Critical and Creative Thinking.

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.