Student creativity involves a combination of imagination, curiosity, and critical thinking skills, and has been linked to improved physical and mental health. By incorporating creativity into the classroom, students can gain a renewed enthusiasm for learning and develop skills for their future careers.
Keep reading for five ways educators can harness creativity to improve student well-being and make students career ready, or visit ViewSonic’s range of integrated education solutions.
You may think of a tortured genius when you imagine a creative, but creativity is more than splattering paint, distorting faces on the canvas, or solving seemingly unsolvable equations. However, creativity can be expressed in countless ways: Playing games, writing, dancing, making music and singing, painting, drawing, sculpting, and designing are all creative acts. Even the simple act of thinking can be creative. It is essential for educators to gently nurture students to explore their interests and passions and show them how to use their creativity to think freely.
The Importance of Nurturing Student Creativity
Nurturing creativity from an early age is beneficial as it is linked to improved physical and mental health. Therefore, utilizing creativity in classroom design and activities is a powerful tool for improving the well-being of students. This is especially important, as students that are well-versed in creative thinking can produce innovative ideas and solve problems in unique ways – valuable skills for the 21st-century workplace.
Unfortunately, student creativity is often overlooked: Graded tests and assignments are often prioritized, and students’ schedules quickly fill with studies and extra-curricular engagements. However, while curriculums need to be followed and certain subjects need to be drilled in more than others, this doesn’t mean that there is no room for creativity within the modern classroom. While it may sound counterintuitive, academic demands can be met by incorporating creativity and play in classrooms.
Teachers can nurture creativity in students by setting aside time for artistic expression; encouraging students to approach tasks with creativity; and celebrating students for exploring their interests and passions. Education technology (EdTech) can support this by allowing students to have fun as they participate in interactive and collaborative activities. Teachers can also work to remove creative blockers from their classrooms, such as overwhelming workloads and pressure to outperform peers. By making this positive and creative learning environment, students can gain a renewed enthusiasm for learning as they develop skills for their future careers.
5 Ways to Enhance Student Well-being with Creativity
With an awareness of the importance of student creativity established, what creative methods can be used in classrooms to improve student well-being and prepare them for the 21st-century workplace?
1. Use Creative Games to Promote Physical and Mental Health
One of the easiest and most rewarding ways to encourage creativity is to simply play games. Classroom gamification has genuine educational value for the participation and critical thinking it encourages in students. It allows students’ brains to stay active and creative while they improve their critical thinking skills in an enjoyable learning environment. The fun in gamified education and the positive reinforcement that comes with games – especially those with a physical component and friendly level of competition – can help boost confidence and reduce stress.
2. Enhance Learning Outcomes with Interactive Whiteboards
Technology and software usage in classrooms can foster creativity for better learning outcomes. Unlike in the past, when teachers used to lecture at the front of the class and write on blackboards, educators today are using interactive whiteboards. Interactive whiteboards in classrooms can improve educational outcomes for students by opening a world of creative ways for teachers to plan and present lessons. Skillful use of this kind of technology helps prioritize engagement and put learning first.
myViewBoard Whiteboard is a visual tool for preparation, presentation, and participation in lessons from the classroom and beyond. When used with ViewSonic’s interactive flat panel offering, the ViewBoard 50-5, these interactive features encourage collaboration and allow students to creatively think outside the box, which can lead to improved academic performance. Interactive whiteboard use can also develop students’ problem-solving skills by encouraging them to explore and produce unique ideas.
3. Ease Stress with Flexible Classroom Environments
Flexible classroom environments can reduce stress levels for improved student well-being by embracing open-ended tasks that allow for multiple solutions to a single problem. Students can take different approaches to tackle the same problem, such as practicing peer-teaching with pair and group activities or showcasing their solutions in classroom presentations. This prepares students for the future by promoting the use of wider cognitive abilities to develop creative thinking and problem-solving skills.
