When the toothpaste ‘elephant’ explodes from the Science Laboratory, the story treats Pokémon’s letters, and the mathematics class bakes a chocolate brownies batch, it may seem like chaos.
However, an innovative study of researchers from the University of Southern Australia shows that creativity plays an essential role in academic success, which suggests that students who think outside the box are more likely to excel in literacy and arithmetic evaluations.
It is an important finding, particularly when the most recent national evaluation program: literacy and arithmetic data (Naplan) show that one in three Australian students is late in their arithmetic or literacy skills.
When examining the performance of 637 Australian students in Naplan exams, researchers found that students who worked well also tended to exhibit higher levels of creativity.
In fact, creativity was a better predictor of academic performance than traditional predictors such as grades (GPA) and personality traits such as consciousness.
Specifically, the study showed that greater flexibility in divergent thinking* It was associated with stronger Naplan literacy results, the higher Mathematical creativity ** He associated with a stronger Naplan Aritmeracy performance.
The Unis researcher, Professor David Croley, says that the findings are good news for teachers who strive to involve their students in learning through creativity.
“We are increasingly seeing teachers to find unique and interesting ways to cause curiosity among their students,” says Professor Croley.
“This can be as simple as promoting an open and inquisitive attitude towards new ideas in class, or as deep as an interactive roles game to decipher the last text in English. It is about thinking widely, looking at problems from different angles and being flexible.
“It is important to emphasize that this study challenges the stereotype that creativity and academic achievement disagree, which has been a long -standing erroneous idea.”
The findings contradict recent calls for a return to education and learning of memory return to the basics, with Professor Croley saying that creativity is key to building the abilities of children in literacy and mathematics.
“Schools must be encouraged to integrate creative thinking in their teaching strategies, particularly literacy and arithmetic, where we can demonstrate a clear connection between creativity and academic performance,” says Professor Croley.
“Instead of treating creativity as separated from academic achievement, we need to recognize it as a vital component of students’ success and find ways for teachers to adopt it as part of their approaches to teaching and learning.
“Since creativity is also evaluated in international reference points such as the OECD program for the international evaluation of students, our findings further reinforce the need for schools to balance traditional learning with the development of creative skills.
“Schools should be sure: it is not an approach or an approach: creativity can be implemented in structured school learning environments. But understanding that how creativity relates and can increase academic achievement both in literacy and arithmetic is a lot of food to think.”
Grades:
*Greater flexibility in divergent thinking is the ability of a student to generate a wide range of ideas in different categories when solving problems or answering open questions, such as ‘What would happen if people only tell the truth?’
** Mathematical creativity is when students can find novel solutions, recognize alternative approaches and think beyond the conventional problem solving methods to respond a problem such as “How many different ways can the number eight make?”