Fostering Divergent Thinking for Student Creativity

In partnership with Model Teaching, an industry leader in supporting educators, this quick course highlights the importance of divergent thinking and how it relates to creativity. Model Teaching's Mission is to improve student performance by directly supporting teachers with quality content and resources. You will learn how to support creativity through divergent thinking using the strategies, activities, and resources provided within this course.

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3 Months / 1 Course Hrs
Open Enrollment
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Fostering Divergent Thinking for Student Creativity

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Course code: T14718

This quick teacher professional development course teaches you about divergent thinking, also known as divergent reasoning, and its role in creativity. You will explore what divergent thinking is and then learn specific activities that can help you foster and support creativity in the classroom. You will also be provided guidance on how to give feedback and support to your students to improve creativity over time.

The course comes with a downloadable PDF of the content and multiple graphic organizers and resources ready to support your students in building their creative thinking.

What you will learn

  • Understand and define divergent thinking and its role in creativity
  • Analyze strategies and activities to support divergent thinking in the classroom
  • Evaluate a method of feedback to help support and improve creativity and divergent thinking in your students

How you will benefit

  • You will think about your lessons differently and consider methods to help support and foster creativity within your classroom regularly
  • Your students will become more thoughtful and creative over time if you implement these strategies regularly
  • Student progress will improve significantly in creative subjects like experiment design in science or essay writing in English Language Arts (ELA) classes with regular divergent thinking practice

How the course is taught

  • Self-Guided, online course
  • 3 Months access
  • 1 course hours
  1. Fostering Divergent Thinking Course Content
    1. The video and article will provide you with an understanding of divergent thinking and how to foster creativity within your classroom using specific strategies and techniques. The course also includes some "Reflect or Discuss" prompts to help you connect with the course content and ends with a "Try This Task" to guide you explicitly on how you might implement the ideas into the classroom.
  2. Quiz
    1. You will answer questions related to creativity and divergent thinking. Quizzes are automatically scored and provide feedback on answer choice rationale.
  3. Implementation Reflection
    1. The reflection prompt requires you to plan for use of the "try this task" by either reflecting on the content yourself or discussing them with the colleague. You will then discuss a new concept you can attempt to implement in the future based on something you learned in the course.
  4. Considerations for Implementation
    1. This short statement helps you reflect on your ideas and assess whether you might be successful in your implementation.
  5. Videos and Further Reading
    1. Additional content suggestions are provided to enhance and expand your understanding of divergent thinking.
Self-Study

Prerequisites:

There are no prerequisites to take this course.

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

  • This course can be taken on either a PC, Mac, or Chromebook.

Software Requirements:

  • PC: Windows 10 or later.
  • Mac: macOS 10.6 or later.
  • Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox is preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.
  • Microsoft Word Online
  • Editing of a Microsoft Word document is required in this course. You may use a free version of Microsoft Word Online, or Google Docs if you do not have Microsoft Office installed on your computer. Model Teaching can provide support for this.
  • Adobe Acrobat Reader
  • Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

  • Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

Your course begins immediately after you enroll.​

You have 3 months of access to the course. After enrolling, you can learn and complete the course at your own pace, within the allotted access period. You will have the opportunity to interact with other students in the online discussion area.

There is no time limit to complete each lesson, other than completing all lessons within the allotted access period. Discussion areas for each lesson are open for the entire duration of the course.

Because this course is self-guided, no extensions will be granted after the start of your enrollment.

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Fundamentals
Guided Reading in Small Group Instruction
Fundamentals
Instructionally-Aligned Field Trips
Fundamentals
Intro to Online Learning
Fundamentals
Measuring Growth in Writing Using Rubrics
Fundamentals
Memorization Using the Memory Palace Technique
Fundamentals
Teaching Effective Problem-Based Lab Reports