“Oh, the thinks you can think
Think and wonder and dream-
Far and wide as you dare!
Oh, the thinks you can think!
When your thinks have run dry,
In the blink of an eye
There's another think there!
If you open your mind,
Oh, the thinks you will find
Lining up to get loose!
Oh, the thinks you can think”
Oh, the Thinks You Can Think - Seussical - Lynn Ahrens
Dr. Seuss said it best "Oh the thinks you can think, think and wonder and dream far and wide as you dare!" as teachers we are constantly thinking, wondering and dreaming. We encourage our students to think critically, creatively to dream, and to share their own wonders and ideas in our every day class activities. We give our students opportunities to explore their thoughts feelings and goals in the pursuit of something that is real and meaningful to them. How many times to we ask our students to think about something or give it some thought. Now is your turn to THINK!
Students need to be encouraged to engage in creative thinking, it is up to us as teachers to encourage them to experience creative thinking. Creative thinking asks that students think outside the box, innovate and try new things. It involves both small and large C creativity. Edutopia provides a list of things, which support both small and large C creativity some of my favourites are:
“Creativity is innovation.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly expecting different results. If something is not working, then it is broken and needs to be fixed. Come up with something else that will work for your students.
Creativity is thinking outside the box.
Everything doesn't always have to be black and white. Sometimes the oddball activities are the ones that work.
Creativity is improvisation.
Things don't always turn out the way you planned. When I've realized that a lesson wasn't working midway through, I literally tossed it out and started over. I tried a different angle (in this case, incorporating a movie that my students liked), and it worked.
Creativity is being a risk taker or mold breaker.
I have had many crazy ideas for things to try in the classroom. Some have worked and some have not, but I found that trying was better than being stuck in the same pattern that isn't working.
Creativity is passion.
Be passionate about what you are doing. You are there to inspire students to become lifelong learners. If you want them to love learning, you have to love what you are teaching.” (Riche, 22 Simple Ideas for Harnessing Creativity in the Elementary Classroom, 2011)
Creative Thinking and the BC Curriculum
Creative thinking is one of the core competencies that are part of the new curriculum in BC. With the draft documents stating, “The capacity for creative thinking expands at every level of life and schooling as individuals increase their range of ideas and concepts to recombine them into new ideas. They gradually build their skills and abilities to develop their creative ideas as expressions, innovations, or products.” The documents indicate that student’s creativity builds in a concentric model, with one-step building on the one before as well as cycling back to previous phases of learning. It also allows student development to occur on a continuum and accepts that student’s interests may change with time and maturity. The core competency documents indicate that three factors influence creative thinking, novelty & value, generating ideas and developing ideas, with these factors working in tandem to encourage student’s creativity. The BC Ministry of Education has defined each of the three factors:
Novelty and Value
“Students get creative ideas that are both novel and have value. There are degrees of novelty—an idea may be new to that student or it may be new to their peers; it may be novel for their age group, or it may be novel to a larger community. It may be new in a particular context or new. The idea or product may also have value in a variety of ways and contexts—it may be fun, it may provide a sense of accomplishment, it may solve a naturally occurring problem, it may be a form of self-expression, it may provide a new perspective that influences how people think about something or the actions people take. An idea can have an impact on the individual student, classmates, a larger group of peers, in one’s community, or on a global level.” (BC Ministry of Education, 2013)
Generating Ideas
“Students may generate creative ideas as a result of free play, engagement with someone else’s ideas, a naturally occurring problem or constraints, or interest or passion. New ideas and inspirations can spontaneously arise from the unconscious mind, which is why students often report that their ideas just “pop” into their heads. However, students can also become aware of, and use, ways to help their unconscious minds generate ideas—giving their unconscious minds lots of ideas and information to combine and recombine at random (e.g., by learning a lot about something of interest), providing the incubation time for the unconscious to work, and quieting the filters and censors in the conscious and subconscious minds that tend to prevent novel ideas and inspirations from rising to the conscious mind (e.g., by doing relaxing or automatic activities).” (BC Ministry of Education, 2013)
Developing Ideas
“After students get creative ideas, they evaluate them, decide which ones to develop, refine them, and work to realize them in some way. This process of developing ideas may require building the necessary skills, sustaining perseverance, and using failure productively over time. It may also require generating additional creative ideas to come up with solutions to problems along the way.” (BC Ministry of Education, 2013)
Think and wonder and dream-
Far and wide as you dare!
