We know employers want creative thinkers. We know creative thinking is necessary to solve the problems we see everywhere in our world. We know we want our students to learn to be more creative.
But what does that mean exactly? Where does the science of creativity meet the cultural definition we all build for ourselves just by swimming in the 21st century stream?
My guest today is Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle. Let me share her bio with you: “With more than 25 years as a scientist studying creativity, Zorana brings insights into the nature of the creative process, from the first decision to engage with new ideas to its culmination in creative performances and products. She is a scientist at Yale University, author, and speaker. Zorana’s work has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, ArtNet, US News, Education Week, Science Daily, El Pais, and others, and she is a regular contributor to Psychology Today and Creativity Post.”
Today, we’re talking about how science defines creativity, and how research shows us we can guide our students – and ourselves – to develop more creative confidence. You’ll learn what’s important in designing your space, launching and building creative units, speaking with students about the hurdles that get in their path, and assessing creative work in a way that’s meaningful for student development along the way, not just at the end.
Honestly, I started Zorana’s book, The Creativity Choice, searching for everything I could find to help me understand classroom creativity better. But I finished with fresh ideas not only for constructing curriculum and classroom spaces, but also for how I tackle projects, run my company, and talk to my own children about their ideas.
I’m excited to share this interview with you today, so let’s dive in.
A Definition for Creativity
Sir Ken Robinson calls creativity “applied imagination.” While she sees the beauty in this lens, Zorana shares a more precise, scientific definition: creativity is something that is original and effective or appropriate in some way.
This definition can span many levels of creativity. Creativity science suggests there are four.
- Individual Level Creativity: for example, meaningful connections a student might make that feel original to them, though others may also have discovered them
- Peer Level Creativity: original ideas amongst a group of peers
- Professional Level: contributing to the professional community in way that leads the whole community to recognize the contribution
- Genius Level: creativity on the level of Steve Jobs, Claude Monet, etc. (This is the least helpful level for students to think about or try to model themselves after. Researchers cannot really study this level of creativty.)
When it Comes to the Creative Process, Expect Roadblocks
I asked Zorana about her own creative process to help us get started. As a researcher, educator, and writer who knows the creative process inside and out, she approaches creative tasks with clear expectations.
“The first thing I do when I’m approaching a creative task,” she said, “is to remind myself what creativity is like, that there are very exciting and joyful parts of it, times of true elation. But there are also times that are very difficult, truly challenging, stressful, sometimes overwhelmingly frustrated, and those times are not a sign that I am not able to rise to the occasion, that I am not able to achieve something creative, but they are an inherent part of the creative process.”
As we move into discussing how to help foster student creativity, it’s useful to keep Zorana’s reminders to herself in mind, that when you are approaching something that has never been done, you cannot construct a step-by-step process. You can expect to end up somewhere different than where you began.
Making Space for Creativity: Building a Flexible, Uncluttered Classroom
When I asked Zorana about crafting room for creativity in the physical classroom space, she quickly pointed out that there wasn’t one magic answer: “There isn’t a single kind of space that is the correct space.” Instead she suggested thinking broadly about giving students the space, resources, and flexibility to work on different types of tasks. She did caution to beware of the sensory overload that can come with clutter, making it difficult for students to focus.
And then she surprised me with a new angle.
“The most important thing for creativity is breadth,” she said, “It is having broad interests, it is having broad materials from which people can draw inspiration…”
She suggests making room in your classroom for interesting ideas from across disciplines. Maybe you might include an urban photography book on a shelf, a biography of a unique historical figure in your library, a poster series featuring composers or entrepreneurs, etc. Integrating a breadth of ideas in your space can help inspire creative thinking.
The High Impact of Agency
When it comes to designing curriculum, it’s important to find ways to give students choice. Agency over their own learning has a high impact on their motivation: “Students are willing to persist and put more effort when they perceive they have some choice,” said Zorana. “We have done research with high school students and that is the #1 finding we had.”
Students, she said, are also willing to put in more effort for creative tasks: “They also are willing to persist more and put in more effort if they perceive the task to be a creative challenge, as opposed to what they consider simply an academic challenge.”
