Exploring the best tools to boost Creativity and Critical thinking

In our pursue of preparing students for real world careers and challenges and equipping them with 21st-century skills, we often forget that as educators, we have a duty to dream and create spaces where everyone has the opportunity to be creative and bring out the best in themselves.

The new edition of the course “Promoting Creativity, Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving in the classroom” took place in Bologna from 09/03/2025 to 15/03/2025. The participants came from all across Europe, with Saurav Sharma and Kirstin Angelica Horn from Eikeli videregående skole in Norway, Atli Jósefsson from Menntaskólinn við Hamrahlíð in Iceland, Samantha Ewen from ScioSkola in Czech Republic, Sebastian Harth from GRG11 in Austria, Rachelle Bowers and Pierric Audrain from LPO Balata in France, and Tomasz Leks and Paweł Saczyński from Zespół Szkół Chemicznych i Ogólnokształcących w Tarnowskich Górach in Poland.

Talking about key competences for living in the 21st century, participants touched on the topic of learning and innovation skills, digital skills, and also career and life skills, focusing their attention on the 4Cs: critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration. Most importantly, we learned through hands-on practice how differently our brain and thinking skills function when there’s a problem to solve.

Participants were presented with a series of challenges to help them reflect on how common barriers to out-of-the-box thinking can be easily overcome by applying specific strategies. For example, using the 6 Thinking Hats method, participants were able to put into practice “lateral thinking” and devise its concrete application to some existing content they are teaching. Through individual practice and peer review, it became noticeable that this method can be used in any subject, from science to language learning, but also as a formative assessment tool, to encourage students to think outside the box.

Moving to visual strategies, participants experienced new activities that could be used to stimulate students' creative expression and could be a basis for brainstorming or discussing their ideas. We challenged an “only-art” perception of what “visual thinking” encompasses by proposing an innovative and digital perspective.

A reflection on the importance of training students’ critical thinking skills was needed in a world where most of the time they are passively exposed to loads of (dis)information. Participants engaged in reasoning, questioning, and debating activities that could be adapted to different classroom situations to help students become active and aware agents of their own learning.

But to introduce a good dose of creativity and critical thinking in the classroom, not only shall we strive to find new solutions, but also look at how innovation often comes from reframing traditional tools. Our participants enjoyed playing various games and had an opportunity to adapt them to their own subjects while building a stronger learning perspective on them.

​Finishing the course, everyone had a chance to create a personalized display of their training and cultural journey in Bologna. From a tour visiting some historic places in the city to solving problems as a team where everyone had a handicap, we said goodbye to a week full of laughter, creativity, and new experiences!

Discover more about this course here.