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Being able to think creatively is more crucial than ever. Finding innovative and original ways to connect and create, whether required at work or as part of a personal passion, is frequently critical to their success and personal growth. Yet, so often, it is difficult to tap in our creativity when we need it the most. And most of us don't have the luxury of waiting for inspiration to strike.

So how do we actually teach students to be more creative? In this blog post, you will learn specific strategies for developing your students' higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills. You will leave with the ability to assist your students in approaching artistic problems in unique and personal ways. We will give you concrete ideas to get started no matter what level you teach.

Read more on https://www.rolljak.com/blog/creativity-exercises-for-teams

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Boost Students' Creativity with These 8 Team-Based Exercises

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Boost Students' Creativity with These 8 Team-Based Exercises

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Being able to think creatively is more crucial than ever. Yet, so often, it is difficult to tap in our creativity when we need it the most. So how do we actually teach students to

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PART 1
Reflection on Creativity and Innovation in Classroom

Question 1

I had done a lesson whereby I utilized a concept mapping for my Form 2 students. It was a writing class and the topic was Birthday Party. I assigned the students into groups and each group needed to brainstorm a subtopic on Birthday Party. For instance, Group 1 was assigned to brainstorm the list of food provided for a birthday party. They brainstormed their ideas by using Circle Map and wrote it down on a mah-jong paper. After brainstorming the idea, they pasted the mah-jong papers around the class and I checked on the ideas with the students. They were assigned to write an essay on Birthday Party based on the ideas brainstormed.

Question 2 and Question 3

I did a lesson plan on writing out a story. It was a literature class and I taught the students on a story plot. I explained on a story plot by re-telling a comedy genre of story. After that, the students were assigned to come out with a different story on their own creativity. They must apply the knowledge that they have learned on the story plot. I did this activity as to let them practice on their higher order thinking skills and also writing skills. I was happy to see that the students managed to write variety kind of stories by working in groups. Some of the stories that they have written were more interesting than the one that I showed to them as a guideline.

Question 4

During the 12th week of my practicum, I did an explorace game with my students. It was a grammar class on present perfect tense. The students were assigned into groups with a particular role. The group leaders for each group were responsible to in charge for the checkpoints. Different tasks were allocated for every checkpoint. The tasks were the assessment to check their knowledge on present perfect tense. My purpose on conducting this game was to improve their problem solving skill and speaking skill. Different roles were assigned to each of them to ensure their full commitment on the tasks given.

Question 5

This happened in a literature class where I had conducted an activity known as the ‘Literature Circle’. I posted a statement on a scene from the drama ‘A Night Out’ and the students had to discuss on it. However, it was not a common discussion. The students were assigned to their roles such as Vocabulary Expert, the Literature Avatars, the Grammar Luminary and the Discussion Leaders. They had to sit in a circle and two students who had their roles as the Literature Avatars will discuss the statement. The rest took part in the discussion by carrying out their roles. For instance, the Vocabulary Expert helped the Literature Avatars when they struggled with words during the discussion. After listening to the points given by both Literature Avatars, the other students who acted as the Judge will vote for the best Avatar. Before doing that, they jotted down the reasons on choosing that particular Avatar as the winner.

PART 2
Overall View on Creativity and Innovation

In conclusion, I found out that it is not an easy task to apply my creativity and innovation skills in every lesson. I tried my best to be creative and innovative in planning the activities for my students since it attracts their interests towards the lesson. At first, I had the mindset that I should reduce high thinking skills activities for the students since they were intermediate. Throughout my practicum, I began to realize that each of them is creative in their own ways and I just need to dig it out. They are smart in their thinking and ideas. This was proven when most of my students managed to carry out the high order thinking skilled activities successfully. As a teacher, I must help them to enhance their English skills to be compatible with their creativity. It would not be a problem for them to shine their ideas out when they have mastered all the skills. On the other hand, I must improve both my creativity and innovative skills in planning the future lessons for the students.

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Perspective on Creativity and Innovation in classroom.

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Perspective on Creativity and Innovation in classroom.

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Part 1
a.       Use idea creation techniques such as brainstorming and concept mapping?

For this idea, I had assigned a task for students to create mind mapping on the topic of ‘How to Survive the Australian Outback’. From the reading passage, students are assigned in a group to discuss on their topic of how to survive in the outback. They were able to give their own ideas and response which is different from the reading passage given in a form of mind mapping. They then check with the other group if their ideas are similar to their classmates.
b.      Generate their own ideas about how to confront a problem or question?

In speaking class which involves this involves the topic ‘Teenager and Health’. I assigned students to sit in pairs and give them a situation of a patient and a doctor. For each pair they have to role play a discussion between a doctor and a patient with different types of health problems that are common among the teenagers which is familiar to the students.
c.       Test out different ideas and work to improve them?

In my reading class on the topic ‘Superstitious’, the reading passage was based on the Great Britain context that is Irish. The students had hard time to understand the context so I decided to paste pictures of the in order for them to get the gist of the topic. After that I relate them to the local context of superstitious and assigned them to list out the local superstitious that they know. The students then create ideas from the local context that they had developed
d.      Invent a solution to a complex, open-ended question or problem?

In a topic of ‘Cyber bullying’ I assigned the students to design group poster on ways on preventing cyber bullying to occur among teenager. They were able to create many solution and ways to overcome cyber bullying and presenting their work in front of the class although some have provided at least 3 out of 5 ways to overcome the problems based on their own discussion.
e.       Create an original product or performance to express the ideas?

During my writing class, I had assign students to write an email. It was before their one week break and they had learned the format of writing email beforehand. After the school break they had to write email based on their experience during the school break to their friends from other class. The students able to write good and simple email to their friend based on their experience during their holiday to their friend with good examples and explanations.

PART 2

Although I had tried to develop creativity and innovation among the students, I still considered my effort on generating their creativity and innovation are still lacking. It is still considered as a simple way to generate their ideas. However, after doing discussion with my course mate in the class, I realized that there are many ideas how to generate their creativity and innovation thorough a lot of activity which is interactive and fun for the students. Therefore, I found out that I had lack on how to assess the student’s creativity and innovation skills. The students might already done the skills but as a trainee teacher student we are unable to detect that we had already done activity which already help them in their creativity and innovation skills.

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PART 1

QUESTION 1

During my practicum I have implemented idea creation techniques to my students in class. That being said, the students always have discussion among themselves in which they got to have brainstorming session and concept mapping to generate their ideas. This is to practice them to think critically and creatively instead of being spoon fed by the teacher. This reminds me of this one particular lesson that I did with my lesson on one topic which is recycle. I had divided the students into groups of four and the students are required to find three benefits of recycling. I had also instructed them to write in put their ideas into a map so it can be shown to other groups in the class. After that, each group had to share their ideas and from this activity there were groups with different ideas. That way, the students get to see or view different idea and this surely gets them to have better ideas when it comes to brainstorming and concept mapping their ideas.

QUESTION 2

In my class I always try to ask at least a few questions to all the students in class because I always want to know how they respond to a question each time when I ask them. The students might not be good at constructing sentences in English but we cannot dismiss the fact that the students have good ideas. It’s just that due to limited vocabulary they cannot get the ideas out of their mind. This is why I feel the  need to ask them questions to make sure they are used to answering questions or try to solve the problem mentioned to them.

QUESTION 2 and 3

There was this one lesson that I had with the students where they had to invent a robot of their own. This lesson is about Robots. In this lesson the students had to do an auction to sell their robot. Before they started the auction, I had instructed them to list out their robot’s specialties to gain the buyers’ attention. This task was done in a group. After they had done discussing, the students were then started their auction and from this activity, I could see how the students get to test different ideas by showing different specialties of their robot. Although some of the features stated by the students were out of logic but they still managed to impress the audience and this I think is a risk that the students were ready to take to promote their work.

QUESTION 4

I had this one lesson on recycling. In production stage,  each group was given different sets of card which contain different material such as clothes, bottles, egg cartons and cans. The students were asked to create different materials and then they have to tell the whole class as to why they think they should use that certain materials. The other group had to judge the group that was presenting. Each group was given a form in which they had to rate the group that was presenting in terms of their creativity and the content.

Part 2

As a teacher trainee, I think I have tried to develop students’ creativity and innovation skills in my class. This is because I know the students have the capability to show their creativity and innovation and as teacher I had the responsibility to boost their creativity by preparing ways or questions to let the students to showcase their ability. Although this cannot be done daily due to the time given for each lesson, I still managed to assess the students’ creativity and innovation in class tasks and also in their extended activities. Not only the students, I as the teacher had to be creative as well when it comes to developing my materials and I always feel the need to look back at my materials because the students’ performance in class might be related to how I developed my materials. Some of my materials might not be suitable in the sense that they were too hard or for the students to comprehend or my materials are not up to their interest. That being said, I feel like I could not really do a lot on students’ creativity and innovation because I believe that I need to improve myself to be better before I try to assess the students’ skills.

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Reflecting on Creativity and Innovation

Part 1

Question a)

I did the lesson in week 5. The lesson involved Form 2 students and of intermediate level. It was a writing class. The topic of the lesson was on school holiday and I wanted them to be able to describe places using certain grammar elements. Teacher assigned students in groups. The students were given task sheet which contains boxes and pictures of different places. They were to describe about the places using nouns, adjectives and adverbs. The grammar focus on that day was adjective and was taught during the presentation stage.

Objective : To ensure students are able to classify the words based on the correct grammar elements.

Question b) and c)

The lesson was conducted in week 7 when I planned on doing a speaking class. The lesson involved Form 2 students and of intermediate level. I prepared few problems regarding a faulty technology which was to cover for the topic to be learnt on that day that was on science and technology. The students were put in groups and were asked to create a new invention to cater to the problems mentioned earlier. They are required to explain about the efficiency and specialities of their innovation also convinced other groups that their innovation is the best among all the innovations.

Objective : To ensure students are given the opportunity to generate new ideas to solve a problem and test the solutions out.

Question d)

I do this a few times a month. This happened in week 9. The lesson involved Form 4 students of intermediate level. The lesson was on literature. I introduced to them the short story ‘Leaving’ few weeks back and the particular lesson that was conducted this week was on the plot of the story. I asked the students to think about an alternate ending to the story and they are to provide the justifications for the change and consequences.

Objective : To ensure students are able to create solutions in order to solve complex issues usin various ways and being open to view things in different perspectives.

Question e)

This was conducted in week 10 which involved Form 2 students of intermediate level. The lesson was on a literary work titled ‘A Night Out’. The students were required to create a short script and bring their own props for the presentation of the drama creatively. The teacher gave feedbacks after the class.

Objective : To ensure students are able to express ideas through performances.

Part  2

I tried my best to implement the elements of creativity and innovation in most of my lessons. As a teacher, it should be an effort to help my students learn better. I am quite sure they are other activities which involve creativity that I could try if I were ever given the chance. After each lesson, I would provide feedbacks and give assessments to check on the effectiveness of the lesson were able to do so easily. I believe my students are someway somehow a little more creative being in my class and that were proven through the assessments.

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Kannika Siphakdee

Element A

I have tried to use concept map and brainstorming daily. One of the activities that I did with my student was brainstorming for new phone application.  I did this during speaking class and the topic is places to visit. They need to brainstorm new apps that can help them during their travel when they are travelling. Their ideas are organized in bubble map.

Element B

For element B, one of the things I did was asking them to write what will they do if they are trapped in a natural disaster. It was during writing class. The situation that I gave them was what to do during flood.  They need to write one paragraph of it.  Some of the they need to include the precaution they need to take and what they should do during flood.

Element C & D

This lesson is writing class and the theme is take care. I was teaching them sequence connecter. In this class I put the students in groups then I gave them different situation for each group. One of the situations is: I think I’m getting fat. Can you give some advice on losing weight, please?  Each group need to find solution the problems given and present them. The other students will give some comments to the solution they suggested.

Element E

It was speaking class. I ask the students to sit in group and brainstorm new phone application. It actually related to element A. They need to invent or innovate an app that can help during travelling. I gave them some example on existing app such as Hotel Trivago and Grabs.  it was interesting to see the new application the students come up with.  They manage to come up with interesting app. At the end of the class they will vote for the best app and tell the class why the app is the best.

Overall view

Overall, I realise that creativity and innovation is not easy. Us as teacher need to be more creative when planning a lesson. I do feel regretful that I could not be more creative with my lesson. I tend to make simple lesson plan because I’m afraid that I cannot finish the lesson and the student could not due it. Due to my lack of experience I did not think I have help the student to enhance much in creativity and innovation in my class.

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SIVAGAMY CHANDRAN

PART 1

a.       Use idea creation techniques such as brainstorming and concept mapping?

These techniques was used in during speaking class for Form 1. The topic of that day was on Home Rules for Gadgets. During the set induction, the students were asked to do bubble map on types of gadgets. The bubble map is easier to be done and students able to elicit more ideas on types of gadgets.

b.      Generate their own ideas about how to confront a problem or question?

During one of the listening class, there was an activity in which students need to read question cards and answers them based on the topic of animals in group.

c.       Test out different ideas and work to improve them?

It was during Form 1 reading class and the topic was on Safaris. In the set induction, I tried to use a game called Hangman in which they students have to guess the name of the place that they going to study on that day with the help of pictures.  The students managed to think creatively on guessing the name of the country.

d.      Invent a solution to a complex, open-ended question or problem?

I gave triangle cards in the production stage for the students during one of the  grammar class. I asked the students to solve the puzzle as to get answers at the end. So the students discussed in their groups and they managed to arrange the puzzle in correct way.

e.       Create an original product or performance to express the ideas?

It was during reading class on the topic of Safaris, the students required to create poster based on the ways of saving endangered animals. Through this poster, it can be seen students have the creativity in doing poster.

PART 2

Overall, I have tried to develop students’ creativity and innovation skills. Every student has creativity and innovation skill in themselves. Someone need to give the support to them. I wouldn’t said that they have learned creativity and innovation skill while in my class entirely but only to minor extent. I am not able to assess students creativity and innovations skill effectively since I am not clear in the way of assess the students in both the skills.

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Reflections on creativity and innovation aspect.

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Reflections on creativity and innovation aspect.

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Question a)

In a topic related to food, I ask the students to jot thoughts by writing the food that come out in their mind on a sticky note. Then, I asked them to classify the food into healthy or unhealthy food sections by pasting the sticky notes on its section on the whiteboard. After that, I asked the class what makes a food healthy and not. Then, we discussed either they have the food names pasted on the correct section or not.

Question b)

In a lesson about bullying, I gave a text about a victim and his bullies to the students. The students read and I called some students to give responses to the problematic situations to the class. The students stood up and voiced out how they think they can face the bully problem either as the victim or other people in the situation.

Question c)

In the lesson of personal issue for Week 14, I have tried dictation activity. It was my first time doing it, I needed to improve it a lot. The arrangement of dictation were not so good since the first and second person of sending the messages during the dictation is too close with each other. Plus, two groups by two groups do the dictation at the same time. This takes time for the activity to finish. I took the feedbacks from the students of how was the activity went. They gave some suggestions and I count them in to improve our the activity for our next lesson.

In the lesson of health and wellbeing for Week 15, I made an arrangement where all the groups will do the dictation at the same time. The group members must move from one section to another section in a sufficient gap to send the message without being heard by other group members. The improvements made have evidently makes the class more energetic and no time was wasted.

Question d)

In a lesson where the topic is about creating a robot, I let the students to create a robot which will help them to confront a problem or ease their everyday task. The drawings of the creation must have the explanation of why it is created that way for its purposes. This will give a push for the students to be innovative as they will be the ones who invent for future products and machines.

Question e)

In a lesson related to a story, I asked the students to create a poster expressing their idea of the character they like in the story. The students make the poster by themselves. They kind of like it since it can come in colours and shapes. I did not give any boundaries for them to do it except that they have to mention the name and the ideas of why did they like it.

Overall, I realized that I did not put enough effort into creativity and innovation aspect for the students. I wish I could have done more eventhough the school is lack of facility, time and space due to PT3 preparations and other activity. If I do, the students will learn to be more creative and innovative in and outside the classroom.

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Part One

Practice 1 and 2

a. Use idea creation techniques such as brainstorming or concept mapping? (Almost Daily)

b. Generate their own ideas about how to confront a problem or questions? (Almost Daily)

The students having brainstorming sessions and utilizing mind maps in my class were normal occurrences. I respect my students’ opinions and I like the idea of students being able to generate and propose their own take on the topic that we are learning on that particular day. Brainstorming sessions can be done individually, in pairs or groups; the flexibility of this technique has enabled me to present my students with a clear ‘starting line’ to find suitable solutions for problems or to answer questions. It was amazing to be able to witness what the students were able to come up with if they were given chances to do so.

