Keeping creativity, curiosity and interest alive in every child, should be an area each teacher is aware of.
Our teaching styles and classroom manner may stifle creativity and problem solving in the children we teach. Perhaps it's easier to have all the children doing the same thing! Curios children may ask more questions and want to interact in the learning, rather than just being spoon-feed, which may seem to be more trouble and time consuming to some teachers.
Setup a classroom which is student friendly - encouraging debate and problem solving thinking.
Interact with the children positively, make them feel safe and secure encouraging students to grow and to learn, rather than switching off and being bored!
In each lesson we could do short, quick tasks which could encourage the children to think and solve problems!
Have a puzzle for the children to solve at the beginning or end of the lesson.
A container filled with burnt matches which can be used for a variety of problems which the children can solve quickly.
For example:
A tub of coins that could be used to various problems is also useful!
For example: Can you move three coins and flip the triangle upside down?
The students could be asked to develop their own problems and then pose them to the rest of the class.
Make your classroom a fun and exciting space to be in.
If you would like me to do problem-solving and critical thinking workshops with you staff, send me a message on the Contact page of the website.
Answers to the problems on blog entitled:
"Quick problem solving tasks - answers"
