Assessing Creativity

If you read Carol Dweck's book about Mindset-it talks about how the way we thought about I.Q. for many years, that it was a fixed concept is now turning out to be wrong. That people can raise their I.Q., can be taught to be stronger thinkers...I feel the same way about creativity. I do think many people have a natural affinity for thinking creatively, but I also think it's a skill we can be taught to apply better. Often times, even with my GT kiddos, my Kinder students have not really been taught to think creatively. They often write the first response that comes into their heads or copy what their neighbor's idea was. One of my goals for them is to teach them how to be more creative. "Creative" and "unique" are the first words on our Word Wall.

So the first thing I have to do is to see how creative they are. I give them a kind of assessment by using a shape or a squiggle and having them turn it into something. It's called Divergent Art and it's been used since the 70's in research on creativity. This year I gave them a squiggle-I demonstrated using a triangle on my white board-what can we use this to make? The roof to a house? Make it into a tent? Then I give them their line and ask them to come up with a creative idea. Quite often I get a bunch of snakes and the letter "S" but this year I was very impressed with what my new students came up with!

This is the line they were given.

I love to give these challenges to them monthly with different shapes and watch their creatively just grow and grow!