Preparing Creative and Critical Thinkers

In his Educational Leadership article, "Preparing Creative and Critical Thinkers," Donald J. Treffinger starts by describing the world of today, a world in which children can exchange videos with children all over the world, study subjects that were unknown to their parents when they were students, and contact people of diverse backgrounds. He paints a learning situation in which the teachers don't have all the answers. As he writes, "Increasingly, we don't even know the questions."

So what is a teacher to do? Treffinger provides input into how we can help students become creative and critical thinkers. He defines these two terms and offers both general guidelines and specific tools for helping students become effective problem solvers, including brainstorming, sequencing, and force-fitting. Treffinger concludes the article by providing a number of examples of how these tools can be used in various content areas.

Read the full article. 

ASCD Express, Vol. 8, No. 18. Copyright 2013 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.