One of my favorite quotes from my summer reading comes from Steinberg, “Stored knowledge can be inert and essentially unusable. Analytical skills can help one evaluate existing ideas, but they cannot help one come up with ideas of one’s own; nor can they help one adjust to a world that is changing rapidly and leaves behind people who cannot flexible adapt” (“Wisdom” 10). It’s not just that teaching with creative thinking strategies is inclusive and reaches more students. It’s that our students need to know these strategies because they will be useful to them in the future. It will make them more employable. It will help them stay employable. As I read, it realized the marked gap between what professors ask from their students and what employers hope their future employees will be able to do. Industry and businesses want creative thinkers who can communicate and collaborate (Starko).This is what they hope to hire in college graduates in the twenty-first century. From this point alone, critical thinking strategies, while incredibly necessary, become more meaningful to our students when accompanied by a complement of creative thinking strategies as well.
Creative thinking strategies (which can be employed in any discipline) not only reach and engage more students than classes that are designed for or privilege critical thinking only; creative thinking strategies also prepare students for the world that awaits them.
Recommended Reading for Incorporating Creative Thinking in Higher Education Classrooms (in MLA Style)
Brinkman, David. “Teaching Creatively and Teaching for Creativity.” Arts Education Policy Review, vol. 111, 2010, pp. 48-50, Accessed 23 Aug. 2016.
Christensen, Tanner. The Creativity Challenge: Design, Experiment, Test, Innovate, Build, Create, Inspire and Unleash Your Genius. Avon: Adams Media, 2015. Print.
Gibson, Robyn. “The ‘Art’ of Creative Teaching: Implications for Higher Education.” Teaching in Higher Education, vol. 15, no. 5, Oct. 2010, pp. 607–613., Accessed 23 Aug. 2016.
Hargreaves, Janet. “Risk: The Ethics of a Creative Curriculum.” Innovations in Education and Teaching International, vol. 45, no. 3, Aug. 2008, pp. 227–234., Accessed 23 Aug. 2016.
Karakas, Scott L. “Creative and Critical Thinking in the Arts and Sciences: Some Examples of Congruence.” Forum on Public Policy: A Journal of the Oxford Round Table, 2010.
Academic OneFile, Accessed 23 Aug. 2016.
Michalko, Michael. Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques, 2nd ed. Berkeley, Ten Speed Press, 2006. Print.
Starko, Alane. “Creativity on the Brink.” Educational Leadership, Feb. 2013, pp. 54–56., Accessed 23 Aug. 2016.
Sternberg, Robert J. “Creative Thinking in the Classroom.” Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, vol. 7, no. 3, 2003, pp. 325–338., Accessed 23 Aug. 2016.
—. “Wisdom, Intelligence, and a New Model for Creativity Synthesized: Liberal Education.” Liberal
Education, 2009, pp. 10–15., Accessed 23 Aug. 2016.
Wang, Amber Yayin. “Exploring the Relationship of Creative Thinking to Reading and Writing.” Thinking Skills and Creativity, vol. 7, 2012, pp. 38–47. Elsevier, Accessed 5 Sept. 2016.
White, David A. “Gifted Education: Thinking (with Help from Aristotle) about Critical Thinking.” Gifted Child Today. vol. 33, no. 3, Summer 2010, pp. 14-19., Accessed 23 Aug. 2016.
