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The LAUNCH Cycle: A Design Thinking Framework for Education

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What Happens When Teachers Take Creative Risks?

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When teachers take creative risks, they inspire students to become creative risk-takers and problem-solvers. They also gain deeper empathy toward their students while pushing innovation and transforming their practice.

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While we tend to think of play as spontaneous, I’ve learned that I need to schedule longer extended periods of creative play. I put these dates on my calendar weeks in advance and treat them

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When I was a new teacher, I railed against boxed curriculum. I felt like a chef being forced to use Hamburger Helper or an artist forced to paint by number. It felt like they had

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We Need a Bigger Definition of Creativity

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Beyond the Audience: Why Students Need to Embrace Self-Initiated Creativity

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I’ve often written about the power of a launch. However, there’s also a place for self-initiated creative work where students engage in creativity with an “audience of one.” Here, they experience the permission to try

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12 Ways to End the Semester on a Creative Note

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Let’s just put it out there. December is exhausting for teachers. The days are shorter. The weather grows colder and (at least here in Oregon) wetter. Students are anxious -- whether it’s a buzzing excitement for

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In this week's podcast episode, I talk to Ian Clawson about creative collaboration. In this interview, I ask him about tools for co-creation and what it looks like to create a culture where people give one another vital creative feedback. He has a book he co-wrote called Brave Together and I've really enjoyed it so far.

Listen to the Podcast

If you enjoy this blog but you'd like to listen to it on the go, just click on the audio below or subscribe via iTunes/Apple Podcasts (ideal for iOS users) or Spotify

https://spencereducation.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Ian-Clawson-Podcast.mp3

About Ian Clawson

Ian Clawson is cofounder of BraveCore, cohost of the Lead with a Question podcast, and a regular contributor to Fast Company. An advisor to startups and accelerator programs, he has contributed to organizational growth through leadership coaching. Over the past decade, Clawson has led culture change initiatives in the healthcare industry. He is also cofounder of StoryCircle, a development studio focused on co-creation, partnering with Marvel story artists and world-building as a lead writer and story architect.

Early Praise for BRAVE TOGETHER

Brave Together is a groundbreaking book that challenges the status quo and offers a refreshing perspective on work, culture, and leadership. Chris Deaver and Ian Clawson invite readers on a transformative journey to break free from fear and embrace the power of co-creation. Through their innovative concepts like the Mirror Test and the Hero's Sacrifice, they provide a roadmap for unleashing our collective potential and building a better future. Brave Together is a beacon of hope that empowers us to reimagine our experiences and embrace a new way of life. Get ready to be inspired and join the co-creation movement with this remarkable book. - Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, Thinkers50 #1 Executive Coach and New York Times bestselling author of The Earned Life, Triggers, and What Got You Here Won't Get You There

Brave Together is an exhilarating exploration of genuine collaboration, where every voice matters and every idea is a potential catalyst for transformation. - Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Drive, To Sell is Human, and The Power of Regret

The leadership we need in the future is not about command and control or maximizing shareholder value. It's about inspiring hearts, unleashing human magic, and building purposeful organizations together. If, like I do, you believe this, you MUST read Brave Together as you will find that it is such a helpful guide on this journey. Thank you, Chris and Ian, for giving us such a precious companion! - Hubert Joly, former CEO of Best Buy, Harvard Business School faculty

Being brave is good but not enough. I have felt for a while now that the future needs to enter the athletic age. Brave Together helps us shrink down our ego and find ways to work as a team. It shows us how to harness the power of connection, co-creation, and most importantly selfless love, as we work together in unity. Thank you, Chris and Ian!" - Steve Young, NFL Hall of Fame, Super Bowl MVP Quarterback

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Ian Clawson on the Power of Co-Creation and Creativity - John Spencer

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In this week's podcast episode, I talk to Ian Clawson about creative collaboration. In this interview, I ask him about tools for co-creation and what it looks like to create a culture where people give one another vital creative feedback. He has a book he...

