This activity could be used to initiate the creative discussion process in a pressure free environment through the use of TV commercials.
Procedure:
1. Get students to watch the following video without sound.
2. Get them to speculate on what’s going on in the video and encourage them to think creatively. Any video with a certain degree of ambiguity can be used in a similar way and the results can be diverse and, at times, amusing. In a group of adult teachers we were presenting to, interpretations ranged from a tough negotiation over the price of a new car to some kind of love triangle between the three protagonists which was coming to a conclusion.
A light-hearted look at a very creative person being given a hard time... Procedure:
1. Explain to your students about the programme they're going to watch: Dragon's Den. Tell them it's a popular TV programme where potential entrepreneurs try to have their new ideas supported by a panel of wealthy investors - the 'Dragons'.
2. Show students the following Youtube clip without sound. Get them to discuss who and what they can see. Get them to imagine a possible dialague between Jobs and the Dragons. Encourage them to watch the body language and non-verbal expressions closely and to be creative with the language.
3. Get students to listen to the actual dialogue, check if they'd understood the interaction just from watching (explain it's a light-hearted spoof in case they hadn't realised this already!)
4. Get students to come up with own inventions and to work out how they might pitch it to a group of investors. Get them to make their pitches and encourage the investors to ask questions and make comments. Have a vote on the best ideas/inventions.
Did you know that there are several roadblocks to creativity which diminish applications and effectiveness of using creativity in educational settings? Harris (2012) lists some of these roadblocks as follows:
Making a Better World is about the roadblocks to creativity. We designed this activity using two extracts from the film ‘Pay it forward’. The film deals with the theme
of making the world a better place and a young boy’s attempt to do so. This activity can be used to introduce creative thinking into the classroom, or as a follow-up to What is Being Creative?
Procedure:
1. Tell students to watch the first clip and answer the following check questions: What class is this? What comment does the teacher make about students’ lives? What assignment does he set them? How do the students react to it?
2. Then show the second clip (a follow-up clip) which has Trevor explaining his idea to the class. Tell the students to watch the clip and answer the following questions: What is Trevor’s idea to change the world? What comments do Trevor’s classmates make about his idea? Focus on the fact that the type of roadblocks that Trevor faces (e.g ‘It’s overly utopian’) can often impede creative and innovative processes and discuss the merits of Trevor’s idea with your students.
3. This can be usefully followed up by asking the students to come up with their own ideas for making the world a better place. Open up a free discussion of the ideas students come up with and how they might be developed. Encourage a genuine exchange of ideas and make sure students do not present roadblocks to promising ideas but rather develop and build on other people’s suggestions.
Teach creativity and/or creatively & enjoy being creative!
There is no one single definition of creativity. There are, however, a number of keywords associated with creativity such as novelty, uniqueness, and originality. The activity we present here is an excellent starting point if you wish to enable your students to come up with their own definitions of creativity. The common element in all the activities we will present is the need to create space for learners to think freely and express their thoughts without fear of being criticized or ridiculed. In addition, using creative activities will enable your students to draw on all their language resources, thus giving them the chance to activate previously learned language.
Procedure:
1. Copy the following words onto separate cards (or click here to download the cards we designed):
2. Put the words on the cards around the classroom wall. Divide the class into small groups and tell them they are going to make a definition of creativity with the words on the walls. Get them briefly to decide which words they want and to nominate one person who goes and collects them.
3. Once they have the words, get the groups to work on their definitions and to write them down.
4. Then play the following video and get students to see if their definitions of creativity match those expressed in the video.
Teach creativity and/or creatively & enjoy being creative!
In this blog, we will share ideas, links, activities, lesson plans, photos,
and everything on teaching creativity and/or creatively. Please feel free to use
the materials we developed by referring to us. We look forward to hearing your
valuable feedback.
