Creativity as a Skill

We push for collaboration, critical-thinking, communication, and creativity in the classroom (the Four C's of 21st Century learning).  Unfortunately, there is a challenge to assess these skills through standards and testing.  Therefore, our responsibility as educators is to initiate opportunities for students to develop their creativity within our classrooms.

Creativity is providing students opportunities to generate and produce authentic work, allowing both the teacher and the student to take ownership.


Some students and educators are naturally creative.  For everyone else, creativity is a skill that can be learned, established, and evolved, no different than developing mathematical concepts or learning a new language.

For educators, we must model creativity within our instruction to foster the opportunities for students to expand their own creativity.  This may require school leaders and teachers to release from their own comfort-zones.

If we want our students to develop creativity, we must treat the quality of "being creative" as a skill...and skills must be developed.

Thank you for viewing,

CS

The opinions shared in this blog belong to Craig Smith and do not represent the school or district in which he works.