Creativity in a Standards Based Curriculum

With the push of standardized testing over the last decade or two (depending on your state), lessons and units which peak student interests, motivate, engage and empower have been pushed away in favor or methodically covering content to pass state examinations. Many state standards are just a litany of facts and vocabulary for students to know as states often seem unable to reach agreement on what encompasses the most important skills and content of the subjects. Where once teachers had the freedom to bring the best of their knowledge and skills to the classroom, many no longer feel that is possible.

It is the purpose of this blog to identify a curriculum method that supports both standards and creativity in the classroom for students and teachers. Focus will be given to both encouraging creativity in your students and creating an environment to foster that development. Hopefully a little fun can be had, as well.

Backwards Design

Most states have now compiled curriculum standards for kindergarten through 12th grade public education, and have created tests which look to see whether students have learned these key concepts, facts and/or skills. To meet this challenge many educators and administrators adhere to just going through the list and checking off the content as it is covered. This leads to students getting exposed to a wide range of content, but not being able to work with the material enough to master it. For the amount of material expected to be covered to be learned by students, curriculum needs to be designed in such a way as to group key concepts and eliminate redundancy.

Backwards design is a curriculum approach developed for the purpose of handling current standards. One of the more well known curriculum using backwards design is Understanding by Design, UbD. In creating a curriculum using UbD, the creators approach the curriculum in three stages.

Stage 1 - Desired Results

Determine what it is that you want you students to know at the end of the unit. What standards are to covered? How can these standards be grouped best? What are the key understandings for students to gain? What are the essential questions for students to be able to answer? Determine the priority knowledge and skills for students to gain.

Stage 2 - Assessment Evidence

How will you know whether students have acquired the knowledge and skills you attempt to teach? Decide on performance tasks and other assessment evidence which accurately measures the degree of learning on the specific learning goals targeted. One means of doing this effectively is with project learning. This will be revisited a little later.

Stage 3 - Learning Plans

In traditional teaching the lesson plan always took center stage. Curriculum were often lists of great lesson ideas that didn't particularly work together. With more content to cover than ever before there isn't often time do these great lessons that don't blend well. UbD places lesson planning in the final stage instead of the initial stage (That's why it is called backwards design). By placing lesson planning at the end of the curriculum planning process only the most essential content will be chosen for coverage, thus allowing quality lessons a place in the classroom once again.

In essence backwards design is determining what is most important to be taught, how to know it is taught, then determining how to teach it. It increases efficiency in teaching and as a result frees up time for creative lessons and fostering skills and values in student.


Tomlinson, Caral Ann, & McTighe (2006) Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria, Virginia.

For more on Understanding by Design go to the ascd website.

Encouraged Creativity

A huge benefit for using backwards design is the fact that it allows the use of project learning. When teachers know exactly what they wish their student to learn, they can create assessments that fit the content, rather than make content fit the assessments. This allows teachers to create assessments which have both summative and formative value. By creating projects as key components of assessments, teachers help students to target their learning and also provide motivation as students work to create something tangible.

Project-based learning allows teachers to encourage student creativity. In designing an assessment rubric, teachers can include student efforts toward creativity in the grade. When creative development is a goal, it is important not to be too critical of the students' creativity. However, many students do need the extrinsic motivation provided by grading to ensure their highest quality of work.

Below are some pieces of work from a 9th grade conceptual physics class. Students were asked to make a living environment electrically wired with both series and parallel circuits. Physics content was given priority, but creativity was encouraged and factored into grading.

Creative Problem Solving

One form of project-based learning to consider is problem-based learning. In this approach:

1. The teachers and students select a topic of study based on student interests, curriculum standards, and local resources.

2. The teacher finds out what the students already know, and helps them generate questions to explore. The teacher also provides resources for students and opportunities to work in the field.

3. Students share their work with others in a culminating activity. Students display the result of their explorations and review and evaluate their projects. (Drake & Burns, 2004)

The problem-based approach has considerable value if creative development is a key objective. In his book Creativity is Forever, Gary Davis presents many identified techniques useful for enabling creativity. These include:

Brainstorming - Idea generation in which criticism is ruled out, freewheeling is welcomed, quantity is wanted, and combination and improvement are sought.

Attribute Listing - A technique for eliciting new ideas which may be used within a brainstorming session.

Creative Problem Solving Model (CPS) - A 5 or 6 step model leading from mess finding through fact finding, problem finding, idea finding, solution finding, and finally acceptance finding.

SCAMPER - An acronym for a creative technique in which you : Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify/Magnify/Minify, Put to other uses, and Reverse/Rearrange.

These techniques can be used by teachers and students to identify problems in their communities, and navigate toward a creative solution while meeting previously designed learning standards.


Gary A, Davis, Creativity is Forever, (2004), Kendall Hunt Publishing Company, Dubuque, Iowa.

Drake, Susan & Burns, Rebecca, Meeting Standards through Integrated Curriculum, (2004), Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria, Virginia.

Making a Conducive Environment

Though intelligence and natural talent play a major role in creativity, even the greatest creative geniuses in history would likely never have been without having grown up in environments which fostered their genius.

R.S. Nickerson provides several key points for enhancing creativity through creating a nurturing environment.

- Establish Purpose and Intention - Get students to see creativity as a goal.

- Build Basic Skills - Students need a solid basic educational background.

- Encourage Acquisition of Domain-Specific Knowledge - Though knowledge doesn't guarantee creativity, most noteworthy creative work is done by creators with a strong knowledge of the subject they create in.

- Stimulate and Reward Curiosity and Exploration - Try to foster a sense of wonder about the world, as most creative people tend to be curious.

- Build Motivation (Especially Internal Motivation) - Encourage internal motivation toward the task rather than the goal or end product. Students who feel successful tend to have stronger internal motivation and thus have more success.

- Encourage Confidence and a Willingness to Take Risks - Try to eliminate the fear of failure and ridicule as a means to encourage students to take risks. Successful experiences will boost confidence.

- Focus on Master and Self-Competition - Encourage the goal of bettering oneself, as long term performance improvements will be greater and seen by a a larger number of students than if social competition is encouraged.

- Promote Supportable Beliefs about Creativity - Create self-fulfilling prophesies of students having success because they believe in their success.

- Provide Opportunities for Choice and Discovery - Allow choice and personal experience to be a part of the learning process. Let them make discoveries which are real to them.

- Develop Self-Management (meta cognitive) Skills - Encourage the intentional monitoring and guiding of their own behavior and academic and creative quality to learn their strengths and weaknesses and focus themselves accordingly.

- Teach Techniques and Strategies for Facilitating Creative Performance - Encourage problem solving and use creative strategies toward these problems. Encourage analogy and idea sharing, and allow for idea incubation.

- Provide Balance - Even freewheeling creative environments need structure for students to succeed. Give rules, but provide reasons for the rules.

- Teach by Example - Ideas, attitudes and values which are essential for creativity and academic success are often learned from examples. Teachers need to model fair-mindedness, openness to evidence, a desire for clarity, respect for others' opinions and reflectiveness.

If teachers can make students believe in their creative abilities, teach habits and techniques toward improving creativity, and foster an environment that encourages curiosity, risk-taking and reflection, then students will have vast improvement in the range and quality of their creativity. Likely, they will improve academically as well, since these techniques of creative enhancement tend to fit the image of good teaching in general.

Also, as the presentation below illustrates; sometimes a little silliness needs to be allowed.

Nickerson, Raymond, S. "Enhancing Creativity," In Sternberg, Robert, J. Handbook of Creativity, (1999), Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.

A Little Silliness