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Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

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What Arts Educators Can Teach Us About Cultivating Creativity and Innovation

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Students in Pewaukee express themselves at a painting station in a TAB classroom. This article is the third in a series of articles on Innovation presented by the DPI’s Teaching and Learning Team. Special thanks for help with this article go to Chris Gleason, Arts and Creativity Consultant. Access previous articles in our Innovation Series: Pathways to Hope: Innovation Starts Right Where You Are Educators and Students Are Clamoring for Change and Making It Happen Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Digital Media, Dance.

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10 Creative Risks to Take With Your Students This Year

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We aren’t sure what this year will look like. With the spike in Covid cases, it might involve more hybrid or virtual learning. Or it might be more of a “return to normal.” But regardless

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Creativity in the classroom reduces burnout and improves teacher and student wellbeing | Adobe Blog

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Teacher burnout is, unfortunately, not a new phenomenon. Even 15 years ago, when I was teaching middle and high school, it was always a question of when (not if) my colleagues and I would reach burnout towards the end of year. On a good year, with ideal conditions, some teachers would make it until around April. But, of course, we always looked out for the teachers who were showing signs of burnout as early at mid-year.

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5 reasons why it's more important than ever to teach creativity | ISTE

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5 reasons to teach creativity: 1) It motivates kids. 2) It lights up the brain. 3) It spurs emotional development. 4) It ignites hard-to-reach kids. 5) It's an essential job skill.

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7 Ways to Integrate Curiosity into the Classroom

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We often use the word AI to describe the newest generation of chatbots. However, computers can’t think. They process information. Humans think. Human cognition is affective and emotional. It’s unpredictable and messy. It’s inherently social

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Do schools kill creativity? | Sir Ken Robinson | TED

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Sir Ken Robinson (still) wants an education revolution

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Sir Ken Robinson on how to encourage creativity among students

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In our Ideas That Matter series with Ted, we talk to Sir Ken Robinson, the man behind the most-watched Ted Talk of all time: "Do schools kill creativity?" Robinson joins "CBS This Morning" to discuss principles from his book, "You, Your Child, and School: Navigate Your Way to the Best Education."

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Daily Resources for Creativity Week 2025 — Crayola Creativity Week

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Development of Creative Intelligence in Physical Education and Sports Science Students through Body Expression

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Body expression can enhance movement creativity and at the same time promote the growth of creative intelligence in college age. The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of an intervention in body expression classes on the creative…

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Tapping into Student Creativity in Physical Education

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Make space for student creativity. It’s easy to fall into the trap of teaching the same skills in the same way year after year. I got out o

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Creativity: Playground to Premier League - Player Development Project

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Where does creativity come from? In this blog PDP Lead Researcher, James Vaughan discusses Yannick Bolasie’s infamous ‘360 flick’ and explores it’s story. Bolasie himself highlights the playful environment from which this creativity emerged and Vaughan discusses this in relation to the latest research. Four years ago I was asked a question that has stuck in the back of my mind. I was in Melbourne studying a Masters in Sports Coaching. The thesis was called ‘Developing Creative Football Players: A Psychological Needs Perspective’ and a colleague, friend, mentor…

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Drexel University School of Education

Having the opportunity to create a learning environment that encourages creative thinking, teachers are in a unique position to help students develop one of their most important life skills. Although creativity can seem to be an abstract or even mysterious concept at times, there is a growing science behind infusing classrooms with creativity and the benefits it yields to students in the classroom, as well as later in life. Read to learn more about the importance of creative learning environments and how teachers can learn to nurture creativity in a classroom environment.

What is a Creative Learning Environment?

A creative learning environment is one that encourages students to learn through trial and error, use their imagination, and to think critically to solve problems. By leveraging such learned skills as setting goals, sharing knowledge, and building relationships, a creative learning environment can help students practice and develop their own theories, and ideas, and set them in motion.

Why is it Important to Foster a Creative Learning Environment?

Helping students develop their creative capacities can have both direct and indirect benefits. Rather than feeling penalized or embarrassed for taking chances, students can feel comfortable trying new things and making mistakes inside a creative learning environment. As students are encouraged to pursue creative solutions to a problem, they can learn persistence in the process of continually trying a new approach to solve that problem. Additionally, students can also become better at:

Working as a team

Solving complex problems

Finding new ways to learn

Why Do Students Need to be Creative?

