breakout session:building thinkers

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Building Thinkers throughCritical and CreativeLearning Strategies

LouEllen Brademan – ISD

Rose Moore – ISD

Shilpi Patel – DSS 2

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AGENDA

Connect to PD Focus & Increased Rigor

The WHY of Critical and Creative Thinking

Experience Critical and Creative Thinking Strategies (WHAT and HOW)

Planning Next Steps & Building Capacity4

OUTCOMES

Learn the WHAT, WHY, and HOW of

using critical and creative thinking

strategies to raise the rigor for all

students.

Begin planning ways to support your

staff with implementing critical and

creative thinking strategies in their

everyday instruction.

Today's students need to be critical thinkers, problem

solvers, and effective communicators who are proficient

in both core subjects and new 21st century skills. Ken Kay, President, Partnership for 21st Century Skills

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Teachers will be able to:

Build relationships with students that support effort and self-efficacy in

reaching higher standards

Recognize the 21st Century Skills (Critical & Creative Thinking) within our

curriculum

Plan lessons that teach 21st Century Skills (Critical & Creative Thinking)

by designing instructional tasks that require high levels of thinking for the

essential skills

Using instructional strategies that support and promote student

thinking at high levels

Engaging students in intellectual discourse

Raising students’ levels of metacognition

Providing students multiple opportunities to problem solve

Choose assessments that allow students to demonstrate

21st Century Skills (Critical & Creative Thinking) at high

levels. 7

Will this be on the

Test?

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Fluency

• Thinking of and listing many ideas

Flexibility

• Thinking from different perspectives

Originality

• Coming up with unique ideas

Elaboration

• Building upon an existing idea – adding details

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Connect Extend Challenge

How are the ideas and information presented

connected to what you already knew?

What new ideas did you get that extended or broadened

your thinking in new directions?

What challenges or puzzles have come up in your mind

from the ideas and information presented?

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THE WHY

• Read excerpt from Chapter of Making Thinking Visible.

• Record your thinking using the PLUS , MINUS, INTERESTING (PMI) Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT) strategy. – What are the plus, minus, and interesting aspects of your reading?

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PLUS MINUS INTERESTING

What are the plus, minus, and interesting

aspects of your reading?

Green

Plus

Yellow

Minus

Blue

Interesting12

Why Teach Critical and Creative Thinking in All K- 12 Classrooms?

Moving away from

an industrial economy

and toward a knowledge

economy

innovation is a major

keystone

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Source: "Tough

Choices or Tough

Times" 2007, National

center on education

and the economy

The demand for non-

routine skills is rising fast,

as the need for routine and

manual skills falls.

CRITICAL

THINKING

is for science

& math

True or False

CREATIVE

THINKING

is for the arts &

humanities

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CRITICAL & CREATIVE thinking

can and should be applied to

ANY subject, content or problem.

FALSE

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CREATIVITY

is a right brain

activity

True or False

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The Creativity Crisis, Bronson & Merryman

•CREATIVE THINKING requires divergent thinking and then convergent thinking.

•CREATIVITY requires constant shifting between right and left brain activity.

FALSE

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CREATIVITY

can be

taught.

True or False

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• Practicing promotes more creative thinking.

• Treffinger’s Creative Problem-Solving Method

is composed of fact-finding, problem-finding,

idea-finding, solution-finding, and plan of

action and has the highest success in

increasing children’s creativity.

TRUE:CREATIVITY can be taught.

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CRITICAL and CREATIVE Thinking

•Critical and creative thinking are interrelated

processes essential to problem solving.

•Creative thinking involves constructing something

original.

•Critical thinking involves logic and reasoning skills.

•As we solve problems, we navigate between both

thinking patterns across all disciplines and grade

levels.

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• Students need explicit instruction and exposure to thinking strategies in context in order to be able to apply them.

• Strategies are engaging for students and teachers!

CRITICAL and CREATIVE Thinking

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TORRANCE KIDS

• In1958, four hundred children completed

creativity tasks designed by professor E. Paul

Torrance

• The children were asked “How could you improve

this toy to make it better and more fun to play

with?”

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• Those who came up with more good ideas on Torrance’s tasks grew

up to be entrepreneurs, inventors, college presidents, authors, doctors,

diplomats, and software developers.

• Jonathan Plucker of Indiana University recently reanalyzed Torrance’s

data. The correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more

than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ.

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Sir Ken Robinson …

“there is a consistent mission to transform the culture of education and

organizations with a richer conception of human creativity and

intelligence.”

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Dr. Edward de Bono Dr. Richard Paul

Nine Strategies for Teaching Critical and Creative

Thinkingadapted from the work of . . .

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CHALK TALK: Round 1

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CHALK TALK: Round 2

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CHALK TALK: Round 3

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21st Century Skills Rethinking How Students Learn p. 314

Without a combination of critical

thinking, problem-solving, effective

teamwork, and creativity, learning

remains stagnant, more useful for

passing a test than solving a real

world challenge.

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If critical and creative thinking are being implemented in

your school what will be evident?

Students Teachers

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Post your responses on Today’s Meet at

http://todaysmeet.com/CCTLeadership2013

What sprouted at your table discussions?

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Go as far as you

can see. When

you get there,

you can see

farther.Thomas Carlyle34

Web Resources

• www.criticalthinking.org

• www.edwdebono.com

• www.vtshome.org

• http://www.sirkenrobinson.com/

• http://www.creativelearning.com/

• http://www.loc.gov/teachers.com

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