Beginning Teacher's Guide Volume 1 | Page 3

Critical & Creative

Thinking

The Australian Curriculum allows students to develop capability in critical and creative thinking, as it encompasses the necessary skills of learning how to:

-generate and evaluate knowledge

-Clarify concepts and ideas

-Seek possibilities

-Consider alternatives

-Solve problems .

Critical and creative thinking is a fundamental aspect in addition to children becoming successful learners through broadly and deeply using skills, behaviours and dispositions such as:

-Reason

-Logic

-Imagination and

-Innovation in all their years in school and beyond.

The Melbourne Declaration of Educational goals for young Australians (MCEETYA 2008) explains that critical and creative thinking becomes effective learning when thinking is productive, purposeful and intentional. This is achieved by applying a sequence of skills that encourage children to become more confident and autonomous problem solvers and thinkers.

With the growing age of the 21st Century, we need to be able to respond to the continuous challenges and environmental, social and economic pressures that require young people to be able to be:

-creative

-adaptable

-innovative

-enterprising

and the confidence, motivation, and skills to use critical and creative thinking purposely.