In the modern world, where entire industries are born and die every decade, there's little doubt that creativity is an increasingly important asset. Creativity is a critical component for the type of divergent thinking necessary for innovation. Expanding their creative capacity can make students more adept at forming original ideas, as well as exercising their critical thinking skills. Creativity is also a life skill, which can help students unlock new avenues in their personal self-expression.

What is the Teacher's Role in Enhancing Creativity?

Controlling the classroom environment where students spend hours each day, teachers have ample opportunities to nurture and cultivate creativity. In practice, that usually means two things: serving as a role model for students, and finding ways to stimulate their creative thinking processes. Although creativity can develop outside of the classroom, teachers play an indispensable role in maintaining and encouraging its continuous development.

How to Promote Creativity Among Students and Foster a Creative Classroom Environment?

There's no single recipe for developing creativity in students, but there are some simple things you can do to make your classroom a little more creative. Many of the most effective ways to encourage creativity in a classroom environment are simple augmentations to existing practices. Others are as simple as learning to identify opportunities to help students exercise their creativity. Here are a few different ways to help build a creative classroom:

Create a Flexible Classroom Layout

A classroom that provides options for learning can help to unlock a student's creativity. For example, some students may enjoy reading at their desk, while others may want to sit in a comfy chair in another part of the room. You could also reorganize desks into pods or in a U-shape to make it easier for students to work together on projects. By making the classroom more versatile, can provide students with a creative learning environment.

Create a Library in your Classroom

Creating a classroom library is an excellent way to provide students with easy access to literature to help them fine tune their reading skills and spark creative ideas. A classroom library can also be an important resource for students who may not have books of their own or easy access to a public library. A teacher may choose books for the library that complement the creative learning activities in the class.

Open-Ended Assignments

Allow students to exercise their creative instincts by substituting assignments that have a single correct answer with those that offer multiple ways of discovering a solution.

Seek Alternatives to Rote Memorization

Deprioritize memorization-focused tasks and replace them with tasks that allow students to challenge assumptions. Try rewording assignments to promote creativity by adding phrases like "suppose" or "imagine."

Exercise Patience

Don't rush to demonstrate creative solutions for students. Instead, give them time to figure things out on their own.

Work in Groups

Two heads are better than one. Groups tend to find more creative solutions, as well as foster a sense of collaboration. This can provide a low-stakes environment to make students more comfortable exercising their creativity, and also cognizant of each member of the group's individual strengths and how those strengths can be leveraged to solve a problem in a unique way.

Give Feedback

Giving creative feedback is one of the simpler ways to stimulate creative thinking, which can make it easy to overlook. Students with enormously creative solutions may not realize the value of their creativity unless a teacher articulates why their solutions are so effective. Peer feedback can also be useful and help students recognize the value of their creativity, too. Educators can set the guidelines for how students can offer constructive feedback in ways that will be well-received and helpful to their classmates.

Exercise Your Own Creativity

Teachers are better role models when they possess the qualities they aspire to instill in others. Sometimes building your own creativity is as simple as changing up daily routines, taking small risks, or building your own creative rituals.

Take Advantage of Curiosity

Students have countless curiosities about the world that they're eager to explore. Leverage their intrinsic motivation to learn by giving them opportunities to choose their own topics while learning and sharing that knowledge with the class.

Teach When Creativity is Most Appropriate

When teaching creativity in early childhood classrooms, students may not understand the context where creativity is most valuable or appropriate. For instance, during the planning stages of a group project vs. during a standardized test. Help students to adapt to different learning styles and methods of communication / knowledge sharing.

Experiment with New Activities

Creative thinking classroom activities can be as simple as asking students to do free-write exercises, allowing them to explore their creativity and analytical skills. A good visual-based alternative is concept cartooning.

Utilize Free Tools

There are many free online tools that educators can access to help create activities for creativity in the classroom. Check out Drexel's 10 Ways to Develop Creative Lesson Plans for ideas and inspiration. Online sites like Canva provide templates for worksheets and presentations that are free and easy to use. YouTube is also an excellent resource for videos on creative learning activities that teachers can use in their classes.

