Critical & Creative Thinking

Most courses at UW, from USP to disciplinary, undergraduate to graduate, include learning outcomes focused on critical and creative thinking. Yet these skills and characteristics can vary significantly by context. Partnering with instructors throughout the university, the Critical and Creative Thinking Initiative aims to facilitate the inclusion of effective critical and creative thinking pedagogies throughout the undergraduate and graduate curricula.

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Teaching Critical Thinking in the Age of AI: Thinking for ourselves is so early 20th Century!

Whether we like it or not, AI is infiltrating all aspects of our lives. In this learning community, we’ll explore ways to elevate critical and creative thinking to retain our intellectual agency. Our aim is not to reject AI, but to leverage it as a tool to drive critical thinking.

In the fall, we’ll read and discuss two complementary texts:

• Confidence in Critical Thinking: Developing Learners in Higher Education (Arlene Egan)
• TextGenEd: Teaching with Text Generation Technologies (Annette Vee, Tim Liquintano, and Carly Schnitzler, eds)

In the spring, we’ll turn our attention to applying what we’ve learned to our own pedagogy and curricula.

Applications will be due Wednesay, August 28, 2024 at 5:00pm MST.

When: Tuesdays 12:30-2:00m MST | 9/3, 10/1, 10/22, 11/12, 12/3

 

APPLY HERE

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View the ECTL's "Making CCT Visible" Webpage

The ECTL's "Making It Visible" webpage is designed to celebrate the thoughtful activities, assignments, and other curricular elements UW instructors have created to help students develop their critical and creative thinking skills. We hope the ideas presented here will motivate others to make critical and creative thinking more visible in their own courses.

Why? We want educators to make critical thinking visible because we know that students are more likely to transfer, appreciate, and apply skills when they understand why they are being asked to engage in certain kinds of tasks. We know that clear frameworks, metacognition, and reflection can encourage students to be more aware of the importance of critical thinking and better versed at engaging their critical thinking skills in diverse contexts.

Do you have a great critical and/or creative thinking assignment, activity, or other resource (e.g., syllabus discussion) to share?

SUBMIT IT HERE