Creativity Keys

Unlock creativity, watch them grow!

Unlock creativity with Mayku's creativity keys - simple ideas to develop children's ability to think creatively and grow.

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A for effort!

Be intrigued by mistakes

Avatar by  Carol Dweck

Open up a dialogue about making mistakes and show that you make mistakes too. Talk about how these mistakes lay the foundation for the next phase of learning - just don’t give up!

Breaking out of established patterns

Avatar by  Edward De Bono

Focus on improvement not achievement, for example, at the end of a task, ask ‘how would you do it differently next time?’

Build learning resilience

Avatar by  James Nottingham

Through discussing what to do when you get stuck, so learners think, for example, ‘when I get stuck I can talk to my learning partner to think about what my options are’.

All about the process

Design thinking

Avatar by  John Spencer

Provide opportunities for cycles of reflection through planning, doing, and reviewing mutliple times. Set a problem, ask groups to develop a prototype to solve it by asking questions, and evaluate its efficacy.

Process over product

Avatar by  Guy Claxton & Becky Carlzon

Focus on and talk about how children’s ‘learning’ is going rather than ‘work’. For example, ‘How did you discover that…’

Questions without answers

Avatar by  Alice Sterling Honig

Use open questioning, changing ‘what is’ to ‘what could be’, ‘what makes’, ‘what if’ eg ‘What could happen if we couldn’t use electricity?’ or ‘What if machines could read our minds?’

Creative collaboration

Circle of viewpoints

Avatar by  Guy Claxton & Becky Carlzon

Students brainstorm a list of viewpoints about a project or idea and consider the merits and pitfalls of each one.

Immediate feedback on good collaboration

Avatar by  Guy Claxton & Becky Carlzon

Value and praise effective collaboration, for example, ‘You were both excellent at sharing ideas. This was definitely a two person project.'

The 10 minute feedback system

Avatar by  John Spencer

Encourage children to feedback to each other on how to develop ideas; teach them the language to do this, eg 'I wonder' - ‘I wonder what would happen if you made that bigger/smaller/light up'.

Let's talk about it

Enabling Environments

Avatar by  Albert Einstein

Trust children to have autonomy over their learning by encouraging them to ‘design’ their own challenges ‘That is an interesting idea… how might that become a reality?’

Formative Assessment

Avatar by  Dylan Wiliam

Role model language that will help students express and understand their developing creativity eg ‘How did you get to that solution?’ This helps them reflect on learning, verbalise and explain strategies.

The Curiosity Approach

Avatar by  Guy Claxton & Becky Carlzon

'I wonder…’ is a great prompt for conversations and thinking. It is a ‘safe’ and open conversation starter as it invites creative consideration. www.thecuriosityapproach.com

Using a ‘grapple problem’

Avatar by  Guy Claxton & Becky Carlzon

Let them grapple with a question collaboratively to engage them in the construction of knowledge and empower them as they learn they can discover the ‘answers’ with their own ingenuity.

Positive minds

Enabling Environments

Avatar by  Albert Einstein

Trust children to have autonomy over their learning by encouraging them to ‘design’ their own challenges ‘That is an interesting idea… how might that become a reality?’

Growth Mindset

Avatar by  Carol Dweck

Add ‘yet’ at the end of a statement about yourself: ‘I don’t know how to use that machine...yet’.

Learning positivity

Avatar by  Guy Claxton & Becky Carlzon

Rethink your language around ‘ability’ by focusing on developing learning attitudes such as ‘wow, how did you come up with all of those creative ideas?’

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