NILE runs a wide range of professional development courses delivered in various modes. In this series, NILE's Senior Trainers look at some of the key concepts, activities, tips and tools which feature in our NILE courses.

 

Providing optimal conditions for exploiting the creative potential of our teenage learners

I was reminded the other day of something I heard on the radio about adolescence being the most creative time in people’s lives and it prompted me to think more about this. We often think that teenagers’ desire for approval from their peers can inhibit their willingness to be creative, depending on the form that creativity might take (performing a roleplay they have written in front of peers, for example, might be excruciating for some teenagers and we need to be aware of this as teachers).

But this capacity for creativity in teenagers does make sense in many ways – after all, teenagers are at the stage in life where they are developing greater ability to reason, analyse and question.

So, how can we provide optimal conditions to harness this creative potential in our teenage learners? 

A recent literature review of studies into creativity and adolescence by Van der Zanden et al (2020) highlighted some interesting factors that need to be balanced in order to do this (outlined below) and I have used these to make suggestions for how these might look in practice:

  • An adequate balance between freedom and structure in tasks, so opportunities for exploration and risk but with the right amount of guidance for this to be achieved. This guidance might take different forms: clear outcomes to tasks, suggested success criteria (which aren’t too prescriptive to limit creative possibilities) and available support to guide them along the way. The study also highlighted the importance of teenagers having a say in the content, process and product in these tasks, with teachers being open to incorporating their suggestions into the task design.
  • Creating positive relationships based on trust and respect, which will allow the necessary conditions for creativity to be expressed. It is hard to imagine teenagers wanting to take risks and come up with the new and the novel without these conditions.
  • Opportunities for communication and collaboration in the classroom, including peer instruction.
  • Multiple and relevant learning resources that meet the learners’ needs and which they can exploit to meet the creative goal of the task. Again, the expertise of the teacher will come in use here in guiding learners to where they might find these resources, but of course the learners may also have very valid suggestions for this, which teachers also need to be open to.
  • Activities which encourage learners to look at a situation from different perspectives. An example of this might be a problem-solving task involving an aspect of school life, such as getting rid of homework where they consider how that proposal might be seen from the perspective of different stakeholders in the school eg parents, local education authorities and teachers, as well as their own view as students. They could also look at a topic from the point of view of different cultures or how it might have been viewed at different points in history.

I hope this has given you some food for thought if you teach teenagers. You can find more discussion of issues related to teaching teenagers on our Teaching Teenagers course with Emma Heyderman, face-to-face in Norwich in July and August, and online in January and September.

Reference: van der Zanden, P . Meijer P. and Beghetto R. (2020) A review study about creativity in adolescence: Where is the social context? Thinking Skills and Creativity Journal, Elsevier.

Back