By encouraging creative thinking, students benefit in a huge variety of ways. Although there are numerous advantages of creativity for students, I decided to highlight four that make the biggest impact on students.

Outlet for Expression

Creativity has long been enjoyed by all due to its being an easy and accessible outlet for expression. Students and adults alike can express their feelings, emotions, and unique thoughts and ideas through creative activities. Be it writing a story, sharing a personal poem or narrative, or composing a song set to music, creative expression is a unique experience that can be heard and enjoyed by others while instilling feelings of accomplishment and value in those sharing their personal ideas and emotions.

Additionally, creative expression allows students to be heard in a different way, and it allows the most timid of students (who would generally shy away from self-expression) to share their thoughts and feelings.

Increases Student Engagement

Let’s face it; being creative is just plain fun! Creative activities generally produce feelings of excitement and joy. Students are especially susceptible to this “side effect.” Students want learning to be fun, and when it is, they automatically want to take part.

The same can be said of creativity. When teachers employ its use, students are much more likely and even excited to participate in classroom assignments and projects. Also, when teachers employ creative activities, there are truly no limits to what students can come up with. This fact alone can help those less-than-enthusiastic students want to participate.

Boosts Self-Confidence

When students express themselves through creative means, they begin to develop a better sense of self and increase their self-confidence. As stated before, there are no right or wrong answers when thinking creatively; thus, students are less afraid of failure. When this happens, students are able to freely think and discover greatly possibilities. This helps students find the value in their own thoughts and ideas, and, in turn, this helps to build their level of self-confidence and inner strength.

Enhances Cognitive Skills

One of the best aspects of creativity is that it enhances cognitive skills in students. Creativity requires students to “think outside the box,” and that statement could not be more true! Creativity fosters problem solving and critical thinking skills. Creativity can require students to make something out of nothing, develop solutions to problems, or invent better methods of doing something! All of these activities require students to dig deep and explore their options which strength their cognitive abilities. These improved cognitive skills are equally important as students enter the workforce!

What are the Benefits of Student Collaboration?

Interestingly enough, creativity and collaboration share many of the same student benefits! When students work together, there are no limits on what they can achieve. Let’s outline a few of the advantages of student collaboration:

Increases Student Engagement

As with creativity, when something is fun, students are more likely to participate. When students are given an opportunity to work with classmates and friends, this greatly encourages student participation! When students are excited for an activity or project, the quality of their work generally increases, too.

Enhances Cognitive Skills

When utilizing student collaboration, I tend to group particular students together on purpose. I like to include a mixture of ability levels in each group and include students with different strengths and weaknesses. Why?

1. This provides a learning support for struggling students. Students who struggle developing their own thoughts and ideas can learn from and expand their thinking by listening to the ideas of others.
2. This provides opportunities for leadership for students with stronger cognitive skills. Those students who naturally share their thoughts and ideas without fear are generally the ones who “take the lead” in group collaboration. Those students help foster and grow ideas in others by leading and directing the group conversation; thus, creating an optimal situation for growth of creative thinking skills.

Boosts Self-Confidence

As with creativity, collaboration increases self-confidence in students. As stated previously, students learn from one another during times of group collaboration. Because of this, students gain a higher sense of self and increased self-confidence as they can find support for their ideas within their group. This also helps to validate student thoughts and opinions.

How to Explore Creativity Through Collaboration

Creativity and collaboration produce an amazing combination that all teachers should take advantage of within their classrooms. As outlined, their positive impact on students is undeniable! Here are some ways that you can implement them in your classroom:

Create a Story

A classic student assignment that requires creativity is to have students write their own stories! This activity can be adapted easily for collaborative group settings. Students should come up with a story together. Then, once it is completed, they will act it out for the class!

This activity can also be completed virtually by employing the use of breakout rooms in Google Meet or Zoom. Students can create their stories and use a screen-recording app, such as Loom, to record their performance of the story.

TikTok for the Classroom

TikTok is an app that most students use on a daily basis. For this activity, students can work in groups to create and record a TikTok video about a topic being covered in class. Groups should be challenged to present the content uniquely using visuals and music to make the video stand out.

Build a Model

Another classic assignment that has been used for years is to require students to build a model of something that is being studied. For instance: life cycles, water cycles, the solar system, cell structure, etc. For this activity, teachers add a twist of creativity and collaboration to make it slightly more challenging.

Students should be placed into groups and tasked with building a model of a particular topic. Groups must construct their models from a varied selection of unusual materials supplied by the teacher. Students must use their creative skills to brainstorm possibilities on how to use the materials to accurately depict the topic. To make this activity even more challenging and exciting, teachers can add a time limit for group work.

Construct a Picture Collage

Regardless of the topic being studied, visual art can often be incorporated in learning. Groups can construct painted collages to help further their understanding of classroom topics. Students can complete their own painting individually before compiling group paintings together for the finished product, or groups can work together to complete each section of the collage together.

Overall, opportunities for creativity and collaboration create a win-win situation for teachers and students!

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Why is Creativity Important for Students?

