creativity in teaching

CITIZENSHIP LOCALLY AND GLOBALLY

Comenius partner meeting Vienna, Austria 2011

Project partners: AT – BG – DK – ES – GB – IT – LE – NO – PL – SLO

Creativity in teaching “We understand creativity as being abilities, powers and talents that

we try to grasp with more complex or partly less exact terms such as intuition, imagination, inspiration, ingenuity, inventiveness, originality

or (in a more academic formulation) as productive thinking, problem-

solving and creative fantasy. “ (Heinelt 1974, S.7)




Creativity in teaching, from

Vestsiden ungdomsskole A. To encourage creativity among the

students teachers should give the pupils a

variety of learning strategies which they can choose from. These should include:

auditive skills, tactile skills, visual skills and oral skills. See under.

B. Learning strategies

Loop. Answer and new question on notes to each pupil. The teachers starts with a question and the pupil that has the answer to that question

gives first the answer and follows up with a new question. The person who has the final answer will be the person who started.

2- columns. Keywords on the left, explanations on the right. True or false. Write true and false on the blackboard. The teacher or a

pupil make a statement and the first pupil to touch the true or false sign

wins a point. Circle of knowledge. Ten pupils in circle, each one gives a factual

sentence about a topic. If you say pass, you are out. The winner is the last pupil who can say a factual sentence.

Taking away keywords from a text. Write a text on the blackboard (foreign language), read through, and remove the verbs, then the nouns

and the adjectives. You are then left with a sceleton of a text. The pupils then have to rebuild the text. They can

work on this excerice in pairs orally, then fill in the blanks on the board.

Circle. The teacher start a story and then the pupils continue the story sentence by

sentence or word by word. Picture notes. Read, draw, explain. Pupils

read a text and draw simple drawings or

symbols which will remind them of the content. Pupils then have to retell the text from the pictures.

Post its. Post difficult words from a text on the board. Go through orally. Reflection note. Look at a headline or a picture. The pupils write down

what they think they are going to read about. After reading they write what they have learned.




Creativity in Sabro-Korsvejskolen, Denmark

We have made a survey of the creativity in teaching at our school. Questions

asked:

1. Do you use Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences*)

in your teaching?

2. Do you use Learning styles **) in your

teaching?

3. Cooperative Learning? ***)

4. Do you lack knowledge about creative

teaching?

5. The Minister of Education proposes a subject called innovation? Do you

think that could be useful?

6. The fear of making mistakes keeps lots of students from being creative.

Do you have any suggestions to avoid that?

7. Ideas of working creatively with language classes, sciences, literature,

math?

The result was that 85 % of the teachers use MI, 72% use Learning Styles, 50% use Cooperative Learning. 35% feel that they lack knowledge about

Creativity in Teaching, and 50 % would like a course on the subject. As for having a subject in school called Innovation, 72% thinks it would be a good

idea, 20% not a good idea As for avoiding that the fear of making mistakes keeps pupils from daring to

use their fantasy, several teachers suggest that a culture of allowing mistakes

and joking with them could be useful. If, f.ex. the teacher isn’t afraid of making mistakes himself. Talking about the usefulness of making mistakes in

order to develop and invent.

Ideas in teaching languages: “Let the pupils use their own words, and role plays”

“Meeting foreign students” “Cooperative learning”

Ideas in teaching Math:




“More experimenting” “Loose the book, get into the real world”

Ideas in teaching Sciences: “Leave the class room, get into nature” “Work across

subjects and project-oriented”

Ideas in teaching Literature: “Follow the energy in the class-room” “ Story-

line writing and working with projects” *)Howard Gardner's eight intelligences are: Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Musical, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Spatial Intelligence, Interpersonal Intelligence, Intrapersonal Intelligence, Naturalist. Howard Gardner viewed intelligence as 'the capacity to solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in one or more cultural setting' (Gardner & Hatch, 1989). Howard Gardner initially formulated a list of seven intelligences. The first two have been typically valued in schools; the next three are usually associated with the arts; and the final three are what Howard Gardner called 'personal intelligences' **) Dunn and Dunn They involve educating methods, particular to an individual that are presumed to allow that individual to learn best. Most people prefer an identifiable method of interacting with, taking in, and processing stimuli or information. Based on this concept, the idea of individualized "learning styles" originated in the 1970s. ***) Cooperative learning is an approach to organizing classroom activities into academic and social learning experiences. Students must work in groups to complete tasks collectively. Unlike individual learning, students learning cooperatively capitalize on one another’s resources and skills (asking one another for information, evaluating one another’s ideas, monitoring one another’s work.