For instance, I coaxed my form 1 students to read the graphic novel ‘The Swiss Family Robinson’ by telling them that we will be learning about the characters in the next lesson. They need to know the story in order to be able to introduce the character that will be assigned to them and they are expected to be able to present evidences from the graphic novel to support their statements. They were sorted into groups and they are required to identify the characteristics of the assigned character by filling in a bubble map. Next, they are required to brainstorm on how to justify the characteristics that they had identified and find the most unique and efficient way to introduce the said character to their friends. They had fun carrying out the simple activity. Although it was guided, they are given a full autonomy to choose how their presentation would be.

Practice 3, 4 and 5

c. Test out different ideas and works to improve them? (Almost Daily)

d. Invent a solution to a complex, open ended questions or problem? (1-3 times per week)

e. Create an original product or performance to express their ideas? (1-3 times per week)

It is exciting to see students revealing their creative and innovative sides once there are given befitting platforms to channel them. I think it is important for them to acknowledge the fact that they are not conditioned to have a single solution for each problem. The teacher has the responsibility to guide them to reach their own understanding on the certitude that just because something works, it does not mean that it cannot be improved.

I have done a reading activity with my form 4 students where they were given a chance to be magazine graphic designers and interior designers. The students were assigned into groups of four and each group was given a project portfolio. For the students who were graphic designers, they were in charge of creating a magazine cover. On the other hand, the others who were interior designers, they were in charge of creating a floor plan and design concept for a house. The students were required to brainstorm as they list down the important details from the project portfolio in order to be able to create a product as close to the description provided as possible. Undeniably, the execution of the activity took a long time. However, the end products that the students had come up with were beyond satisfactory level and my personal expectation.

Part Two

Overall Reflection

Subjectively, although it was not adequate, I have tried my best to develop my students’ creativity and innovation skills and some of them have learned the skills in my class to a great extent. However, I personally believe that the activities that we had the chance to carry out are far from enough for them to properly benefit from the skills that they have learned. If I were to have the list name of my students now and are asked to evaluate each of them on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is the maximum score, I will be able to rate them according to my personal observation in class. However, I do not have a proper instrument to assess their creativity and innovation skills; therefore my evaluation is not as effective as it should be.

If I were given more opportunity to teach in the future, I want to be more educated in this aspect in order to be able to explore more ways to teach and prepare better platforms for them to properly develop the skills. Knowing that there are a lot of idea generation techniques, but is not equipped enough to be able to properly plan and adapt it for the students is truly something regretful.

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Afiqah Syazwani Bt Mohammad Fauzan (D20151070651)

PART A

a.       Use idea creation techniques; brainstorming and concept mapping

In a writing lesson, I had utilised a brainstorming mind map and a flow map. It was a 1 hour lesson of form 2RK1 class. The topic was on inviting a friend to an amusement park. The used of brainstorming mind map took place during practice stage where each student was given the mind map template and a whole class discussion took place pertaining the topic. Students were required to fill in the mind map with the ideas discussed. Then, I assigned the students into groups and distributed a flow map template. In their respective group, students were required to discuss and fill in the flow map with the assigned paragraph. I utilised the mind map as to help them to have room in generating their own ideas related to the topic, and to refer to the ideas when working on their draft. As for the flow-map, I implement it as to help them in the aspect of the flow or the organisation of their draft for the email that they need to write.

b.      Generate their own ideas about how to confront a problem or question

In a speaking lesson with form 1RK6 class, I had asked the students to create a dialogue based on the assigned situation for their group. The topic was on giving advices to friends. During practice stage, I assigned the students into groups and gave them situation strip each. They were required to discuss the advice or solutions accordingly to the situations given and present it in a role-play during production stage. By giving the students different situation for each group, I intended to have them share different ideas based on what they have discussed and give feedbacks to each other works.

c.       Test out different ideas and work to improve them

In a speaking lesson with form 2RK1 students on the topic titled ‘A peep into the Future!’ I conducted an activity where the students were required to make improvisations or upgrades to the appliances they had chosen.  In the practice stage, they were assigned into groups and were required to choose an envelope containing a picture of appliances and the functions. In group, they were required to discuss the improvisations they wanted to make on the chosen appliance and the rationale behind it. They were required to present their work to the class by including the future tense they had learned. The students gave feedback on their friends work and suggest other improvisations they could make on the particular appliance.

d.      Invent a solution to a complex, open-ended question or problem

During a listening lesson in form 1RK6 students with the topic ‘The Wise Shopper’, I conducted an activity where the students were required to come out with a shopping list according to the made up RM notes they had as a group. During the production stage, students were assigned into groups with made up RM notes. The students who got the same RM notes were grouped together. Then, I distributed one grocery shopping flyer to each group along with a situation strip. They were required to decide on what they could buy based on the amount of money they got as a group. Each group was given different situation. After the discussion, they were to present their grocery shopping list and explain the reasons behind it. The students are required to give feedback on their friends’ work by giving suggestions on how they could do it better.

e.      Create an original product or performance to express their ideas

I had asked the students of 2RK1 to create an awareness poster to save the ocean in their respective group. This activity was initially planned to be completed during the production stage. It was a listening lesson where I was having glitches with the audio speaker and had to extend the practice stage where the students need to listen to the audio. Due to that, the students were not able to complete their poster, but I could assess the draft of their poster with the required vocabulary learned included. They are required to complete the poster as their homework. The posters that the students had created were excellent and I was content with their works. They had included the vocabulary learned and they created amazing posters. I realised the students, if given an appropriate time to complete their work could produce amazing products to express their ideas.

PART B

In all, I believe that I had made a decent amount of attempts to build the students creativity and innovative skills throughout my practicum. This was what I felt prior to the discussion we had in the class. When I saw that my friends had made more attempts than me, I believe that I should have done more or at the very least the same with my friends. I am not bringing myself down, but just a reminder for me to always challenge myself.

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Question 1

In your teaching of your target class, how often have you asked students to do the following?

Aspect a) Use idea creation techniques such as brainstorming or concept mapping? (1 to 3 times per month.)

It was in the second month into the practicum when my supervisor came to do my first observation. It was a writing class on Tuesday and I was going to teach them about depression. I also aim to teach them vocabulary and the format of 5 paragraph essay. In this lesson, I asked them questions so they can brainstorm the idea of what depression is, what is the effect and so on in the set induction. From the brainstorming, I taught them meaning of words and how to use those words in their essays. They did well on brainstorming, however, the students need facilitation and stimulation from the teacher.

Aspect b) Generate their own ideas about how to confront a problem or questions? (1 to 3 times per week)

Aspect d) Invent a solution to a complex, open-ended question or problem? (1 to 3 times per week)

It was the lesson in the second month into the practicum where they just finished their mid-term exam. It was on Friday and I only have 30 minutes left to teach because I was going to leave the rest of the lesson to discuss about their exam paper. I was going to teach the students about informal letter. The topic is about giving advices and students are given phrases to give advises properly to their friends. Teacher gave the students situation and the students have to think about what they should say to the person in the situation given by their teacher. In this aspect, the students can give their own ideas but the ideas were usually short and they did not elaborate more.

Aspect c) Test out different ideas and work to improve them? (a few times a semester)

It was a lesson in literature, and I was going to teach them synopsis. However, the students cannot understand the text and I asked three of the best students in the class to explain to the class however they think is possible to make their friends understand. The students end up telling the stories like they were telling daily stories to each other. However, this does not work well for the students.

Aspect e) Create an original product or performance to express their ideas (a few times a semester)

It was a lesson on adjective and I focused on constructing sentences. I gave the students pictures and they had to describe the pictures with adjectives and present their pictures to the class. This also did not work well as the students were taking too much time to prepare their presentation.

REFLECTION ON QUESTION 1

Reflecting on my practicum, I realised that I have not given that much opportunity to my students to express their ideas and creativity. It is also due to my lack of experience; I did not know when and where to challenge the students’ knowledge and ideas.

REFLECTION ON QUESTION 2

Reflecting on my practicum, I realised that I did not try my best to bring out the students’ creativity and ideas. I tend to make the lesson simple as I am afraid they will not be able to take it. Due to this, the students do not learn much of creativity and innovation skills in my class. As a new and inexperienced teacher also, I think to overlook the way they present their ideas and did not properly assess their creativity as I did not know how and which aspect of the ideas I need to look at.

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Reflection on Creativity and Innovation Skills in Classroom

PART 1
Question 1
I used a concept mapping on one of my speaking class. In that lesson, the students had to brainstorm some ideas in order to complete their task. They need to list down the ideas in the bubble map form.  The topic was about Stores. Each group were given a picture of an object. Based on the object, they need to decide what type of shop that they will be opening. For example stationery shop, clothing shop, groceries store and others. Then they need to list down what are the other objects that they can sell in that shop. They need to list the items in a bubble map form. Then based on the word listed, they need to come out with a dialogue. They need to include the words in the dialogues.