Talk to Fellow Educators

Veteran teachers and colleagues are another important resource for creative ideas. They can share ideas on how to promote creativity in the classroom based on their experiences. Fellow teaches can also serve as a sounding board to listen to a teacher's idea on a creative classroom assignment and provide feedback and advice.

Discover More Ways to Inspire Creativity in Students with Drexel University's School of Education

Creativity is a critical life skill, and teachers can help their students to build it in the classroom and carry those lessons moving forward throughout their lives and careers. The science of creativity in classroom settings is both complex and evolving. If you're interested in learning more about developing creativity in students, take a moment to learn more about Drexel University School of Education's MS in Creativity and Innovation, MS in Creative Education and Entrepreneurship and post-bachelor's certificate in Creativity and Innovation and how you can further your own learning as an educator.

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How to Inspire Creativity in the Classroom - School of Education

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Encouraging students to be creative in the classroom teaches them important life skills early on. Learn how teachers can promote creativity with Drexel.

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13 Ways to Develop Creative Lesson Plans

Drexel University School of Education

With the right inspiration and a little improvisation of your own, making your own creative curriculum lesson plans can deliver far more engaging experiences for students. So, how do you find new ideas for lesson plans? With a few tricks up your sleeve and some best practices to follow, it's not that hard to come up with our own highly creative ways to introduce a lesson.

What are Creative Lesson Plans and Why are they Important?

As an educator, one of your goals is getting students to engage with the curriculum. With that in mind, the best creative ideas for a lesson plan are usually those that manage to be meaningful and relevant to your students. But meaning and relevance are concepts that vary from classroom to classroom, which is where your own personal creativity comes into play.

With the right approach, creative lesson plans can introduce new opportunities to encourage critical thinking and problem-solving skills among your students, as well as help children to develop their own original ideas.

How to Develop Creative Lesson Plans: 13 Ideas to Keep Students Engaged

Having a variety of options and ideas to tap into for creative lesson planning can help you to be more flexible, working with changing curriculum and different student attitudes through the years. Depending on your students and what resonates best with them, here are several ideas to help keep students engaged, enriching your lesson plans and finding ways to make material more meaningful for them.

Storyboarding

Some students in your class may be more visual learners. Storyboarding can be a creative activity that allows students to exercise more than one skill at once. Filmmakers use storyboarding to plan and communicate ideas in a visual way; students and educators can do the same. Storyboarding can be a very effective way to show interconnected relationships between ideas.

Brain Sketching

Brain sketching is a great way to keep students engaged in activities and lessons. In a brain sketching activity, students make sketches to solve a specific problem given by the teacher. Students organize themselves around a table or sit in a circle. Each student makes a sketch in an allotted amount of time (or when finished) and passes it to the person next to them. The next person can add to the sketch or use it to create a new sketch. The sketches are passed around until the group feels the problem is solved, or until a given period of time has passed.

Perspective-Taking

Ask students to take the position of another person, and to view events from the perspective of that individual. Role-playing exercises can help a person to exercise critical thinking, as well as give students a chance to practice the things they've learned.

Challenging Assumptions

All of us are constantly making assumptions about the world, either deliberately and unconsciously. Critical thinking and creativity are stimulated when students are encouraged to break down their assumptions. For instance, ask students to offer up their thoughts as to under what conditions are the assumptions true or false? This can help them better articulate and understand lessons learned and offer up their own unique perspective on the material.

Reversed Brainstorming

While traditional brainstorming involves creating a list of fresh ideas, reversed brainstorming, also known as negative brainstorming, involves critical analysis of a shorter list of pre-generated ideas. When it's challenging to find a direct solution to a problem, this type of brainstorming can be valuable at revealing complex nuances to students.

Use a Concept Map

Similar to storyboarding, a concept map can be used to show complex structures between existing ideas, to generate new ideas, and to communicate multi-faceted ideas. They allow you to integrate what students already know with new information. Concept maps can be a better choice than storyboarding for conceptually dense material.

