Thinking is a wonderful journey where you explore, discover, imagine and create the world around you. It’s not a static but a highly dynamic cognitive process influenced by various factors and circumstances that change over the time. 

Being able to master and guide your thinking process is an acquired skill that is a difference between a good or great thinker. 

Traditionally, analytical and creative thinking represent the ‘two’ sides of the spectrum, where thinking and learning are associated with remembering and understanding.

However, this is not the case.

Benjamin Bloom, an educational psychologist, identifies a wider spectrum of thinking involving analytical, critical and creative thinking in what he termed Bloom’s Taxonomy. 

According to Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, analytical and critical thinking are in fact an important part of the creative process. To understand this, let’s break down exactly what creative, critical and analytical thinking embodies.   

[image source] Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy 

Creative thinking is generally associated with divergent or lateral thinking and generates multiple ideas and possible solutions.

Critical thinking involves making judgments, asking questions and synthesising information. 

Analytical, which is generally associated with convergent or vertical thinking focuses on a logical sequence and finding a solution. 

While these three thinking styles are not mutually exclusive, they do complement each other at a certain point and depending on the situation. Your best ideas and solutions occur when all three are effectively mastered together! 

Here are 5 tips to kick-start your analytical, critical and creative thinking skills. 

1. Brainstorming

In a nutshell, brainstorming is a technique when you generate as many ideas as possible. Here, the quantity is more important than quality. Once you have a set of ideas, you can later shortlist the one’s that are most suitable. If you do not like any ideas, you can always begin the brainstorming process again. 

For example, in the case of an online course, you can use brainstorming as a technique within an activity, to get your students to think creatively. For example, in a course about “Mediterranean Cuisine”, you can design an activity that requires students to brainstorm recipes that use garlic cloves and olive oil.

[image source]

2. Mind Mapping

A mind map is a visual conceptualisation of any topic and can be used to strengthen analytical thinking. It enables you to see all the little parts and all the existing or new connections from an outside perspective. 

Continuing with the online course example, mind mapping can be used to design an effective activity for a student studying English Vocabulary. An activity could be that students are asked to break down the word “Ecology” and upload their own mind map related to “Ecology”.

[image source] 

3. SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. This method helps you analyse the problem from different perspectives and search for different alternatives.

As a teacher for an online course, SWOT analysis can be an effective technique for both yourself and your students.  While designing your course, you might use SWOT Analysis at the very beginning to analyse your future course’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. You can do so in relation to the university or personal future work opportunities. This can also be used with students, for instance, in a course about “Project Management” you can ask students to choose a business venture and create a business plan using a SWOT analysis.

[image source]

4. Creative Problem-Solving (CPS)

A CPS Model consists of six steps which guide the creative process. This technique is quite unique, as it involves both forms of thinking. Each step begins with divergent thinking (finding multiple alternatives) and progresses into convergent thinking (analysing and selecting an alternative). The following six steps are used in CPS:  

1. Select/Identify a problem

2. Research what you know/List what you know

3. Formulate one or more creative challenges 

4. Brainstorm the ideas/Generate ideas 

5. Combine and evaluate your ideas

6. Find ways to put your ideas into action 

As a course designer, you may reach a point when you need to solve a particular problem, such as lack of student interaction in your course. So you can apply the 6 steps of CPS and find the solution(s) (Some solutions for increasing student interaction can be found here). 

[image source]

5. Six Thinking Hats

This technique was developed by Edward De Bono for the purpose of thinking about problems from different perspectives. The original idea involved members of a team sitting together and switching from one coloured hat to another to switch from one problem-solving technique to another. If you do not have a team, this technique can still be used effectively by yourself. 

Within an online course, you can encourage students to create new ideas, products or improve existing product by using blue, green and red hats. The example can be to improve upon anything, from the design of a toothbrush to a car engine.

[image source]

These are just some ways to help develop deeper analytical and creative thinking. Like all things, when practised on a regular basis these skills will gradually shift from a conscious effort to a natural process! 

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Thinking is a wonderful journey where you explore, discover, imagine and create the world around you. It’s not a static but a highly dynamic cognitive process influenced by various factors and circumstances that change over the time.

Being able to master and guide your thinking process is an acquired skill that is a difference between a good or great thinker.

