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breakout session: building thinkers

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

OUTCOMESLearn 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 ChallengeHow 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?

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

Interesting

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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 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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