Question 2
It was a literature class. I taught them about The Swiss Robinson Family. Since the drama is about the survival, the question that I gave them was, “if you happened to be stranded on an island, what would you do?”. In their respective group, they need to think and brainstorm their own idea on how to deal with that issue if it were to happen to them. Then once the wait time is over, I asked each group to share their answer with the whole class. As one of the group is sharing their answer, I asked the rest of the class what are some other things that they would do. Any additional opinion or suggestion they would like to share.

Question 3 & 4
The lesson was about money and financial. I taught them about the differences between the needs and the wants. I gave each group different situation. Based on the situation given, they need to state and identify the solution for it. Example of the situation is “Sara has RM50, she need to get a pair of new sport shoes which will cost her RM35 since the one that she have is already worn out. However, she also have been wanting to buy a new bag because the one she has is already out of fashion. So she has been considering to buy a new one. The bag cost RM25. If you were Sara which one will you buy. Explain your reason.” Every group will get a different situation and based on that situation they need to decide and justify the reason for their choice.

Question 5
It was a literature class. This was actually an extended activity from the previous lesson. It was the same lesson as the one stated in (Question 2). Based on the task in the production stage, which they need to elaborate on what would they do if they were stranded on an island, they need to come up with an interaction and act out the scene. It was just a short one. I used this as a closure stage in the next literature lesson instead of just recapping the lesson of that day.

PART 2
My overall view is that I still have a long way to go and there are plenty of rooms for improvement in terms of my own creativity when it comes to developing an interactive lesson as well as providing space for the students to be creative. I tried and will still try to provide a better learning session for the students. I also realise that I was rather worried that the students won’t be able to accomplish and complete a certain task if I make it too hard for them. Because of that I tend to provide easy task for the students just so that they can accomplish it. Planning and executing are two different thing. I need to give them more rooms for them to learn instead of keep on putting them on a certain limit just so that the objective is achieved.

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Creativity and Innovation Skills Reflection.

Element 1

In your teaching of your TARGET CLASS, how often do you ask students to do the following:

a) Use idea creation techniques such brainstorming or concept mapping?

During writing class, I often asked my students to brainstorm the idea before they draft the actual essay. For example, during one of the writing class, the students need to write an essay with the title 'Tips to Save Money'. After I divided students into group, I distributed a circle map. In their respective group, students are required to brainstorm the idea that is related to the topic. Brainstorming help students to present the idea and decide which idea is suitable for them to use in the essay.

b) Generate their own ideas about how to confront a problem or question?

When I was conducting reading class, after the students have read the passage, I gave them one or two open-ended questions that required them to think of the solution. For example, the passage is about how to boast one's self confidence. One of the questions that I asked students to think of the solution was; 'How to confront someone who has self-confidence issues?' The students need to generate their own solution to the questions since the answer to the question were not in the passage that they have read.

c) Test out different ideas and work to improve them?

The lesson is about how to convince people to buy your product. The product that they were trying to sell was variety of food. The language focus during the lesson is adjectives. Therefore, the students need to use adjectives to describe the food and convince the customer to buy it. I asked students to draft their food's description and how they would convince the customer. Next, they present their draft and I gave feedback so that they can improve before they can actually sell the food.

d) Invent a solution to a complex, open-ended questions or problem?

It happened during speaking class where students need to invent a technology that can be use in the future that will not affect and solves environmental problems. I divided the students into groups and each group will have to choose which product they wanted to invent. For example, if group 1 has chosen telephone then others cannot choose the same one.

e) Create original product or performance to express their ideas?

Again, it happened during speaking class where students are required to do a role-play about how to act when they saw someone that needs help. The students were divided into groups and different situations were given to each group. For example, one of the situations was what would they do if they happened to see someone's car broke down in the middle of the road. They were free to choose how they would act, for example, they may choose to help or they may choose to ignore but they need to include justification and moral values at the end of the role play.

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My Perspective on Creativity and Innovation in Classroom

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My Perspective on Creativity and Innovation in Classroom

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PART 1

Question 1:

I used brainstorming or concept mapping few times in my classes especially in writing activities. In form 2 class, I taught them on narrative essay.  Based on the topic and few words given to them, they need to brainstorm the storyline of the story they were going to write. As an example, the topic that I asked them to write was about ‘A Dark and Stormy Night’. I gave the students few words in each element in essay like in introduction part; the students got few words such as ‘dark’, ‘stormy night’, ‘raining heavily’, ‘at home’, ‘alone’, and ‘homework’.  Based on the few words given to them, the students need to brainstorm what kind of event that happened in the beginning of the story.  Another example is I asked the Form 1 students to use i-Think map when they were brainstorming on causes and ways to save endangered animal.

Question 2 & 4:

In one of the lesson that I did in form 2 class, I gave them few situation related to environmental issues. In their group, the students need to discuss on how to solve the problem. They need to come out a solution to the problems. For example, one of the groups got a problem on haze. To confront the problem, they need to come out with a product that will help the people in facing the haze. The group came out with an idea of a mask with different functions. The students need to list out the strengths and limitation of the products.

Questions 3:

The reason why I cannot test out different ideas and work to improve them is because of the limitation of time. I was having problem in managing the time of the lesson. Due to that, I was thinking that if I carry this out, it might take a lot of time for me to carry it out. Plus, I was not sure on how to carry out this kind of activity with my students.  Another reason is the students’ participation. Some of the students are not giving their participation in classroom activity especially if it related to group work. Some of the students were not giving their cooperation with their friends in discussion or giving ideas on solution to the task given.

Question 5:

In one of the lesson, the topic that the students learned on that day was about the future. During the conclusion stage, I asked them to imagine what would happen to our country in the next 20 years. The students gave their ideas on what would happen in the future such as a lot of skyscrapers, flying cars and such. Then, I asked them if they were scientist in future, what they would do or create for their generations and country. The students were sharing their thoughts and ideas on that question and they were able to justify their answer on why they invent such things.

Part 2

As a whole, I would say that creativity and innovation is something that is not easy to do. It is because we need have good ideas and be more creative in planning the activities for the lessons. As a teacher, I need to enhance students’ creativity in lessons. However, I do realize that I am having difficulties on how to be more creative as a teacher in planning activities and at the same time to encourage the students to be more creative and innovative. I feel regret that I could not do much in order to make my students develop their creativity and innovation skills throughout my lessons. I should improve myself to be a creative and innovative teacher and also understand my students to help them in improving their creativity and innovation skills during the lessons.

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My perspective on Creativity and Innovation in classroom.

Element 1
It was during the third observation from my mentor teacher, which was a writing class. my mentor teacher asked me to focus on their examination question, so i focused on question (j) where the students have to extract the information from an advertisement and write an email to their friend. I asked the students to use i-think map to extract the information before writing the email. The students could write better after i asked them to use the i-think map and managed to write 50 words email using all the information. My mentor teacher also told me that it was a good approach to use for low proficiency students like them.

Element 2
It was a literature class. i was teaching form 1 students about the poem News Break. The students already learned the poem and i was testing their understanding of the poem by asking them to draw a poster for each paragraph. They worked in group and came out with different types of poster that shows their understanding for each paragraph. They also managed to explain in detail the poster that they had come up with to the class.

Element 3
I was teaching literature class for my form 1 students which was The Swiss Family Robinson. The students were having difficulties in writing the description for characteristic of the characters for their examination. I prepared a crossword puzzle using Hot Potato where they have to fill in the puzzle with the characteristics of the main character and I put the evidences from the novel as the clues for the characteristics. They used that crossword as their references to write the essay about characteristics of the main character and managed to answer the examination format exercise correctly.

Element 4
Most of my students in both classes have low level of proficiency and were having difficulties in writing skills. Every time i teach writing in both classes, i will always asked the students to write the outline of the essay first using all the keywords given from the question. i always get them to list down all the verbs that they can use related to the topic and get them to work in group to come out with an outline using i-think map. It was kind of worked as they were no longer stuck in the middle of their writing when they had their outline for them to refer. They also managed to produce at least four paragraphs essay, while before this they always produce only two paragraphs essay.

Element 5
It was during one of the reading class with my form 1 students. The passage was about the Scottish island and they had to answer comprehensive questions. During production, i got them separated into two big groups and they had do a mini debate about "i prefer to live in the island vs i prefer to live in the city". The students generates their own ideas that were not stated in the passage and justify thier opinion. They were motivated to express their opinion when I promised them that they will get reward. They actually had fun in the class as they managed to express their opinion even their pronunciation and grammar are wrong. As a teacher, i think i should always give them chances and help them to express more on their opinion about the topic that they are learning in class.

Overall View
I realized that i didn't really get the students to be creative in most of my classes. I think i underestimate my students' abilities. Sometimes i was to focused on the skills that i want to teach to the students that i often forgot to get them to be more creative in producing their answers. Besides, lacking of experience in teaching might be one of the factors that limit me in getting the students to be creative in their own way. I may need a lot of time to get use with the school system like time management, rules and students' daily school routine. I would like to try more in getting the students and also myself to be creative in learning and teaching. I believe that with more effort in planning, i will get better in understanding my students' capabilities and manage to get them to be more creative. By go through a lot of trails and errors, i believe that i will also get better in producing creative ideas in teaching my students.

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Part 1

Element (a)

It was a speaking class for my Form 1 students. The task was, the students need to prepare a script as if they will be interviewed as a competitor in a survival program. Before writing the script, I distributed a mind map to the students. They need to brainstorm a place they would like to go and describe it and also list down 3 items that they think important for their survival.

Element (b)

The lesson was on speaking skills with the topic of online shopping. I taught them the phrases used for asking and giving advice. During practice stage, each group was given a situation. They need to come out with a solution to the situation and choose the appropriate phrases to be used. One of the situations was “Your friend loves online shopping. He sometimes spent too much on an item. One day, he told you that he wished to buy a designer t-shirt that will cost him RM900! He asked for you opinion regarding this matter”.

Element ( c) and  (d)

It happened during a speaking class on the topic of transportation for my Form 2 students. The lesson was planned to introduce new vocabulary regarding modes of transportation to the students. During production stage, one representative of each group was required to choose a vehicle based different mode of transportation from a box that I have prepared. They were needed to upgrade those vehicles with some special features. Then they need to present their ideas and justify their choice. When each group finished presenting their idea, I asked some feedback from their classmates to further improve the design. For example, they might need to make some amendments in the aspect of practicality of the design.

Element (e)

This was a 2 –hour speaking class for Form 1 students. For this lesson, I taught them the adjectives used to describe places. For production stage, they were required to role play an interview for a reality show which is a survival program called ‘All Alone’. Each team was considered as a production team. They need to choose the cameraman, the host, the participant and a script writer. They need to prepare a script for the participant part as a group and this part was discussed. I provided them with the host cue card and they need to include the details of the participant in the blank spaces. Then, the students were required to plan their own interview and I gave some times for them to practice. After that, they presented to interview in front of the class.

Overall reflection for Part 1

I must admit that it is not easy to come up with creative activities which can cover the objectives of each lesson. I was having a hard time in the first month of my teaching practice as I still need time to know the ability of my students. One of the biggest obstacles was the time constrain. I could see that the students have potential in coming out with great ideas and solutions but they need time to express their ideas. Despite that, I was happy when the students really engaged in the activity and cooperated very well with me in some of the lessons. One thing that I definitely learnt was to give chance for the students to express themselves because sometimes all they need is just a positive support from the teachers.

Reflection for Part 2

I believed that I have tried to develop the students’ creativity and innovative skills to a moderate extent through the activities that I have planned for them especially for speaking class. I tried to plan some activities that will help the students to use the language in fun way because they seldom have these kinds of activities before. I started off by introducing them to simple activities such as simple role play and slowly moving to a more complex role play such as reporting. The students also have learned creativity and innovation skills to a certain extent while in my class. I can see this by comparing the quality of product or performances that they have presented. Initially, the students will be taking a fair long time to complete a simple activity during the production stage. However, as we proceeded with the classes they were able to plan their performance to the very small details. For instance, during the first month of my practicum, they were able to present a role play just by standing in front of the class and reading the dialogue that they have written. However, a few speaking class later, they were able to plan the scenes and revised the dialogue on the spot.

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My Perspective on Creativity and Innovation in Classro

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My Perspective on Creativity and Innovation in Classro

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PART 1

Question 1

During my first class with Form 4 students, I taught them writing skills and the topic was on how to conserve water. I did ask them to use circle map to brainstorm some words related to “water”.  I did this in set induction stage as to give the students the gist of the lesson and to hint them that the lesson would be related to water. Another reason of this brainstorming activity was to allow them to see the importance of conserving water. My expected answers from the students were they would mention some water sources such as ponds, rains, rivers, as well as the usage of water such as cleaning, bathing, washing and so on. The students managed to come out with those expected answers.  Once they realized that water has many sources and many uses to them, they were able to come out with the importance of conserving water. Hence, their mind was triggered to think of ways to keep water sources clean and can be used for many more years. From the words like ponds and river, they were able to think of ways to keep the ponds and rivers clean which is one of the ways to conserve water.

Question 2

For my Form 2 class, I did an activity which required them to come out with a solution to a problem. One of the lessons required them to think from a perspective of a cyber bullying victim. I gave the students (in groups) a situation card that explained a scenario where a teenager is being bullied through online comments on social media. The task asked them to think of a way how would the victim feel and how to overcome the bullying problem among teenager so that there will not be any other victim like them. The students were able to come out with various solutions for their own scenario. It ranged from individual action to community act. Realizing that the students are able to give solutions and suggestions that are relevant, I did this activity multiple times during my practicum period with different topics and perspectives to enhance their higher order thinking skills as well as to implement empathy.

Question 3

For the first few weeks during my practicum, I did not do any differentiated learning for my form 4 students as I was not aware of my students’ various level of proficiency in a class just yet. I prepared all work sheets for intermediate to advanced students only. Due to that, the weaker students faced difficulties in answering the questions and completing the work sheets. So, I decided to do differentiated learning by preparing different types of work sheets for intermediate to advanced students and students at beginner level of proficiency. After I did differentiation in work sheets, I instructed the students to be in groups with mixed proficiency from beginner to advanced students. Although it was hard for them to work in groups at first, the students seemed to get used to it as time goes by. The differentiated learning method applied in the classroom managed to encourage the students at the beginner level to participate in the class discussion as well and help them to finish the tasks assigned to them with some guidance from their group members.

Question 4

In one of the lessons for my Form 2 class, I did ask them to invent a solution to a complex problem by putting them in someone else’s shoes. The theme for the lesson was health and my topic was generally on mental health but we talked a lot about depression and anxiety. In order to develop higher order thinking skills, the questions were all focusing on finding a solution or the best way to cope with depression or anxiety. The students need to put themselves as a person who is suffering mental health or a friend to a person who has mental health and they need to suggest ways to cope with depression or state their role as a friend to these people who suffer from mental health. It was a group activity since they were just 14 and the topic might not be familiar to them. The response received was positive as they were able to give suggestion or solution and elaborate their suggestions and statements.

Question 5

I did a presentation for my Form 2 class in a grammar lesson and the focused skill was writing. I decided to focus on narrative writing and they needed to come out with a very short and simple story. In production stage, the students were only provided with a genre of stories such as horror, crime, fantasy and science fiction. With the genre that they were assigned to, they need to create a story of that genre. I conducted such activity to develop their creativity by writing short stories.  All groups managed to write a complete story within a time limit and able to present their stories to the whole class.

PART 2

Developing students’ creativity and innovation skills is a challenging task for me. In order to develop somebody else’s skills, I need to have and master the skills first and I realised that I have not had enough creativity and innovation skills. However, even though I am lack in those skills, my students were able to come out with creative ideas for any activities that require their creativity and innovation skills. Some ideas or responses I received from them are ideas that even I cannot come out with. Hence, I came to a conclusion that teachers need to give an ample amount of guidance, support and encouragement to their students if they want to develop or enhance any skill in classroom even if teachers might not master the skills themselves. It is a bonus if a teacher is a creative person as he or she can be role model for their students as he or she can showcase her or his creativity to the students.

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YULDASHEVA  MAHZUNA Reflection on Creativity and Innovation in Classroom     Part A                                            •       Question 1                     This happened in week 7 for Form 4 students. I made my lesson plan that involved a concept mapping. The lesson was literature about the short story Leaving, the skill was speaking skills. For this class I tried to teach about 5 elements of plot. Students learned about those elements in presentation stage. For practice stage, I distributed explanation of each elements of plot as a tips and at the same time jumbled-up story which is cut into 5. Students needed to arrange the story in correct order of plot stages. The objective here the students to be familiar 5 elements of plot.                        •   Question 2                                    I did a lesson plan on Prevent Water Pollution for my Form 4 students. It was a writing skills lesson. I pasted a paper on the whiteboard which is written “Ways to prevent water pollution”. Then I asked question that what are the ways they can prevent water pollution. I drew a bubble map on the whiteboard, there were 6 circles and I filled all circles by asking the ways to prevent water pollution from the students and discussed them with students. The objective here is to elicit opinions and answers for the question given from the students.                      •	Question 3                         Middle of my teaching practice I was teaching simple past tense for my low proficiency level Form 4 students. Because they had problem with simple past tense. I distributed them irregular verbs list. I asked them to memorize the irregular verbs and promised to reward for the winner who found the most. One day, I asked them to prepare for the next class to memorize further about irregular verbs and played game based on it. Then, I explained them that I will write the verbs which are in simple present tense students immediately need to change into past tense. It was really interesting for them. I repeated this game 3-4 times. I tested them by giving the text to change simple present tense to simple past tense. When I checked their text I got the students improvement.             •  Question 4                                  It was reading skills class. The topic was “Dynamic Eight Malaysia Plan Takes Off”. I distributed the handout to explain students about how to identify the main idea and how to summarize a text. Based on the tips in the handout students needed to find the main idea and summarize a text. The objective is here to help students how to find the main idea and summarize a text by using the handout.        •       Question 5                     This happened in a speaking skills class, and the topic was about Healthy lifestyle. I prepared the pictures related to the topic. Students are required to prepare the dialogue based on those pictures and produce it in front of the class. The objective is here to lead the students to the healthy lifestyle by using the pictures and create the dialogue. When they produce the dialogue it will be more interesting and lively for them. PART 2                               Overall View on Creativity and Innovation.                              For the creativity and innovation, I think I could not develop my students’ creativity and innovation skills in the class as I expect. I tried to develop their skills but maybe because of my lack of knowledge I couldn’t able to reach it. Maybe sometimes my materials were not interesting for my students, these things also can be cause to be not develop students’ creativity. But however, I tried to increase the students’ knowledge, their skills as well as their creativity.         

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YULDASHEVA  MAHZUNA Reflection on Creativity and Innovation in Classroom     Part A                                            •       Question 1                     This happened in week 7 for Form 4 students. I made my lesson plan that involved a concept mapping. The lesson was literature about the short story Leaving, the skill was speaking skills. For this class I tried to teach about 5 elements of plot. Students learned about those elements in presentation stage. For practice stage, I distributed explanation of each elements of plot as a tips and at the same time jumbled-up story which is cut into 5. Students needed to arrange the story in correct order of plot stages. The objective here the students to be familiar 5 elements of plot.                        •   Question 2                                    I did a lesson plan on Prevent Water Pollution for my Form 4 students. It was a writing skills lesson. I pasted a paper on the whiteboard which is written “Ways to prevent water pollution”. Then I asked question that what are the ways they can prevent water pollution. I drew a bubble map on the whiteboard, there were 6 circles and I filled all circles by asking the ways to prevent water pollution from the students and discussed them with students. The objective here is to elicit opinions and answers for the question given from the students.                      •	Question 3                         Middle of my teaching practice I was teaching simple past tense for my low proficiency level Form 4 students. Because they had problem with simple past tense. I distributed them irregular verbs list. I asked them to memorize the irregular verbs and promised to reward for the winner who found the most. One day, I asked them to prepare for the next class to memorize further about irregular verbs and played game based on it. Then, I explained them that I will write the verbs which are in simple present tense students immediately need to change into past tense. It was really interesting for them. I repeated this game 3-4 times. I tested them by giving the text to change simple present tense to simple past tense. When I checked their text I got the students improvement.             •  Question 4                                  It was reading skills class. The topic was “Dynamic Eight Malaysia Plan Takes Off”. I distributed the handout to explain students about how to identify the main idea and how to summarize a text. Based on the tips in the handout students needed to find the main idea and summarize a text. The objective is here to help students how to find the main idea and summarize a text by using the handout.        •       Question 5                     This happened in a speaking skills class, and the topic was about Healthy lifestyle. I prepared the pictures related to the topic. Students are required to prepare the dialogue based on those pictures and produce it in front of the class. The objective is here to lead the students to the healthy lifestyle by using the pictures and create the dialogue. When they produce the dialogue it will be more interesting and lively for them. PART 2                               Overall View on Creativity and Innovation.                              For the creativity and innovation, I think I could not develop my students’ creativity and innovation skills in the class as I expect. I tried to develop their skills but maybe because of my lack of knowledge I couldn’t able to reach it. Maybe sometimes my materials were not interesting for my students, these things also can be cause to be not develop students’ creativity. But however, I tried to increase the students’ knowledge, their skills as well as their creativity.         

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Idea creation techniques

Evidence :
I normally ask the students to use concept mapping each time I want them to brainstorm the idea that they have regarding the topic. For instance, in set  induction stage, I write the word “Healthy” in a bubble map on the whiteboard  and asked the students to list down what they had on their mind when they saw  the word. In this way, the students will be more creative in contemplating the gist of the topic of the lesson.

Generate own idea

Evidence :
In one of the lessons under the topic “Save Water”, I gave a situation that required the students to generate their own idea to confront a problem. The situation given was “Your school will be facing water rationing for three days. Find ways on  how you and your friends can conserve the use of water.” I found that the students were able to generate their own idea and find solutions to the problem based on  the situation given.

Test out different ideas

Evidence :
My students were lacked in reading skills. They did not really know how to do skimming and scanning. Therefore, I asked them to use HEBAT reading strategies to assist them in finding the main ideas and supporting details from the reading text. I found that the students were able to improve their reading skills by trying out different way to skim and scan. I also found that they enjoyed the reading lesson when they got to try another way to get information from the reading text.

Invent a solution

Evidence :
I ask the students to work in groups and think of a solution to solve Tarsia jigsaw
puzzle during one of their literature classes. I gave them pieces of puzzles that contain themes and explanations and let them work within their groups to match
those puzzles. I found that the students were actually discussed the solution with their group members and managed to complete the puzzle.

Create an original product

Evidence :
In one of the lessons under the theme “Consumerism and Financial Awareness”, I asked the students to come out with their own poster to promote the Jumble Sale by using the vocabularies that they have listed in the earlier stage. I found that the students were able to express their idea by elaborating the vocabularies into catching sentences by creating the poster.

Overall Reflection

As a practicum teacher, I believe that it is crucial to be creative and innovative in classroom. I feel that we as a teacher should let the students to work within their own creativity so that they will get to discover their capabilities in doing something. However, it is not easy to be creative and innovative in every lesson since I need to consider many things such as the students’ area of interest, proficiency level as well as the way I deliver the lesson to make it comprehensible for the students. However, I did try to let the students to be creative and innovative in my class even though it was not that much.

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Wan Ainaa Mardhiah Wan Ahmad Fuad

PART 1

Reflection on Creativity and Innovation Skills

Practice A & B

·         Use idea creation techniques such as brainstorming or concept mapping? (Almost daily)

·         Generate their own ideas about how to confront a problem or question? (Almost daily)

·         Often in my class, I would encourage my students to do their own thinking by using several idea creation techniques. This could be done either individually, in pairs or in groups, depending on the topic of the day and what were the problems that I wanted them to brainstorm on. For example, there was this particular week, when I wanted to focus on writing and by the end of that week, I aimed that each one of them had to produce an essay on Environment. Thus, earlier that week, I would teach them the essay outline that they would have to follow. In order for them to come out with the best topics for their essays, I told them to sit in groups and discussed on what came to their minds about Environment. Hence, I instructed them to do 21 st century cooperative learning skill, Jot Thoughts by in the form of a Bubble Map. The next lesson, I wanted them to do their own thesis statement, so I instructed them to do some brainstorming in pairs (with their friends next to them). In a way, they would help one another to come out with three reasonable reasons each. That was how I often I used various idea creation techniques for almost each of the lesson. Even for the simple things I would tell them to do their own thinking in order to promote autonomous learning.

Practice C & D

·         Test out different ideas and work to improve them? (Almost daily)

·         Invent a solution to a complex, open-minded question or problem? (Almost daily)

·         Basically, for this practice, I would make sure that the students would have a little background knowledge first before I conducted this activity. It was either the information that they learned during the previous week or just the day before. What important was that, I really liked them to test out different ideas and collaborate to get ideas on how to improve those ideas because I wanted them to think critically. Hence, by thinking critically, I told them to invent a solution to a problem. For example, also on Environment, I wanted them to come out with different ways and ideas on how to reduce pollution, and at that time I wanted them to think on what were the effective ways to stop air pollution instead. Firstly, I would put them into groups and each group must had one solution of their own. After that, in groups I told them to do a 21 st century learning skill, Round Table activity where students had to take turn to write their responses in groups. Later, they would have to do a simple presentation about what they had written and the rest of the students had to ask questions on the effectiveness of the solution the group had presented.

Practice E

·         Create an original product or performance to express their ideas? ( 1 – 3 times per week)

·         For this practice, I usually instructed them either to do a role play, poem recitation, or forum to express their ideas. For example, during a Literature class, and the topic of the day was ‘Understanding: The Charge of The Light Brigade’. In the lesson, I put them into groups and assigned them with different stanzas from the poem for them to analyze. After that, they had to select representative from each group to go in front and to do a forum based on the topic. In the forum, they would have a moderator also selected among the groups of students. During the forum presentation, the representatives had to talk about the meanings of their assigned stanzas and what were their perspectives on them. There would be a Q & A session later, questions were asked by the rest of the students. The ‘audience’ would have to write their questions before the forum ends on the sticky notes given by teacher. Later, the sticky notes were being collected and pasted on the Question Board so that the students could review the questions during the next lesson.

PART 2

Overall view on Creativity and Innovation Skills

a.       I have tried to develop students’ creativity and innovation skills. (to a great extent)

b.      Most students’ have learned creativity and innovations skills while in my class. (to a great extent)

c.       I have been able to effectively assess students’ creativity and innovation skills. (to a moderate extent)

During my practicum days, I could say that I had tried to develop my students’ creativity and innovation skills. I had introduced them to MOE’s 21 st century learning ‘Cooperative Learning Structures’, i-Think maps and others. I tried to use Communicative Language Teaching approach because I wanted to encourage them to collaborate and speak in my class, then only they could utilize all of the various ideas creation techniques when they had the confidence to speak and collaborate. I had also tried to include ‘games’ in my lessons, so that my students would use their creativity and innovation skills to compete between one another. In addition, the use Positive and Negative reinforcement also had helped me to develop their creativity skills because they would be given rewards for their products and that was one of the successful motivation that I used in my class.

I had also believed that most of my students had learned creativity and innovation skills while they were in my class. This is because I could see the products produced by the students, they were various in ideas and conducts, I could never been so happy. For example, I told them to come out with a poem with three stanzas and they had to work in groups. During the production stage, when I told them to recite their poem, I could see the expansion of ideas and hard work from each group where they put efforts in making the lines rhymed and meanings were conveyed.

However, I had be able to effectively assess students’ creativity and innovation skills only to a moderate extent. I did acknowledge that there were also students with lower proficiency but I did not know on how to do differentiation on the assessments (in terms of creativity and innovation) successfully, and I thought that it was unfair because they also could come out with creative products and innovations.

All in all, I tried to develop the students’ creativity and they had also developed the skills to some extent, but I also believe that I could do more and better so that all of the students can successfully developed and be benefited from the skills learned.

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PART 1

Question (a)

It was on a Monday class where I taught my Form 4 students on Environment, focusing on pollution. It was a reading class so I included a reading passage for them to read before answering the questions. To proceed with the questions, I executed Numbered Heads Together where they need to brainstorm and discuss their answers in their own group. The activity definitely generated anticipation as they do not know who will be chosen next to answer the questions.

Question (b) & (c)

In this particular class, I actually aimed to widen their vocabulary by getting them engaged with this activity where they need to look up for meanings of certain words in order to decipher the poem itself. It was on a Thursday class and the theme was about Values, focusing on self-respect. It was reading and writing class with literature as the minor element of the lesson. The reason why I chose this particular poem is that the intricate words and metaphor used by the poet. Other than brainstorming with their friends on explaining the message, this activity helps them in gaining new vocabulary, thus heighten their creativity in the language side.

Question (d) & (e)

Unfortunately, these are not the things that I practice often during teaching which is quite a waste when I had the chance to actually uncover their creativity and innovation skills.

PART 2

Overall, I think I did not try hard enough to execute activities as I am more concerned of the execution of the lesson instead of the content itself. Creativity and innovation are something that is proven to be difficult for me as an unimaginative person. However, I do want to acknowledge that I tried but it still is just not enough.

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Element (a)
I had done a concept mapping in my Form 4 class. It was a writing lesson and the topic of essay was "The causes of accident". In presentation stage, I introduced some background information and vocabulary for students to understand the topic well. Then, in practice stage, they brainstormed the ideas and put their ideas in a form of mind-map. The mind-map did help them for their essay later, because students were able to develop the ideas in a few paragraphs after they discussed and jotted down their opinions in the mind map.

Element (b)
There was a speaking lesson, which its topic was "Water, Water Everywhere." In this lesson, I discussed the importance of waters in our daily lives with my students and taught them the expressions of asking advice and giving advice. Then, I assigned them into groups and gave them a task card. There was a situations in the task card. Students brainstormed the ideas on how to conserve water in daily life and created the dialogue with the ideas. Besides, students also included the expressions that they learned in their dialogue. Then, students acted out the dialogue in the class.  This lesson was aimed to encourage students to produce their own ideas in order to solve the problem.

Element (c)
It was a literature class. In this lesson, I taught my students about the characters in the story “Tanjong Rhu” and characteristics. I conducted a classroom activity which was “Five Things about Me” in production stage. I assigned students in groups and distributed the photos of the characters to each group. I asked students to describe the characteristics of the characters in six sentences but from the character’s point of view by referring to the textual evidences. In this case, students needed to imagine themselves as the characters in “Tanjong Rhu” when they described the traits of the characters. They were free to give opinion on the characters and describe the feeling of the characters in the story, but they had to justify their descriptions with evidences in the book. After this, they acted out the characters based on the characters’ descriptions they had done in the class.

Element (d)

It was a literature lesson. In this time, I changed the ending of the story “Tanjong Rhu” and asked students to think about a new storyline. In the story “Tanjong Rhu”, Mr Li is not able to find the key to the drawer where Ah Ma keeps her things. I wanted students to predict the outcome of the story if Mr Li is able to find the key and opened the drawer successfully. The guidelines in WH-questions form were given to help students to think about the new outcome of the story. For example:

•           What would Mr Li find inside the drawer?

•           How does the thing inside the drawer relate to Mr Li.?

•           Why Ah Ma wants to keep this thing in the drawer?

•           How does Mr Li feel after he has discovered the thing inside the drawer?

Students discussed in group and created the new ending for the story “Tanjong Rhu”. They composed the ending of story on mah-jong paper and presented the story in the class.

Element (e)

It was a Form 4 grammar lesson. In this lesson, students learned about the subordinating conjunctions. In practice stage, students used the correct conjunctions to join the sentences in the worksheet. Then, students chose one of the sentences from the worksheet and start to create their own short story in group. In this lesson, I did not limit students’ creativity in creating their own story line. They discussed in group and brainstormed the ideas of their story. In the end of the lesson, there were various types of story produced by the students like the action story, adventure story and science-fiction story. Each group of students pasted the story on the wall and their peers gave the feedback to improve their friends’ story.

Overall View

In conclusion, I think I did not develop students’ creativity and innovation skill fully in the class even I had tried to do it. This may because I always underestimated the ability of the students. This has caused me not able to assign more challenging task to my students during practicum. Besides, lacking of knowledge is also an important factor that limit my creativity. It was because I did not understand my students well, and I did not have much knowledge on creative teaching and learning during teaching practice. Sometimes, time constraint was also an obstacle for me to prepare a creative lesson. For example, if I want to conduct a mini programme for the students, I need to find the materials and use the materials to guide them. However, finding suitable materials is time-consuming. Students may also have not enough time to conduct the mini programme because of the school programme and tuition.

However, after first few weeks in teaching practice, I realised that it is important to integrate creativity in my lesson. Students will only be creative when teacher is creative.  However, the way to access students’ creativity and innovation skill is difficulty. As a language teacher, I need to assess students on how they use the correct language in creative way.  I think I need to learn more in this area. Overall, being creative is not an easy work in teaching and learning. However, as teacher, we should do our best and try out different ideas to improve our teaching without afraid of making mistakes. This is because every mistake is a stepping stone for us to become a successful educator.

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Element 1

I had brainstorming activities quite often especially when it is a writing class. For example, in Week 5, I asked the students to write about their favourite weather and provide at least 3 reasons to justify their choice. I focused on two types of weather; rainy and sunny. I asked those who like sunny weather to raise up their hands. I did the same for the rainy weather. Then, I drew a table with two columns on the whiteboard and labelled them as Sunny and Rainy. I asked the students to share some of the reasons why they prefer certain weather. We had this activity because I want them to be able to produce phrases or sentences in order to share their message.

