Critical thinking-Creative thinking
Critical thinking skills are often confused with creative thinking.
1.What are some good hands-on lessons and activities that would clearly distinguish critical thinking skills from creative thinking?
Milagros,
One hands on that I use is to put students into small groups of 3-4 and give them a situation or challenge. To solve the challenge they must use the materials I supply them. The materials are items I have placed in a baggie such as paper clips, tape, Lego pieces, etc.. What I am looking for is how they approach the challenge and then think through to a solution. They then construct the solution and to see if they have actually solved the challenge. We have a contest and vote on which group come up with the most creative solution. Then we go to the creative thinking skills part because we walk back through the process and get them to list the steps they used which helps them to refine their critical thinking skills.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I do agree that critical thinking is confused with Creative thinking. This generalization though there might be some overlap between these two. Gathering information, analyzing information, thinking logically and then solving the problem are important steps in the critical thinking process. Creative thinking can be idea that can defy logic.
I'm extremely logical, but have very little creativity. Do you find that people who are very logical have a hard time explaining things to very creative people?
Bernie,
People are gifted with different intelligences and how they process information. As we know different career areas attract different personalities and as a result it does take some effort to communicate across different processing levels. To answer your question it does take effort for being who see things in a more sequential and logical way to communicate with creative spatial individuals. By knowing this and exploring what ways work the best in communicating the gap can be bridged. For example a person with a more sequential logical thought process and work with a person that has a creative bent through color/graphics/pictures rather than verbally. Through experience you will develop strategies that are effective and you can expand on them to get even better at communicating with individuals that process in different ways.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Milagros - One of the best ways I have found to encourage my students to think critically is to research the authors of research articles (from journals) and discuss in their article critique write-ups what, if any, bias the authors had and if present, why it was present. Another fun activity is providing differing views of a particular issue to students, then have them prepare a support stance for both sides. We then have an in-class debate and they do not know which side they will be selected to take prior to the class period. Very interesting and fun!
Ellie,
I like your idea of having students research the biographies of authors to try to identify their likely strengths, weaknesses, and biases. However, I think the real value starts to come in when we ask them to follow that exercise with a similar analysis of their own biographies to identify what their own biases are likely to be and thus the sorts of mistakes they are most likely to make. Of course this can be an uncomfortable conversation and I prefer to have them jot their biases down but not share them with the rest of the class.