Traditionally, analytical and creative thinking represent the ‘two’ sides of the spectrum, where thinking and learning are ass... read more

Many aspiring MOOC teachers become quickly overwhelmed or even deterred from teaching courses online by the prospect of creating videos for their course.

Do I need a production team? What resolution is best? Do I need a studio with a green screen? How much should I spend? Etc., etc…

As the Head of Instructional Design at OpenLearning, it may surprise you that I think videos are the least important aspect of your MOOC.

The best way for students to learn is by being active: when students are thinking critically and deeply, when they are relating new information to their existing world, and when they are actively sharing and contributing to their learning community.

Active learning facilitates deep and effective learning because it requires the use of higher order thinking skills, creativity, and problem-solving. It places the student at the centre of the learning and empowers them in their learning discovery process.

Passively watching a video doesn’t achieve the same level of rich learning, because it does not require the student to do anything but sit, watch, and hopefully absorb information.

The great news is, designing active learning experiences for your MOOC is fun and won’t cost you a thing!

5 active learning experiences you can use in your MOOCS instead of videos

1. Connect the learning to the students’ world

How can you turn an abstract topic into something meaningful for your students? Consider how the topic relates to your students’ world and bring that into your MOOC.

Example: In UNSW’s Computing 1 course, one of the aims is for students to understand the importance of writing clear, unambiguous computer programs (computers tend to be quite literal). One activity asked students to cook something from a recipe but to look for an ambiguously worded step and intentionally misinterpret it. One student, following instructions on cooking a frozen dinner, chose “remove sleeve and film” – and removed his shirt sleeve and took a video of it!

2. Get students to create something of their own

Set your students a creation challenge! Get them to create something related to the topic, that requires them to think critically, creatively and deeply. They can create and post a video or photo, a piece of writing, an audio recording etc.

Example: In our Introduction to graphic design on Canva course, students create unique designs in Canva, focusing on the design concepts taught during the module, and share them for all students to peruse and give feedback on.

Example of activity completed by one of our awesome students.

3. Have students to share things that are around them

Deep learning happens when students connect new information with their existing world. You want students to be thinking about your topic outside of the course as well as in it! Give students opportunities to look for connections to course concepts that they observe in the world around them and share them with others in the course.

Example: In one of our maths courses, students are asked to snap and share pictures of maths concepts they discover in their world. They have an additional challenge of either a) sharing all of the maths ideas they can see conveyed in the image, or b) setting it as a challenge for other students to uncover the maths concepts.

4. Ask students to challenge each other!

Getting students to create challenges for each other are a fantastic teaching tool, as they facilitate interaction and peer-to-peer teaching, which is a powerful way to learn! Students first create and post a scenario or challenge related to the topic for other students to complete. Then they complete another student’s shared challenge. The student needs to consider the possibilities, outcomes and concepts first when creating the challenge for their peers, and then have a deeper perspective when they then complete someone else’s.

Example: In our Lean Six Sigma Introductory Fundamentals course, students are asked to 1) share an experience they’ve had waiting in a long queue and 2) create a scenario based on this real world experience, for other students in the course to calculate the exact lead time using a Lean Six Sigma formula. Students then complete each other’s challenges, fostering peer-to-peer teaching and interaction.

5. Encourage students to reflect on their learning

Provide opportunities for students to reflect on their learning. What did they take away from the learning experience? What was unexpected? What do they want to learn more about? Reflection is a double win–it not only makes the overall learning experience deeper for students, but it informs our practice as MOOC teachers.

Example: In my course, How to teach an awesome course on OpenLearning, I have students do both a written and a visual reflection. In the written reflection, they share what they took away from the course; in the visual reflection, they upload an image (with text) that reflects something they’ve learnt about teaching and learning. This is a fantastic opportunity for creativity and higher order thinking!

Example of activity completed by another awesome student.

Your students’ needs are the most important consideration when designing a great MOOC. Start with the student perspective and consider how you can make the course meaningful, fun, and effective. Then you will enable an active, connected, and engaged learning community.

When these considerations form the basis of your MOOC, videos become a possible adjunct to your course, not the focus.

