Creative wellness allows a person to appreciate and/or participate in a diverse range of arts or cultural experiences, and to value and cherish the surrounding world. Freely expressing thoughts and emotions through dance, song, drawing, painting, or writing are some of the ways to engage in creative wellness.
For more information to share with students, feel free to use this slide set: Creative Wellness PowerPoint
Educators can encourage the utilization of creative ideas, thoughts, and individual experiences to inspire students and improve their understanding of simple or complex topics.
Strategies to consider:
- Provide students with a photograph and share the story that each student individually creates thinking about similarities and differences.
- Utilize creative storytelling by asking students to draft a story about a clinical experience and then share it with a small group. Then ask the student to re-write the experience from another viewpoint discussed during the small group.
- Encourage and seek out opportunities for interprofessional teamwork. Encourage students to problem-solve creatively as a team.
- Encourage students to challenge assumptions and discover innovative or creative solutions by fostering critical thinking concepts.
- Play music before and after class (in-person or online). Consider voting on a class theme or poll students on which genre they prefer that day.
- Recommend to students to express themselves through journaling, poetry, painting/visual arts, dance, and music.
CONSIDER encouraging students to track their wellness activities, including those related to creativity during one or two weeks of the semester. Adapt this Wellness Checklist to the content and activities within your course!
We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing!