breakout session:
building thinkers
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Building Thinkers through
Critical and Creative
Learning 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 Capacity
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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
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.
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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.
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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?
PLUS
MINUS
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INTERESTING
What are the plus, minus, and interesting
aspects of your reading?
Plus
Green
Minus
Yellow
Interesting
Blue
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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 nonroutine skills is rising fast,
as the need for routine and
manual skills falls.
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True or False
CRITICAL
THINKING
is for science
& math
CREATIVE
THINKING
is for the arts &
humanities
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FALSE
CRITICAL & CREATIVE thinking
can and should be applied to
ANY subject, content or problem.
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True or False
CREATIVITY
is a right brain
activity
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FALSE
•CREATIVE THINKING requires divergent
thinking and then convergent thinking.
•CREATIVITY requires constant shifting
between right and left brain activity.
The Creativity Crisis, Bronson & Merryman
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True or False
CREATIVITY
can be
taught.
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TRUE:CREATIVITY can be taught.
• 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.
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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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CRITICAL and CREATIVE Thinking
• 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!
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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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Nine Strategies for
Teaching Critical and Creative
Thinking
adapted from the work of . . .
Dr. Edward de Bono
Dr. Richard Paul
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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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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.
21st Century Skills Rethinking How Students Learn p. 314
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If critical and creative thinking are being implemented in
your school what will be evident?
Students
Teachers
Post your responses on Today’s Meet at
http://todaysmeet.com/CCTLeadership2013 31
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.
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Thomas Carlyle
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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