*This article has also been published on Class Central  ← show less

Many aspiring MOOC teachers become quickly overwhelmed or even deterred from teaching courses online by the prospect of creating videos for their course.

Do I need a production team? What resolution is best? Do I need a studio with a green screen? How much should I spend? Etc., etc…

As the Head of Instructional Design at OpenLearning, it may surprise you that I think videos are the least important aspect of your MOOC.

The best way for students to learn is by being active: when studen... read more

Imagine rocking up to a small classroom late in the evening after a long day at work and having to listen to a dude rabbiting on about means and standard deviations for three hours. Does that make you want to be violently ill, or run in the complete opposite direction to the classroom at the speed of Usain Bolt? It would me usually, but unfortunately I’m the person tasked with being this dude. What I wanted to talk about in this article today is how a teacher set with this task goes about it.

I’m a lecturer within the University of Sydney, Business School MBA program in the subject “Data Analytics and Modelling”. I lecture on a Tuesday night from 6pm for 3 hours. When you hear this topic it clearly doesn’t tug at your fun strings. The problem I have, however, is that in my view the key to an excellent teaching experience in a topic like this, and probably any topic, is that you have to make it fun. And the fun doesn’t have to relate to the subject matter. It could be anything.

I do a few things to make my lectures and the teaching experience fun. I am a naturally effervescent and bubbly kind of guy (no I’m not a Schweppes dry ginger ale) so a high energy and fun approach comes relatively easily to me – I understand it may not be for everyone. I have what is called a jokes penetration ratio target of 20% meaning that one of five jokes provokes a laughter response from at least one student and I find that even attempting to make them laugh can be entertaining.

The key to a great classroom experience is that students will actually enjoy coming to class and that won’t happen in most cases unless you make the classroom fun. I do a few things to keep it fun aside from attempting poor jokes. The first is to ask the students lots of questions. This keeps them engaged, active and awake. There’s nothing worse than listening to the same voice for hours, even if it has dulcet tones, so it is good to hear lots of different voices. I sometimes ask questions that are completely off topic just to add a bit of variety and spice to the lecture. I remember in one statistics lecture a couple of years ago we talked about banana allergies for around half an hour in a three hour lecture.

The second thing I do to keep it fun is to have the students perform in-class activities that are relevant to the curriculum. In my case this involved chasing up data and presenting it in particular formats. And get the students doing it together in groups. Activities like this get the blood flowing a bit and activate conversation. I also always ensure that my examples or illustrations are fun and suit the demographic I’m teaching. We would look at interesting things like the demand for bacon and egg rolls and a can of coke on a Saturday or Sunday morning or models describing the removal of pickles from McDonalds burgers.

I always make sure that I have breaks at the right time and play cool music during the breaks. In my data analytics class we had prize giveaways for those who could guess the correct song. The giveaways were things that I really liked and so the students got to know a bit about me. For example, one giveaway was four Weetbix biscuits with one banana and full fat milk – I explained to the students that this is what I ate every single morning, and that if I couldn’t access a banana because of a tropical cyclone hitting Far North Queensland then I would consume only 5 Weetbix biscuits with full cream milk.

Another key to excellent lecture and course experience is to come down to the students level. Picture yourself listening to you talk about standard deviations and work out whether you would enjoy that experience. If students ask a question don’t give up until it is resolved. Ask the student different questions to establish if it resolved. Read the body language of students. If they are dozing off or fiddling with their phone then you need to try something different. 

Like anything you buy, the after-sales experience is important. The same applies to lecturing. The best lectures provide the best after lecture support, whether that be taking phone calls, emails or students rocking up to your office. There is also nothing better than a speedy reply.

These are just some of the things that have made by lecturing experience work with a dry topic. I’m sure there are many other things that can be tried and work as well.

Ever Wondered How the Good Stats Teachers Do It? by Dy Tony Webber is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. ← show less

Imagine rocking up to a small classroom late in the evening after a long day at work and having to listen to a dude rabbiting on about means and standard deviations for three hours. Does that make you want to be violently ill, or run in the complete opposite direction to the classroom at the speed of Usain Bolt? It would me usually, but unfortunately I’m the person tasked with being this dude. What I wanted to talk about in this article today is how a teacher set with this task goes ... read more

The integration of ICT in education has been the subject of an intense debate for many years, especially regarding rationale, method, teacher training and evaluation. In this contribution, I would like to focus on the rationale: the justification we provide for using a specific technology in our learning and teaching contexts. Real or fabricated, conscious or subconscious, we can group the reasons for doing so into the following approaches or angles of attack.

