My 4th and 5th grade gifted students began pull-out classes this week. Our first order of business was to set goals for the new school year. We began with a pep talk from Kid President, who inspires us to learn, teach, change the world, and BE MORE AWESOME!

Creativity is a skill, just like reading or math, that can be taught and learned. No kidding!! :-) Through exposure, experience, and practice, creative thinking is a skill anyone can cultivate.

Not only is creative thinking FUN, but it is also important! Divergent thinking increases a student’s desire to learn and supports his/her intellectual development. When we encourage creative thinking, we promote student engagement, motivation, and love for learning.

My first post in this series, "Let's Get Creative," addressed the 4-Framework model of creativity and shared easy, low or no-prep activities to use in the classroom. You can read more about that here, if you like. This post will focus on ways to develop a culture of creativity in the classroom.

I am all about creativity in the classroom! (Who isn't? Creativity rocks, right?) I've always known that creativity is an art, but I've learned that it is also a science. In fact creativity is a skill, just like reading or math, that can be taught and learned. Yes, for real!! :-) Through exposure, experience, and practice, creative thinking is a skill anyone can cultivate.


According to Paul Torrance, (who is often referred to as the "Father of Creativity"), creative thinking can be quantified. He broke it into a 4-part framework, which includes fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. I love this framework because it gives me a scaffold with which to promote, support, and nurture creativity in my students, myself, and my class.

One of my favorite math units to do with upper elementary students is Math Quest! I very rarely repeat units in my classroom (there are too many great new things to try, right?), but Math Quest is one I have returned to year after year. So, I thought I'd share some of the ways I use this AMAZING Interact Unit with my 3rd, 4th, and 5th-grade students.

Math Quest is set up like a game to engage and motivate students. (See the game board below!)




Students earn “travel dots” for solving math problems; each travel dot is worth one space on the game board. As students work their way towards the treasure chest at the top of the board, they earn special "powers" and gold. The team of students with the most gold at the end of the unit wins! SO MUCH FUN!

Now for the math . . . ! The unit is designed to help students become competent, confident, and creative problem solvers. Throughout the unit, students explore six problem-solving strategies:

• Guess and check
• Look for a pattern
• Work backward
• Make a picture or a diagram
• Use Logical Reasoning
• Make a table or a chart

Students work in teams and then on their own to apply each problem-solving method. The Math Quest unit provides all of the problems for team practice and individual application. Each set of problems is tiered to provide varying levels of challenge. I've found that levels A, B, and C correspond pretty well with grades 3, 4, and 5.

When introducing a problem-solving strategy, I follow an "I do," "We do," "Y'all do," "You do" approach. With "I do," I introduce and model the strategy. I select a different problem for "we do" and the students and I solve it together; the students record their work in their math notebooks, while I write on the board. If all goes as planned (ha, right?), then we move on to "y'all do." In this stage, students work in their teams of 4 to solve the problem together. We use Student Learning Teams to ensure meaningful learning. In a student learning team, each student has a specific "job," which promotes individual accountability, equal student responsibility, and positive interdependence.



And then finally, "you do," where students practice and apply the problem-solving strategy independently.

Due to the complexity of the problems, I require my students to use a problem-solving mat to guide and illustrate their thinking. The work mat guides them through the important steps of understanding, solving, explaining, and checking the problem. Prior to using the mat, my students tended to RUSH, particularly through steps 1 and 4, which seriously compromised the accuracy of their work! I've found that the mat helps my students to navigate and solve complex problems with greater independence and accuracy.



I then use a holistic rubric to score the completed mats. While it is not as descriptive as an analytic rubric, I find it more user-friendly for the purpose of scoring LOTS of math problems each week.



When I designed the problem-solving mats and rubrics, I wanted to emphasize the importance of the problem-solving process. Therefore, I wanted students to be rewarded for showing their work and thinking. As a result, students can actually earn more points for an incorrect answer where they have shown their reasoning, then if they simply record the correct answer. With that said, there is a lot of value in accuracy, as well! That is why there is such a large numerical gap (4 – 10) between the two highest scores. I want students to participate in and value the problem-solving process, but I also want them to recognize that accuracy is essential.

Putting an emphasis (and a score!) on the problem-solving process is a new way of thinking for many students. I've found though, that once students understand and use the problem-solving maps & rubrics that it dramatically improves the quality of their work and thinking.

In my experience, when my students take ownership of the rubric, they are more likely to understand and invest themselves in the process. Therefore, I enlist them to help me build the criteria. I provide the descriptors and we discuss each one. In the discussion, we address the value of the problem-solving process, the importance of accuracy, and our ultimate goal of accomplishing both! As a class, students then decide what point value each level of performance is worth. We record their decisions on paper and use this an anchor chart. It keeps the criteria clear and available and students can refer to it easily throughout the year.