Saturday, July 12, 2014

Ways That Teachers Can Encourage Creative Thinking in Students: Brain Storming to Encourage Creative Thinking



Creative thinking in teenage students varies from one individual to another. Some teenager students appear to be gifted creative thinkers, while others do not seem to be as creative or are not creative most of the time. 
Most teenage students need teachers who are able to stimulate their creative thinking.

Understanding what creative thinking is may help teachers to encourage teenage students to be or become more creative.   

What is creative thinking?

The freedictionary.com defines creativity as the “ability to produce something new through imaginative skill” and gives the examples of “a new solution to a problem, a new method or device, or a new artistic object or form” and refers to “a richness of ideas and originality of thinking.”

Brainstorming is an excellent way for teachers to encourage creative thinking in teenage students. On an individual basis, a teenage student can write down any number of words or phrases that come to mind. Simply expressing them in writing can lead to building new thoughts and creative ideas with them later.

Brainstorming in groups works well with teenage students, especially when everyone is encouraged to contribute words or phrases and to expand their horizon of creative, collective thought. Linking of words and phrases can lead to new creative ideas, as well. This kind of mapping works well in terms of encouraging teenage student thinkers to increase their creativity.

Creative thinkers have always paved new pathways in every generation. The teenage students of today may become the creative thinkers of tomorrow, if encouraged to do so.

At times, teachers have contemplative students who remain silent or are very quiet, most of the time. There is the possibility that these students are potential, creative geniuses, even though they are hesitant to speak out or discuss their creative thoughts or ideas in a classroom setting for fear of ridicule from others who are more outgoing or outspoken. Being aware that not every teenage student will understand the creative ideas of others and that some students may be jealous of others who are more creative is important.

Teachers can often mentor or find mentors for potentially, creative teenage students, and thus, encourage them to be more expressive in terms of their creativity. When the creative efforts of teenage students receive acknowledgement, they are more likely to develop their creative skills further. There is the reality that every teenage student has the potential to become a creative genius, given the right atmosphere in which to work. In other words, when there is evidence of potential creativity, providing an appropriate teenage student environment is important. Creativity can be stifled in the wrong environment.

Literature, poetry, art and music will help to stimulate creativity in teenage students. Exposure to creative works of the past by creative geniuses in these realms can help encourage teenage students to become more creative.

Competitions between teenage students give added incentive to their creativity. Credits, awards and recognition encourage teenage students, though too much acknowledgement can be embarrassing to some. 

Creative teenage student accomplishments, acknowledged as such by their teachers in front of other students, can encourage them and others to develop their creativity.

Creativity usually reveals a healthy, teenage student mind, although there may be instances of negative, destructive creativity. Encouraging teenage students to express positive, constructive creativity will lead them to become more proactive in this regard. 



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