LECTURE: CREATIVE AND CRITICAL THINKING BY STEPHEN BROOKFIELD - SUMMARY

CREATIVE AND CRITICAL THINKING

For starting with his lecture, Dr. Stephen Brookfield made a biographical disclosure in which he told his audience about his academic process and how he was not prepared enough for going on to an undergraduate program. 

He believes a good teacher is someone who enters a classroom and sees what is valuable for them, then, adapt it to their own setting. Besides, he considers that who we are as teachers is significantly framed by who we have been as learners, which means that the way we teach is linked to the way we learn. And how we as teachers, that have been in the students' position before, can understand many problems students may be through.

He also points out that the freedom to control the direction and the pace of where we are going is important for the student because it feels as though they are in charge of the learning process and therefore they will do better. At that moment is when he talks about experiential positions for carrying out activities or being in charge of students that have the same problem the teacher had had before since that teacher knows how it feels to be in that situation.

Aside from that, he mentions the trust that is built between instructors and students and the relational dimension of teaching and learning. He explains that this dynamic is important since when a teacher asks their students to do something they are afraid to do, that teacher entails thinking creatively and critically.

Dr. Brookfield believes that...

someone who thinks critically can...

• Identify the assumptions behind thinking and actions.
• Check assumptions for accuracy and validity.
• Tale informed action.

Someone who thinks creatively is able to...

• View ideas and practices from multiple viewpoints, which means that person moves outside of their habitual typical mental framework.
• Generate interpretations, perspectives, and responses different from the usual mode of thought or practice. 
• Communicate through a variety of different ways. 

In this way, on the one hand, he perceives critical thinking as the focus on understanding and checking out assumptions. And on the other hand, creative thinking as the ability to look at things from multiple viewpoints and have multiple responses to familiar ideas or practices.

A critically and creative informed action is...

• One based on evidence/experience that can be justified.
• One that has its assumptions known and checked.
• One that stands a chance of achieving its intended consequence.
• One that has been viewed from multiple perspectives.
• One that is enacted via multiple modalities.

Kinds of assumptions

• Causal: this one explains a consequence.
• Prescriptive: this one tells how things should happen.
• Paradigmatic: this one has to do with common sense.

4 key intellectual traditions

• Analytic philosophy: logical fallacies; argument analysis; inductive, deductive, analogical, inferential reasoning.
• Natural science: hypothetical-deductive method, principle of falsifiability.
• Critical theory: uncovering power dynamics and ideological manipulation.
• Pragmatism: experimental and creative pursuit of beautiful consequences.

What most helps your students to think critically and/or creatively?

• Instructors modeling.
• Critical incident questionnaire.
• Assumption inventories.
• Ending presentations, discussions, and exercises with questions.
• Chalk talk - Visual discussion.