Author: topcoach team (Veronika Korim & Sona Štefkova)
Creativity can mean several things to different people, however it’s generally viewed as a tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and people around us. It is not a single personal trait, but rather a set of traits that work interchangeably. These involve intelligence, interest, knowledge, originality or ideas, creative instinct, non-conformity, courage, and persistence.
Creativity in the learning process
Creativity is valuable in the learning environment because it builds cognitive complexity. Being creative involves using an existing set of knowledge or skills in a particular subject or context to experiment with new possibilities in the pursuit of valued outcomes, thus increasing both knowledge and skills. It develops over time.
Creativity is not just making things up, the action must not only be new, but also relevant and useful. Creativity also works best with constraints, not open-ended tasks. Constrained limits lead to what cognitive scientists call desirable difficulties as learners need to make more complex decisions about what they include and exclude in their final product. It must also have a result or an outcome.
In order for trainers to support learners to be more creative, they should attend to four key areas.
- Creativity needs an appropriate physical and social environment.
- Trainers can support adult learners to develop the attitudes and attributes required for creativity, which include persistence, discipline, resilience, and curiosity.
- Trainers can support the creative process, by using various methods, like brainstorming or mind-mapping.
- Consider the outcomes of creativity and how to assess them.
Why use creative learning
Creative learning steps out of the boundaries of memorizing information. It’s building knowledge and developing skills using creative techniques. It’s a delivery method. Rather than dictating how information should be absorbed, creative education— guides the learner through the instruction process using creative methods. And it challenges the obvious, the conventional, and the assumed. To some extent, it’s about breaking out of constraints, for valid purposes, like effectively building a comprehension framework.
Learners engage deeply with creative learning experiences. The more that learners engage with the process, the longer they retain knowledge and expand their understanding. Learning creatively can: stimulate problem-solving, develop critical thinking, promote risk-taking, build a curious mindset and increase confidence levels.
Read the full version of the learning material at our Toolkit (click here).