But here’s the twist. Students often don’t realize when the classroom work they’re doing is creative. It’s essential for teachers to let them know they’re assigning a creative challenge.
“Teachers do not always very explicitly say that this is an opportunity for creativity,” said Zorana. “Students crave it, but if they are not told explicitly, ‘This is your chance to be creative, to put your ideas, your thoughts, in the process,’ students don’t recognize it.”
When educators tell students clearly that they’re jumping into creative work, this gives students permission to focus less on what the teachers wants so they can shift their focus into their own creative thinking.
It also signals trust in students, that they have what it takes to complete the challenge. That support can help kids build their sense of creative self-efficacy, which grows partly from encouragement from others showing trust that they have creative ability.
Creative self-efficacy builds over time. Sometimes students think you have to already be confident to take on a new challenge, but they don’t need to start with full confidence, just with enough to begin. Zorana uses the analogy of fueling a car. A car can begin a journey with a partial tank, as long as there are opportunities to refuel along the way. Check out the graphic below for a visual on how that might look, including several strategies we’ll get to shortly.
Guiding Students through Creative Blocks
As students work on creative projects, they need scaffolds along the way to help them get through the tricky parts of any creative process. One way to help would be by building in a mini-lesson or short workshop on how to deal with creative blocks, something almost all creatives eventually must face.
Zorana suggests three helpful strategies for students encountering blocks like these:
- Reframe Negative Self-Talk: Suggest that when students get frustrated, instead of beating themselves up internally, they try speaking to themselves the way they would if giving advice to their best friend in the same situation.
- Task Switch: Students can try taking a break by switching to another productive task for a while before coming back to the problem they’re facing.
- Expand their Breadth: Students can intentionally seek different perspectives by talking to other people, reading, etc. and expanding their thinking before returning to the problem they’re trying to solve.
A Process Booster: Bringing in Community Mentors
One way to help students expand their breadth of thinking during a creative project is to bring in mentors from your community. Professionals from your area can share some of their experiences at work and maybe spend some time talking with students about the problems they’re encountering in their projects.
There are two benefits here.
First, students can gain new perspectives. They increase their breadth of thinking, and are more likely to be able to solve problems coming up in their work.
Second, they gain a role model in a level of creativity that they can relate to and imagine in their own lives. This helps students develop a growth mindset of creativity (as opposed to seeing it at the genius level). The gap between your 10th graders and Mozart will feel much greater to them than the gap between them and the small business owner from down the street that came in to help them with their projects. Seeing attainable levels of creativity in action helps.
A Roadmap for Assessing Creative Work
Key to assessing creative work is, as Zorana says, to “chunk it.” Likely you already do this, but, she suggests, now you can be “sparkling some creativity science on top” of what you’re already doing. Students build their creative self-efficacy from experience. Start by directly asking them to be creative and showing them that you believe they can do it. Then create stages in the project where students can celebrate success, build confidence, and receive helpful feedback as they move forward to the next stage with improved self-efficacy.
The feedback can come from others as well as you. Zorana shares that research shows students will benefit from hearing from those they know less well earlier in the process, giving them a breadth of perspective on the task they’re working on. Then, later, they’ll benefit from feedback from those they know better, who will provide them with more emotional support at that point in the arc of the project.
By the time students have moved through a scaffolded unit with plenty of opportunities to build their creative self-efficacy along the way, Zorana says it’s now time for you to evaluate the quality of the project and give honest feedback on what they’ve produced.
What About Teacher Creativity?
All of these ideas apply to educators – and all people – in the same way they apply to students. And educator creativity benefits students: “Teachers who teach creatively,” says Zorana, “are going to be better able to engage students and teach them creativity skills.”
Creativity Resource: Try this Free Workshop at your School
Want to explore some of these ideas at your school? Try putting this creative workshop into action in your community, keeping in mind what you’ve learned in this episode, the next time you have a couple of free days. Students in small groups will take on challenges to help improve your school community with their creativity. Make your copy here.
Connect with Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Ready to learn more about Zorana’s work? Explore her website, sign up for her Substack, or pick up a copy of her book!
