A few weeks ago I attended
a PD at QUT. In one of the sessions, the Question was asked, "How do you
foster critical and creativity thinking in your classroom?" We didn't
spend much time discussing it, but it was a topic that I kept thinking about and
wanting to discuss further. On my return to school, I was discussing this with
a colleague and it really got me thinking about how I encourage Critical and
Creative thinking in my classes. Below are the things that I value.
Teacher Mindset
– We have to have the belief in critical and creative thinking and its
importance to our student’s education. Secondly we have to model it. Hopefully
students will copy these behaviours. The language we use is imperative.
Answering questions with questions. Challenge students with, ‘How could we...?’
or ‘Yes but…?’ or ‘What if’s…?’ Encourage students who ask questions. Take the
time to talk this through with those students and validate the student
creativity by recognizing the importance of that questioning. It’s also
important that the teacher has a range of strategies that support critical and
creative thinking and pass these onto their students. Brainstorming is a simple
but effective way to think deeper about any topic. Group work is another simple
but great way to get students sharing ideas, and giving and receiving feedback helps
to challenge students thinking. It also pays to mix things up a little. Use
props to introduce a new topic. Act something out or give clues as part of a
game. Maybe hold back the task sheet and develop curiosity and ambiguity around
the task before launching into it.
Student Choice and ownership – If students have a say in their learning they have
to be interested, don’t they? Why would they choose a topic if they weren’t interested
in it? Like relating learning to the real world, student’s choice and ownership
has to help with engagement and engaged students makes our job much easier. Get
to know and understand your students and their interests. What are they into at
this age? What are the differences amongst them? What are the common interests?
What drives their curiosity?
Less Scaffolding – In earlier times when using Design thinking, I used to scaffold folios
for our students a lot more than I do these days. Scaffolding is an invaluable
process in the right situation. However, over time I have come to realise that
by scaffolding less allows students to think more critically. It also allows
students to be more creative. I firmly believe that Design Thinking as a
problem solving process naturally allows creativity and critical thinking. But,
if your prepared to let go (as discussed later) and lose the scaffolding and
take a risk on the direction that the learning will take your students, then we
all have more chance to exploit the critical and creativity thinking. The key
thing to remember here is it’s not about what makes the class easy for you to manage.
It’s what’s best for our students learning.
Not ‘Google-able’ – This is my new favourite term! Students have all the information they
need on mobile devices in their pockets. It’s our responsibility to challenge
them beyond a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer from Google or on an answer where they
settle for ‘that will do’. It’s important that the tasks we set go beyond this.
Tasks that encourage research, or collaboration with others. Tasks that
stimulate curiosity and foster ambiguity in students to not just obtain but to
understand and analyse information.
Authenticity -
Real World. If students are engaged, they are likely to be interested in the
learning. If the learning has some real world relevance, students can make the
connection and understand the importance or relevance of the learning. Through
the use of Design Thinking we often have the opportunity to make the task and
learning real-world. Through Design Thinking we have a larger focus on the
process rather than the product. This enables us to prototype more which allows
the students to design and produce for example the airport of the future or a
home room for senior students. The prototyping encourages the engagement but
the task seems relevant to the students because of the ‘real’ task.
Letting go of control - In an earlier blog I wrote about a message board I
designed with year 3 students. It was a task I tweaked to allow more creativity
for the students. However, it also required me to let go of controlling the
learning. I was nervous because I wasn't sure how it would end up. I wasn't
sure I was going to have the time or resources at my disposal for individuals
to design and produce solutions that were all unique. However, in hindsight it
is probably one the best units I've written and taught in my career. Students
took ownership of their learning. They collaborated and experimented and shared
their learning with each other. But most importantly, they were engaged and
loved being in control of their learning.
Classroom culture – As Teachers we all create a safe
and inviting classroom for our students. A space where they feel comfortable to
learn. But we need to focus on the culture as much as the space. We need to
encourage students to feel free to express opinions and ideas and be able to
receive feedback on those in a non-threatening manner. It’s also important that
students are encouraged to have a go with the possibility of being wrong or
failing. Developing the culture that ‘having a go’ or learning from mistakes is
an important mindset for students to foster.
Facing a
future that will be different and more uncertain than ever before, we need to
be preparing our students with skills that equip them for that future. Gone are
the days when we taught content. Today’s students need to be prepared for an
uncertain future. They need to be armed with skills that allow them to think
creatively and to think critically. There is lots of research that suggest
artificial intelligence will replace a certain amount of jobs in the future.
But critical and creative thinking are not skills that robots or AI will be
able to replace and skills that our students will need to shine.