Creativity in Slovenia,

Gimnazija Jurija Vege Idrija

The school emphasizes modern methods of teaching such as:

- team teaching (teachers of different or the same subject prepare a lesson together

and do it) - crosscurricular teaching (teachers of different subjects present one

theme together in a classroom) - project days (students go out of school and work on a project)

- six hats (http://www.debonoforschools.com/asp/six_hats.asp, http://sixthinkinghats.com/)

- debate (certain themes are discussed following the rules of a debate) - cooperative learning

- learning through doing (students make leaflets where they present data discovered and analysed

during project days or typical

Slovene recipes in different foreign languages) - role plays

- drama in classroom

Teachers encourage creativity among students and give them a lot of possibilities to be creative both during classes and also

during extra-curricular activities in the afternoon.

- art in connection with other subjects (Slovene, biology,

sociology, sports, informational tehnology …) http://likovniki.blogspot.com/

- foreign languages (illustration of poems, drawing of idioms, sketches of a scene from a text, short movies in dvolver, short 11 words

poems called Elfchen, writing own end of a story or a fairy tale, free stories, video project (students wrote a script, acted the scene, filmed and edited it)

- natural science (laboratory experiments in factory laboratories, this year students will prepare a laboratory experiment using English literature

and with the help of an English teacher and they will carry it out themselves, students make leaflets where they present data discovered and

analysed during project days, role play of chemical elements, biology in connection with art - a cell, chemistry in connection with art - an atom)

http://www.debonoforschools.com/asp/six_hats.asp

http://sixthinkinghats.com/

http://likovniki.blogspot.com/




- Slovene (role plays, drama in classroom, cartoon of a text, filming an add, dance - O. Wilde:

Saloma, debate, creative writing, improvisation, presentations of a book in form of a debate, TV-

show, drama)




Creativity at AHS

Heustadelgasse, Vienna How do we encourage creativity in our

school?

In general, there is still a high potential to

increase creativity in Austrian schools by, for example, introducing creative subjects such as obligatory drama classes rather

than having them as extracurricular activity. The emphasis in schools still lies in academic training, which not always encourages creativity. Students, for

example, have to choose between art and music in the last two years of high school.

Creative subjects

Drama (extracurricular activity) Art and music lessons

Choir (extracurricular activity)

Open learning

Open learning is a common method used by many of our colleagues, especially in the first four years at our

school. This provides opportunities to satisfy different learning styles.

Learn-coaching

There are extra learn-coaching classes for students to find their preferred learning style and to help them organize themselves better, which in turn leads

to more creativity on part of the students.

Project classes As from this school year we have introduced project classes to boost creativity

among students, at the same time increasing learner independence and cross-curricular learning. It is a first attempt at opening teaching and learning styles

by not being confined to one particular classroom, one particular group of

students and one particular subject or teacher. In the long run students should be able to organize their own learning according to their individual abilities,

obviously encouraging creativity, motivation, team spirit and general interest in learning. We are now at the beginning of this project and are looking

forward to its development.




How do we implement creativity in our teaching? The following methods are used in the implementation of creativity in our

teaching: Drama in education

Creative writing in language classes

Role plays Leave the classroom, getting into nature

Projects Project weeks outside school

Having students choose their own topic and supporting them in their work process

Experiments in science classes Making films and videos for you tube

Using new media Group- and pair work




Independent High School SPLOT, Nowy Sącz, Poland 1/We have interviewed all our school

teachers to learn more about creativity in our teaching. We have agreed that all of us

concentrate on satisfying individual

students’ needs remembering about different learning styles and cooperative

teaching. Below we want to present some creative ideas pointed out by our

colleagues:

-Maths – the teachers introduce

games they have invented themselves. Such activities help the students understand the role of Maths in

everyday life

Science – the teachers introduce team teaching to show the students that different phenomena are

interdependent

Languages – the teachers introduce multimedia presentations on lessons,

what lets our students use authentic language. At this point it is important to mention that Poland is a monolingual country and the students are not

exposed to foreign languages in their everyday life situations

Culture - The Tower of Babel project is an interesting example of teaching about the similarities among different cultures

Sports – the teachers begin their school year with a video analysis of the

musculoskeletal system of professional sportsmen and our students

2/ During our staff meeting we managed to form a list of activities which prove creativity of our students. Apart from the common interaction patterns such as

a pair work, a small- group work, our students have a chance to present their

creativity in other ways:

-Village is a programme in which students build a real-life model village using lots of different materials – paper, paints, clay etc. This project

allows the students to build a place into which they insert various institutions. Students are a kind of architects this way.




