A glance at today’s headline reveals a world grappling with ‘wicked problems’ — climate change, conflict, and systemic inequality are just some of the issues that defy easy solutions. Yet, for many living in today’s world there is also a sense of boundless opportunity. Advances in the arts and sciences are changing lives and societies in ways that prior generations could not have imagined.

Creative minds driving advances

Think of the green revolution, the technology behind the iPhone, or the Covid vaccine. These innovations inspire us. And a crucial aspect of education should be fostering innovation and creativity in the next generation; to give them a better chance of tackling the world’s wicked problems.

“An open mind is a creative mind,” said Charles CHEN Yidan, founder of the Yidan Prize at the recent Yidan Prize Foundation-OECD conference called Learning in a changing world. The conference focused on creativity and highlighted two key aspects crucial to education: the ability to imagine and the ability to create.

“The AI age is set to profoundly transform the very bedrock of education… Creativity, evidence, and innovation will be the key drivers steering us through uncharted waters,” he added.

If education is about empowering students to solve problems and build the world they want, then fostering their creativity must be one of its major goals. Critical thinking underpins creativity, noted 2020 Yidan Prize laureate and Nobel Prize winning physicist Carl Wieman, allowing people to see and solve an issue or a problem in a different way. It involves the ability to pose questions and make good decisions as part of the problem-solving process.

Teaching creativity

But is it possible to teach creativity? The consensus of educators at the conference was ‘yes.’  Many agreed with the OECD’s new PISA report Creative Minds, Creative Schools,  which concluded that “teachers can unlock student creativity by encouraging students to explore, generate and reflect on ideas”.  

Do schools do a good job in teaching creativity? Here, the evidence is mixed. I found one of the report’s findings especially surprising: 15-year-olds around the world tend to feel less creative and less self-aware than 10-year-olds. The report also found that girls tend to be more creative than boys, and students from advantaged backgrounds are more creative than students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

So what could educators do to help all students unleash their creative potential? The report and the conference participants offered several ideas:

Student engagement

Carl Wieman’s research emphasizes the importance of giving students agency — the opportunity to make decisions, learn from poor decisions, and improve. This is the most fundamental change that teachers can make to foster critical thinking, the research suggests. For example, presenting students with problems without clear-cut answers can encourage creativity. Research by Michelene (Micki) Chi, 2023 Yidan Prize laureate and cognitive science professor, found that interactive learning methods, where students solve tasks by exchanging justifications and explanations with peers, tend to be more effective than simpler modes of constructive, active, or passive learning.

Belief in creative potential

Students need to believe they can develop their creative abilities. This aligns with 2017 Yidan Prize laureate and psychologist Carol Dweck’s work on growth mindset: by believing that creativity can be developed you build self-confidence and inspire curiosity. However, the PISA report notes that only about half of students believe their creativity can be changed. “By providing students with opportunities and support to explore their creative abilities, educators can help them realize that creativity is not an innate trait but a skill that can be honed and improved,” notes OECD Director for Education and Skills Andreas Schleicher.

Teacher training 

Teacher training needs to catch up with the science of learning, which shows that:

• intelligence and capacities are malleable
• human capacities grow in interactive ways
• emotions have physical consequences that can trigger or block learning
• the kinds of experiences we have matter greatly in creating neural pathways that permit new kinds of thinking
• learning relies on emotional safety and connections
• variability is the norm, not the exception

Maria Hyler, Director of the Learning Policy Institute, suggests that “if creativity and creative thinking is what we want for our students, we need to design learning experiences for teachers that inspire and excite them for this work.”

Bridging evidence and practice

We need to close the gap between evidence and practice. Incentives should be strengthened to effectively translate and communicate research to policymakers and teachers. Tracey Burns of NCEE and Macke Raymond of CREDO agree that we need to move from ‘pushing’ evidence out to ‘pulling’ people in — to present the best educational research in a way that answers relevant questions and is understandable and trustworthy.

Change for within systems

Change also needs to be driven from within existing education systems. “Nobody from the outside can tell any country or school system how to run its schools,” says economist and 2021 Yidan Prize laureate Eric Hanushek. Every country needs to develop its own in-system evaluation expertise to filter and apply research evidence. This challenge is particularly urgent in Africa and South Asia. He estimates that global GDP would grow by five times if education systems around the world met minimum PISA standards.

With a strong education, who knows what wicked problems young people could solve — and what new opportunities they might create? By fostering innovation and creativity in students, we give the world a better chance of a brighter future.