Improving Students' Learning Through Creativity and Critical Thinking

• In Event: 14.037 - Building International Professional Learning Communities

Abstract

We will present the first results of an ongoing OECD project aiming to help teachers and students to learn their curricula while also developing their creativity and critical thinking, two major 21st century skills. The first phase of the development phase is based on the development of a rubric on creativity and critical thinking meant to support teachers to design their lesson plans and assess their students’ progress.

The underlying action research model can be related to Bryk’s work on communities of practice as far as teachers’ professional development is concerned (Bryk, Gomez, Grunow & LeMahieu, 2015), with the additional challenge of being implemented at the international level. The underlying theory of action leading from the intervention to the learning outcomes can be related to Schneider et al. (2016) theory of optimal learning moments, showing how more demanding and engaging pedagogical activities can lead to more engagement and creates optimal learning moments that will eventually translate in better academic outcomes. Two additional assumptions being tested are that teaching towards creativity and critical thinking provides a demanding and engaging target susceptible to the creation of optimal learning moments or sense of flow (Czisentmihalyi, 1996), and also to actually intentionally develop two skills that are now part of all official curricula in the OECD area and have been shown to be the two most critical skills to participate in innovation in the economy (Avvisati, Jacotin, & Vincent-Lancrin, 2013): creativity and critical thinking.

We will present the first results of the intervention, that is running and coordinated in 14 countries, including in the United States, in both elementary and secondary education (grades 4 and 9).

Some outputs of the development work will be presented. They encompass 1) a rubric on critical thinking and creativity, 2) lesson plans and examples of pedagogical activities in 4 disciplines (science, mathematics, music and visual arts), 3) an affordable plan for teachers’ professional development, and 4) examples of student work.

The first outcomes of working with the rubric to develop or implement pedagogical activities will also be presented. The first round of the implementation took place in 8 countries and results were monitored through a quasi-experimental design (control and treatment). Traditional learning outcomes were pre- and post-tested through standardized tests (e.g. PISA and TIMMSS), as well as creativity (through a domain-specific standardized creativity tests developed by Barbot, Besançon, & Lubart, T (2015), the EPoC). Measures of students’ social and behavioural skills were also collected pre and post the 6-month intervention. Finally, given the mixed method research design, qualitative information and feedback collected through observations, interviews and focus groups will cast light on the challenges of opportunities of the intervention, and give us information about actual pedagogical change during the intervention (or at least contrast teaching and learning within control and treatment schools).

Some policy implications will then be discussed, as well as the possible use of the rubric to shape international standardized assessments of domain-specific creativity and critical thinking in the future.

Author

• Stephan Vincent-Lancrin, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development