-On Science lessons students are allowed to invent experiments individually or in small groups

- On Language lessons students make projects on culture of English/ German speaking countries in

forms of posters and drama invented by the students

themselves - Being a part of the school community students

create a script for a school performance, they publish a school monthly paper

- Public Achievement is a programme engaging a group of students

who go through the process of brainstorming, action plan making and devoting a lot of their precious time to the voluntary work for the local

community. They either physically change for better different aspects of other people’s life or at raise awareness among the local community

members.




Creativity in Wales We believe that encouraging creativity in children

is an extremely important part of teaching. Getting the children to think, make decisions and have a

go at things from an early age means that they

can develop their own personalities, talents and imagination.

Between the ages of 3 and 7 children are

taught in the Foundation Phase. Creativity is an everyday part of the Foundation Phase Curriculum. Children are encouraged to use their imagination

in role play, junk modeling, art, construction and so on. The emphasis is on letting the children explore different ways of learning. They have access to

pens, paints, scissors, paper and glue so that they can be independent and choose what they think they need.

Between the ages of 7 and 11 children have regular art and music

lessons. They look at different artists and also have many opportunities to create their own artwork. Recently one class has been making animal statues

decorated in a style inspired by Gaudi as part of their work on Europe. During

music lessons children are given the opportunity to compose in groups and perform for their class or another class. Children who

have instrument lessons in school or outside school are encouraged to perform for the school in

assemblies.

In language lessons (both Welsh and English) children have the opportunity to read and write

poetry and stories. They also take part in drama activities. Children are given some freedom to choose

their own way of expressing themselves. At the start of every new class theme, children are asked what they would like to discover

and these questions are then investigated during the work on the theme.

Creativity is valued and any successes achieved with creative work are

celebrated e.g. winning an art competition is praised in assembly and work is displayed.

Teaching is flexible and responds to the interests and needs of the children. Children are given many opportunities to be creative. We do not rely

on lots of worksheets and textbooks. Instead children are given the opportunity to play an active part in lessons. They have to think and have the

opportunity to take part in a range of activities.




Recently in Wales we have been encouraged to teach thinking skills in

the classroom. This involves getting the children to think about their work in a different, creative way,

using strategies such as diamond ranking (when

children have to rank things in order of importance), whole and part (when children have to

consider what something would be like without a part of it e.g. a school without a head teacher) and

Fishbone Diagrams (when children have to think about cause and effect e.g. if I am nasty to my

friends my friend won’t want to play with me which means that I will be sad). This creative thinking can be applied to a range of activities e.g. story writing,

and can be more successful because the children have really thought about their work.




Riga Secondary School N13

Encouraging the creativity among

students and

Implementation creativity in lessons

in our school

Development of creative abilities of students in

our school is carried out in the classroom as well as after school. Depending on the desires and abilities of students they have a

choice of classes: music, chess, drama club, math club, visual arts, home economics, dance, etc.

We live in the modern society, which has the tendency to change quickly and

these changes influence the learning method at school. A few years ago teachers often used the passive method of teaching.

This method of interaction between students and teachers provides the teacher is the principal manager of the lesson, but the students play the role of passive

subject to the directives of the teacher. This method does not allow students to

demonstrate their abilities.

Now the democratic society requires people who can think creatively, be brave enough to solve the problems by themselves. The teachers

of our school are sure that it is very important to give students possibilities to express their point of view, to use

their experience, to demonstrate their skills in analyzing, making conclusions, to express their thoughts competently.

So the teachers of our school use the interactive method of presenting new material.

Interactive method is a form of interaction between

students and teachers, in which teacher and students interact with each other during the lesson and the students are not passive listeners but active

participants of the lesson. In an interactive lesson a teacher and students work

on equal terms, this lesson involves democratic style of communication. The students talk to each other in the lesson, argue with each other and as a result

come to the right decision on their own. The teacher only directs the activities of students the goal of the lesson. For realization of this conception it is

necessary: Rather high level of professional competence of a teacher;

His/her readiness to master the variety of study methods applied during the lesson activities.




The teachers, task is to create friendly atmosphere during the lesson, to be tolerant to the opinions of students, to stimulate students to express their

opinions. There are main principles when planning and organizing activities during the interactive lesson. The teachers of our school applied various

interactive methods of teaching during the lesson such as:

Creative tasks and experiments; Discussions;

Educational games; Competition;

Projects; Role-plays;

PP presentations; Brain- storms;

Lab works Collecting information through the Internet and classification of it.

The interactive lesson consists of several important stages.

The Interactive Lesson’s Structure using our teachers in their work

Lesson’s stages Stage’s time

Motivation No more than 5% of the lesson’s

time

Formulation of learning outcomes About 5% of the lesson’s time

Obtain the necessary information About 10% of the lesson’s time

Execution of interactive tasks the

main stage of the lesson

About 60% of the lesson’s time

Introspection of knowledge

received by students (Self- evaluation)

About 20% of the lesson’s time

One of the most important stages is introspection of knowledge received by students. At this stage the students examine their new knowledge, how they

managed to use their previous experience, their point of view, to demonstrate their skills in

analyzing and making conclusions.

Preparing the creative tasks takes the biggest part of time in preparation for the lesson.

However, the teachers of our school successfully cope with this problem. For example:

In Maths lessons when the students study symmetry they are asked to recall the symmetrical objects by nature.




Students draw butterflies, dragonflies, leaves of chestnut, lilac flowers. When the students study solid geometry, they make

different paper cubes, pyramids, cones, boxes, and then collect the figures of little people.

In physics lessons the students make a lot of experiments. During the

experiments students learn to work on their own: making up a problem, putting forward the hypothesis, inventing the course of the experiment,

making conclusions and then presenting the results. When students study topic “Simple Mechanisms they are asked to make plasticines

blocks and build a pyramid as ancient Egyptians did.

The inclusion of students in communicative creative activities helps them to become active, independent and diversified and make them competitive in the

labour market in future. In conclusion we can say that it is impossible to imagine modern school and

modern system of organizing study process without these main elements of implementation creativity at the lesson. At the same time we understood it

needs special preparation from the teacher – “a new glimpse on the structure of the lesson”.




CE Joan XXIII.

L’Hospitalet (Barcelona) SPAIN

How to work creativity in the classroom

The most important is that the students get free from their fears and shames if they do not know how to

draw, paint, act, dance, etc., from the very first day. They mustn’t be afraid either of their marks they will get.

The aim in art classes, for example, is to show what is inside of the student. Therefore that involves creating

a relaxed environment, for instance listening to music.

Once the students are not afraid, they start growing interest for the topic. As we are all not the same, we have different

experiences to communicate. To express them everybody have to look inside their own. The

students also need to know the artist vocabulary, so they have to get the basis of it.

Another way to encourage creativity is the use of the “lateral thinking” for instance to solve

problems of geometry or mathematics. Lateral thinking is very creative as it gets infinite ways to get a solution since it takes

different ways and alternatives to the logical thinking, which is unidirectional.

Some ideas and activities about creativity in the classroom Students must be in silence during the class or listening to some quite music.

They have to represent the silence and the music in images using some

coloured papers. They are free to cut, paint, glue, etc. in a figurative or abstract way to show their artistic capacity.

Students become designers. They first agree what to do: one publicity

advertisement, an object, etc. They may decide to draw an imaginary chair. They all draw it and then they check that most of chairs are different.

Students play drama. With no script at all, they think of a situation, then they create the characters who will improvise what to say and will show their

emotions. Students create a choreography. They can create dance following original

steps according with the music they listen to. It is an activity that they can essay in Physical education classes.

Students can use the lateral thinking through Maths exercises, like for instance: different alternatives to divide a geometric figure. For instance

divide into four equal parts a square figure, from easy to “tangram” shape.

Then see and show the most complex ways




Students as photo composers. They cut the images of several photos. Then they glue them mixed on a painted board to express new things and to break

with reality in a surrealistic way. Students create a story in language classes, just adding one meaningful word

each student to the words given before by others. So the story grows with

each participation.

Students may create an imaginary country in Social Science classes. They have to design its physical and political map, its flag, language, anthem and

coin. Its population structure, social economy, political system, urbanization, economic resources, etc .

Students become luthiers. They build instruments with common objects and form a band.




CREATIVITY IN TEACHING AT

“BODONI” SCHOOL

TURIN (ITALY)

In foreign languages but also in one’s own language,

writing and speaking are two skills (the first skills of citizenship

according with EQF) which students often neglect because they think they are not good at, and they feel reluctant

because they are not confident of the language they might

use to say it. But, first of all, empathy with the students and listening to

them are the base of the teacher’s “secret discipline”. Without this common ground between the teacher and the

students, the process of knowledge cannot take place. This was also stated by Plato in his Phedro.

- In writing and speaking, students can be stimulated through the use of

games which also elicit and trigger their creativity and make these skills amusing.

