Teaching Critical and Creative Thinking (EDUC90974)

Acquiring content or discipline knowledge is an important ingredient in teaching and learning, but it cannot tell the whole story. Knowing what to do with this knowledge and information when we exercise sound reasoning and creativity, whether it is within disciplines or outside of them, is equally important. As a complement to knowledge-centered approaches to teaching and learning, this elective introduces students to the critical and creative thinking competency in the Australian and Victorian curriculum. It will examine some of the strategies that have been presumed to foster critical thinking, in particular dialogic and other key pedagogies. Beginning with a literature review of key contributions to the topic of critical and creative thinking, a range of dialogic and other methods aimed at developing critical and creative thinking skills and dispositions in students will be examined; from 'Thinking' literature, Socratic discussions and inquiry-based approaches, to thinking tools and routines, as well as more recent philosophical approaches.