A job aid created to help a brand new teacher teach creative and critical thinking skills.

1. Kevin Averill
5/12/14
MED 560
Dr. Rich Merlo

2. Congratulations on you New
Job!
 The following pages are certain
strategies that I like to use in my class
that will help develop the students
creative and critical thinking skills.
Enjoy!

3. What is Creative Thinking?
 The ability to create new items and
modernize concepts (Merriam-Webster
Dictionary, n.d.)
 There is two types of creative
thinking, there is the redesigning of
patterns, “Big C” and the innovation of
manifests itself in our daily rituals
(Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1996).

4. Developing Creativity in our
Students
 Use Ice Breakers
 Encourage taking Risks
 Incorporate the use of Technology
 Initiate ideas for Class
Activities/Assignments
 Personally identify with your Students
 Encourage Questioning

5. Ice Breakers
 At the beginning of class have an ice
breaker that will challenge them and
enforce the theory of “Thinking Outside
the Box”. This will get their brains
functioning at a level that will initiate
learning.

6. Encourage taking Risks
 Many of our students are too hesitant to
going out of their comfort zone. As
educators for them we need to motivate
them in a way that they have confidence
in taking chances.

7. Incorporate the use of
Technology
 There is so much technology being
created that we need to take advantage
of all the resources available for our
students. Our students know more about
the technological world than most us.
Push them to use their knowledge in an
appropriate and sufficient manner for
school assignments.

8. Initiate Ideas for Class
Activities/Assignments
 Give the students some ideas you want
to go over for the school year. Have
them create guidelines and instructions
that they would have to follow.
Empowering the students will give them
a sense of responsibility in which will
make them more involved in the class.

9. Personally identify with
Students
 Identify the students preferences,
interests, and goals in life. Once you
know what they like, push them to
become more educated in that certain
domain.

10. Encourage Questioning
 Inspire students to introduce different
ideas and questioning, in which will spur
deeper thought from the students in the
classroom.

11. What is Critical Thinking?
 To be critically thinking, it needs to be self-
directed, disciplined, monitored, and
corrective thinking. It assumes approval of
precise standards of quality and thoughtful
understanding of their use (Paul, R., 2008).
 In other words, critically thinking, it is to
have the understanding of the topic or
subject at hand, to make well-educated
and specified responses.

12. Development of Critical
Thinking
 Challenge their Thoughts
 Use of Group Work
 Discuss Current Events
 Have the students Research
 Open-ended Questions
 Individual Reflection

13. Challenge their Knowledge
 Create a foundation of knowledge
through each chapter that is presented.
Once, they show an understanding of
the material, challenge them to think
deeper by giving them tougher
questions that initiate well-thought out
answers.

14. Use of Group Work
 Have students work in groups; it helps
them become understanding of other’s
thoughts and ideas. They will be able to
help their group members comprehend
the material and vice versa. The
collaboration the students do will bring
out ideas they would not think of, if they
were to be working individually

15. Discuss Current Events
 Having discussions about the current
events challenges the students to be
more educated about what our country
or the world is doing. We can use the
multiple media outlets to find topics to
discuss that relate to our subject at
hand.

16. Have the students
Research
 By making the students do research
about a topic, will get them to really think
about what they have learned and put it
into words to show their understanding.
If we limit the use of multiple choice
answers, we can establish a skill of
critically thinking that they will use
throughout life.

17. Open End Questions
 Kids today are always looking for the
quickest and easiest way to get through
life. With that said, they want to be able
to just get away with answer with a
“yes, no, maybe or I do no
know”, however, will us forcing our
students to go into detail, will create
critical thinking.

18. Individual Reflection
 The students will be required to write a
summary about the assignment that was
submitted, stating what they gained from
completing it, what specific challenges
they faced and how they overcame
them, and how they would improve the
assignment.

19. References
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the psychology
of discovery and invention. New York, NY: Harper Collins
Merriam-Webster Dictionary. (n.d.). Creativity. Retrieved from
http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/creativity.
Paul, R., & Elder, L. (2008). The miniature guide to critical
thinking concepts and tools. Foundation of Critical Thinking
Press.