Inventiveness is not something that can be taught. It can, however, be fostered and encouraged. In this article, we explore some strategies you can adopt to foster inventiveness in students.
Get Creative
Encourage inventiveness by providing students with opportunities to be creative. To do this, teachers themselves must get creative! Offer assignments that get children into a creative space, encourage different methods of completing tasks, or have students invent various solutions to problems that they see around them.
Be Interested in Their Interests
Students should be able to choose what to do and how to get it done. You could start by providing a range of activities for students to choose from, or by discussing different topics and allowing them to pick what they want to work on. In our classes, students get to work on a topic or issue that they care about and want to solve.
Challenge Them
Solving puzzles is another fun way to foster inventiveness. Offer puzzles, brainteasers, riddles, and other critical thinking activities! These will get children to think out of the box and practise looking at problems from different angles.
Provide Support
We’ve all experienced hitting a creative rut in some way or another. Coming up with new and different ideas can be daunting for both adults and children. Offer prompts and provide plenty of resources to spark the ideation process in children. Give them lots of encouragement and make sure to acknowledge the ideas that they contribute!
Encourage Collaboration
When people work together, good things happen. Provide opportunities for students to work together on projects and activities. This promotes brainstorming and encourages students to bounce ideas off one another or build upon each other’s ideas. You’ll be amazed at some of the ideas that emerge from collaborative work.
Fostering inventiveness in students is certainly possible and can be a fun approach to learning! Students who can invent new ways of seeing and doing things, instead of always falling back on what they know, are better prepared for the future.
At IDE Academy, inventiveness is at the heart of our programmes. Find out more about invention education today!