4. Reduce Burnout with Mixed Modes of Lesson Delivery
Catering to students’ individual preferences with mixed modes of lesson delivery can retain engagement for reduced academic burnout while creating opinion-sharing and collaborative opportunities. Teachers can combine in-person, hybrid, and fully remote modes of lesson delivery, or use a metaverse for education, such as UNIVERSE by ViewSonic. These metaverses have diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) benefits for students – for example, metaverse avatars can make classroom activities more accessible for students with mobility impairments.
For asynchronous learning, educators can rely on digital tools that measure student engagement or virtual assistant solutions. These tools not only help teachers recognize disengagement so that they can better understand their students’ needs, but they can also make recommendations for methods to enhance lesson quality. Teachers can use this information to continually improve lesson plans and presentations to ensure that healthy student well-being is maintained.
5. Promote Career Readiness to Enhance Confidence
Creativity is essential in the competitive and rapidly changing 21st-century workplace. Creative employees are comfortable with uncertainty and bring fresh perspectives to solve complex problems, revolutionize industries and drive growth. By nurturing creativity in the classroom, teachers unlock students’ full potential and broaden their professional horizons.
Teachers can foster student creativity with assignments that simulate real-life, workplace tasks. These assignments allow students to develop creative responses to simulated real-world scenarios and experience the challenges that cannot be fully grasped through textbooks or lectures alone, all within a safe and guided learning environment. In the process, students gain valuable soft skills for the workplace (such as problem-solving, teamwork, and time management) to complement the hard skills they learn through theoretical assignments.
Equipped with a deeper understanding of a subject, students can make better-informed choices in their professional journey. When teachers use creativity to bridge the gap between academia and real-world application, students become prepared for the workplace and benefit from greater confidence and reduced anxiety about their transition from education to the world of work.
3 Ways to Foster Student Creativity
Having explored the many benefits of encouraging student creativity, let’s now dive into three approaches to foster creativity in your classroom, no matter what grade or subject you’re teaching.
1. Allow Students to Explore Their Interests
To really help students unleash their creativity, it’s important to empower them to generate their own ideas and initiate projects based on their personal interests. This approach not only ignites students’ curiosity but also promotes independent thinking skills and nurtures a deeper understanding of their subjects. This could involve hands-on projects, participation in field trips and guest speaker sessions, creating art within the classroom, and incorporating mixed modes of learning. These diverse approaches can introduce fresh perspectives to traditional subjects, making their learning journey even more captivating.
2. Introduce Problem-Solving Activities That Require Creativity.
An important way to foster student creativity is to encourage students how to solve problems in creative ways. This involves engaging them in activities that require thinking outside the box, such as group and individual exercises, games, and conceptual problem-solving tasks. By introducing more critical, creative, and lateral thinking into everyday lessons, students become familiar with these thinking processes, which will prepare them effectively for their future careers.
3. Encourage Students to Collaborate
Lastly, nurturing the ability of students to work collaboratively and share ideas is incredibly valuable. Learning how to collaborate is pivotal for future job roles, so educators should actively encourage students to collaborate with each other, communicate effectively, and empathize with one another’s feelings. Teachers can do this by creating opportunities for students to collaborate, like by introducing group brainstorming sessions to produce ideas, identify problems requiring solutions, and creatively figure out a solution. These activities equip students with the readiness to succeed in the real world.
Final Thoughts
Creativity is a powerful tool for improving students’ well-being and preparing them for the world of work. Nurturing creativity in classrooms allows teachers to put learning first, drive engagement, and support students’ mental health. Teachers can realize these benefits by incorporating play into classroom environments; catering to students’ individual needs through mixed modes of lesson delivery; and using assignments that simulate workplace tasks. These methods can solidify students’ soft and hard skills as they gain a well-rounded, practical understanding of their interests that allows them to enter the workforce with confidence.
Click here to learn more about jumpstarting engagement in the classroom or visit ViewSonic’s complete range of Education Solutions.
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