Creative Fitness: A Framework for the Explicit Teaching of Creative Skills
AITSL Focus Areas: Understand how students learn (1.2); Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students (1.5); Develop teaching activities that incorporate differentiated strategies to engage all learners (2.1); Plan, structure and sequence learning programs (3.2); Include a range of teaching strategies (3.3); Use effective classroom communication to support student participation and agency (3.5); Assess student learning and provide timely, constructive feedback (5.1); Engage in professional learning and improve practice in collaboration with colleagues (6.2)
SITUATION
In academically selective secondary contexts, critical thinking is explicitly scaffolded across subjects—yet creativity often remains under-taught, under-valued, or misperceived as either a “soft skill” or an innate trait. Many of my students, while highly capable, lacked the confidence or process awareness to take creative risks. I observed a tendency to conflate creativity with perfection, rather than exploration, iteration, and play.
Motivated by this gap, I set out to build a framework for explicitly teaching creativity as a multidimensional skillset—one that could be practised and strengthened over time, much like physical fitness.
ACTION
Drawing on Greg Glassman’s Ten General Physical Skills (CrossFit, 2002) and aligning with research by Amabile (1996), Kaufman & Beghetto (2009), and Ritchhart (2015), I developed a model of Eleven Creative Modal Domains. Each domain isolates a specific facet of creative behaviour, such as fluency, originality, or empathy. Together, they form a comprehensive and trainable structure for creative growth.
I introduced weekly micro-tasks in every class—short, structured creative prompts that isolate one domain and invite students into fast, low-stakes creative play. Each task follows a gradual release model:
I do: I model or narrate a version of the task.
We do: We experiment, share provocations, or remix together.
You do: Students respond, reflect, and upload their work into a “Creative Fitness” portfolio folder.
These tasks built a metacognitive vocabulary around creativity, providing students with a clearer understanding of how creative thinking works and how they could improve it.
THE ELEVEN MODAL DOMAINS OF CREATIVITY
1. Fluency – Generating Many Ideas
The ability to produce multiple ideas quickly without self-censorship.
Task: Idea Sprint – 3 minutes to generate 20 ideas for redesigning a lunchbox.
Focus: Divergent thinking, quantity over quality.
2. Originality – Producing the Unexpected
Creating surprising or novel ideas that deviate from convention.
Task: Invert It – Reverse the function of a common object (e.g., a lamp that absorbs light).
Focus: Pattern disruption, novelty generation.
3. Flexibility – Switching Perspectives or Categories
Thinking across different disciplines, metaphors, or user perspectives.
Task: Design by Analogy – Redesign a bicycle inspired by a bird, a jellyfish, and a city.
Focus: Cognitive agility, lateral transfer.
4. Elaboration – Developing Ideas in Detail
Adding richness, depth, and layered meaning to ideas.
Task: Tiny to Tower – Start with a sketch, develop five additional layers (texture, emotion, symbolism, function, context).
Focus: Iteration, refinement.
5. Resilience – Bouncing Back from Creative Setbacks
Persisting through uncertainty, ambiguity, or perceived failure.
Task: Creative Bounce – Revisit a “failed” design and remix it into something new.
Focus: Growth mindset, process over outcome.
6. Risk-Taking – Embracing Uncertainty and Vulnerability
Making bold or unconventional creative decisions.
Task: Ugly Design Challenge – Make the worst ad you can, then justify it.
Focus: Vulnerability, critique of norms.
7. Collaboration – Building Ideas Together
Creating with and through others, embracing collective authorship.
Task: Silent Pass-Along – Collaborative drawing, passed and evolved every two minutes.
Focus: Co-creation, group flow.
8. Reflection – Metacognitive Creative Thinking
Stepping back to understand and improve the creative process.
Task: Voice-over Review – Narrate your design choices in a one-minute voice memo.
Focus: Self-awareness, decision-making.
9. Discipline – Sustained Creative Practice
Commitment to process, structure, and iteration over time.
Task: 1% Challenge – Improve the same design by 1% over five lessons.
Focus: Long-term focus, creative endurance.
10. Empathy – Designing With Others in Mind
Understanding and imagining the needs of real or fictional users.
Task: Design for a Stranger – Create a product for a random persona (e.g., “a visually impaired teenager in a loud city”).
Focus: User-centred design, compassion.
11. Creative Speed – Fast Ideation Under Pressure
Quick generation and execution of ideas under tight constraints.
Task: 30-Second Creative Blitz – Redesign a backpack for a time traveller in under 30 seconds. Upload immediately.
Focus: Flow, fast decision-making, intuitive response.
OUTCOME
The implementation of this creativity framework is in its early stages and represents a work in progress rather than a finished product. I am currently piloting the Eleven Modal Domains of Creativity across all my classes, using weekly micro-tasks to introduce and reinforce each domain in short, focused bursts. While initial student engagement has been positive—particularly with tasks that prioritise speed, humour, or metaphor—I am still actively testing the model’s structure and language.
Student reflections are helping me assess which domains resonate most clearly and how creative behaviours develop when they are named, isolated, and practiced. I am also gathering informal feedback from my Year 10 and Year 11 classes to gauge how these tasks influence their confidence and risk tolerance in longer design projects.
In parallel, I’ve begun discussing this framework with my line manager and design teaching colleagues. We’re exploring whether this could evolve into a more formalised tool for building creativity across the curriculum, including the possibility of a shared Creative Fitness Task Bank, teacher training modules, or even contribution to wider professional learning for Design educators in Western Australia.
This evidence set reflects an early-stage initiative guided by a clear belief: that creativity, like any essential skill, can be taught, practiced, and refined when approached with care, intention, and shared language. My next steps involve deeper documentation of student growth, refinement of domain definitions, and continued dialogue with peers to understand the broader applicability of this work.
Reference List:
Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context: Update to the social psychology of creativity. Westview Press.
Beghetto, R. A., & Kaufman, J. C. (2009). Teaching for creativity with disciplined improvisation. In R. A. Beghetto & J. C. Kaufman (Eds.), Nurturing creativity in the classroom (pp. 73–93). Cambridge University Press.
Glassman, G. (2002). What is fitness? CrossFit Journal, (10), 1–11.
https://journal.crossfit.com/article/what-is-fitness
Kaufman, J. C., & Beghetto, R. A. (2009). Beyond big and little: The four c model of creativity. Review of General Psychology, 13(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013688
Ritchhart, R. (2015). Creating cultures of thinking: The 8 forces we must master to truly transform our schools. Jossey-Bass.
Robinson, K. (2009). The Element: How finding your passion changes everything. Penguin Books.
Runco, M. A. (2014). Creativity: Theories and themes: Research, development, and practice (2nd ed.). Academic Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (2004). Imagination and creativity in childhood. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 42(1), 7–97. https://doi.org/10.2753/RPO1061-040542017