Measures of instruction for creative engagement: Making metacognition,modeling and creative thinking visible

The purpose of the current study was to estimate reliability, internal consistency and construct validity of the Measure of Instruction for Creative Engagement (MICE) instrument. The MICE uses an iterative process of evidence collection and scoring through teacher observations to determine instructional domain ratings and overall scores. The results demonstrated the sound inter-observer reliability, teacher stability and score validity of the MICE. We found (a) a low proportion of rater variance (0.14–5.99%), (b) moderate to highly correlated within-teacher ratings ranging from r(17) = 0.663, p < 0.01 to r(17) = 1.000, p < 0.01 and (c) a statistically-significant difference between classroom teachers and teaching artists, t(56) = 7.37, p = 0.000. These results relate to the development of classroom environment instruments and the substantive development of pedagogy that supports creative thinking and behaviours, both of which are a priority for enhancing teacher accountability and student learning.     

Critical and creative thinking as learning processes at top-ranking Chinese middle schools: possibilities and required improvements

Fostering and enabling critical and creative thinking of students is considered an important goal, and it is assumed that in particular, talented students have considerable potential for applying such high-level cognitive processes for learning in classrooms. However, Chinese students are often considered as rote learners, and that learning environments at Chinese schools will not allow thinking critically and creatively. The present exploratory study examines these assumptions with students at top-ranking middle schools in mainland China who have been selected for their high achievement scores in the examinations required for acceptance to such schools. Our findings in eight large mathematics classrooms (n = 381) strongly suggest that it is possible to acquire knowledge by thinking critically and creatively in these traditionally instructed classes, and that higher achieving students use such processes more intensively than lower achieving students. In addition, the study provides pathways for promoting these high-level cognitive processes for learning in particularly with lower achieving students. Finally, the results indicate that the extracurricular activities that are prescribed to all students at Chinese middle schools should be redesigned to offer more opportunities for critical and creative thinking.     

Observing young children's creative thinking: engagement,involvement and persistence

This paper looks at young children's creative thinking as inferred through observations of their activities. A total of 52 episodes of child-initiated and adult-initiated activities in 3- to 4-year-olds in an English Children's Centre were analysed using the Analysing Children's Creative Thinking (ACCT) Framework. Results showed that activities such as gardening and construction were as valuable for supporting creative thinking as ones traditionally associated with creativity, for example, music and painting. Outdoor play of all kinds and socio-dramatic play were particularly effective contexts. All adults played a significant role in facilitating children's initial engagement in activities, and at supporting their speculative thinking and use of prior knowledge. Teachers were often more successful than other adults in supporting the acquisition of new knowledge. Child-initiated activities featured the highest levels of involvement, and were associated with trying out and analysing ideas, flexibility and originality, imagining and hypothesising. This was particularly evident in group or pair play. Children were also more persistent in child-initiated activities. Evidence of risk-taking behaviour was low, although more apparent in child-initiated activities than adult-initiated activities, or activities in which adults were present.     

Investigating the synergy of critical thinking and creative thinking in the course of integrated activity in Taiwan

The relationship lying between critical thinking and creative thinking is opposite or complementary, results of previous relevant researches have not yet concluded. However, most of researches put the effort to compare the respective effect of the thinking methods, either the teaching of creative thinking or that of critical thinking. Less of them showed the interest to investigate the combined effect of these two thinking skills teaching, especially its synergy. Therefore, present study aimed to discuss the synergy of critical thinking and creative thinking, and investigated the joined effect of these two methods of thinking in the courses of ‘Integrated Activity courses’. Not only the separate influence but also the synergy would be our interests. Moreover, the outcome would also be compared with the learning result of single creative thinking skill teaching. Participants were 147 male students and 118 female students of ninth grade from 8 intact classes in a public middle school in Taiwan, the number of total participants were 265. Experimental design was ‘nonequivalent control group pretest/post-test quasi-experimental design’. Participants were assigned into three groups, three intact classes for creative thinking teaching group (EG1), three intact classes for ‘critical thinking and creative thinking combined teaching group (EG2)’ and two intact classes for regular teaching method group (watching video, control group). All participants took the assessment ‘The New Creative-Thinking Testing’ and ‘The Critical-Thinking Testing, Level 1’ after receiving the courses as post-test. Data were analysed statistically by one-way ANCOVA. The results showed that:

1. Regards to the performance in Integrated Activity courses, no significant difference was found among students in EG1 and those in EG2. However, the students in both experimental groups got higher scores than those in control group did.

2. As for the ability of critical thinking, students in EG2 got higher score than those in EG1 and CG did, but no difference was found among the students in EG1 and those in CG.

3. In respect of originality, students in EG2 got higher score than those in EG1 did, the influence of critical thinking was significant.

Theoretical and possible applications of the results were also discussed. Present study not only manifests the correlation between creative thinking and critical thinking, but also provides the empirical data for synergy in actual pedagogical situations.     

