> Skip to content
FEATURED:
  • Public Perception of College
Sign In
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Technology
    • The Workplace
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Technology
    • The Workplace
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
Sign In
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Technology
    • The Workplace
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Technology
    • The Workplace
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Technology
    • The Workplace
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Technology
    • The Workplace
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
Sign In
ADVERTISEMENT
News
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Show more sharing options
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Copy Link URLCopied!
  • Print

What Instructors Can Learn From Improv

By  Beckie Supiano
January 14, 2020
Keith Sawyer, a professor of education at the U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Suzy Gorman
Keith Sawyer, a professor of education at the U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Creative people bring fresh insights to difficult problems. They cope with uncertainty and change. They build new things. They are equipped to succeed at work and in their lives more broadly.

Here’s the good news for colleges: While creativity is often seen as an innate ability, experts say it’s a skill that can be taught. A growing number of colleges are making a point of developing students’ creativity, often in the form of a signature program in which they tackle an open-ended problem as an interdisciplinary team.

We're sorry. Something went wrong.

We are unable to fully display the content of this page.

The most likely cause of this is a content blocker on your computer or network.

Please allow access to our site, and then refresh this page. You may then be asked to log in, create an account if you don't already have one, or subscribe.

If you continue to experience issues, please contact us at 202-466-1032 or help@chronicle.com

Keith Sawyer, a professor of education at the U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Suzy Gorman
Keith Sawyer, a professor of education at the U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Creative people bring fresh insights to difficult problems. They cope with uncertainty and change. They build new things. They are equipped to succeed at work and in their lives more broadly.

Here’s the good news for colleges: While creativity is often seen as an innate ability, experts say it’s a skill that can be taught. A growing number of colleges are making a point of developing students’ creativity, often in the form of a signature program in which they tackle an open-ended problem as an interdisciplinary team.

Several of those models are featured in “The Creativity Challenge,” a new report I wrote for Chronicle Intelligence that examines the importance of creativity, what colleges are already doing to foster that ability in students, and the obstacles they face in making such training widely available. (You can buy a copy of the report here in the Chronicle Store.) The report offers insights for college leaders — and for individual professors, too.

That’s because cultivating students’ creativity, experts say, shouldn’t be seen as an optional add-on to the college experience. Ultimately, it’s about how students are taught in every discipline. That’s the argument made by Keith Sawyer, a professor of education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who studies creativity and learning.

ADVERTISEMENT

To help students become more creative, Sawyer argues, instructors must shift away from “instructionism,” in which students absorb information and parrot it back to professors, to a mode he calls “guided improvisation,” in which instructors provide just enough support to students as they tackle open-ended problems. That approach requires educators “to be in a mind-set where you’re open and receptive and listening to each of the students,” Sawyer says. That allows instructors to “respond in the moment, in an improvisational way.”

Sawyer, a jazz pianist, began studying improv theater in graduate school. In his 2019 book The Creative Classroom: Innovative Teaching for 21st-Century Learners, he describes how the same principles that facilitate a successful improv performance can be used in another setting in which a group of people collaborate to create something: the classroom. While most of the book’s examples concern elementary- and secondary-school classrooms, Sawyer says its lessons apply just as well in higher ed.

Guided improvisation, Sawyer writes, helps students develop what he calls “creative knowledge” of a subject — the kind of deep understanding that allows them to remember and transfer what they have learned, and use it to make something new.

ADVERTISEMENT

Here are a few of those improv techniques:

Yes, And

In improv, Sawyer writes, actors are supposed to do two things every time they speak: “Accept what was proposed by the previous actor, and build on it by adding something new.” That, he writes, is “the most important rule of improvisation.” It propels a scene forward, and allows the actors to work together to create something new.

How does that apply in a classroom? Instructors often feel compelled to correct students’ mistakes and misunderstandings. After all, they want to ensure that students learn the right answer. But rather than simply correcting, Sawyer says, “it’s more effective pedagogy if you meet students where they are, and help them start with what they just said and then improvise from there.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Research shows that students learn material better when they’re helped along from a wrong answer to the right one — an approach that allows them to understand why the right answer is correct.

No Denial

This related rule tells actors not to reject another actor’s contribution to a scene.

ADVERTISEMENT

Instructors working to facilitate a class discussion usually avoid rejecting students’ contributions outright, Sawyer writes. But denial can take subtle forms. A professor might accept what a student said, but then immediately pivot rather than engage with an unexpected comment. That’s a missed opportunity to meet students where they are.

Instead of responding, in such moments, with a comment like “That’s very good, Susan. OK, let’s turn to our next problem,” Sawyer writes, an instructor can have a back-and-forth with the student, linking her idea to what has already been discussed and then connecting it with the point of the lesson.

Don’t Ask Questions

In improv, Sawyer writes, actors are told not to ask questions because doing so would limit the possibilities available to the next actor.

ADVERTISEMENT

Sawyer doesn’t actually argue that professors shouldn’t ask any questions at all in class. But he does warn them away from “known-answer” questions, which might test students’ knowledge but don’t teach them anything new. Still, he writes, teachers tend to like such questions: They give an instructor control and keep lesson plans on track while still providing some chance for students to participate.

Sometimes instructors pose questions that seem open-ended, but they are in fact seeking a particular answer. That doesn’t count. In the book, Sawyer recounts a time when a teacher asked, “What can you tell me about a Bunsen burner, Alan?” The question seems open, but it turned out that the teacher was looking for a specific response about luminous and nonluminous flames.

A really good question ‘asks students to think deeply and explain what they’re thinking and doing.’

A really good question, Sawyer writes, “asks students to think deeply and explain what they’re thinking and doing.” In the book, he illustrates that idea by describing how a preschool teacher who disagreed with a student’s interpretation of a story asked an open-ended follow-up question — “Why can’t he decide for himself what kind of wings he wants?” — that sought to help the student examine her initial response without shooting it down.

ADVERTISEMENT

Asking that kind of question requires an instructor to give up some control. When he or she does that, Sawyer writes, students can join the instructor in a “collaborative, exploratory, and improvised discussion.”

A version of this article appeared in the January 31, 2020, issue.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Teaching & LearningInnovation & Transformation
Beckie Supiano
Beckie Supiano writes about teaching, learning, and the human interactions that shape them. Follow her on Twitter @becksup, or drop her a line at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
  • Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
  • Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • DEI Commitment Statement
    • Accessibility Statement
    Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • DEI Commitment Statement
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Institutional Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
    Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Institutional Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
  • Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
    Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2023 The Chronicle of Higher Education
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin