Teaching for Creativity in the Common Core Classroom

Creativity and the Common Core State Standards are both important to today’s teachers. Yet, for many educators, nurturing students’ creativity seems to conflict with ensuring that they learn specific skills and content. In this book, the authors outline ways to adapt existing lessons and mandated curricula to encourage the development of student creativity alongside more traditional academic skills. Based on cutting-edge psychological research on creativity, the text debunks common misconceptions about creativity, describes how learning environments can support both creativity and the Common Core, offers creative lessons and insights for teaching English language arts and mathematics, and includes assessments for creativity and Common Core learning. Featuring numerous classroom examples, this practical resource will empower teachers to think of the Common Core and creativity as encompassing complementary, rather than mutually exclusive, goals.

Book Features:

• Shows how teaching skills mandated by the CCSS and teaching for creativity can reinforce one another.
• Helps teachers better understand what creativity is, how to develop it, and how to assess it in meaningful ways.
• Examines the many misconceptions about creativity that prevent teachers from doing their best work.
• Provides classroom examples, ideas, and lesson plans from successful teachers across disciplines.

Ronald A. Beghetto is associate professor of educational psychology at the Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut. James C. Kaufman is professor of educational psychology at the University of Connecticut and founding director of the Learning Research Institute at California State University, San Bernardino. John Baer is professor of teacher education at the School of Education, Rider University, Lawrenceville, NJ.

“There are few favors you can do your students greater than putting into practice the precepts of this book. Give it a try. I will!”
—From the Foreword by Robert J. Sternberg, Cornell University

“This wonderful book is filled with practical advice for teachers about how to teach to Common Core standards, in both ELA and math, in ways that lead to creative learning outcomes.”
—Keith Sawyer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

“How can a Common Core curriculum facilitate the uncommon thought processes central to creativity and innovation? Beghetto, Kaufman, and Baer make a strong, nuanced case that knowledge for the sake of knowledge may be acceptable for immediate retention, but knowledge in the service of creating new possibilities has long-term consequences that can't be ignored by educators and society.”
—Scott Barry Kaufman, scientific director and researcher, The Imagination Institute, Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania