As our world’s technology progresses, the skill sets that creativity brings are being emphasized more than ever. Creativity is being recognized as a key factor in developing youth, teenagers, and young adults alike; it can even pave new roads for successful careers in the future. Creativity in STEM allows innovative ideas, motivation for learning, and risk taking/exploration.
Fostering innovation
Fostering innovation is important to a teenager’s success; this process of creating new ideas is vital as we grow up and embrace different experiences that can lead to the discovery of failure and success.
Additionally, fostering innovation can:
- Break conventional thinking
- Ignite new questions and different approaches
- Sharpen critical thinking as well as creative thinking
According to BetterUp, “Creative thinking is crucial to help recognize patterns that may not be obvious at first glance. Thinking creatively makes you a better problem-solver, which has far-reaching benefits in both your work and personal life”.
Motivation for Learning
Students are more motivated when the push factor is something that they are personally interested in. Being driven by something can increase productivity and self-satisfaction after accomplishing a task.
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) states that there are three conditions resulting from creative projects that help a student feel the most motivated: “they’re able to tie their learning to their personal interests, they have a sense of autonomy and control over their task, and they feel competent in the work they’re doing.”
Risk-taking/Exploration
As a vast, diverse, and quickly changing field, it may seem difficult to find those first steps into STEM. An even bigger obstacle is the ability to access STEM curriculum and resources. Even if schools are fortunate to be granted the budget to introduce STEM courses, finding teachers who focus in specialized STEM fields such as electronics, engineering, design, etc is also challenging. In a survey conducted at Doha College, a co-educational British International School, many students claim that their reasons that stop them from learning how to code are due to being unsure of how to start, that it seems too difficult, or that they lack practice in it.
Starting small to explore the field of technology helps ease students into taking risks outside of their usual comfort levels, and eventually, help them realize that these learning outcomes are extremely attainable. These hands-on projects flourish in creativity and end results leave students feeling more capable and confident in their abilities.