Teaching Strategies – Full List
Welcome to the TH!NK Faculty Resource page. This is aimed to give you helpful teaching strategies and exercises for implementing more critical and creative thinking into your curriculum and classroom.
Many of the resources included here align with multiple stages of the critical and creative process, and we are sure that most teachers will find new and exciting implementation for these strategies. Please share your successes (and learning) with us as you use these resources in the classroom by email at: sdcarson@ncsu.edu.
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Below are suggestions for strategy sheets that are particularly well-suiting to specific stages of the critical and creative process.
Raising Questions, Formulating Problems
Students need to have the fundamental ability to raise relevant and important questions, but they also need opportunities to connect previous knowledge to what they are learning in the classroom. Opportunities that help them do that are critical to creating lifelong learners and more critical and creative thinkers. Teaching strategy worksheets that address this stage of the process are:
- Visual Thinking: Seeing and Analyzing
- Critical Reading
- Collaborative Learning
- Peer Review
- Reflecting at Every Stage of the Process
Gathering and Assessing Relevant Information
Students often need additional support in assembling research, but also in making meaning out of it, especially when it comes to balancing both breadth and depth. Worksheets and strategies for this section can help students organize information to find themes and connections as well as to identify biases and assumptions, evaluate sources, and address contradictions. Teaching strategy worksheets that address this stage of the process are:
- Visual Thinking: Seeing and Analyzing
- Visual Thinking: Mapping and Diagramming
- Critical Reading
- Writing To Think
- Synthesis Matrix
- Lotus Blossom
- Peer Review
- Active Listening
- Reflecting at Every Stage of the Process
Synthesizing and Generating Ideas
Giving students tools and strategies to help connect their ideas and research into a clear, precise and novel argument can not only help with their ability to craft articulate messages, but also give them confidence in taking risks with new ideas. Teaching strategy worksheets that address this stage of the process are:
- Visual Thinking: Seeing and Analyzing
- Visual Thinking: Mapping and Diagramming
- Collaborative Learning
- Critical Reading
- Writing to Think
- Synthesis Matrix
- Lateral Thinking: Analogies and Associations
- Divergent Thinking: Morphologies
- Peer Review
- Reflecting at Every Stage of the Process
- Lotus Blossom
Considering Alternatives
Students can become overwhelmed with the amount of information that they have gathered through the critical and creative thinking process, and connected to projects and assignments that ask them to come up with new and innovative solutions to existing problems. Strategies that help them organize and visualize the multiplicity of perspectives and ideas can help manage thinking and connections throughout this process. Teaching strategy worksheets that address this stage of the process are:
- Visual Thinking: Mapping and Diagramming
- Collaborative Learning
- Critical Reading
- Synthesis Matrix
- Lateral Thinking: Analogies and Associations
- Divergent Thinking: Morphologies
- Peer Review
- Reflecting at Every Stage of the Process
- Lotus Blossom
Reaching Reasoned Conclusions
Considering whether conclusions are logical, coherent, well-formulated and deep can be challenging for students throughout the critical and creative thinking process. Strategies that help students challenge their own assumptions and recognize how their research and biases have informed the conclusions that they do draw strengthen their final conclusions and arguments. Teaching strategy worksheets that address this stage of the process are:
- Visual Thinking: Mapping and Diagramming
- Collaborative Learning
- Critical Reading
- Writing to Think
- Peer Review
- Reflecting at Every Stage of the Process
Effectively Communicating
The ability to articulate and communicate ideas is paramount to the critical and creative process for students to make contributions to the domain in which they’re entering and working. Teaching strategy worksheets that address this stage of the process are:
- Collaborative Learning
- Writing to Think
- Peer Review
- Reflecting