Dr John Willison holds successful webinar success on Critical and Creative Thinking

Posted on Apr 17 2020 by a1225251

Dr John Willison, Senior Lecturer, School of Education

Dr. John Willison, School of Education, University of Adelaide, ran a webinar on 15 April 2020 on: Facilitating the development of students who think critically and creatively.

The webinar considered Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT) as a ‘general capability’ that is best developed subject by subject in content-specific contexts. Therefore a problem the webinar addressed was how to enable students to connect different senses of CCT so that they may mutually reinforce. When the audience was asked to provide a short phrase that would explain Critical Thinking to a student, some wonderful, provocative and diverse responses were given (see image).

The masterclass went on to focus on maintaining subject-specific nuances of CCT but making the connections between them more obvious for students and teachers. A model for conceptualising CCT was introduced that integrates the cognitive and affective elements of CCT. Then the audience collaboratively adapted the model in breakout groups so that it would speak into a specific context, and each group presented their changes to the model to the whole group.

The feedback from participants was great:

Thank you for today's webinar. When students can think deeper creatively and critically they become more engaged in their learning. As an Art teacher, deep critical thinking is essential in the students’ analysis, evaluations and in choosing their own topics to be thought provoking to provide opportunity to achieve at the higher levels. Students often need to be guided to this place of depth where they then go on amazing journeys of discovery.Webinar participant

Thank you for the online session today. I particularly enjoyed challenging my own preconceived ideas about cognitive verbs by viewing them in a non-linear model.Webinar participant