Enhancing Creativity Through Using Rubrics

When analyzing the skills and attributes needed by citizens and workers in the modern day, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills recognized that while having an understanding of concepts and content was necessary, the new learner and worker would need four learning and innovation skills  in order to be successful, Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration (4C's). While the Partnership's work is dated, circa 2002, it is the source of key conflict with the current movement towards high-stakes accountability. Each of these key learning skills is not easily measured by a computerized analytical assessment. The validated experience is subjective and requires human assessment. In an era where high level governance rarely trusts is classroom practitioners to understand what is best, the pendulum has swung from these 4 C's to content consumption & analysis.

Grant Wiggins points out in his article, How to Use a Rubric Without Stifling Creativity, that utilizing a set of standards does not necessarily require the same product outcomes nor the same products. His sample provided gives insight into Collaboration. How groups work and how ideas are exchanged. While this model does identify core practices for successful integration of Collaboration, rubrics can go farther. Rubrics can help our students recognize different ways in which they can be creative while still developing common understandings desired by the teacher.

In our sixth grade Social Studies curriculum, students are asked to develop an understanding of common components of Ancient Civilizations including their population, economy, governance structure, & contributions to other societies. Utilizing this curriculum objective, a flexible teacher could allow for the development of content understanding and creative capacities by asking the students to do this project: As a team, analyze 3 ancient civilizations of your choice, identifying the economy, governance structure, & contributions to other societies and create a civilization of your own (including  economy, governance structure, & contributions to other societies). Develop a way to share your civilization with an authentic audience.

Rubrics are intended as a method of assessment that based on a set of standards developed by the teacher (and possibly students together) which indicate what the student understands and what the student needs to work on next. Assessment for both creativity and content knowledge could occur using this rubric:

Content Knowledge
Governance (non-ranked rubric)	I can identify who made the laws and decisions in the society	I can identify the power structures within the society	I can identify key leaders and important followers in the society	I can identify which groups were not allowed to participate in decision making	I can identify what type of government the society lived within
	1	2	3	4
Economy (ranked rubric)	I can identify basic jobs within the society	I can identify how the society performed trade	I can identify how the society grew as a result of the interaction between employment structure, trade, & laws	I can identify how changes in the society's economic structures impacted growth of the society
Contributions to other societies (ranked rubric)	I can identify activities that other societies near the same time period modeled from the original society.	I can identify how practices from the original society evolved into two other societies.	I can identify current practices in our society that originated during the first society.	I can identify how core values from the original society can be identified in two other societies and modern day.
Creativity Rubric
Innovation (non-ranked rubric)	I generated several ideas about the capacities of governance, economy, or contributions to other societies for our original society.	I identified how different ideas may impact life within our original society.	I cultivated at least one unique model of governance, economy, or contribution to other societies that was not studied in our examination of ancient societies.
	1	2	3	4
Diversity of Thought (ranked rubric)	I brainstormed with my team to collect as many ideas as reasonable within the time frame.	We developed a mechanism for analyzing the impacts of our ideas.	We developed a methodology for choosing ideas which crafted our society into an original "cool" place to live	We crafted unique ideas in each of the areas studied (economy, governance, & contributions to other societies).
Inspiring Change (ranked rubric)	We accepted ideas as individuals proposed them.	We combined ideas from each other to create more a more unique society.	Some of our ideas changed by listening to each other to make new ideas.

In this model, the student and instructional team can identify desired steps for student content understanding and evaluate the level of creativity generated by the pupils. As with all learning experiences intended to enhance creativity, instructors and pupils must be willing to accept a multitude of unique products. However, unique learning creations still can be formatively & summatively assessed by both teachers and students based on the curriculum objectives of the assignment both in the areas of content and creativity. Rubrics, as a result of their explanatory nature, can enhance the growth of both content knowledge and creative practice in students. Thus, creativity can be fostered in even the most challenging of learning environments.

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