In an earlier post, I mentioned a blog post by Sara Briggs on creativity killers. This post spurred me to examine my own teaching strategies in a different light. Instead of simply determining whether my students know their stuff or not, I wanted to know whether the students leaving my class are prepared to be successful in a mathematical sense. Can they use mathematics in a creative way?
In examining my own teaching strategies, I began to realize that I might be stifling the creativity of my students. Many of you may think ofme as a project based learning type of guy who values the process of finding a solution to a problem. But I am also an online learning kind of guy who utilizes MyLabs by Pearson. This platform allows me to easily assess my students with a variety of question types. These questions emphasize a correct answer and not the process by which those answers are obtained. It is this “right answer” type of learningthat forced me to confront the creativity question. Do questions like these help my students solve mathematical problems creatively?