Make it Authentic

Being able to show students the importance of learning the curriculum is often effective at motivating engagement. You can do this by constructing lessons in a way that makes them feel real and practical to students whenever possible. For instance, if you're teaching a unit on the justice system, perform a mock trial with students in each role or find a way to relate it to current events.

Make it a Game

Gamification can be a great way to get people to engage with new information. It can be particularly valuable if the game is directly related to the curriculum, but it doesn't always have to be. Students can shoot a basketball or spin a wheel every time they answer a question, which can create a far more engaging experience for students.

The "Why" Method

This method involves creating, analyzing, and modifying a list of hierarchical knowledge. Using the "why" method involves the process of laying out a hierarchy of abstract concepts into one cohesive structure can help students to understand how to categorize those concepts. It can also help you evaluate the relationships between complex ideas and "why" one may be connected to the other, building a far more connected framework among sometimes-nebulous concepts.

SCAMPER

SCAMPER is a checklist that can be used to get students to creatively think about a product, issue, or problem and come up with an alternative solution. SCAMPER stands for:

Substitute: Is there anything that can be substituted?

Combine: Can anything be combined or consolidated?

Adapt: What can you take from it to create a solution?

Modify: Can you change or remove anything?

Put to other use: Can you use it differently or use it to address something else?

Eliminate: What can be eliminated?

Rearrange: Can anything be rearranged?

Each of the words in SCAMPER can inspire students to think differently and inspire creativity.

Create a Mystery

Everyone loves a good mystery. Once important questions are brought to our minds, we feel a psychological incentive to find an answer to questions that make us curious. Use mystery to show students they lack certain information and you'll entice them to unravel the mystery with you as you move through your lesson plan.

Use Movement

There are many creative ways to introduce a lesson using physical activity, which can make it easier for students to stay mentally engaged with the material. If you're having a student discussion and having students choose between two sides, have the students representing each side stand on the opposite side of the room, or have them move along a spectrum to show how much they agree or disagree.

Encourage Collaboration

Encouraging collaboration among students can help keep students engaged and involved in the lesson. Through collaboration, students can put their heads together to develop a solution to a problem.

Collaboration is also helpful for teachers. Teachers can collaborate on developing materials for their grades or subject areas with creative input from each educator.

Where to Find Creative Lesson Plan Inspiration

One of the best places to look for creative inspiration is via the personal interests of your students. Are there books, shows, smartphone apps, or YouTube channels that your students find interesting? Those types of popular media can be some of the most useful sources of inspiration because they can help you speak to students about things they already care about.

Collaborating with other teachers online can be a great source of inspiration for building creative lesson plans. Although no two classrooms are identical, with some improvisation and flexibility, you can often take what works for others and modify it for your own use.

It also helps to keep up-to-date with the latest research in the field, with resources like the Freddie Reisman Center For Translational Research In Creativity And Motivation, which aim to make research on creativity and motivation more accessible to teachers.

Learn More About Creativity in the Classroom with Drexel University's School of Education

At times, creativity can feel like an unsolvable mystery. Yet, if you look for the right sources and make some small adaptations to proven creative teaching ideas, you'll be able to put together some of your own creative lessons without having to reinvent the wheel. In addition to this article, we encourage you to visit the Teacher Resources section of our site to get more ideas on topics such as How to Inspire Creativity in the Classroom and How to Teach Online Effectively.

And if you're looking to learn more about energizing your lessons with creativity, take a moment to learn more about Drexel's post-bachelor's certificate in Creativity and Innovation, MS in Creativity and Innovation, and MS in Creative Education and Entrepreneurship programs. Continuing your own educational path can help you to find ways to engage with your students and enhance your teaching skill set. You can also contact us directly to learn more about our programs.

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Ways to Develop Creative Lesson Plans - School of Education

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Creative lesson plans help to keep your students engaged during class. Learn how you can incorporate creativity into your lesson plans & curriculum with Drexel.

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Getting Started with Design Thinking for K12 — Stanford d.school

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For educators who are just discovering design thinking, it can be daunting to imagine how to bring the process, principles and mindsets to your work. These resources are designed to support your exploration of the design thinking process, and to help you determine how to integrate design thinking in