Being Creative in the Classroom

Much like my blog writing, I have always struggled with “starting” class. Objectives? Learning Targets? Tasks? Agendas? I started to incorporate Creative Challenges in the classroom. These activities(all of them can be done in less than 5 minutes) will challenge your student’s thinking and get their brains active right from the get go!

Here are three activities that I have used. My hope is that you can incorporate these in your class.

1. Incomplete Figures

Developed in the ’60s by psychologist Ellis Paul Torrance, the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) sought to identify a creativity-oriented alternative to IQ testing.

You’re given a shape like the below, and then asked to complete the image(examples below)

2. Remote Association

The Remote Associates Test takes three unrelated words, such as “Call — Pay — Line,” and asks you to come up with a fourth word that connects all three words. You won’t have much luck solving this type of problem by methodically going through all the compound words and synonyms for ‘call’ ‘pay’ and ‘line’ and comparing them to each other. As with riddles, the solutions typically arise as a flash of insight. Click here for a sample test.

3. Alternative Uses

Developed in the 1960s, the Alternative Uses Test stretches your creativity by giving you a set amount of time(I usually give 3 minutes) to think of as many uses as possible for an everyday object.

Try it yourself:

How many uses can you think of for a spoon? You have two minutes… Go!