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Sparking Student Creativity: Practical Ways to Promote Innovative Thinking and Problem Solving
Teaching isn't merely transmitting knowledge to students; it’s also about teaching students to approach learning in engaging and unexpected ways. In Sparking Student Practical Ways to Promote Innovative Thinking and Problem Solving , author and researcher Patti Drapeau explores and explains research related to creativity and its relevance in today’s standards-based, critical thinking–focused classroom. The book vividly and comprehensively shows
* How creative lessons can meet and extend the expectations of curriculum standards such as the Common Core State Standards,
* How to incorporate creativity and assessment into daily classroom practices,
* How to develop a "Creativity Road Map" to guide instruction, and
* How to design lessons that prompt and support creative thinking.
In addition, the book includes 40 “grab and go” ideas that infuse lesson plans with a spirit of exploration. No matter what grade levels or content areas you teach, Sparking Student Creativity will help you to produce creative lesson components that directly address critical content, target specific standards, and require thoughtful products from students as they grow into independent learners and become successful students and adults.
* How creative lessons can meet and extend the expectations of curriculum standards such as the Common Core State Standards,
* How to incorporate creativity and assessment into daily classroom practices,
* How to develop a "Creativity Road Map" to guide instruction, and
* How to design lessons that prompt and support creative thinking.
In addition, the book includes 40 “grab and go” ideas that infuse lesson plans with a spirit of exploration. No matter what grade levels or content areas you teach, Sparking Student Creativity will help you to produce creative lesson components that directly address critical content, target specific standards, and require thoughtful products from students as they grow into independent learners and become successful students and adults.
213 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 10, 2014
3 people are currently reading
75 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 12, 2019
I used post its to mark some pages. Orange tabs are useful ideas, green tabs are useful resources.
July 11, 2021
Lots of great examples in different grades and content areas.
May 11, 2020
I LOVED THIS BOOK! So many ideas! This book will be IN my classroom as I plan (and in my laptop case so I have it at home when I do MOST of my planning!). So many great ideas!
January 25, 2016
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.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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. 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.
June 21, 2018
Had to return this textbook on creativity to the school library before school closed for this academic year. But I did get through 120+ pages and picked up some interesting observations, i.e., my early schooling versus the changes now in effect. I learned mostllyl through rote memorization. The book suggests; "Disciplined improvisation leads to deeper understanding than rote learning."
I also was instructed to learn and study on my own. The book encourages collaboration in the classroom in small groups in order to collect and share facts and brainstorm ideas. The groups should be homogenous and personalities complement each other.
When I encountered classroom strategies recently at the grade up to high school level, I was shocked at the differences in teaching methods. There is less discipline, even smart phones permitted during class in high school. I did notice at the lower grades (1 to 3), the children are more open and receptive during the class. Taught to 'the tune of a hickory stick' is definitely a thing of the past!
I also was instructed to learn and study on my own. The book encourages collaboration in the classroom in small groups in order to collect and share facts and brainstorm ideas. The groups should be homogenous and personalities complement each other.
When I encountered classroom strategies recently at the grade up to high school level, I was shocked at the differences in teaching methods. There is less discipline, even smart phones permitted during class in high school. I did notice at the lower grades (1 to 3), the children are more open and receptive during the class. Taught to 'the tune of a hickory stick' is definitely a thing of the past!
July 20, 2018
I most appreciated the framework for identifying components of creative thinking (fluency, flexibility, originality, elaboration) along with many specific ideas for teaching, practicing, and giving feedback on them. I won't use everything in this book because the distinction between critical and creative thinking is somewhat artificial and because to do everything would become so all-consuming, I'd have to drop half of the other stuff I teach! But I am really glad for some more specific language and ideas for being more metacognitive about this important skill.
June 14, 2019
Deceptively easy read. Short enough to be a good PD read during the school year. One of the best things about it are the great examples of activities and ways to apply the content at the end of every chapter. I have used a number of things learned from this book effectively in the classroom to improve my existing curriculum. I highly recommend it for teachers of all grade levels and subjects.
May 19, 2023
Some more ideas on how to teach kids to be creative, which in theory will make them better students. Would love to use this with the a few other books, such as essential questions and teaching students how to question.
May 8, 2020
Summer 2019 book club
July 21, 2020
Great ideas for classrooms.
February 10, 2015
it had many useful & practical ideas that you could actually use in your classroom. the author introduced ideas, provided supporting evidence, then gave practical applications. in most cases there were multiple practical examples.
it got a little repetitive near the end, but other than that I have no complaints. this is one of the few educational books I would consider purchasing to keep as a reference.
it got a little repetitive near the end, but other than that I have no complaints. this is one of the few educational books I would consider purchasing to keep as a reference.
July 29, 2015
It had some good ideas, but it would have benefitted from more examples about how to use them in special subject areas, like music and art. While these subjects are inherently creative, it doesn't mean that these strategies can't be used at all.
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October 31, 2014370.157 D765 2014
January 8, 2016
love the grab and go strategies
March 24, 2015
Lots of great ideas you can IMMEDIATELY take and use with students!!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews