Creativity

Creativity is a valuable skill that plays a role in all disciplines and professions—from teaching and healthcare to business, science, and engineering. It helps people develop new ideas, solve problems in fresh ways, and adapt to change. A teacher might design engaging lessons, a nurse might find a better way to comfort a patient, a scientist might explore new research methods, and a business leader might develop a unique marketing strategy. Whether you're coding software, managing a team, or creating a product, creativity makes work more effective and meaningful. As technology takes over routine tasks, creative thinking becomes even more important for adding a human touch and making a real impact.

Course-Based Approaches

Here are some ways to encourage creativity in your course:

Provide instructional content in a variety of ways—videos, podcasts, visual aids, models, etc.—to give students exemplars of how information can be shared in creative ways beyond traditional readings.
Use flexible seating arrangements to encourage idea sharing and foster creative thinking.
Intentionally design your teaching methods to develop creativity in students by encouraging brainstorming, problem-solving, and considering different perspectives to generate new ideas.
Offer students flexibility and choice in completing assignments. Take traditional assignments, like essays, and encourage students to use tools to share the same information in different ways such as short videos, songs, concept maps, spider diagrams, circuit diagrams, art pieces, or visual timelines.

Programmatic Approaches

Go further by encouraging creativity at the program or department level with these ideas:

Build Partnerships

Offer students opportunities for creative projects, collaboration with external partners, and practical experiences for their careers. NIU’s College of Business De La Vega Innovation Lab connects students, alumni, faculty, and external partners to foster creativity and provide resources for advancing business ventures.

Address Real-World Problems

Partner with NIU’s sustainability initiative coordinators to explore opportunities for student engagement in innovative projects addressing energy efficiency, food security, landscape restoration, etc.

Integrate Digital Literacy

Integrate use of Adobe Creative Cloud tools across the curriculum to give students opportunities to create new and innovative projects with the latest technologies. The blog post, East Carolina University encourages creativity for all with Adobe Creative Cloud, includes examples from a math for geosciences course that incorporates lessons on social justice and creative communication using Adobe Express.

Hands-on Learning

Create opportunities for fostering creativity, research, and discovery through hands-on learning. Indiana University Book Lab engages students in art, culture, and history to discover untold stories about book preservation, destruction, and design. NIU University Libraries collaborated with the Department of English on the NIU Book Lab, which serves as laboratory of language and and hands-on hub for studying the humanities.

Resources

What Is Creative Thinking? Definition, Examples, and How to Showcase It During Your Job Search — This article from the University of Southern California Career Center includes different types of creative thinking and ways to highlight creative skills when applying for jobs.
The Impact of Creativity on College and Career Readiness — This article from Ed Surge summarizes field expert views on ways educators can foster creativity for college and career readiness
The Creative Thinking VALUE Rubric — This page from the American Association of Colleges and Universities includes a rubric to help evaluate whether assessments are meeting student learning outcome standards for creative thinking.
Creativity in the College Classroom —The article from EBSCO Research Starters provides examples for fostering creativity through open-ended, divergent thinking activities that encourage exploration, originality, and unexpected solutions that are essential for success in the dynamic world.