- As for speaking, Fishbowl is quite effective. Two students speak but at a prearranged signal one of

the participants has to reach into the fishbowl and take out one of the many pieces of paper on which

students have previously written sentences or

questions. They have to incorporate these into their conversation straight away.

- As for writing, the teacher writes a different prompt on two pieces of paper. Students are sitting in circle. The teacher hands out a paper to

the student on the right side and the other paper to the student on the left. The prompt given by the teacher represents the starting of a story.

Each student adds a sentence and passes the paper to the next student who has to continue the story. At the end one student reads out the

story. - Photos and realia can be very useful in teaching the different aspects

of culture and suggesting a comparison between different customs and habits.

- Creativity can also be stimulated when teaching something like the figures of speech. Students are invited to take pictures or shoot




videos representing the figures of speech so that they can visualize and remember them.

- Podcasting is also a good way to involve students because it gives them the chance to plan a short lesson and to present it to the teacher and to

the other students. You can connect to the web site:

www.istitutobodoni.it/ - Storytelling following the pattern given by Steve Jobs is effective:

starting from the teacher’s personal experiences connected with foreign cultures, he/she draws the students attention to the topic and they feel

willing to share their experiences or opinions. The same can be done by done students and sometimes one can realize storytelling starting from

disparate shapes: a colleague of us makes grammar storytelling with a “life” of Italian pronoun “io” (I) who has a sort of secret narrative link

with verbs. With this narrative didactics students, supported by technology such as Iphone and Ipad, are able to make speaking scenes

starting from novel, films, historical events etc. - Some teachers use projects and lesson plans to carry out activities

interwoven with different school subjects to achieve a final product. - Different (dissimilar) art o art Brut. It’s a project related to painting

and graphic works made by disabled young people revised and modified

by the students. - Activities to guide students towards the listening of Opera through lab

activities and classes in the “Teatro Regio” of Turin. - Trusting students' abilities so that they are willing to express their

creativity freely is also very important. Students should be involved in projects which give visibility outside the school, like Torino Film Festival

where films made by under eighteen film makers are presented. - BIOART: art lab related to active citizenship and education in

environmental protection (a project named Landscape teller) - Peer education

- Theatre lab

Other ways experienced in our school are:

- Sharing ideas and experiences with other colleagues, artists and photographers.

- Eliciting students' ideas, opinions and interest and planning the lesson according to them. Students are encouraged to prepare the work for the

final examination (state exam) following their interests. - Circus activities at school (Patch Adams). Students involved in these

activities use their bodies and the mimicry to express their abilities.

Some teachers take part in the activities as well.




National School of Arts, Varna, Bulgaria

WE ARE ONE

By Karolina Koynova

Intro: Instrumental only

Verse 1: Different countries, different colors, we are different, yet the same.

We love games and we love travel, not so different, we are one.

Chorus: Different we are, different we are, not so different, we are one. (2)

Verse 2: We like music, we like parties, we are different, yet the same.

We need love and we need friendship, not so different, we are one.


Recitative: WE ARE ONE! is pronounced in all languages

Verse 3: We want green streets, we want future, we are different yet the same.

Our difference makes us stronger, not so different, we are one.


End: WE ARE ONE! is shouted by everyone




National School of Arts, Varna,

Bulgaria

Citizenship and Creativity

We live in ever-changing world. The fast

change in technologies quickly changes our lifestyles. We form new ways of

communication with one another.

Yet one thing remains the same: the ability and the need of humanity to express itself by creating new things as opposed to just consuming.

We create music, we create poetry, we create art, but we also create new food

flavors as well as new political movements.

And with everything new that we create, we need two important

things: an audience to appreciate us and a good team to support us.

The following presentation will be made live and its main object is to

illustrate the importance of TEAMWORK when we are in a process

of creation.

To help our presentation, one student composed a song meant to be sung by all participants. If everybody likes it, it could become the song of the project.

In the process of presentation all partners from other countries will be invited

to participate in the song by joining the chorus with the following text: Different we are, different we are, not so different, we are one. (2)

Also, we kindly ask each country to translate the phrase WE ARE ONE into their

language and select a speaker who will say repeatedly these words at a certain

moment, pointed by the conductor.

This is the part named “RECITATIVE” where we are looking to create an effect of our many languages mixing and intertwining on the background of the

music. We thank everybody for their cooperation!

creativity in teaching

Documents

creative teaching

pl slo creativity

project partners

bg dk es gb

story sentence

factual sentence

new question

visual skills