Element 2

One of the things that I did was asking the students to come out with a paragraph on how they can help the earthquake survivors. The topic was Natural Disasters. I showed them some videos on several natural disasters all around the world. While watching the videos, I asked the students to list down the damages and consequences of those natural disasters. Then, I focused on earthquake. After we discussed the effects of earthquake, I divided them into groups and asked them to come out with ways to help the earthquake victims in one paragraph essay.

Element 3

I am not sure whether this is related to the element. My students always complained about how uncomfortable their class is. So we had a writing class, and I asked them to get in groups. I instructed them to write several sentences on how they want their classroom to be. They wrote their ideas on a mahjong paper, and I pasted it around the class. Then, I asked them to go to another group’s mahjong paper as what I assigned and highlighted the grammatical errors and ideas that they think were impossible. It was exciting to see how some students are more matured compared to their friends. At the end of the class, we discussed on the final ideas that were not considered as impossible.

Element 4

The topic on that day was Cultural Awareness. We were having a reading class and the title of the reading passage was A Day as A Volunteer. After we had completed our discussion on the comprehension questions, I asked the students to share some of volunteerism activities that they know. I also asked if they get a chance to be involved in the volunteerism activity, would they take part and justify the reason. I think I did not try hard enough on eliciting verbal answer through open ended question since it always took too much time.

Element 5

In Week 10, I had a mini project for my students. They are the first class of the Form 1 students. They were divided into groups, and one of the groups had to present a weather forecast. So, I gave them a mah-jong paper and told them to think, what they needs for a weather forecast. Since they live in a hostel, I was surprised to see that they came out with a colourful map with label of the weather on each states.

Overall Reflection.

Honestly, I think did not do my best on developing my students’ creativity and innovation skills. It was so hard for me to be creative during my teaching practice since I was busy with the school program. Now I understand what does it takes to be an excellent educator. It is not only about teaching, but developing the students as an excellent member of the society as well. I realised that there are so much things for me to learn from the others especially from other teachers and students. During my teaching practice, I admit that my only aim was to help them to do well in examination. This is because, their current teacher was hospitalized for so long that they were quite left behind. Plus, I think my students learned to be creative in my class, but not to the extent which they put so much effort into it. It was also my fault because I could not generate any idea that were so creative that my students would actually put their best effort in completing it. In future, if I were given a chance to be an educator, I would try my best to generate and at the same time motivate my students to be creative and innovative. I did have some ideas, but usually I am afraid to try it out. Now that I am more mature, I realises that it takes a lot of attempt in order to find the best solution. If I never try out any idea that crosses my mind, I would never know whether it will work or not in developing my students’ creativity and innovation skills.

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PART 1
Reflection on Creativity and Innovation in Classroom

Question 1

I had done a lesson that involved a concept mapping on my Form 2 students. The topic was Travel and it was a writing class. Since they were mostly unfamiliar with the concept of travelling (I found that out in my set induction stage), I made them elicit as much words as they can think of when they hear the word "Travel". They also needed to explain on why they gave the words. From the words elicited by them, I gave them some examples to use the words in their essays, and made them try to use them on their own as well. I did this as to help the other students to broaden their own views on travelling, also adding some of the vocabularies to help them in writing.

Question 2 and Question 3

I did a lesson plan on Birthday Celebration for my Form 1 students. In Production stage, they were required to spend a total of only RM100 to organize a birthday party as a party planner. The party related stuff such as decorations and food were given in a catalog, along with the prices. They were given roles in their respective groups so that they would each be responsible for the party. They were also required to present their party and convince the other groups to get the vote for the best party. The rest of the class were required to jot down what the presenting group did and I allowed them to give some improvement, so that the presenting team can improve on their birthday party. I did this activity as to let them practice on their higher order thinking skills and also problem solving skills.

Question 4

During the last few weeks of my teaching practice, I promised my students to play games in class. Hence, in the last week of teaching, I played a detective game in the classroom as to enhance their problem solving skills and also their speaking skills. I let them get immersed in their roles as detectives from the very start and gave them the case profile and also the clues as if they were real detectives. From what I have seen, they enjoyed the activity as they were able to make their own conclusions in their respective groups. Even though the case profile was quite complicated, almost all of the groups were able to find the murderer along with the correct motives.

Question 5

This happened in a literature class where I had to teach the graphic novel of King Arthur for my Form 1 students. The lesson was on the setting of the novel. In order to get the information to be familiar with the students, I had prepared some pictures of the recent England in the medieval times for them to compare. They were able to come up with the differences between the two eras. After the production stage, we had a bit of time left as the students were able to finish the task early. So, I asked half of the class to imagine that they were the characters in the novel, while the others stayed as themselves. Then, I made them discuss what would they do in the medieval times (as themselves) and in the recent era (if they are the characters in the novel). Even though it was a simple discussion, they were able to portray themselves, even as the characters as they loved the characters so much, while presenting their answers.

PART 2
Overall View on Creativity and Innovation

As a whole, I found out that it is not an easy task to have my creativity and innovation be at the same par as the other lesson plans. I also found out that in order to get the creativity and innovation out of both of the students and I, I have to first let them be hooked in the lesson and have fun with it. At first, I did not give much thinking of my students' interest as I thought that their takeaways were more important than the process. It turned out that I was so wrong as my students were not enjoying my first few classes despite the fun activities I had prepared for them. This is because they did not suit the students' interest. However, as I know them better, I was able to connect with them and nurture their creativity and innovation along mine. From there, I was able to make my lesson plans better and more fun for the students.

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My perspective on Creativity and Innovation in classroom. 

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My perspective on Creativity and Innovation in classroom. 

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Part A

Question 1

This happened in Week 9. The lesson was about Natural Wonders, it was a textbook based lesson. It was a speaking skill class with Form 1 students. For set induction, there were words such as Everest, Amazon, Sahara and more words in the wrong order on the board. Pupils had to spell the words in the correct order. For practice stage, I distributed an information sheet about natural wonders around the world. There were bold words in those information and pupils had to categorize those words into two category; land and water correctly. The objective here is to ensure pupils understand the concept about geography can be divided into land and water.

Question 2

Lesson’s topic was Respect. It was a speaking class with Form 1 pupils. I distributed a dice and ‘Roll and Respond about Respect’ diagram to each group. Pupils had to roll a dice and answered the questions based on the number that they get. Basically, there were questions/situations related to ‘Respect’ topic on the diagram. The questions asked were like, “If you saw your friends being disrespectful to your teacher, what would you do?” or “What are the examples of being respectful to your mother?” The objective here is to elicit solutions or opinions from pupils.

Question 3

This happened in Week 5. My pupils were lacked in vocabulary. Therefore, I tried to make a stimulating set induction for their brains. I wrote word ‘SESUIPADELAND’ on the board and instructed pupils to create new words as many as they could. Surprisingly, they liked it, they straight way ran to take my marker pens and write words on the board. Perhaps this idea wasn’t very creative but since my pupils liked it a lot and I also did this several times, I could see improvement in their vocabulary. They also started to jot down all new words they learnt through this activity in their book.

Question 4

It was a literature class. I introduced a graphic novel to pupils. The novel was about two thieves that wanted to steal a diamond from a monster. However, one of them tripped while running away and the diamond dropped somewhere in the jungle. There was a cliff-hanger in the novel. The pupils had to create a suitable ending for the novel. The objective is to challenge pupils’ creativity in creating a suitable ending for graphic novel.

Question 5

It was a writing class. I taught them 6 types of messages and their functions. I distributed post-it-notes to each pupil. I pasted a poster on the board with caption ‘Wishful Wednesday’. Pupils were instructed to write a message to their best friends on the post-it-notes and paste it on the poster. They were told to not write their name because some of them said they were shy if their classmates knew about it. The objective is to allow the pupils to express their idea or opinions creatively using a post-it-note without actually revealing themselves.

Overall reflection on Creativity and Innovation

To be honest, it is not an easy task to be creative and innovative all the time during practical. Not every lesson can has creative element in it and I do have to consider pupils’ interest and capability in being creative and innovative. I believe, sometimes it not just about being creative to make your lesson fun but it also need to have a well-balanced flow of delivering the lesson to pupils. Sometimes the creativity just doesn’t work for the lesson and that makes me realize okay maybe I have to make it simple, nice but fun for pupils to understand. I love to see my pupils’ excitement when learning new methods in class but I also have to tone down the creativity sometimes for slow learners in class. In the end, I believe in a well-balanced lesson that has simplicity and creativity that can cover all kinds of learners in my class.

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Let's look at the section of the survey on creativity and innovation

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Let's look at the section of the survey on creativity and innovation

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How creative had you been when you were doing your practicum? How did that lead into an innovation?