This document provides strategies for teachers to develop creativity and critical thinking in their students. It recommends incorporating individual, small group, and whole group work into lessons to engage students. It also suggests changing up lessons by adding games, posters, reports and discussions to keep students interested. The document advises starting with low-level questions to build confidence before moving to more complex, open-ended questions requiring evidence-based justification. Small group work and presentations can help students collaborate to find answers and defend their reasoning.

1. Strategies for Developing
Creativity and Critical Thinking
Christina Bailey

2. Welcome!
Congratulations on your new job. Being a teacher
is very rewarding and you will shape the lives of
many students.
Before beginning your job take into consideration
on how you will approach your students with
your lessons. How will shape your lessons to
prepare students for the future? Here are a few
helpful suggestions on how to make sure you
lead your students on a successful path and to a
bright future.

3. Developing Creativity
Using creativity daily in your classroom will be
key to getting students involved and learning.
Keep in mind that if you don’t think the lesson
is interesting, neither will your students.
Make it a lesson that you would want to
participate in if you were that age again.

4. Strategies for Creativity
1. Incorporate individual work, small group
work, and whole group work
– Students will prefer one of these more than the
other two but keep in mind that you have to
address the entire group, not just one student
– You pick the groups, not the students (you want
to maintain control over the class)

5. Strategies for Creativity
• Change it up – Don’t have students read
from the textbook the entire lesson without
stopping
– Textbooks are dry and boring but as teachers, we
must use the information in them
– If you have students reading from their textbooks
the entire lesson and nothing else, students are
going to tune out everything they just heard or
read (depending on if the lesson is being read
aloud)
– Have students stop at random times that you
decide, and talk about what was just read
– Try having a class discussion on relating what was
just read to real life
– Jot down important things as a class that are
important for a future test on the material

6. Strategies for Creativity
1. Create Games
– Anything can be made into a game
– Think of board games but use your material instead
– Two examples:
• Gather the material that was just learned and you can turn
it into a game similar to the television show Jeopardy
where the material that was learned are the questions
• Have students each write down a few questions and
answers and put them in a hat, have students partner up
and toss a ball around the room to each group. When a
pair gets the ball, they draw from the hat and answer the
question together, if they can’t answer it, the ball gets
tossed to another group

7. Strategies for Creativity
1. Create Posters
– Students can work alone, in pairs, or
small groups (depending on what you
decide)
– Long pieces of paper can be used or even
a bigger piece of construction paper
– Students write down key facts learned
and add illustrations
– When everyone is finished, have students
present them to the class
– Afterwards, hang the posters around the
room for students to review and look at

8. Strategies for Creativity
1. Reports
– Depending on what is being learned in class, develop
a topic that students can do a report on
– The report can incorporate research, the textbook,
or prior knowledge (maybe you want to use all
three)
– Have students work on a different part each day in
class and what isn’t finished is homework (you could
also have students do a part in class and then
another part at home for homework)
– Students will enjoy taking a break from their normal
routine assignment

9. Developing Critical Thinking
Incorporating critical thinking into your
classroom will be another key component to
preparing students for the future. It is
important that students know how to
formulate an answer with evidence as to why
they came up with that answer.

10. Developing Critical Thinking
1. Start by giving students low level questions
– Begin with a quiz that gets them thinking about
the material
– Low level questions build up confidence

11. Developing Critical Thinking
1. Move on to a higher level question that
requires students to do some deep thinking
– The low level questions helped build up
confidence and now students are ready
to move onto a question that requires
them to think
– This means the answer will not be A, B,
C, or D
– Students will struggle with justifying an
open ended question
– Give positive comments, a little bit of
direction, and encourage thinking to
help students

12. Developing Critical Thinking
1. Small group discussion
– Students have had time to come up with an answer
on their own, and now it’s time to collaborate with
others on their answers
– Students will share what they have come up with it
and decide together what is the best answer to
share with the rest of the class
– Each person will have to share a part with the class
– You will have students in each group that take on
different roles
• This simulates real life groups that students will use in the
future
• People take on specific roles then come together and
compile their things into one finished product

13. Developing Critical Thinking
1. Small group presentations
– Students in each group share with the rest of the
class what answer they came up with and why
– Each student in the group needs to share a piece
of information to prevent one student from
taking on the entire presentation
– Shows the teacher and the rest of the class a
possible answer

14. Developing Critical Thinking
1. Whole group discussion
– As a whole group, students can share what went
well and what didn’t in this question and answer
for themselves or their group
– Students can share which answer they feel was
the best
– Time for feedback and see which groups
addressed the questions with good critical
thinking

15. Good Luck!
• These are a just a few helpful strategies for
developing creativity and critical thinking
• As you teach, you will come across new methods
that work and some that do not
• Remember to always be positive and keep in mind
when composing a lesson: what do I want the
students to learn from this lesson and how will I
incorporate strategies that will prompt them for the
future