Creating thinking schools through authentic assessment: the case in Singapore

Using Singapore as an example, we argue that schools need to equip and encourage teachers to adopt authentic assessment in teaching and learning so as to develop the students’ higher-order thinking. The importance of teaching and assessing higher-order thinking in Singapore classrooms is encapsulated in the vision of ‘Thinking Schools’ launched by the Ministry of Education in 1997. Underpinning this vision is a shift from conventional assessment to authentic assessment. Unlike conventional paper-and-pencil tests that focus on knowledge reproduction and low-level cognitive processing skills in artificial, contrived contexts, authentic assessment tasks underscore knowledge construction, complex thinking, elaborated communication, collaboration and problem solving in authentic contexts. However, the creation of thinking schools in Singapore remains a constant challenge as many teachers tend to rely on conventional assessment and are often ill-prepared to implement authentic assessment. By presenting the findings from a recent empirical study, we propose that schools build teacher capacity by providing ongoing and sustained professional development on authentic assessment for teachers.     

Training teachers for twenty-first century creative and critical thinking: Australian implications from an international study

Creativity in education is currently dominated by discourses pertaining to both a neo-liberalisation of arts education and a more widespread attention to the economic potential of diverse creativities. This study applies new thinking regarding creative educational advancement that is adaptive and critically reflexive to the tasks of reconciling the need for safe, ethical and empathetic learning environments and the production of adaptive and innovative twenty-first century workforces. This study of Australian secondary schools analyses perceptions, understandings and actions, and impediments to creativity in classrooms. This study asserts significant implications for the need to foster effective environmental and ecological approaches to engaging in creative practices in Australian secondary schools. It establishes a creativity index through which school leaders and teachers can routinely measure, develop and adjust their school environment’s, students’ and teachers’ creative skills and capacities, pedagogic practices and assessment of creativity across the ‘education lifespan’.     

Critical thinking in distance education: Developing critical communities in an audio teleconference context

Distance education has long been associated with independent study and delivery of prepackaged learning materials. These characteristics effectively deny distance education students the opportunity to participate in communities of inquiry and, perhaps, opportunities to develop their critical thinking skills. This paper reviews the theoretical impact of socially situated learning, critical thinking and their implications for distance education. It then presents the results from a study of learners' perception while enrolled in two different models of audio teleconferenced, university courses. The study reports quantitative results from a mail survey of these students and the qualitative results from interviews and classroom observations. The impact of the instructional design used by the delivering institution resulted in two distinct models of audio teleconference delivery with significant qualitative and quantitative differences in student perception. The paper concludes that learning communities, which support the development of critical thinking skills, can be created at a distance and that they provide a mechanism for improving the quality of higher level distance education.     

高师音乐欣赏教学与创造牲思维的研究

音乐欣赏是一种自由的主体审美活动,具有独特而复杂的心理活动过程,并具有创造性思维的价值。音乐欣赏与创造性思维有着多元化内涵,从而达到完美身心、启迪智慧的目的。     

Critical thinking, education, and postmodernity: Possibilities and limitations for moral education

The contemporary educational discourse on critical thinking, as one of the primary aims of education. has been divided into the spheres of modernist defense and post-modernist criticism. Critical of both positions, this paper attempts to find a new way of employing critical thinking, especially for the purposes of moral education, by drawing on Bernard William’s concept of “ethical reflection.” It will be shown that employing critical thinking for the fostering of ethical reflection in our young students can lead them into an “understanding” of ethical, rather than “ethical knowledge,” which enables them to properly deal with moral relativism in a culturally pluralistic society. This paper then explores the educational possibilities presented by Socrates’ teaching method as an example of this employment, though not without consideration of the attendant educational limitations and dangers.     

The relationship among counselor experience level, empathic accuracy, and counseling outcome in the early phase of counseling

The current study examined a mediating effect of empathic accuracy on the relationship between counselor experience level and counseling outcome. Data were collected from 48 counselor?Cclient dyads in real-life counseling settings. Empathic accuracy and counseling outcome were assessed by using client perceptions of the first three audiotaped counseling sessions. Ickes?? standard empathic accuracy assessment procedure was used with modifications to assess empathic accuracy. The procedure to assess empathic evaluation included three steps: (a) clients recognize and write down their thoughts and feelings while listening to the audiotapes, (b) counselors infer their client??s thoughts and feelings, (c) The third raters rate the statements of counselors?? empathic accuracy. Correlational analysis revealed that counselor experience level, empathic accuracy, and counseling outcome were positively related to one another. A path analysis was used to test the model that counselor experience level affects counseling outcome through the effect of empathic accuracy. Both paths from counselor experience level to empathic accuracy and from empathic accuracy to counseling outcome were significant, along with a significant mediating effect of empathic accuracy. These results show enhancing empathic accuracy is critical for counseling outcome. Limitations of the current study and suggestions for future research were discussed.     

A comparison of recursive and nonrecursive models of attitude towards problem-based learning,disposition to critical thinking,and creative thinking in an computer literacy course for preservice teachers

Education and Information Technologies - The present study investigates a comparison of the recursive and non-recursive models of attitude towards problem-based learning, disposition to critical...     