In order to better grasp why creativity is so important for students, we must first understand what creativity is. Creativity is a means of independent expression. Ingenuity, cleverness, and the ability to use one’s imagination are all accurate descriptors of creativity. Creativity can transcend into all subject areas and ways of life. It is an attribute that students can practice and grow, but why?

What if farmers never discovered how to plant and grow crops? What if the pizza was never invented by experimenting with different ingredients? What if cell phones and computers were never created because no one was brave enough to test out the technology? What if medicines that make life easier for those with chronic illness were never found? We can thank creativity for all of these wonderful, and in some cases, life-changing inventions!

There are so many more that were not mentioned! A dose of creativity is what makes inventions possible. These products of creativity are used each and every day, so it is crucial that creativity is fostered in students for the future. Here are some additional reasons why creativity is important for students:

Limitless Learning Opportunities

Student learning should not have a limit! Students should be directed to explore all possibilities and encouraged to expand their thinking in order to discover brand new ideas.

Increased Engagement and Motivation

Creativity makes things fun! When students aren’t confined to standard assignments via worksheets and papers, the outlets for individual expression are amplified. Students are much more likely to be engaged when creativity is involved in their work; therefore, students are more greatly motivated to participate. This holds true with even the most difficult or shyest of students. Creativity truly produces a win-win situation for both teachers and students!

Enhanced Problem-Solving Skills

Another reason why creativity is so important for students is that it is an excellent way of promoting problem solving skills. Many students struggle with solving problems, but when creativity is mixed in, students realize that the realm of possibilities is not limited. Students learn to think outside the box and create unique ideas and solutions.

Builds Confidence

Finally, creativity is important for students, because it builds self-confidence. Students gain confidence through their ability to create and build upon their own ideas and visions. With creativity, there is generally no right or wrong responses. As long as students are following the guidelines or expectations set up by the teacher, whatever they come up with should be considered a success.

Strategies and Activities that Promote Creativity

Providing creative activities does not have to be a complex endeavor. It can be as simple as integrating creative writing at the end of a unit to asking students to draw a picture of how they interpreted a text. Below are some additional ways to incorporate creativity into the classroom.  

Encourage Curiosity

To create a classroom like the one mentioned earlier, teachers should select activities that encourage curiosity. The outdated norm of sitting at a desk all day no longer matches the demands for student learning in today’s high-tech world. Although the thought of allowing students to freely move about the classroom to solve problems and create solutions may be overwhelming to some, if guidelines and teacher expectations for behavior are firmly established, this type of activity should be completed with ease.

To encourage curiosity, teachers can establish creativity corners where students are asked to explore new topics such as life cycles, weather patterns, etc. Each corner should have examples and items for students to explore. Students will enjoy the hands-on experience and discovering at their own pace.

Use Divergent Thinking

Divergent thinking activities require students to investigate options in order to create a variety of solutions. One of the most enjoyable and beneficial ways to enhance divergent thinking in students is to complete a STEM exercise. Students create solutions through trial and error. Ask students to work in small groups to build miniature replicas of dams, or ask students to come up with solutions to slow the effects of erosion.

Teach Creative Skills

Another interactive way to teach creative thinking skills is to complete an activity called “3 For 1”. In this activity, students should be given three random materials in order to create one finished product. In addition to the three materials, students may also use tape or glue to complete the final product.

The finished product could be a solution to a problem or simply a creation students made up using the provided materials. Regardless, students must explain their new product and its uses. To take this activity a step further, teachers may ask students to create promotional jingles or commercials about their products to present to classmates. Then, classmates can vote on which products they would want to purchase, etc.

Cross-Curricular Lessons

Many times, creativity is synonymous with the arts. As we have seen, this is not always the case; however, the arts are generally filled with elements of creativity! When employing the use of cross-curricular lessons, it is useful to integrate elements of art due to its high likelihood  of increasing student engagement in the topic at hand. Here are some examples:

1. Music: Teachers may ask students to create songs about a particular subject to help them remember key facts. Students could create songs about the water cycle, scientific elements, etc.
2. Visual Art: Students may draw visuals to accompany their notes on important topics in math. This is especially important when teaching geometry in the earlier grades. When students physically draw and explore various shapes, they are more likely to recall their elements (i.e. number of sides, angles, etc.) later on.
3. Theater: When learning about historical figures, students can create dialogue and participate in a “talk show” where students pretend to be a historical figure and answer questions about that figure.

Improve Solutions

Students could be asked to improve solutions that are already in use but could be enhanced. For instance, students could develop an improved solution for pencil sharpeners by developing a model for a new type of sharpener that eliminates pencil shavings. Other ideas would be to ask students to create more economical methods of transportation, brushing teeth, or even planting and growing crops. Essentially, students are tasked with finding better, more efficient ways of doing things.

Create Imaginative Stories

Students love to use their imaginations. What better way to facilitate creativity than asking students to create their own imaginative stories? Students should come up with their own characters, settings, plots, and problems in order to create a story with adventure and excitement. In addition to writing the text of the story, students can create illustrations with pictures and other visuals to supplement the text.

For students that may be more hesitant to embrace their creative writing side, try using fan fiction instead. Students can take characters they already love and imagine them in new places, going on new adventures, and so much more.

*Updated March 2021

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