• A technology-driven approach promotes the use of a technology based on its innovative features. 
• A demand-based approach simply responds to needs mentioned by teachers and students.
• An affordances-based approach looks at perceived new activities for language learning and teaching.  
• An acceptance-oriented approach focuses on the mental acceptance of a technology based on its perceived usefulness versus its ease of use. 
• A motivational approach looks into how technologies can help to satisfy universal or individual psychological needs. 
• An attribute-based approach analyses cognitive aspects such as the processing of visual, auditory and textual information. 
• Finally, a pedagogy-based approach starts from a pedagogical theory such as socio-constructivism in order to justify the choice for and integration of a specific technology.

Seven approaches: two pragmatic, three psychological and one pedagogical. They almost never occur in pure form, nor have they succeeded each other over time. None are inferior in themselves, not even a technology-driven approach, which is now being regarded as less acceptable on an academic level. But, what is wrong with just using a new technology for testing purposes, as long as we are honest about it, explain it to our students and involve them, have fun, and build some 'wowledge'? Far worse would be if we claim some magic effect on the learners’ brain, if we need technology to give us a reason to exist, or if we need to find problems for a given solution.

On the other hand, the pedagogy-based approach has acquired an aura of reviewer-proof scholarly rigor. More and more authors are eager to state in their research papers that they adopted a pedagogy-based approach. However, many quickly refer to some pedagogical theory without any correct reasoning, and most of them seldom forget to refer to the perfunctory Vygotsky. Scholarly lip service, which is not always reflected in the actual research design.

With this contribution we want to point out that educational engineering as an instructional design model might lead to a new approach which we have coined Distributed Design[1]. Without going into detail here and now about the specifics of this model, I would just like to explain why it might entail considerable consequences for the roles of technology and pedagogy in design.

No technology carries an inherent, measurable and generalizable effect on learning. This effect can only come from the entire learning environment as ecology, and it is proportional to the extent to which it has been designed in a methodological way. Technology is only one of the elements, which may contribute to the realization of the learning goals. As the eventual shape of the designed learning environment heavily depends on the context, the needed technological functionalities will also vary considerably according to local circumstances. Design creates the need for technology, but you never know in advance what the outcome will be. And that can be fun!

There is also no pedagogical model that we can apply as such in any context. Pedagogical theory is only needed during the pedagogical specification phase. You only know which knowledge or model you need after designing the overall concept as a compromise between often conflicting personal and pedagogical goals[2].

We need technology and pedagogy in order to create the most optimal (‘powerful’) learning environment. This need is the outcome of our conceptualization, and not its starting point.

This Distributed Design approach is still a kind of experimental treatment, or formulated in a more scholarly way, still in a phase of ongoing theoretical and empirical validation. For teachers, it is often being perceived as an inconvenient truth which does not seem to stand a strong chance against the reassuring lies conveyed in pervasive but persuasive terms like ‘blended learning’, ‘flipped classrooms’, ‘digital pedagogy’, ‘virtual worlds’, ‘digital natives’ etc.

Inconvenient truth, but emancipating at the same time. Teachers should become designers. Designers of their own learning environment. As designers, they become able to determine for themselves which technologies to use, how, when and with whom. As designers, they become able to explain why. By describing how they analyze their context, how they design their optimal learning environment in a methodological way, and how they specify the required technological functionalities and the pedagogical models (teaching, learning and evaluation models) they need in order to realize them. But teachers should also be enabled and empowered to do so.

Nor Technology Nor Pedagogy Should Come First In Design by Prof. Dr. Jozef Colpaert is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The integration of ICT in education has been the subject of an intense debate for many years, especially regarding rationale, method, teacher training and evaluation. In this contribution, I would like to focus on the rationale: the justification we provide for using a specific technology in our learning and teaching contexts. Real or fabricated, conscious or subconscious, we can group the reasons for doing so into the following approaches or angles of attack.

• A technology-driven ap... read more