3 Types of Teaching In Creativity
Understanding the difference to maximize the outcome.
Creativity is the most valuable skill of the 21st century and should be treated as such. This means teaching creativity, but also debunking long-held misconceptions and clarifying what creativity looks like in education. There are 3 types of creativity in teaching that will be discussed in the following article — teaching for creativity, teaching with creativity, and teaching the subject of creativity.
Let’s begin by removing some common phrases related to creativity that are counterproductive, then we’ll focus on the 3 types of teaching and creativity.
Phrases We Should Stop Saying Now
“I’m not creative, I don’t have a creative bone in my body.”
Lies! All lies. We cannot accept this response any longer. Would you accept it if a student or coworker called themselves dumb? Absolutely not! So why do we accept it when someone says they don’t have a creative bone in their body? EVERYONE IS CREATIVE. It’s what makes us human and allows us to overcome the thousands of problems we face every day.
Keep in mind, humor is part of creativity. We all have a funny bone and a humorous bone, so we at least have 2 creative bones in our bodies.
“Think outside the box.”
Nothing gets under my skin like the term “thinking outside the box.” It’s a harmful cliche that does nothing for understanding or encouraging creativity — a mindless answer to a complex problem. It comes from the 1970s and 80 when management consultants used something called the 9 dot problem to demonstrate creative thinking. READ MORE.
Now that we’ve got those out of the way, we can begin building a new awareness of creativity in education.
3 Types of Teaching In Creativity
If creativity is such an important ability to develop in our students, then we need to have a clear understanding of how to teach it. There are three types of creativity in teaching that include teaching for creativity, teaching with creativity, and teaching the subject of creativity. The following information comes from Beghetto, R.A., Kaufman, J., Glăveanu, V.P., & Baer, J. (2017). Creativity in teaching.
Teaching FOR Creativity
Teaching FOR creativity is when we provide students with opportunities to use their creativity. We design lessons that require students to create and solve original problems. We encourage them to be unique in their work and to let go of traditional solutions. Teaching FOR creativity is focused on the students using their creativity.
Teaching WITH Creativity
Like I said at the beginning, EVERYONE IS CREATIVE. That means you are creative. Teaching WITH creativity is when we use our own creativity to design new and engaging lessons. We might turn a boring quiz into an interactive game or replace a slide presentation with a captivating story. When we teach WITH creativity, we use our creative abilities to design new and exciting lessons that will be engaging for students.
Teaching THE SUBJECT of creativity
This is the big one, an important piece of the puzzle that is missing from education and other areas of society. Creativity is a subject, like math, history, language arts, or science. Creativity can be taught. The image above is of the 3rd edition of The Encyclopedia of Creativity. Each edition is different they still don’t address every aspect of creativity.
Learning about the subject of creativity gives us a broader understanding of the field and how to intentionally be creative. Learning about creativity can lead to greater compassion, a collaborative mindset, openness to new experiences and ideas, and so much more. Creativity is a subject that can and should be taught.
Application
The following is an example of all 3 in one lesson. The topic is everyday creativity, and you’ll notice an explanation and an example (teaching the subject of creativity) and an experience I created (teaching with creativity) that allows students to apply the concept (teaching for creativity).
EXPLANATON
Everyday creativity involves decisions and actions we take daily that help us overcome unforeseen problems. This also explains how it is that EVERYONE IS CREATIVE.
Some examples include breaking your shoelace on the way to class and figuring out some way to keep your shoe on; finding a way to include additional expenses to your budget; or retrieving something from under the refrigerator with a random object because you can’t reach it with your hand. The problem is that we don’t recognize these acts as being creative and because of that we don’t acknowledge and celebrate them, but we should!
EXAMPLE
”In 1930, Wakefield was mixing a batch of cookies for her roadside inn guests when she discovered that she was out of baker’s chocolate. She substituted broken pieces of Nestle’s semi-sweet chocolate, expecting it to melt and absorb into the dough to create chocolate cookies.
That didn’t happen, but the surprising result helped to make Ruth Wakefield one of the 20th century’s most famous women inventors. When she removed the pan from the oven, Wakefield realized that she had accidentally invented ‘chocolate chip cookies.’” These were originally named Toll House Cookies, after the Toll House Inn where she worked. SOURCE
EXPERIENCE
Step One: Ensure that everyone has an unsharpened pencil and a notecard. Inform them that their challenge is to create a smiley face on the notecard using the pencil given to them. The pencils are theirs to keep and you don’t want them back (this allows them the option to break the pencils).
Repeat the instructions, “again, your challenge is to make a smiley face on your notecard using the pencil given to you, and these are your pencils to keep. You have 2 minutes, go.”
Step Two: Share — ask for volunteers to share their ideas. After each example, praise the individual for sharing and ask if anyone did it a different way. And so on. You might ask for 4 or 5 if it seems there is enough variation.
Thank the group for providing a safe environment. Everyone equally contributed to that activity by creating their smiley faces and by allowing others to share without judgement.
Creativity is much more than just an artistic pursuit. It’s in everything we do. The subject of creativity includes theories, processes, principles, and so much more. How do we teach the subject of creativity? By understanding that it is a subject and learning about it ourselves. The great news is that it’s not difficult!
Understanding how we teach creativity can help us design more imaginative lessons that empower our students to be creative. We can begin by removing phrases that are harmful and limiting. Knowing there are multiple ways of incorporating creativity into our lessons can be transformational for our students and us. The best place to begin is learning about the subject of creativity and spreading the word that EVERYONE IS CREATIVE!
