Creativity Booster: Yes, Let’s!

Activity

Warm up activities

Creativity Booster: Yes, Let’s!

Diana Varma

Creativity Booster activities can be used as a fun warm up the beginning of each class. This Yes, Let’s activity invites students to get silly and quiet their inner critics.

Tech needed: Video conferencing, Cameras off option

Synchronous, Asynchronous

Accessibility: Visual, Auditory, High bandwith, Camera on, Involves movement

Duration: < 5 mins

Student preparation: None

Educator preparation: None

ACTIVITY PURPOSE

Creativity Boosters are short, purposeful activities used at the start of class to energise students and spark creative thinking. They work well as ice breakers and help students shift into learning mode. These activities can support both visually creative subjects (like design or visual arts-focused classes) and non-visual courses that involve creative problem solving (such as science, business, or social sciences).

There are different creativity boosters: some invite students to think visually, see ‘16 squares‘, some invite students to discover feelings of empathy, see ‘An Ode to the Left Hand‘, some invite students to quiet and focus their minds, see ‘5 Senses‘.

USEFUL FOR

This ‘Yes, Let’s!’ activity helps students build confidence, let go of self-judgment, and say yes to new ideas without overthinking. It encourages creativity, energy, and teamwork in a fun, low-pressure way.

PREPARATION

No preparation is required other than having a list of everyday actions/activities that you’ll ask students to act out (see below), as well as an understanding of the lesson/purpose of the activity to debrief afterwards.

INSTRUCTIONS

‘Yes! Let’s!’ comes from the world of improv. It’s important to note that in the art of improv, a ‘no’ is a dead end. Nothing ends a scene faster. This energising, low-stakes invitation to unequivocally commit to jumping into something is a great creative and life skill to embrace, even if students are unsure or feel a little uncomfortable.

The instructor will say something like ‘Let’s go skiing’. The entire group will collectively respond with: ‘Yes, Let’s!’ The entire group including the instructor will act out skiing, the more exaggerated the better.

Lead students through 3-5 actions, leading by example and opening yourself up to be vulnerable so students can do the same.

Action Ideas:
Let’s go skiing
Let’s type on a computer
Let’s fly a kite
Let’s drink a hot coffee
Let’s make a pizza
Let’s pretend to be a dog

Lesson: Sometimes it’s best not to overthink things and just go for it. Helping students become aware of their inner critic/judge/editor and asking them to practice silencing this inner voice is a skill that may help them become more self confident and feel more free to create in the future.

DURATION

Approximately 5 minutes.

ADAPTATIONS AND EXAMPLES

Allow students to choose between physical movement, verbal description, or using emojis/gifs in chat to show their response.
For online: if students are uncomfortable with being on camera, let them describe it aloud, or participate in chat.
Choose or adapt actions that can be done seated or with small gestures.
Let students know beforehand what the activity is (in a syllabus or intro slide) and invite them to opt-in in their own way. Suggest that students who prefer not to join live can send in a short video or text response asynchronously.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

No special technology is required beyond video conferencing software in a live, synchronous online class. This activity works best if all students have their cameras on, however it is not essential.

USEFUL RESOURCES

Talk Paper Scissors podcast, Episode 058: Serious Fun. In this podcast episode, I explain the rationale behind the importance of having ‘Serious Fun’ in post-secondary education, including the incorporation of Creativity Boosters in my virtual classroom.