Thinking Outside the Box: The Role of Creativity and Critical Thinking

In our efforts to prepare students for real-world careers and the challenges of the 21st century, we may forget that it is our responsibility to cultivate an environment that inspires imagination and encourages thoughtful analysis. The skills of creativity and critical thinking are essential not only for future success, but also for fostering personal development and innovation. By prioritising them in schools, we give students the tools they need to shine and adapt in a rapidly changing world.

The latest realization of the course “Creativity for the future: promoting Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving in the classroom​” took place in Palermo from 09/06/2024 to 15/06/2024. The participants came from all across Europe, with Agnieszka and Anna from Szkoła Podstawowa im. Krola Zygmunta Augusta, Wasilków, Joanna and Magdalena from II LO im. Jana matejki w Siemianowicach Śląskich and Marzena and Natalia from Zespół Szkolno Przedszkolny nr 16 w Gliwicach in Poland, Éva from Óbudai Árpád Gimnázium in Hungary and Nerea and María from IES Valle del Segura in Spain. Three participants joined us from Germany with Torsten and Matthias from the St.-Viti-Gymnasium and Christian from the Europäische Schule Saarland as well as two from Slovakia: Hana from Gymnázium Metodova and Tomáš from the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. We were also happy to welcome Monika and Markéta from ZŠ a MŠ Písek in the Czech Republic and Kirsi from Ammattiopisto Live in Finland.
 
Focusing on the key competences for life in the 21st century, the participants touched on the theme of learning and innovation skills, digital skills as well as career and life skills. They were introduced to the model of the 4Cs: critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaboration.
 
As we delved deeper into these skills, we learned through hands-on exercises how our brains and thinking skills work differently when there's a problem to solve. To help participants reflect on how common barriers to thinking out of the box can be easily overcome by applying specific strategies, they were presented with a variety of challenges. For example, using the 6 Thinking Hats method, participants were able to practice lateral thinking and develop its concrete application to some of the existing content they teach. Through individual practice and peer review, it became clear that this method could 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.

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In terms of visual strategies, participants were introduced to new activities that could be used to stimulate students' creative expression and could be the basis for brainstorming or discussion of their ideas. In addition, we practised reasoning, questioning and debating activities that can be adapted to different classroom situations to help students become active and aware agents of their own learning. This is even more important in a world where students are mostly passively exposed to a lot of (dis)information.
 
However, bringing creativity and critical thinking into the classroom goes beyond finding new ways of doing things, as innovation is often the result of rethinking traditional tools. At the end of the course, we enjoyed a collaborative quests game that required all the skills we discussed throughout the week, full of creativity, laughter and new experiences!
 
Discover more about this course here.

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