have visual displays of these steps. 

The first step in the problem solving process is for students “to list what they do not know, what they think they know, and what they definitely know about the problem.” (123)  Then they research all aspects of the problem to determine what is the “overarching problem” (125) Next, students brainstorm as many solutions as possible to the problem. They then establish criteria for determining the best of these solutions.  After pausing for reflection, students determine the resources, methods, and skills required for successful implementation of the solution and consider the context.    

In Chapter 7, a few suggestions regarding creativity and assessment are given.  Students should be explicitly made aware of learning goals and success criteria related to creativity.  As well, the shared vocabulary around creativity should be used in the rubrics.  Lastly, when a teacher assesses student work, he/she needs to distinguish between mistakes – trivial slip ups that the student can easily fix – and errors – more serious wrong answers or misapplications that reflect a lack of knowledge and require remediation.