Nowadays it is seen as a very important thing for students to be spot on as creative persons, as so to have and to know how to use critical thinking skills, because these abilities are crucial for their development and future success. It also makes the students be more adaptable and flexible, in today’s rapidly changing world this is a key that makes them overcome difficult obstacles, handle all types of situations and be open minded. Having the capacity of decision making after evaluating options and considering multiple viewpoints is what provides informed decisions. They learn to assess the pros and cons, to look for evidence, and to think critically about the potential consequences of their choices. These skills are valuable in personal decision-making and in the workplace.
The new edition of the course “Creativity for the future: promoting Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving in the classroom” took place in Palermo from 11/06/2023 to 17/06/2023. The participants came from all across Europe, with Maria do Rosário, Eunice, Maria Manuela from Agr. Escolas Henriques Nogueira in Portugal, Ilze from Mersrags secondary school in Latvia, Mihaela and Elena-Cristina from Vasile Alecsandri National College Iași in Romania, Marie and Mari from Komvux Lund in Sweden, Asli from Gesamtschule Hardt, Andrea from Gymnasium Bad Bergzabern, Clemens from Frauenlob-Gymnasium, all three of them from Germany and also three participants from three different schools in Spain; Gurutze from EPA Paulo Freire, Victoria from Colegio La Purisima-Franciscanas (Valencia) and Tomàs from Institut Caparrella. Concerning creativity, we strongly believe that people should express themselves, open their imagination and mind, so we started the week by seeing the participant’s taste, this is, to ask what they were interested in with the support of a digital tool. The first activity to start using creativity capacities, was thinking about what it is possible to do with a simple object. With this, we understood that there is no such thing as wrong ideas, judging is a killer to creativity in general. Then we started talking about how creative and critical thinking empowers students to analyze problems from various perspectives, thinking outside the box, and developing innovative solutions, which means that it can be extremely helpful and also a facilitator in problem solving situations. Then we focused on how to distinguish the differences between creativity and critical thinking. Firstly, the participants thought on their own about this question and we realised that the two aspects are distinct but interconnected cognitive processes. While they share some similarities, they also have key differences. For example, creativity focuses on generating new and valuable ideas, while critical thinking emphasizes the evaluation and analysis of information. Going back to practical activities, we proposed some challenging exercises to put in practice the idea of “think out of the box”, thus having limited time, which meant that there was no space to be analytical, but simply to use creativity, which was the aim of the activity! We even chose puzzles that seemed kind of impossible to be solved, in order to show that sometimes rules can go against creativity and to introduce the topic of barriers in creativity. We presented the 5 steps of the creativity process, and asked the participants to reorder them following a logical and organized order to give the perfect stage for creative ideas to shine. We wanted to encourage our participants to use their genius minds, so we asked them to choose one card for each process and explain their choices. Then, each teacher had to draw an animal that represented in the best way possible their organization. Then we revised theory through a whisper activity and we got very creative results. Another effective way to develop creativity and critical thinking is through the debate so we organised one. We also promoted problem solving, the cognitive process that involves identifying, analyzing, and resolving or mitigating issues or challenges. Since it’s a fundamental skill that helps individuals overcome obstacles, we showed how helpful it could be to train the problem solving attitude through practical activities. In conclusion, creativity and critical thinking are indispensable skills that could empower students and the teachers to navigate this world with confidence. We are sure that our participants will put in practice their creativity, unlock their imagination, explore new possibilities, and generate innovative solutions to present in the classroom ! Discover more about this course here. |
Welcome to the ELA Blog. Here you will find articles and photos of our courses and have a look at the topics addressed during the week in Bologna, Palermo and Tenerife. You will also have the chance to take a peek at our projects and check out what we have been up to.
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