Critical and Creative Thinking in the Primary Classroom
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Critical and Creative Thinking in the Primary Classroom:
A Practical Guide for P1 to P6 Teachers


Date: 20 November 2018 Tuesday
Venue: To Be Confirmed
Time: 9.00am to 5.00pm
Closing date: 26 October 2018 Friday

Click here to register

Workshop Fee:
S$350.00 per participant. If 2 or more participants from the same school/organization attend the same workshop, the discounted fee will be S$300.00 per participant for that particular workshop. Fees are subject to GST and include all training materials, 2 tea breaks and a lunch.

Other Information:
Registration is on a first-come-first serve basis. No refunds will be made for cancellations or in the case of absentees. The Academy accepts replacements for registered participants who are unable to attend for whatever reasons.

School/Cluster Based Workshop Registration
Dates available for booking: 21, 22 and 23 November 2018
Please contact Joseph Loy by email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or tel: 6363 0330 on the cost of conducting the workshop.


Workshop Description

Workshop Outline

1. Thinking - issues and problems: how and why we do/might think less critically than we should

2. Critical and creative thinking: how does the combination of both rigour and creativity work?

3. Critical thinking as a set of skills

4. Critical thinking as a set of attributes or dispositions

5. Developing and reinforcing critical and creative thinking with students:

  • using questioning
  • using dialogue
  • collaborative learning
  • scaffolding
  • making thinking explicit
  • developing metacognition
  • modelling

(All of these will be illustrated by examples of practice.)

6. Infusing critical and creative thinking within subjects

7. Assessment issues and practice

This workshop will stress the creative nature of critical thinking. For example, by looking at the many possible interpretations of claims (‘What might this mean?’), we focus on students needing to think of other possibilities. This approach very much encourages (indeed, requires) students to ask questions and to consider a range of possible answers.

Both the strategies of infusion of critical thinking into the primary curriculum and of discrete critical thinking teaching will be well-covered. Thus, examples of material used will include those from a variety of subjects, as well as those from everyday sources such as adverts.

Learning Outcomes
By the end of the workshop, staff should be able to:
1. understand the nature of critical thinking;
2. understand the creative/inventive thinking possibilities within critical thinking;
3. use strategies for developing and reinforcing critical thinking (and thus creative/inventive thinking) with their students;
4. develop resources for critical thinking in their own teaching;
5. produce assessments in critical and creative thinking to use with students.


Target Audience
Classroom teachers of all levels, staff developers, teachers of leadership programs and institutes, and leaders of school systems


069About the Trainer - Dr Roy van den Brink-Budgen

Dr Roy van den Brink-Budgen has been working in the area of Critical Thinking for 31 years, 18 of which he worked on the development of assessment materials not only in Critical Thinking but also other thinking skills. He was employed by the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (now Cambridge Assessment) for part of this time, developing assessments in both 'Critical Thinking' and 'Communication' as part of a Thinking Skills assessment programme. Roy was also employed as the Chief Examiner for the British GCE 'A'-Level subject in "Critical Thinking" between its inception in 1999 until 2005.

 

He has taught the subject for twenty-two years to a diverse variety of groups and ages, ranging from primary children to higher education students, prison inmates, to teachers at all levels, and to staff in organisations and companies. Roy has brought the subject to a wider audience of teachers as well as students than anyone else in the UK.

 

Dr Roy has also delivered papers and workshops at various international conferences on both Critical and Creative Thinking.

 

First published in 1996, his book "Critical Thinking for Students" was a pioneering piece of work in the fact that, unlike other literary resources on Critical Thinking that catered to the niche of university undergraduates, his book was tailored to benefit a wide range of students. Dr Roy's educational resources are not only limited to his books on the subject but include online courses and even a Critical Thinking game. His resources are now widely used in many countries around the world.

 

He is currently Head of the Critical Thinking Advisory Board for a London-based company that specialises in the development of resources for both the assessment and learning in the subject. He is also an advisor to an international company that has developed self-coaching by AI.

 

Click here to view Dr Roy's videos on The Skills of Critical Thinking & Critical Thinking - Issues of Training and Creativity