Supporting students future through Creativity and Critical thinking

​The school system, teachers and educators have a huge role to play in equipping students with the skills and competences they need to face their future life and career. Promoting critical thinking and problem-solving in the class was the main expectation with which our group of participants came to the course from 30th January to 5th February - Katharina from BG Rein, Isabel from Heilig-Hartinstituut Lyceum, Irena and Emilija from "Josip Broz Tito" High School, Mirela from OŠ Vladimira Nazora Pazin, Miriam and Katarína form Gymnazium Jana Papanka, Maria Irene form Agrupamento de Escolas General Serpa Pinto, Andrés from IES Arcipreste de Canales. The most important learning objective for the week was preparing to foster 21st century skills in students, encouraging students to think outside of the box and strengthen their critical thinking skills.

​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 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 to encourage students thinking outside the box.

​Moving to visual strategies, participants experienced new activities which 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. As an outcome, our participant Isabel created this visual map of all the participants’ sending organizations.

​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 we shall struggle to find new solutions, as innovation often comes from reframing traditional tools. Our participants enjoyed playing traditional games, like Taboo and Battleship, 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 and, from a fashion show to a snowball battle, we said goodbye to a week full of laughter, creativity and new experiences!