Teaching outside the box while still ensuring students have grasped the necessary skills and knowledge they need can be a tricky balance to master.
Creative teaching is becoming essential in designing empowering learning experiences. From games and apps to songs and hands-on activities, educators are finding innovative ways to creatively teach and engage their students.
But what does creative teaching mean, and how can it help with planning and delivering unforgettable lessons? IB teachers around the globe share their thoughts and ideas with IB World magazine…
- Creative teaching is thinking about the necessary aspects of learning – the ‘must do’ content and skills that children need – and turning them on their heads – Margaret Jones, Early Years and Elementary School Principal for High Meadows School, Georgia, USA
- Creative teaching makes both teachers and students feel empowered – Hemal Panchal, Primary Grade 5 Homeroom Teacher, Oberoi International School, India
- By being creative, teachers and students are encouraged to find new ways to express, explore and take risks. If we take risks, they will too and this will reap rewards well beyond school – Samantha Chesler-Leiman, Head of English at International School Brunei, Brunei
- Getting students excited about and taking ownership of their own learning naturally demands innovative approaches. Creative teaching isn’t about one single approach that is more effective than another – Alex Soulsby, Coordinator for Strategic Creative Development, Prem Tinsulanonda International School, Thailand
By using children’s own experience, creating experiences that compel students to pay attention, and engaging them in the process, learning becomes just living – playing, exploring, creating – Margaret Jones, Early Years and Elementary School Principal for High Meadows School, Georgia, USA
- It means fostering a mind with constructivism and having an open-ended learning arrangement – Hemal Panchal, Primary Grade 5 Homeroom Teacher, Oberoi International School, India
- It’s being able to encourage my students to work collaboratively with one another and use all their knowledge and experiences to achieve the best possible outcomes – Charmaine Suri, Primary Years Programme (PYP) Visual Art Teacher at Mercedes-Benz International School, India
- If you put students at the centre of their own learning as often as possible, on their terms rather than the teacher’s, then the results are always more effective than those provided within the less creative and more traditional models of education. That is not to say that there isn’t a place for more traditional approaches for disseminating information in classroom environments, it’s just that I believe that developing a love of learning and a sense of ‘real-world’ relevance to students is vital for nurturing critical and lateral-thinking skills – Alex Soulsby, Coordinator for Strategic Creative Development, Prem Tinsulanonda International School, Thailand
Effective creative teaching comes through freedom and Oberoi International School has the motto of ‘Freedom to think, empower to be’, wherein we give our students the opportunity to inquire and explore using varied strategies and approaches and integrating technology in our day-to-day activities. – Hemal Panchal, Primary Grade 5 Homeroom Teacher, Oberoi International School, India
- It is an approach where limitations become possibilities; it is a means of empowerment. It is an interaction of many intellectual concepts such as: imagination, analytical inquiries, sound reasoning, participation and reflection, field study, object study, modeling etc., by which students prepare themselves for an emerging world. – Sebastian Jacob, Teacher at Gandhi Memorial International School, Indonesia
- Education for creativity isn’t just an effective approach; it’s a vital one! – Alex Soulsby, Coordinator for Strategic Creative Development, Prem Tinsulanonda International School, Thailand
- It is our main challenge as teachers to provide our students with opportunities to take risks, develop creativity, and build confidence. It is not only possible to improve our students’ creativity, it is imperative – Alisha Feitosa, High School English Teacher, American School of Doha, Qatar
Teaching creatively is all about having students find knowledge independently and because young people nowadays have all the resources to help them get information, they do not necessarily need teachers to ‘inform’ them. All the information they need is just a click away – Ameera Ibrahim, MYP Mathematics Teacher and Workshop Leader, Jeddah Knowledge International School, Saudi Arabia
What does creative teaching mean to you? Email your thoughts to editor@ibo.org