How do you encourage your students to use their imaginations? 

Creativity is one of the most important Future Skills – and also one of the most misunderstood.

Contrary to popular belief, creativity is not just about coming up with ideas. It’s also about evaluating and improving existing ones, and brainstorming multiple solutions to problems. What’s more, it includes understanding real-world limits when developing new ideas and then elaborating on those ideas and outlining the smaller steps which will make them possible. Traditionally, academic success was measured on the ability to recall and repeat information – meaning that creativity was often not given the space it deserved in education.

But today, educational systems are changing to meet the future needs of learners who will need essential skills such as creativity, collaboration and critical thinking. 

There are lots of ways we can encourage students to use their art and design skills in the classroom. One of the most effective is to use the course materials you are covering to generate ideas for presentations. This will further engage your students and develop digital literacy, as they will need to identify facts and form opinions about what they are reading.

Language doesn’t always have to be presented and practiced in the same way and vocabulary doesn’t always have to be written in a list. Allowing students to develop their own systems and categories for recording language is another positive step towards both creativity and critical thinking.