Stimulating students' creativity in MTM and ELTM classes: teaching and assessing methods and instruments

• Author: M.A.P. Purcaru/A. Nechifor
• Position: Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Transilvania University of Brasov/Faculty of Letters, Transilvania University of Brasov
• Pages: 35-42

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov

Series VII: Social Sciences • Law • Vol. 9 (58) No. 2 - 2016

STIMULATING STUDENTS’ CREATIVITY

IN MTM AND ELTM CLASSES:

TEACHING AND ASSESSING

METHODS AND INSTRUMENTS

M.A.P. PURCARU1 A. NECHIFOR 2

Abstract: The purpose of the present study is to emphasise different means

of stimulating students’ creativity with English Language Teaching and

Mathematics Teaching Methodology courses and seminars. The basic

analysis tries to exemplify and compare the cultivation of creativity by means

of the teaching-learning-assessment methods used to teach and evaluate the

content of the classes mentioned. The conclusions will summarize and review

the two studies dedicated to creativity, as a result of the data collected by the

authors and their first hand experience in such classes.

Key words: creativity, teaching-learning-assessment methods.

1. Introduction

Considered a sequel to the paper based on analysing the means by which students’

creativity can be discovered and encouraged to emerge as a driving factor within the

teaching process, as a consequence of the content taught and of the personal talent the

teacher has in doing that, the present research paper, belonging to the same two authors,

is interested in analysing the most significant methods of the very same process, in all its

steps: teaching, learning and assessing, that can achieve the same goal, i.e. stimulating

students’ creativity.

The formation and stimulation of creative thinking can never be considered as an

ending process, as it can never be imagined as stretching to the maximum limit of a

person’s possibilities or of a life’s requirements and challenges.

The outcomes of university work for any professor represent a reflection of, first of all,

the first-hand experience she has with the mass of students, and, second of all, but

nevertheless equally important, of the relationship established, at a professional level,

with each and every student individually, perceived as a particular entity, with

personalised profile and parameters.

Different ways of addressing the idea of creativity in a language class, for example, can

be viewed depending on whether we see it “as a property of people (who we are),

processes (what we do) or products (what we make)” (Fisher, 2004, p.8). Therefore, the

1 Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Transilvania University of Braşov, mpurcaru@unitbv.ro

2 Faculty of Letters, Transilvania University of Braşov, andreeabratan@unitbv.ro