Oh, the thinks you can think!
When your thinks have run dry,
In the blink of an eye
There's another think there!
If you open your mind,
Oh, the thinks you will find
Lining up to get loose!
Oh, the thinks you can think”
Oh, the Thinks You Can Think - Seussical - Lynn Ahrens
Dr. Seuss said it best "Oh the thinks you can think, think and wonder and dream far and wide as you dare!" as teachers we are constantly thinking, wondering and dreaming. We encourage our students to think critically, creatively to dream, and to share their own wonders and ideas in our every day class activities. We give our students opportunities to explore their thoughts feelings and goals in the pursuit of something that is real and meaningful to them. How many times to we ask our students to think about something or give it some thought. Now is your turn to THINK!
Students need to be encouraged to engage in creative thinking, it is up to us as teachers to encourage them to experience creative thinking. Creative thinking asks that students think outside the box, innovate and try new things. It involves both small and large C creativity. Edutopia provides a list of things, which support both small and large C creativity some of my favourites are:
“Creativity is innovation.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly expecting different results. If something is not working, then it is broken and needs to be fixed. Come up with something else that will work for your students.
Creativity is thinking outside the box.
Everything doesn't always have to be black and white. Sometimes the oddball activities are the ones that work.
Creativity is improvisation.
Things don't always turn out the way you planned. When I've realized that a lesson wasn't working midway through, I literally tossed it out and started over. I tried a different angle (in this case, incorporating a movie that my students liked), and it worked.
Creativity is being a risk taker or mold breaker.
I have had many crazy ideas for things to try in the classroom. Some have worked and some have not, but I found that trying was better than being stuck in the same pattern that isn't working.
Creativity is passion.
Be passionate about what you are doing. You are there to inspire students to become lifelong learners. If you want them to love learning, you have to love what you are teaching.” (Riche, 22 Simple Ideas for Harnessing Creativity in the Elementary Classroom, 2011)
Creative Thinking and the BC Curriculum
Creative thinking is one of the core competencies that are part of the new curriculum in BC. With the draft documents stating, “The capacity for creative thinking expands at every level of life and schooling as individuals increase their range of ideas and concepts to recombine them into new ideas. They gradually build their skills and abilities to develop their creative ideas as expressions, innovations, or products.” The documents indicate that student’s creativity builds in a concentric model, with one-step building on the one before as well as cycling back to previous phases of learning. It also allows student development to occur on a continuum and accepts that student’s interests may change with time and maturity. The core competency documents indicate that three factors influence creative thinking, novelty & value, generating ideas and developing ideas, with these factors working in tandem to encourage student’s creativity. The BC Ministry of Education has defined each of the three factors:
Novelty and Value
“Students get creative ideas that are both novel and have value. There are degrees of novelty—an idea may be new to that student or it may be new to their peers; it may be novel for their age group, or it may be novel to a larger community. It may be new in a particular context or new. The idea or product may also have value in a variety of ways and contexts—it may be fun, it may provide a sense of accomplishment, it may solve a naturally occurring problem, it may be a form of self-expression, it may provide a new perspective that influences how people think about something or the actions people take. An idea can have an impact on the individual student, classmates, a larger group of peers, in one’s community, or on a global level.” (BC Ministry of Education, 2013)
Generating Ideas
“Students may generate creative ideas as a result of free play, engagement with someone else’s ideas, a naturally occurring problem or constraints, or interest or passion. New ideas and inspirations can spontaneously arise from the unconscious mind, which is why students often report that their ideas just “pop” into their heads. However, students can also become aware of, and use, ways to help their unconscious minds generate ideas—giving their unconscious minds lots of ideas and information to combine and recombine at random (e.g., by learning a lot about something of interest), providing the incubation time for the unconscious to work, and quieting the filters and censors in the conscious and subconscious minds that tend to prevent novel ideas and inspirations from rising to the conscious mind (e.g., by doing relaxing or automatic activities).” (BC Ministry of Education, 2013)
Developing Ideas
“After students get creative ideas, they evaluate them, decide which ones to develop, refine them, and work to realize them in some way. This process of developing ideas may require building the necessary skills, sustaining perseverance, and using failure productively over time. It may also require generating additional creative ideas to come up with solutions to problems along the way.” (BC Ministry of Education, 2013)