Critical thinking,social education and the curriculum: foregrounding a social and relational epistemology

In this article, I examine the extent to which, given how critical thinking has been most commonly conceptualised and taught in schools, the subject indeed develops modes of thinking, relating and reasoning that allow individuals to collectively work towards the appreciation and solution of social problems. In the first section, I outline a number of perspectives among social studies researchers and educators that demonstrate the importance of developing critical thinking capacities in students. This is followed by, in the next section, a close examination of two widely popular approaches through which critical thinking is taught – one in the general school curriculum and the other within social studies lessons. I argue that in their current forms and for a number of reasons these understandings of critical thinking fall short of developing the social and relational dimensions of thinking that are more than a little necessary in fulfilling the raison d’être of the subject. Towards this end, the final section presents a social epistemological framework for the teaching of critical thinking in the school curriculum, highlights a number of principles of its application and provides some examples of its use in classrooms.     

小说教学中创造性思维和艺术想像力的培养

当前中学语小说教学仍不能摆脱旧有的模式，本课题研究的目的在于通过调查分析，探索出一条鲜活的，切实可行的小说鉴赏新路，培养学生特有品质和创造力，开创小说教学的新局面。     

在“操作、体验、思辨”中渗透小学数学思想方法

优质的数学课建立在教师对显性知识与隐藏数学思想方法的整体把握,并能在教学中能引导学生经历对数学思想方法感知、理解与应用的全过程,从而帮助学生架设知识联系的桥梁,促进学生能力的提升。如何选准策略,把握契机,合理渗透数学思想方法,是当前数学教育工作者的研究热点。     

教学过程中教师的作用及学生创造性思维的培养

在教学中大力培养和提升学生的创新能力已经成为当今所有教育工作者的工作重点和主要努力方向。教学中加入创新元素,注重提升学生的创新能力更具有重要的意义。文章在此基础上从教师创新意识的提升、创设探索和质疑的课堂情境、培养学生的创新兴趣、建立和谐友好的课堂氛围等角度探讨了在初中数学教学中培养学生创新能力的具体措施和手段。     

Critical thinking in criminology: critical reflections on learning and teaching

Fostering critical thinking abilities amongst students is one component of preparing them to navigate uncertain and complex social lives and employment circumstances. One conceptualisation of critical thinking, valuable in higher education, draws from critical theory to promote social justice and redress power inequities. This study explored how students’ critical thinking developed in a discrete core unit of criminology. Second and third year students were invited to participate in the research. Participants wrote critical reflections on how their thinking about crime and criminal justice had developed throughout the unit. Analysis of responses indicated that certain topics were salient to students, offering a way to engage them in deeper thinking. Students’ critical reflections showed evidence of personally relevant meaning-making, including the development of more nuanced thinking about crime and justice, and more compassionate rationales for aspiring to careers within the field. Implications for learning and teaching critical thinking in criminology are discussed.     

Globalization and Resistance in the United States and Mexico: The Global Potemkin Village

This paper explores resistance to globalizationthrough an analysis of three movements in whichuniversity students played pivotal roles: thestudent strike at the National AutonomousUniversity of Mexico (UNAM), global tradeprotests, and the graduate student unionmovement in the U.S. Of special interest arethe effects of globalization on highereducation and the relevance of the neoliberalcritique offered by critical theorists andglobalization protesters. The author revealshow anti-globalization rhetoric deriving fromthe three movements seeks to counter thehegemony of corporate globalism. Previousliterature on globalization and socialmovements is called upon to inform the study.     

Thinking about the past: early knowledge about links between prior experience, thinking, and emotion

In two studies the authors investigated the situations where 3- to 7-year-olds and adults (N = 152) will connect a person's current feelings to the past, especially to thinking or being reminded about a prior experience. Study 1 presented stories featuring a target character who felt sad, mad, or happy after an event in the past and who many days later felt that same negative or positive emotion upon seeing a cue related to the prior incident. For some story endings, the character's emotion upon seeing the cue matched, or was congruent, with the current situation, whereas for others, the emotion mismatched the present circumstances. Participants were asked to explain the cause of each character's current feelings. As a further comparison, children and adults listened to behavior cuing stories and provided explanations for characters' present actions. Study 2 presented emotional scenarios that varied by emotion-situation fit (whether the character's emotion matched the current situation), person-person fit (whether the character's emotion matched another person's), and past history information (whether information about the character's past was known). Results showed that although there were several significant developments with increasing age, even most 3-year-olds demonstrated some knowledge about connections between past events and present emotions and between thinking and feeling. Indeed, children 5 years and younger revealed strikingly cogent understanding about historical-mental influences in certain situations, especially where they had to explain why a person, who had experienced a negative event in the past, was currently feeling sad or mad in a positive situation. These findings help underwrite a more general account of the development of children's coherent understandings of life history, mind, and emotion.