We Need to ‘Nurture Creativity for all Students’ is the headline of the third-and-final post in my Ed Week series on creativity.

Here’s a “The Best…” list offering resources I’ve been accumulating them for awhile on creativity.

You might also be interested in:

The Best Resources For Teaching “What If?” History Lessons

The Best Videos Showing “Thinking Outside The Box” — Help Me Find More

I certainly don’t view this as the be all and end all of creativity resources, so I hope readers will contribute more.

Here are my choices for The Best Sources Of Advice On Helping Students Strengthen & Develop Their Creativity:

How To Be Creative
is an excerpt from Jonah Lehrer’s book (despite it being pulled because of Mr. Lehrer’s made-up quotations from Bob Dylan, I still think he offers useful advice) and appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

Thinking “Inside Out” — How Could I Use This In A Lesson? is a post I wrote, and here’s a follow-up called “The Costanza Gambit.”

Developing Students’ Creative Skills for 21st Century Success is by Jennifer Henderson and is on ASCD’s website.

The Big Lesson of a Little Prince: (Re)capture the Creativity of Childhood is by Maria Konnikova and appeared in Scientific American.

The Kaleidoscope Mind: Some Easy Ways to Teach Creativity appeared in The Atlantic.

A Box? Or a Spaceship? What Makes Kids Creative
is from The Wall Street Journal.

Reclaiming the Imagination
is from The New York Times.

Lab Notes #5: Creativity is from Wired.

Positive Mood Allows Human Brain to Think More Creatively is from Science Daily.

How to encourage big ideas is from MIT News.

TechCrunch has a series of videos on this topic from author Po Bronson.

“The Creativity Crisis”: A Conversation with Nurture Shock Author Ashley Merryman is from Learning First.

Creativity Lessons from Charles Dickens and Steve Jobs is from The Harvard Business Review.

How Geniuses Think is from The Creativity Post.

Research summary – fostering creativity is from Journey To Excellence.

How Creative Are You? is an online test from Newsweek.

Here are some interesting articles on measuring creativity:

States Mulling Creativity Indexes for Schools is from Education Week.

Measuring Creativity is from The European Commission.

Will Measuring Creativity In Schools Help Youth Be Workforce Ready? is from The Huffington Post.

Can Creativity Be Measured?

Interesting Research On Creativity

Jonah Lehrer, author of the book “Imagine: How Creativity Works” has written a guest piece over at my Education Week Teacher column sharing his suggestions on how his research can be applied in the classroom.

Salvador Dali’s Creative Thinking Technique is from The Creativity Post.

Linking Prior Knowledge and New Content with Metaphors is by Jason Buell at ASCD In Service Blog.

Assessing creativity is from The Blue Skunk Blog.

30 Things You Can Do To Promote Creativity in Your Classroom is from InformED.

Creativity Now! is the theme of the February 2013 issue of ASCD Educational Leadership, and it’s a good one.

Several are behind a paywall, but here are some great ones that are freely available now:

I especially like Assessing Creativity by Susan M. Brookhart.

Creativity on the Brink? is by Alane Starko.

Creativity Requires a Mix of Skills is by Bryan Goodwin and Kirsten Miller.

Fundamentals of Creativity is by Ronald A. Beghetto and James C. Kaufman.

This video demonstrates both the disadvantages of extrinsic motivation and the importance of helping our students develop creativity:

Learning To Think Outside The Box is an article in The New York Times about creativity. The article briefly discusses research, but an online test it provides for users to evaluated their own creativity is particularly interesting. It also has additional multimedia resources.

Combining Creativity and Standards-Driven Instruction is from Ed Week.

What Doesn’t Motivate Creativity Can Kill It is from The Harvard Business Review.


Want to develop a better work routine? Discover how some of the world’s greatest minds organized their days.
Click image to see the interactive version (via Podio).

Demystifying the muse: 5 creativity myths you need to stop believing at Crew blog is just about the best summary (including links) of research on developing creativity that you’re going to find.

3 WAYS TO TRAIN YOURSELF TO BE MORE CREATIVE is by Art Markman, and could be a useful article for students to read.

Unlocking Creativity in the Brain

Creativity in the English language classroom is a new Ebook from The British Council that looks very helpful.

The Creativity Mindset is by Jackie Gerstein.

Encouraging the Einstein and Edison in Everyone is by Ainissa Ramirez and appeared in Edutopia.

Yes, Creativity Can Be Learned is from Canva.


Video: Dead Poets Society On Thinking Outside Of The Box

Great Idea From Adam Grant: Student Mini-Talks That Challenge “Conventional Wisdom”

Using The “Green Eggs and Ham hypothesis” To Help Students Develop Creativity

The Weird Rules of Creativity is from The Harvard Business Review.

The “Constraints Principle” Revisited

4 strategies for boosting creativity is from ISTE (via Shanna Peeples).

New TED-Ed Video: “The power of creative constraints”

I know that some educators are critical of using sarcasm in the classroom, but I use it a lot.  However, I’ve also seen teachers who have “weaponized” sarcasm, and that can obviously be damaging.  Done in the context of strong and caring relationships, I’ve found sarcasm to be helpful in creating a fun atmosphere.  Now, a study has found that using sarcasm can promote creativity in others.

The Three-Word Phrase that Helps Unlock Group Creativity is from Daniel Coyle.

Feel free to offer feedback and additional suggestions.

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